Therefore it is said,

‘Those who know the happiness of heaven
are like heaven
in their actions during their life
and at death undergo
transformation like other things.

In their stillness they embody yin
and in their movement they flow outward
as the yang.
One who knows the happiness of heaven
does not quarrel with heaven
nor disparage men.
He is not disconcerted by things
nor admonished by spirits.

Therefore it is said,
he moves with heaven
and rests with the earth.
The spirits of the dead do not haunt him
and he is not perturbed by their souls.
His mind is constant
and all things in the world yield to him.

The words coming from his vacancy and stillness
spread to heaven and earth
and converse with all things.
This is the happiness of heaven.
This happiness of heaven
forms the mind of the sage and he/she unfolds
under the sky.’

Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou, trans. Hyun Höchsmann and Yang Guorong, The Way of Heaven

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Today the day before is time enough as we continue our journey. What journey you are certain to ask? This holiday, the greatest, and widely recognized by many countries, in the dark of winter suggests a pilgrimage that concludes with our presence to recognize a newborn child. The infant illustrates the innate harmony between heaven and earth that beckons to all of humankind.

To know this harmony, the simpatico between sky (clouds, winds, moisture, etc.) and the dark earth — is to mirror the synergy, to be like heaven. Knowing is being. And death is no more than the continuation of the transformation. Stillness and flow, in reciprocal harmony. Do you and I not notice the pattern in a newborn child, in the hours of sleep requisite to rapid growth, in the cry of hunger, in the verbal coo of satisfaction while at mothers breast? Movement and rest, timed to the need of a diminutive body.

Having a constant mind, composed, unshaken by bat-shit craziness, the testosterone fueled violence that erupts around, seeming day to day…

Then be vacant and still (judgment reserved) with flowing response, paradigm of life unfolding under the sky.