23

Express yourself completely,
then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature:
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.

If you open yourself to the Tao,
you are at one with the Tao
and you can embody it completely.
If you open yourself to insight,
you are at one with insight
and you can use it completely.
[While those who lose it
Are themselves lost.]

Open yourself to the Tao,
then trust your natural responses;
and everything will fall into place.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. by Stephen Mitchell

These verses are about world making. There is no given and necessary world. What is discovered, – is a reality that arises, emerges just like the appearance of the sun after a summer shower. How is it that I keep expecting things (everything) to fit and conform to my notion of what “ought to be”? What about cutting such expectations out?

At one time I was captured by a vortex of disappointment. I cannot forget how depressed I felt, utterly stymied, paralyzed, enraged at what a “shit storm” everything appeared to be. I just could not abide the succession of failure I felt myself to be. No doubt my expectations were, in part, a reason that I lost myself in that flood. 

The internal psychological “weather” has changed to a great extent for me. After all I am writing this… Reality, the “world” is by no means mine “to save.” Not my possession or my responsibility. Rather, I am a co-conspirator – to appreciate, to endorse, to say a “yes” to goodness as often as I encounter such a felicitous conjunction of behavior, or of beauty in flower or architecture, or of a spoken word that’s appropriate to circumstance, that enables “being” to be. 

This is my role, my job, my privilege and responsibility. And yours too dear reader. You and I are the leading man, the leading lady in the cosmic production the playbill calls “life.”

Is it possible to “fuck it all up”? Of course it is. This would be other than “life” if there were no risk or peril! What is done and said by you matters! Always. But relax! You were “made” for the role that is yours to play. No other human has or will have the role that is yours to play. 

This is your cue. 

~*~

The photos are from the Park District sponsored 7th Annual Rusty Rodeo along the Fox River. The event focused upon removing the invasive rusty crayfish from the waterway. Sublime summer morning for children of all ages to find, to gather crayfish from the river.  Our grandson came within a whisker of the prize for finding the largest crayfish.