I can't seem to hear the things... which things? I'm not even sure which things. All I feel is the absence of something in the turmoil. Sometimes when I'm dancing I hear the music. Other times, I hear something regular, but it's most likely my racing mind. So why does a man step away? How can you explain such a decision that moves contrary to every implicit value of society? How about I quote Rumi? That seems fitting.
A close childhood friend once came to visit Joseph.
They had shared the secrets that children tell each other
when they're lying on their pillows at night
before they go to sleep. These two
were completely truthful
with each other.
The friend asked, "What was it like when you realized
your brothers were jealous and what they planned to do?"
"I felt like a lion with a chain around its neck.
Not degraded by the chain, and not complaining,
but just waiting for my power to be recognized."
"How about down in the well, and in prison?
How was it then?"
"Like the moon when it's getting
smaller, yet knowing the fullness to come.
Like a seed pearl ground in the mortar for medicine,
that knows it will now be the light in a human eye.
Like a wheat grain that breaks open in the ground,
then grows, then gets harvested, then crushed in the mill
for flour, then baked, then crushed again between teeth
to become a person's deepest understanding.
Lost in love, like the songs the planters sing
the night after they sow the seed."
--------------------------------
Am I singing my own praises? Not necessarily. Something inside feels a little self-conscious to speak in such terms, but I pass it off as the all-pervasive modern sense of irony (ironic sense of modernity?) that knows no sincerity, no humor, no love. Today is a day for other things. The sun was shining today like it was spring here in Portland - although without the rain. Things buzz in the sun; people wake up. We all look around and for just a moment the clouds get thinner.
So what if I want things that feel cliche? Le couer a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas. Who am I to belittle my own desires? They were not created by me. If you watch a tree dance in the wind, you realize that the tree does not resist the movement. In fact, every little breeze that moves the branches reverberates throughout the trunk. If you look closer, you realize that the movement may be caused by an outside actor, but the quality is determined by its rootedness. Thus we find that the dance - the purest expression of whim and surrender - is caused by the deepest sense of purpose and intention. The ephemeral is merely another expression of that which endures.
So maybe you can understand my need for silence.
