Be Water
This has been kicking about in my brain for a few days now, and I'm sure I've lost the salient points, but it's coming out any way.
The Taoist ideal is to be a rock (okay, that's really basic and vastly generalized, but...). To be unmoved and unmoving. That's all well and good, I suppose, but I don't find it very practical in my own life. I'm not good at being a rock. I lack that ineffable balance of stoacism, optimism and innocence. I may have scored "You are Pooh" in the meme quiz, but I sure don't look like him IRL.
Be Water
My heart's brother keeps referring to me as having a fragile strength. It took my a long, long time to get my head around that concept. How can something fragile be strong? ...and like every brilliant intuition, when I finally "got" it, it was so obvious. I'd even adopted the metaphors into my life already. Think of a rose; think of a butterfly. Hauntingly delicate, and yet, and yet... Those rose thorns are something else, and butterflies will migrate thousands of miles every year.
There is a fragility to my personality. I walk a tight rope over a chasm of depression and loss. I consider myself to be deeply joyful, but I also recognize my vast repetoir of rages and griefs. I long to feel protected, even as I have a need to protect. But I have endured for this long... Strength.
Be Water
Water is such a powerful element. A few swift inches in a culvert will carry a man for miles. Water changes the shape of the landscape, destroys buildings and crops, sweeps away entire towns. Water is uncontrollable and dangerous. And yet, water is essential. We can live without food longer than we can live without water.
Water denies obstacles. A single repetitious drop will create new shapes in unyeilding granite. The gentle persistant motion of water... Water will always find a way through, over, around an obstacle. Water can not be made to work against its own nature. Water absorbs so much, and yet remains water.
Be Water
The Taoist ideal is to be a rock (okay, that's really basic and vastly generalized, but...). To be unmoved and unmoving. That's all well and good, I suppose, but I don't find it very practical in my own life. I'm not good at being a rock. I lack that ineffable balance of stoacism, optimism and innocence. I may have scored "You are Pooh" in the meme quiz, but I sure don't look like him IRL.
Be Water
My heart's brother keeps referring to me as having a fragile strength. It took my a long, long time to get my head around that concept. How can something fragile be strong? ...and like every brilliant intuition, when I finally "got" it, it was so obvious. I'd even adopted the metaphors into my life already. Think of a rose; think of a butterfly. Hauntingly delicate, and yet, and yet... Those rose thorns are something else, and butterflies will migrate thousands of miles every year.
There is a fragility to my personality. I walk a tight rope over a chasm of depression and loss. I consider myself to be deeply joyful, but I also recognize my vast repetoir of rages and griefs. I long to feel protected, even as I have a need to protect. But I have endured for this long... Strength.
Be Water
Water is such a powerful element. A few swift inches in a culvert will carry a man for miles. Water changes the shape of the landscape, destroys buildings and crops, sweeps away entire towns. Water is uncontrollable and dangerous. And yet, water is essential. We can live without food longer than we can live without water.
Water denies obstacles. A single repetitious drop will create new shapes in unyeilding granite. The gentle persistant motion of water... Water will always find a way through, over, around an obstacle. Water can not be made to work against its own nature. Water absorbs so much, and yet remains water.
Be Water