Rejoice in the way things are.  

  

There is a Zen saying,

“Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water.” 

 ”The Master sees things as they are,Without trying to control them.He lets them go their own way, And resides at the center of the circle. He/She understands that the Universe is forever out of control, And that trying to dominate eventsGoes against the current of the Tao. Be content with what you have; Rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, The whole world belongs to you.”

                                                                                                          Tao Te Ching. 

Life in the cabin. 

December was cold. 

Not New York damp moist air whipped into a frenzy in a maze of tall buildings cold. Not Boston cold that is a sharp punch of frozen north wind infused with salt scrapped off the harbor that feels like daggers .  No, Kagel Canyon was  different. Wind raced over canyons, small trees bent in reverence and pine trees whistled. I shivered with the cold uncertainty of starting over.  

The phone company screwed up, DSL wouldn’t be in for days.  Stacks of  brown  boxes and smoky see-through containers  were piled high outside. Nothing fit. Until I discovered the great space of small places.

More letting go.

That’s the secret.

DSL doesn’t matter when I’m cold. Neither does, phone call, or much else. Fire was top priority - in my 21st century world it was all coming back to the basics: Fire, Water, Food -  shelter.  Fire became my focus. That focus shifted everything.

 

The cold I was feeling was wasn’t only an external cold. The cold I feelt was me, peeling away layers of thoughts and ideas that no longer served me symbolized by boxes of past thoughts and choices piled high outside for me to see. I shivered in my nakedness.

Before the cabin became available, I had no place to go, and I was having trouble reconciling this truth.  My best thinking brought me here.  Pasadena drained me. The bankrupcy was hell. Going through was painful. But on there other side I found a new freedom.  I will never do that again. There is no way I will saddle myself into debt. In that moment I chose not to be a hamster on a wheel running to generate money to support “things” that kept me powerless.

In Pasadena I lived for house  payments, car payments, utility payments - credit card payments and came to the conclusion I was bound to a system. I became a slave. 

A NATION IN DEBT IS NOT FREE.

Read it again and again until the alarm clock of reality says hello.

America cannot be the land of the free when the people are tied to banks, or mortgage companies, or any other institution. 

 Graduates leave college sometimes 5 to 6 figures in debt.  They work to pay the bill.  When they pay on time, banks smell a ” good customer” a/k/a/ sucker, so they offer them credit cards as a “reward” for being a good payer so they can ”enjoy the finer things of life.”  We smile back at the banks as our arms and legs are bound to the atm machine. FOREVER.

Unable to pay off those so called luxury things right off - since they are big ticket items, people fall into more debt. But it’s OK. They can drive a cool car, have a big screen TV,  boast a fancy place to live -and get more credit. 

 Freedom is having nothing left to loose.

Janis Joplin

The fear of loosing something or not being able to have something  is the underlying driver of our economy.

Life Changes.

I was finding it increasingly hard to relate to my past life - the countless number of old routines – how I wake up, how I bathe, where I get dressed,  how I prepare my meals, my work, where I  meditate, all no longer work. The sooner I stop trying to solve my new challenges with my old thoughts would be precisely when I would warm up.

When I realized no thing was lacking, no thing was off schedule, no thing was wrong…in that moment, I became enlightened and the world belonged to me.

All Life Is Fire.

I stared at the fire place. There is something about not having any options that makes things crystal clear.  If I want to get warm - I needed to make a fire. To do that I must chop wood.

Love is fire in heart.

Fire became metaphor for my new way of life. I found out fire was number 1. DSL

A spark of love leads to a heart afire.  Love kindles a flame in a cold heart. We all have our old flames. We play with fire.  None of us want to get burned, but we do.  We’re consumed by love.  Burning desire.  Where there is smoke, there is fire.  Ashes to ashes. We’ve found our match!

I also discovered that there are specific steps and ingredients to building a fire. No matter how cold I was, nor how quickly I wanted the fire to ignite, I had to to follow the steps. That often meant learning patience which translated as starting over and over, and over until I aligned with the steps. 

1 Shreds of paper,  2 pine needles,  3 twigs, 4 branches, 5 thicker branches, 6 quarter logs, 6 half, and 7 full logs.

Doesn’t work backwards. Hurry up does not make fire.

Sonnet 73

William Shakespeare

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day 5
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away;
Death’s second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 10
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Fire and Ice

Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Tags: , cabin view, chop wood carry water, country life, Enlightenment, kagel kanyon, rural way

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 1:25 pm and is filed under The Rual Way. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.