Reminders
Humans are a species mired in symbology. It’s part of our collective unconsciousness, I think. I can always count on my brain to have an adventure off into the land of symbols when I’m walking and all is quiet.
To most, this is a fallen tree. To my mind, at least this morning, and yesterday morning, this is a metaphor for life. Taoism says that that which is supple, is living. That which is rigid, is dead. The tree that sways in the breeze, or the storm, is the one that survives. The one that stands strong and refuses to bend, soon is uprooted or broken and dies. Architects build buildings and bridges that sway in the breeze for this very reason.
We, as a country, put a lot of faith and effort into being strong. Just look at this country. The only remaining “super power”. We have our hands in everything. We want our economy to be number one. We want our money to be number one. We want our education to be number one. We put lots and lots of effort into being number one, out front, rarely, if ever, yielding. Yet, with all of this effort, force, and rigidity, we are bound to break. As a citizen of this country, sometimes I adopt that attitude personally.
Lately, I’ve been getting a massage on a monthly basis. Last week, my masseuse said: Wow! Your back muscles are really tight. What’s going on with you? I told her that I had some personal issues that I’d been ‘dealing’ with. She rubbed the knots out and said that I needed to come back in a week and take at least a 90 minute session so that she could spend about an hour on my back alone! It really was tight.
A few days prior, I had been having ‘discussions’ and things were not going my way. I kept forcing the issue, trying to get things to go my way, which made sense to me; Eventually, rather than fighting the wind, I just hoisted my sail and went with the wind and let it carry me where it would. I felt a lot better, even though things didn’t go my way. The pain that had been in my back subsided, but I guess that the muscles remained tense.
Had she seen my on the previous Wednesday, she might have been really alarmed. I was in knots everywhere. She would have probably said that I needed a 3 hour massage! 
So, this tree was a reminder of a lesson that I keep learning over and over. Bend. Yield. Be supple and pliant. Live. I hear it Tai Chi all the time. Flow. Redirect force, don’t oppose it. Yield.
At least the intervals of the lessons are further apart now because, sometimes, I really do get it. LOL Yet, sometimes, I have to be reminded, yet again, by a tree that didn’t bend in the wind, but stayed strong and broke.
Recent Comments