My Hovel
The world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me.
The earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the grass withered.
No spring breeze even at this late date,
Just winter clouds swallowing up my tiny reed hut.
15th century Zen poet Ikkyu
These days, there are all kinds of ways to avoid the natural environment. Ignore the tugging and jostling of sudden temperature changes. Act like you aren’t part of the earth.
Even so, you can’t fully escape that connection. We are still just mud and clouds after all.
The last days of winter have arrived. Tiny green shoots are springing up beneath the remaining sheets of snow. Weather reports all around predicting the clear arrival of spring any day now.
This time of year, I find myself slipping constantly between the two seasons. One hour I’m sliding on half melted dirty ice and getting honked at by some woman in a grungy car, and the next I am marveling at the beauty of a budding tree, the miracle of breathing, or visions of the future.
Some of the plants in my apartment window have suddenly started sprouting little clones of themselves. Tiny sage bushes, strands of mint, leaves of lemon balm. A few others have sections which have suddenly dried up, as if the life that was there was borrowed to make the new life in a neighboring pot.
This is a tough time to stay balanced. The fleeting, ever shifting nature of life is more readily apparent.
Step on the wrong sheet of ice and you’re gonna fall through. Life risks giving itself again and again.
Photo Credit:
Hope is a Crocus by MTSOfan via Flickr Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.
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