More Moon on Water Stuff

Autumn River Song



The moon shimmers in green water.

White herons fly through the moonlight.

The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts:

into the night, singing, they paddle home together.



Li T'ai-po

tr. Hamil

Li Po

I Woke Up

So, I woke up and there was a deer barrelling down the road right for me and I just sat there wondering where I'd been. A month, more than a month, and here we go.
I did make a voyage, one of intended celebration, to chi-town for a niece's wedding, long overdue, to a man she loves. And we stopped at dutch-oven-ville in Oklahoma and ate rich with the southerners.

Slowly, slowly, still the rhythm of the practice. Been sitting with my incense, attending to the mudra, while the little ones come out of the baseboards and watch in their wordless way.

It occurs that my last blog posting mused about the taking of others' lives. Now, I must muse more. This sunday past we took ten chicken lives; we butchered them, respectfully we believe, offering the corn meal, expressing our gratitude, trying to speak in slow and quiet tones, sharpening the jugular knives to a fine point. There were tears there, no doubt, but also the gut joy of the carnivore.

So, it occurs to me that perhaps one solid way to love life is to be actively engaged and aware in its taking. Hey, there's the edge. Or, as Willy the Sheik once said, the rub. That to be or not to be quandry. His Hamlet worried himself dark with fear of the afterworld. I worry myself dark with fear of this one. And maybe, our worry is misplaced in the same spot. The same place. Here and hereafter, really that much different, or two shoes on the same foot?

Let's bless these ones that give quietly their blood or their sap that we may live gratefully a while longer. Ah, Gentle... blood...letting... go.