After all the people picking people picking people apart, my love and after all the dealing, the hooking and reeling along from the start
Oh, there's a field, meet me there out beyond rightness and wrong, meet me there
Woman, you're leaving, loving, you're leading me on living I'm alive, sweet woman, keep loving me on
'Cause they wake up every morning with the cradle in their hands but they pretend it's a game acting like the only place the truth could ever live was up on Shacklewell Lane
Oh, there's a field, meet me there please come along, tie back your hair
I tried yesterday, it takes me so long to say but I need you to know darling, you show by leaving me so, the only way to hold on is keep letting go
Oh there's a field, meet me there you know I'm on my way, please meet me there
Oh, there's a field, meet me there out beyond rightness and wrong, meet me there i'm on my way, meet me there please come along, tie back your hair
After all the people picking people picking people apart, my love
* * *
A disciple comes to see his Zen Teacher, who lives on a hill in a dense forest. After a time, the sun is setting. The disciple, enchanted with the Teacher, stays until the sun sets. Then, he remains much longer.
Near midnight, the Teacher says it is time for the disciple to go home. The disciple is anxious, considering the walk home would be through the dark. Having told the Teacher of his reluctance to walk in the darkness through the forest, the Teacher lights a candle and gives it to him.
When the disciple is going out the door, the Teacher blows the candle out. The disciple says, "Teacher, I don't understand." "Be a light unto yourself," replies the Teacher. "You will have to find and live by your own light. No one else can give you your light."
* * *
One of the most helpful things on the Way is to become disappointed in others. When others let you down, it invites you to go inward. So, when you feel anyone has failed you, you can go within. You can shift from blame to gratitude through this going inward. You are grateful, for it returns you to your own light.
We live with the paradox that there is one light, but we each have that light. There can be a million candles, and it is one light. Yet, there are a million lights. Each candle burns its own light, though it is the same light as the other candles.
* * *
The Christian Bible has Jesus saying, "Let your light so shine ..." Buddha's last words were, "Be a light unto yourselves."
So, to shine, we must attend to our own light. We do this through our whole lives and with our entire selves. We go within to tend the light. We shine the light to bless others, yet that outward shining is the same as the going within. We tend the light by within and without, but it is all the same intimacy.
Over time, we may discover the light shining brighter and brighter. Others might sense it and make remarks. The one light is not shining brighter. Removing what dims the light allows the light to manifest more brightly. The light does not increase or decrease.
* * *
The light is in all things, manifesting or not to varying degrees, and each shines or not their own light. Yet, one remembers the light is not a personal possession. We are the light, that is why we can shine. For the light to shine, we shine.
Tending your own light means withdrawing your felt need to find yourself through the reflection of others or any something outside yourself. Relationships are often limited by one or more trying to find themselves in the other, which is impossible. You do not need others that way in the Way, in the Light. Living in the Light, you do not need to find yourself in how your body looks to others or yourself, a career, a house, public acclaim, a romantic relationship, friends, financial investments, or a retirement portfolio.
Living in the Light, you will feel less need to be with others and enjoy more time alone. Just know, others may not understand this, but that is okay.
* * *
All this means, too, allowing others to tend or not their light. Living in the Light, you feel no need to convert others, you simply love them, even if at a distance - which is, in some cases, wise. Do you see?
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photographs.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
