When the one flowered suitcase declares winter over, plans, whether realized or not, do their best. And we have got to keep on.
We meant to start here. A new year, in Finland, with cloud banks slanting down. We thought that it mattered - it did not, like no money, and we've got to keep on, and carry each other through these forests, through these long buildings, up every stair flight.
Let's say we are tired from getting our hopes up again. Again, let's say we are tired. Yes, say it's alright, I hear you. Yes, it's alright, yes, it's alright. I'm with you.
When the one flowered suitcase is replaced, is untraced, let us not change so much. Let's stay in our old clothes and walk around this known and dear life, and carry each other through these forests, through these long buildings, up every stair flight.
Let's say we are tired from getting our hopes up again. Again, let's say we are tired. Yes, it's alright, I hear you. Yes, it's alright, yes, it's alright I'm near you. Yes, it's alright, yes, it's alright, I'm with you.
* * *
Gladys Halprin tells of the late Soto Zen Teacher, Suzuki Roshi (Japan 1904-1971; b. Japan, d. San Francisco) -
The first time Suzuki Roshi came to my house, he entered the front door and then moved toward the back garden when he saw it through our glass door. He went into the garden and saw the rope swing hanging from our huge oak tree. In one continuous movement, he flowed over, took the rope, stepped up onto a rock, and flew into the air. His black robes sailed around him as he swung back and forth. He never said a word.
* * *
Suzuki Roshi taught a lesson, without words, on being awake spiritually. We cannot say he intended to offer the teaching. Suzuki Roshi enjoyed swinging on the rope; with no self-conscious act to teach, teaching happened.
I think one has to be a little odd to be awake. "Odd" means strange to others, but not necessarily strange. Others, sleep walking, believe they are not odd, while one awakened might see the others as odd. Yet, for awakened oddness, one cannot try to be strange. And one is not less human in such apparent strangeness but more human. The odd thing is more people are not more human. Why do so many live sleep walking?
*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.
