Saying For Today: We can see change as openings to freshness, new beginnings.
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Fall ~ the colors of change." Flickr.
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while we seek to live in what has been popularly called 'the Now' we cannot subtract a now from that Now meaning, as long as we are in the dimension of time we will be in-change, and change-will be in us
as T.S. Elliot wrote, "We live at the intersection of time and eternity"
while eternity is still within it time remains 'turn, turn, turn'
death either physical death or death as loss in general
when seen as merely an ending as discontinuity
is a misunderstanding of death
seeing death closely we see
death is dying and being born
for
birth is dying and being born
as has been said wisely 'nature abhors a vacuum'
death is a continuity a process of change, transformations
as the seasons come and go, year after year, blending in a single harmony
birth and death gain and loss blending together in
a mysterious, marvelous orchestration of ebb-and-flow of Life
changing in ever-changing forms with ever-changing qualities
like tides moving onto and from shore
while the Ocean in the tides remains eternally the same
like Earth, the same Earth, and all on it aeon after aeon, together turns and turns and turns
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Change is frightening to some persons. I was informed, when a pastor and comfortable speaking of change at one congregation, that my congregants were not comfortable with that word. I could not understand, for change is neither good nor bad, change is. Invited or not, change is happening.
I had often heard we humans do not like change, yet, we can decide otherwise. We do not have to agree, even if we know change can be stressful. We can see change as openings to freshness, new beginnings. We can even see the death of the body that way, rather than avoid every thought of it, as many do. We can befriend death, we do not have to see death as foe. Nature teaches us these lessons.
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I live in a culture of grief, for it is a culture that avoids death. Grief is big business, one reason, not approaching change in-life differently, not preparing for loss through avoidance. What we read informs us we must have great sorrow, if someone close to us dies. So, we fit right in, if we are not awake to another possibility. Sorrow comes as it comes, but do not fit right in, forgetting life is right there with death, gain is right there with loss. No one ever sees death by itself, even death is life; loss never occurs isolated from something taking that same place, something within which the loss, in some way, inheres.
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All the seasons spring, summer, fall, winter live in and on our skin in perfect harmony
We see a wrinkle on the skin, when did it begin to be a wrinkle? When I look at my hands, I see the transformations of time. These hands began dying decades ago, the wrinkles are simply a continuity of past, present, and future. My hands are starting to show more aging. I see my hands beautiful, I look upon them with reverence, as holy. My hands, as a baby and now, continuity, change to change. No problem. Who decided wrinkles are not beautiful? Not natural? To be hidden? To be gotten rid of, as though an enemy? No-wrinkle, wrinkle, beautiful, for reflecting Beauty.
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each season, with its own colors, depends on all seasons to be what it is
all inheres together no exclusion only inclusion
alone a season is not
together a season is
colors in-change shows seasons are not fixed times, but transformations
everything leans on everything
each particularity a becoming
the diverse appearances relative appearances
through the many one moving Mystery
What is that? What is it not?
*Brian K. Wilcox. "The Immaculate Perception." Flickr.
*The photographs, today, are of the same river basin located in the front of where I live on Back River, in Georgetown, Maine, taken only two weeks apart this November. The pictures are presented to highlight the focus of this presentation ~ change as transformation.
*(C) Copyright 2018. Brian K. Wilcox. Move cursor over photos for more details.
