Beltane Summer Moon
Just wound to a halt today. Got out early and sprayed the orchard and the gooseberries. Then back inside for a break, but the Sunday slows got to me. Kate, too. We ate chicken wings, watched tv, basically did nothing constructive. (Kate went to the grocery store for a few things.)
Here’s a heretical thought (for me) that keeps pressing forward as we ready ourselves for the move. What if accomplishing things just doesn’t matter? Here’s where it comes from. So, we pitch lots of things we gathered in anticipation of this project or that. The hydroponics would let us start our own seedlings. The long arm quilter would let Kate do the expensive quilting work at home. Or all those categories of books that I’m now readying for sale or donation, no longer useful, in fact, if I’m honest, some never useful.
This process of pruning, of decluttering and deacquisition suggests flaws in the original gathering of things. Or, at the very least it shows a pattern of fluctuating priorities, changed emphases. Now, none of this is particularly surprising. Over a life things come and go as important, rise to significance, then fade away.
Astronomy is a good example for me. I spent time outside at night, joined the Minnesota Astronomy club, read a lot of books, saw a lot of stars and other celestial objects. Then, when I realized it would always require staying up late at night, I began to pull back.
But. What it may suggest more generally is what I actually suspect. Nothing matters. No achievement or set of achievements. No successes or lack of successes. Publication or not in the instance of writing. This may go to the core of my strange Intensive Journal insight: when I retreat, I advance. This sounds and feels much like Taoism. I’m not saying Taoism underwrites it or makes it valid, rather I’m saying this personal realization has a Taoist quality.
Alan Watts describes Taoism as the watercourse way. That is, our life can flow as water does when it runs down hill. It can flow around obstacles, carve out channels while continuing to flow, rise over obstacles, all without intention. If we follow the path of chi in our life, our days will flow like water.
This seems so counter-intuitive to the American way of upward mobility, Horatio Alger, keeping at things until the purpose is achieved. My way for most of my life. But, my life has gone on when achieving went very well and when achieving did not go very well. Was the quality of my life really different at either time? My moods changed with whether I felt I’d met the standard or not, so my attitude toward my life altered, but did the onward flow of my life cease? Was it obstructed in any way? No. I got older. I got up in the morning, went to sleep at night. Ate meals, laughed with friends, loved my family and the dogs. Either way, succeeding or not.
I’m trying to find my way here between the Scylla of accomplishment and the Charybdis of failure. In fact, in that very myth, the element that flowed between them was. Water.
It may be that I’m setting myself up for a big, big retreat.
