Samain and the Fallow Moon
Two important things. 1. I get now, in a gut way, that the Tao that can be named is not the Tao. 2. In the fallow time the harvest moves toward death and decay.
Been considering the text of Chayei Sarah again. Reading some interesting Jewish commentaries and sermons preached by various rabbis on the parsha. Immersion in biblical literature turns all my inner lights on. Woke, I guess.
Also had an interesting e-mail conversation with Rich Levine about Emerson’s notion of a religion of direct revelation to us, not the dry bones of theirs. He said he found revelation in the experience of joy. I had said much the same about awe. When I wrote him back, I introduced a thought. Could it be that access to the sacred, the divine, the world next to this one can come only through feelings? If so, could it be that words written about it might be barriers rather than illuminators?
In that exchange it hit me, the Tao that can be written is not the Tao. Oh, yeah. The name of God that can be written is not God. The stories about God and those who follow Her are neither sacred, nor divine in themselves. They may evoke an experience of the sacred, but they are not it.
The fallow time moves toward death and decay. These diseases that Kate and I have, the ones you will have, augur the fallow time for our bodies. They propose death, not as imminent necessarily, but as inescapable. And I hear them
The COPD is not an enemy, but a marker along the trail of mortality. So is prostate cancer. Interstitial lung disease. Sjogren’s syndrome. These sign posts show the way, the path toward a universal destination of the body.
Learning to live with these signals is a life long process. If we learn how to admit them into our awareness as signals rather than foes, then we can nod, say yes, I see.
No, this does not mean that we say, oh, I see, well then measure up my narrow room. (see Bryant’s poem below) This does not mean that we cease treatments that can prolong our life. Though it could mean that if you want it to. It simply means that we live with a clarity about the end.
