Photo by Arturo Esparza

The stream is cold, brisk, and my hands are bright pink, nearly numb when I lift them from the water.  What began as a game when I was a child in a bathtub has persisted over the years: If I can cup my palms just so, and press my outstretched fingers together, maybe the water will stay.  I manage, for a minute or two, to keep it from seeping out, but each time it inevitably finds its way through the spaces I cannot close no matter how forcefully I push together the sides of my palms.

I don’t know who wrote this but I’m glad they’re on the planet.

There is a flow in this life that’s beyond my calculating mind.  I don’t know where it begins.  I don’t think it ends.  If we say so, we are carried along, giving in to the current.  Some small minds may build dams to contain the uncontainable.  For awhile it seems to work but eventually the force of the water breaks through.

I have no name for what’s flowing past my ears.  The mystery doesn’t require one.  It is free, unencumbered by borderlines.

Even amid my daily troubles, there’s an opportunity to fall into the water, unconcerned by destinations, by fences, by figuring things out.

***

May I always have the wisdom to say no to clinging

And may I always have the wisdom to say yes to letting go