Tag Archives: brush art

Unknown's avatar

surrender

by

taming the Ox

strike
and i am the anvil

fly
and i am the air

stop
and i am the stillness

when nothing more is possible
we submit

to trust

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From The Sabbath Poems

1979:  I

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
Around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
Where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
And lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
And the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
And the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
Mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
And I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

From the book A Timbered Choir, by Wendell Berry.
New York: Counterpoint. 1998

Thank you for practicing,

Genju

Unknown's avatar

connecting

by

catching the Ox

blossoms of desire
brew a strong tea
~ firing separation

to be intimate
~ we struggle

mirrored and reflecting

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The Ox and I dance.  He turns the horns of delusion towards me and the ferocity of wanting overwhelms me.  Infused with my desires, he reflects what I believe will make me whole; blinded by the need to fulfill my desires, true intimacy eludes me.  I cannot see with my whole body and mind.  This is the karma of desire: I see in the Other what I believe will make me whole.  This is the nature of spiritual infatuation which, as with lust, will fail me consistently and inevitably.  Driven only by the heat of longing, the faith beyond labels evaporates and my spiritual practice becomes calcified – rigid and girdled by form.  Already, I long for the early days of heady excitement, the mystery that fired the search.  I mistake this for intimacy and the longing makes our dance a ritual of possession.  Slowly, in the space between steps, I see how the illusion of ownership is protective – surely against loss but inexorably against love.

If I can let go of these shields – the acquired knowledge, the labels, the constructed self – there’s a chance to connect with true intimacy. Something may come of this dance as the Ox and I create each other.  In each moment we can embrace each other.  Or, we can battle for domination over each other.

I see my illusions fused to the Ox and he catches me in his gaze.  “The most living moment,” Rumi says, “comes when those who love each other meet each other’s eyes and in what flows between them then.”  We become transparent to each other and dance as one.

At this stage, still pendulating between desire and intimacy, the connection cannot last.  The Ox pulls off into the mountains of intellectualizing and vanishes into the mists of doubt and ignorance.  It doesn’t matter.  We are caught now, tied by the same love for connection.

Thank you for practicing,

Genju