we know that from time to time, there arise among human beings, people who seem to exude love as naturally as the sun gives out heat. — Alan Watts

enter the spacious stillness at the center of you } { the drip

Watercolor by Tina Marie Elena

Love does not abide the realm of human concept;

“You cannot catch hold of it, nor can you get rid of it. In not being able to get it, you get it. When you speak, it is silent. When you are silent, it speaks.” So said the inimitable Alan Watts.

Or take Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching, “Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”

And further, “rest is the foundation of movement, movement is the potential of rest. When you do not lose the constant in movement and rest, your path will be illumined,” from the Book of Balance and Harmony, written by a thirteenth century Taoist master.

Love - that thing we sense beneath the surface. The presence that century upon century, language develops in an effort to touch, and that, no matter how deep, how wide, how twisted and esoteric, how structured. how clear, how obvious we think we are being… it is never quite enough. Yet it remains, always, humming in the wind.

So we contemplate this constant.

There are many things we may call it — the tao, god, source, essence… let us go with love, today.

Love is vast, enveloping, permeating every cell of oxygen traveling through your blood stream; it alters you from everywhere all at once — from the inside out, from the outside in; from the soil and the skyscapes and the roses and the ladybugs; from the falling leaves and the hawks flying; from the small deaths and rude awakenings. It alters you — relentlessly — when at last you let it in. Or should I rather say, once you begin; when you feel it on purpose, with determination and constancy, there is a return, an illumining; a process begins. You notice the drumbeat of life. The secret you’ve been hiding, folded into stories you’ve been writing for eternities.

Love abides a different thing. Its own sense of harmony. The quiet power of noticing, with utmost care; pristine attention; the precision that shatters fear like a swift blade to bone china, then mends it together with liquid gold.

Drum / Rumi

In this drumbeat moment of red flowers opening
and grapes being crushed,
the soul and luminous clarity sit together.

All desire wants is a taste of you, this moment
that is like two small mountain villages
where everyone longs for presence.

We start to step up. A step appears.
You say, I am more compassionate than your father and mother.
I make medicine out of your pain.
From your chimney smoke I shape new constellations.

I tell everything, but I do not say it, because, my friend,
it is better that your secret be spoken by you.

The tao is in everything. The source is encountered at every turn — The Taoist I Ching

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