The untrimmable light

This was dawn on our last day at the coast. I write this from Portland as I am resuming my "normal" life, whatever that means. I was thinking, at the coast, about what Buddhists call a fixed sense of self--how having that fixed sense, that identity that declares, "I'm like this..." or "I'm not like that..." stops us from growing, stops us from being flexible, stops us from being who we are in THIS moment. Isn't life a slapstick routine? Doesn't life embarrass us into realizing that we are absurdly inconsistent? Isn't the bottom line always, always, love? Surely each of us wants nothing but to love and be loved. Surely nothing else matters. It doesn't matter to be right, to fix anything, to solve the problem, to win (unless maybe you're in the Olympics), to be recognized or thanked. More important than winning is forgiveness of self and others, the gentle laughter of letting go. Unqualified, unending love. (Extra, a field of bachelor's buttons, the sea beyond.)

I came across this lovely Mary Oliver poem that says, better than I can, what arose in my heart-mind as Sue and I walked into town along the shore, watching the line of mist and fog shift and lift and come down again on the sea.

Mindful
by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or I hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for--
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world--
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant--
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these--
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?