Margie and her ox

Margie has a beautiful wooden sculpture of an ox, and sometime over her birthday week, while all three of her children (and one grandson) were with her, someone moved the ox to the window by the reclining chair where she spends most of her waking hours. I commented on how beautiful it is.

Margie: I just love it. I love the way it shines in the light, the heaviness of it, the muscles.

Me: How did it get to this spot on your windowsill?

Margie: I can’t tell you. I’m glad it’s there, though. It’s good company.

Me: Do you remember when you got it, or who gave it to you?

Margie: It’s possible it was something my mother had. Or maybe one of my children gave it to me.

Me: What does it suggest, for you?

Margie: Solid. Plodding on. Strength.

Me: Is that what you want in yourself?

Margie: Oh yes. The strength to carry on, you could say. I’m not fighting anything any more because I can’t win. I don’t have the energy to fight. I’m humbled. I’m accepting what comes. 

Me: What would winning look like?

Margie: (Laughing) You ask hard questions. (A pause.) What was the question, again?

Me: You said you can’t win. So I wonder, what would winning look like to you?

Margie: Being able to get out of this chair and go outside, take a walk, find my way back home. 

Me: You miss that.

Margie: Hell yes, I do. But I know those days are done. I need someone with me, I can’t go just any time. But I’m OK with it. I see. It’s just where I am.

Me: Being OK with it takes strength. Like that ox.

Margie: (Again, laughing) There you go, making a journey, coming back to the beginning. The ox. This beautiful strong creature.

The ox reminds me of a Zen story about enlightenment. Thinking I’d find a link to it to put in this blip, I searched and found an article written by one of my teachers, Martine Batchelor. She’s a tiny French woman with back problems, so when she meditates, she always sits in a chair. She was the first teacher I met who insisted there is nothing holy or special about sitting on the floor. She and her husband, Stephen (who wrote one of my favorite books about Buddhism) used to visit South Africa every year, and I always joined her workshops there. She tells the story of the ten oxherding pictures very beautifully. If you have time, it’s here.

This piece of it seems to me to describe Margie beautifully: “We are not locked in on ourselves any more but fully open to the world. We are not frightened but on the contrary exhilarated. The world is us and we are the world. All this practice—just to realize what was on our very doorsteps!”