Softly goes the sky

Softly goes the sky

The water gathers up in the sky above our heads. Water together with everything that we were thinking and doing and saying. Gathers together in the sky, condenses and moves our way. It settles above the life of this world, then gently sinks. The sky is falling the sky is falling. The sky has fallen into our lives. Fallen into our laps. It is up to us and only us to settle this great matter. Only the clear eye and the gentle heart will return it to where it belongs.

Fallen it is, surrounds all things with its stillness. Even with fires and fights and trials and tribulations, there sits it. Leans on us with its ease. Soaks us through,wet like the seas. The flowers and the droplets on the leaves wait for people to see them. To see them fully, lit in the light of truth. Generation to generation they blossom then wilt and fall. They shine, whether there is someone to see the light or not. The waiting it is never in vain. One day it will happen. The people of earth awake from their deep sleep. Seeing with the gentle eye and the clear heart, seeing through the ills that ail us all.

The great water leans on all things, touches and surrounds all things. Soaks and chokes the world. It turns blue and falls away. But the chickweed and parsley and blackberry still lay thick around our feet. How slow, how slow, they spread and they grow. As they do we will venture forth into the marketplace of life. We will go shopping amongst the trees and eat leaves from the sea. Between them they will match our every need. We move their way and lean on them yet some more.

As we walk their way our pockets ring quiet. Gone is the endless sound of money moving here and there. The coins fall silent and the rest of the world does too. It leaves behind the breeze passing by all things. Whispers and shakes them into life. Shakes and whispers life into them. Shaking and whispering it is, this life. The money has all gone stopped dead still. It leaves behind the waves rolling into the shore. The rain on the leaves, the frogs out in the field behind the house, and the birds all over the hill. Calling and singing to each other. With fewer things struggling against it, the song of life is clearer. The breeze passing through all things. The thing that passes through all breezes.

There amongst it all the quiet self sitting. Together with its own clutter and clatter. Leaning in on itself, no effort required. Mass and gravity alone will do. It will fall into whichever crisis most protrudes. Protruding too, the many selves all proffering their own dire case. My neighbour has beaten me broken me squished me squashed me killed me dead. So too my boss my lover the hungry herds the hordes trampling through the town. Of love lost and lifes meal leaving us ever not full. Easing these burdens off one by one. There the quiet self simply sitting, loing in lifes lilting lullaby.

For the first time in a good long while the sound of the song of life rises above the sound of commerce. The bubbling babble on the street all falls away. The citizens and chickens and kittens all wander free. They gaze in wonder at the world around them. As if it had been hidden. But it has been here all along. Here and now, taking all the time needed to do whatever it is to be done. Nothing else to do, nowhere else to go. All the time needed here at hand right now.

We might go to the sea to fish. Commerce took what it could, but somehow a few were left for later. The few that could slip through the mighty nets. So too of the herbs the grasses the fruit and trees and anything that could be picked, plucked, dug up and eaten or sold. But commerce has gone and left us. Left us here with only this now. And for sure we cannot exhaust it. Swimming in a sea of moments. Each holding on to the next, no way to take them apart.

Around us all the shiny things made by the mind of man. Wonderful clothes and styles and objects that fill all the world with useless worth. Inflating endlessly the small selfs girth. Ideas swirling all around. All parts of reality tamed, bound and chained down. Looking amongst it all for something that might provide encouragement. Looking for something that might provide lifes nourishment.

The offices of the petty beaurcracy stand empty. It had cut away at everything below it until there was nothing left to hold it up. Now the door swings idly and papers shuffle themselves in the breeze. Only the slightest change in activity, only the slightest change in content. The staff now shuffle around town, the bottom fallen out of their bucket. Counting the weeds in the cracks, always with an eye out for who is responsible for them. Someone to blame someone to punish.

Woe is thee and woe is we, as the great edifice of purpose collapses around us all. The seats became too comfortable and our spirits sagged and fell asleep. Too much comfort. Warm and dry with full bellies and the senses of life all filled to capacity. The dust settles and weeds grow around our immobile feet.

But with clatter and clutter things always go aflutter. Life floods into its every moment. Yes this garden was always full of blooms and buds and berries and bugs. Weevils and worms and wonderful willohompers. Look at it now and see that all of it is there. But oh so much more the garden within. Waste time not, and tend to it now.

Start by planting a tree with wood straight and true. Plant one from the mountains and one from the seaside too. Let them grow however they may. Whatever they want, however they feel. Let them show us their way Twisted, gnarled and bent - all true too. Then plant yet some more – with fragrant flowers and falling fruit. Trees that will call the bats and the birds and the bees. Plant some empty space, and put grass all over it so that people know that it is there. Plant some veges for the 365 days of the year. Less a few for holy-days, and more a few for the unexpected guests that life sends our way. Then yet some more for the hungry and needy. Then there are the herbs and flowers that bring good health to life, and good life to health. Plant our favourite weeds wherever space will allow. Yarrow and buttercup and clover all over. And last of all patches of colour. All of the flowers that have no purpose other than to look fine and spread all over the place. When it is all planted we can rest there, for there is nothing else we need.

The sound of the jingling coins gone gone gone. Slowly its reign becomes history.

Instead there is the sound of the leaves rustling in the breeze. Cicadas and crickets and the wind scouting about the hilltops. No longer will we spend our time counting our money. Nor will we want to bend and flex and have the world follow our every command. Instead we will count the leaves falling from the trees. And the cabbages growing in the garden and the number of kittens under the house. We will gather only our dinner and the seeds for next years vegetables and herbs for grandmas medicine. We will keep for ourselves the trees and the rocks in the mountains and the waterfalls singing into the night. Keep it for ourselves and yourselves and all the selves to come. Keep it for the one self that lives in all selves and renders them all complete – null and void. Find the way that brings us home - no thing else to seek. No thing else at all. No thing else. No thing. No.