It may be difficult, but you must set it to one side, dear. Not forget, per se--that would likely be impossible--but as though for safe keeping. Or better, like a delicacy that is best savored after a long wait.

Go about your life. What else is there to do?

Hope without expectation conjures up images of birds without wings or ships without sails. How can hope be made more than abstract without hoping for something. Hope without the thought of an object—a goal, is vain indeed. Empty wind, buoying . . . nothing.

But then, where is the hope of hope, when the reality of disappointed expectation thwarts its bright trajectory? Is hope merely the belief in that which is good, surviving against all odds? Or is it of the fourth dimension—a suffused but indirect light scattered over the nebulous, ever-receding future?

Or, is it simply the taking of joy in each step: the bursting juice of berries, warm feathery breezes, sunshine smiles? Is hope merely the belief that the world will continue to be there, when we wake up in the morning, and that there will still be loveliness in it to enjoy?

How do I quell this longing—this age old ache, that’s followed me so long? My emptiness is all I’ve known, and in it, I am, in a way, full. The more arduous task would be to release my illusion of emptiness and envelop the true vacuum without collapsing under external pressure. Indeed, the vacuum must increase, if the benefit of fullness is to mean anything—if only to carve out within me more space for its blessing. Here is where self-discipline would serve me well, but I have neglected it: even now, as I write these words, I’m suffering for lack of it.

My mind wanders so easily—so readily meanders towards that which I must doggedly turn it away from. I find that the temptation to surrender to thoughts which seem like blessed rain after a lifetime of drought can only be blunted by recollecting that what appears to be a cool clear stream could prove a sandy mirage--or worse, that grasping at the thoughts might even thwart the fruition of their inspiration. So, despite dryness, and the insinuation of sweetness, I must press forward and disregard both, until it assumes more substance than shadow.

Please, I beg you, do not intrude. Allow my soul to slumber in bliss. It does not wish to be awakened now, not even by a gentle touch. Only in sleep has it been able to find peace from yearning, and the rest is sorely needed. Let me retrieve, in my dreams and reveries, my own self, that I may live in strength and dignity--whether you touch me or no.

10.

Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child's?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from you own mind
and thus understand all things?

Giving birth and nourishing,
having without possessing,
acting with no expectations,
leading and not trying to control:
this is the supreme virtue.

From The Tao Te Ching

Don't fear, little one. You have more help than you ever thought you could have. Cry your tears--it's okay. You're exhausted, and you carried the burden for as long as you could. There's no reason to feel ashamed.

I feel like a rubber band. I hope I don't break.

I refuse to be beaten by this. I will live and live well. I may walk alone, but it doesn't follow that my life will be less fulfilling for it. It shall be glorious--even if only I shall see it so.

God, why? The downhill spiral. Blind, and on the edge of a pit without knowing. The ground suddenly gives way, and I don’t know . . . anything. Everything I thought I knew turns upside down, and gets spattered, if not slathered, with mud. I too am covered in it, and fear I shall never be clean again. And though that may seem the least of my troubles, it is actually the grease which makes my desperate grasp and foothold at the edge of the abandoned well so tenuous and difficult. And it is that mud which will leave me feeling tainted and vulnerable, even after I muster all of my strength to pull myself out.

I shouldn’t look, but I do. I shouldn’t think about it, but my brain cells gather around it like iron filings before a magnet. If you looked closely, you could observe and diagram the lines of the field in those tracings—the lines of force. Much as I try to break the pattern—to manage the alchemy of conversion from iron to lead, the going is slow, and often tedious. I grow curious about the other side of the fence, and peek over again, only to see the same repetition of cold hard facts I saw before. Except I don’t always recognize them as such: Perhaps this time it will be different--perhaps there is something there I didn’t notice before, that would color all differently. But then memory beckons, and the icy whisper of reason takes hold of my ear. “There is nothing for you here,” the old crone hisses, in her cracked tones. “Can’t you see, fool? There never was. You only imagined.”

I would only be kidding myself, were I to look over the next fence with hope. It is more than likely there is nothing there for me either.

Things go in cycles. It is both the greatest comfort, and the most pedantic annoyance that this, too, shall pass.

My thoughts may be small, and my ways undisciplined. But this does not mean that I am unworthy of life and affection. I am a mere insect--but even the insect may fly and know the sunshine.

If I failed to follow, it was because my allegiance was divided. I could not be wholly devoted when I lived in the fear that in "having Him, I must have naught beside."

Let it go. It’s of no consequence if you’re deficient of understanding. Everyone has blind spots, and no one can be master of everything. The firefly is not an offense to the starry night, because he doesn’t gleam so for the appraisal of men. He graces the night, because it is his nature to glow, and he does so, quietly and without question.

If you want to become whole,
let yourself be partial.
If you want to become straight,
let yourself be crooked.
If you want to become full,
let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn,
let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything,
give everything up . . .

When the ancient Masters said,
"If you want to be given everything,
give everything up,"
they weren't using empty phrases.
Only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself.

From the Tao Te Ching

Will I be able to resign myself to inability? It seems that now is the first time I’ve given admission to the thought. Perhaps it’s alright for me to just be alive, and not impress another living soul. Then, I could permit myself to like and dislike what I choose, and pursue my own thoughts with impunity. It’s high time I learned to spin my own magic and live in my own mysteries.

I rescued a grasshopper from a living burial in the cold marble vault of the office restroom.