#22 Bi
Grace
"Inside, the strength of simplicity and self-knowledge. Outside, the beauty of acceptance and gentleness."
--Changing to -
#25 Wu Wang
Innocence
"All good comes when we are innocent."
Sounds about right to me.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Grace and Innocence
Threw the i-Ching last night with the thought of Ruby in her first day firmly fixed in my mind. Got the following reading:
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Lucky 13
Today was a something of a remarkable day.
Spring has arrived and brooks no argument. Just when I had resigned myself to the dreariness of winter and the weary grind of depression that usually hits me in February, things happened. Yesterday and today are bursting with warmth and a quality of sunlight that is like waking up from a dark, unpleasant sleep. The air is fragrant and birds are singing, blooms busting out everywhere. It is like night leaping into day, this sudden glad shout of spring.
I haven't slept much for the last three nights, because I've been waiting for news, the phone set right by my head with the volume turned up. This morning the news came. My niece was born in the first hour of the day. It still seems like an unbelievable fact, an unexpected miracle, even after months to get used to the idea that she was coming.
People often say babies look just like so-and-so, and I always privately roll my eyes and wonder how such a pudgy, bleary-eyed face can look like anybody yet. But when I saw the first picture of my brother's child, there was a shock of recognition. I was looking not at a stranger, but at someone I recognized. I can so clearly see my brother in her face. And secretly, did I not also think it was a bit like looking in a mirror? Perhaps I only imagined that, because this is the closest I will ever come to having a child of my own. Perhaps I only wanted it to be. But when I showed the pictures to a friend at work who has been almost as excited by this impending arrival as I am, she said, jeese, she looks just like you.
So maybe it's not just ego or wishful thinking.
At work I've been dealing with a difficult situation, and today I knew I would have to confront it, or at least some of it, directly. But after the morning's news, problems at work seemed a lot less important. Things snapped into perspective as they often do when one is brushed by the numinous, which can happen while present at the ending or beginning of a life. Or while connected to such an event, even if physically far away.
Someday, perhaps, I'll be able to tell my niece that her arrival into the world gave me courage to deal righteously with an unpleasant situation. That instead of cringing and whimpering, I stood up straight and looked it in the eye and handled it like a mountain girl.
And then the rest of the day seemed filled with omens of good fortune and tokens of prosperity, as though the universe was conspiring to help me celebrate. The sun shining through the trees outside the window of my new workspace, where I've moved from the truly cave-like cubicle I occupied the last several years. Getting an unexpected bonus on top of a respectable pay raise. Being given a gift card by a co-worker, "just because." The extra light at the end of the day in this first week of daylight savings time. Leftover eggrolls and steamed pork buns in the fridge at home . . .
And most of all the realization that next to some very basic yet perfect things, the ratty little problems at work and in life just don't matter. Who says 13 is an unlucky number?
Ruby makes it lucky. Because today is her birthday.
Spring has arrived and brooks no argument. Just when I had resigned myself to the dreariness of winter and the weary grind of depression that usually hits me in February, things happened. Yesterday and today are bursting with warmth and a quality of sunlight that is like waking up from a dark, unpleasant sleep. The air is fragrant and birds are singing, blooms busting out everywhere. It is like night leaping into day, this sudden glad shout of spring.
I haven't slept much for the last three nights, because I've been waiting for news, the phone set right by my head with the volume turned up. This morning the news came. My niece was born in the first hour of the day. It still seems like an unbelievable fact, an unexpected miracle, even after months to get used to the idea that she was coming.
People often say babies look just like so-and-so, and I always privately roll my eyes and wonder how such a pudgy, bleary-eyed face can look like anybody yet. But when I saw the first picture of my brother's child, there was a shock of recognition. I was looking not at a stranger, but at someone I recognized. I can so clearly see my brother in her face. And secretly, did I not also think it was a bit like looking in a mirror? Perhaps I only imagined that, because this is the closest I will ever come to having a child of my own. Perhaps I only wanted it to be. But when I showed the pictures to a friend at work who has been almost as excited by this impending arrival as I am, she said, jeese, she looks just like you.
So maybe it's not just ego or wishful thinking.
At work I've been dealing with a difficult situation, and today I knew I would have to confront it, or at least some of it, directly. But after the morning's news, problems at work seemed a lot less important. Things snapped into perspective as they often do when one is brushed by the numinous, which can happen while present at the ending or beginning of a life. Or while connected to such an event, even if physically far away.
Someday, perhaps, I'll be able to tell my niece that her arrival into the world gave me courage to deal righteously with an unpleasant situation. That instead of cringing and whimpering, I stood up straight and looked it in the eye and handled it like a mountain girl.
And then the rest of the day seemed filled with omens of good fortune and tokens of prosperity, as though the universe was conspiring to help me celebrate. The sun shining through the trees outside the window of my new workspace, where I've moved from the truly cave-like cubicle I occupied the last several years. Getting an unexpected bonus on top of a respectable pay raise. Being given a gift card by a co-worker, "just because." The extra light at the end of the day in this first week of daylight savings time. Leftover eggrolls and steamed pork buns in the fridge at home . . .
And most of all the realization that next to some very basic yet perfect things, the ratty little problems at work and in life just don't matter. Who says 13 is an unlucky number?
Ruby makes it lucky. Because today is her birthday.
Ruby Adine Brook
Born today, March 13, 2013, 12:43am.
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