Thursday, January 26, 2012

A Heart Like a Meadow

Scott Bradley


Consider a meadow.

Meadows just happen. Infinite forces are ever at work. Stars explode. Worlds form. Climates change. Glaciers cover and uncover. Trees invade and retreat. Creeks shift and meander. Species flourish and founder. Forces beyond reckoning make a meadow. And yet, meadows just happen.

Imagine stepping out of the trees and into a meadow. Perhaps you are privileged to have done so and can recall the lure of fecundity, the call to lie down here in the green grasses among a riot of wildflowers, under the beneficent heat of the sun. Where does the meadow end and my heart begin?

Consider the openness of a meadow. All that can flourish here is welcome to do so. Nothing is excluded. Nothing is planned. Those lupines have found their place in a drier, shady corner. These monkey flowers prefer the damp. The shrews like to swim. The voles prefer to burrow. The meadow is a happening, an invitation to all things and all the things that inhabit it.

Imagine your heart as a meadow. Open. Receptive. Inclusive. Life giving. At rest.

If meadows are yin, are mountains yang? Do they thrust to the sky? Or are they thrust? If Earth is yin, is Heaven yang? Tao does nothing, yet nothing is left undone. "Know the male, but cling to the female."

Here comes a bulldozer. Today it may bull. Tomorrow it will doze. The meadow may die, but its spirit is eternal.

Over here are poppies; they thrive on the iron-rich soil.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

2 comments:

  1. hmm yeah. I could be a meadowist. Nice feel about that post. A heart as a meadow, nice.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 2 lines that stuck with me..

    "Imagine your heart as a meadow. Open. Receptive. Inclusive. Life giving. At rest." &

    "Know the male, but cling to the female."

    beautiful!!

    ReplyDelete

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