Are You Becoming Wiser?

 

 

 

The Wise Woman bade me enter and I ducked my head as I entered the tent. Soft light bathed the interior and I slowly moved to find a place to sit. Already my heart started to find a new beat and my mind settled down.

It had been flying around for a while, and now I realized how exhausted it was with dealing with all the details of life, struggling to figure out the right thing to do.

"How long had my mind been wrestling with my heart on the right action to take?" I thought to myself out of the blue.

The surprise must have shown on my face, because the Wise Woman, who had been watching me closely, said, ""Have you had your first insight yet? Has your first issue evolved into a question?"

"Both," I replied, somewhat surprised as the answer moved past my lips with my noticing. Why did that always seem to happen around her?

"One question at a time," she gently replied. "That way is best." She paused and let the air become still. I could now feel the desert heat seeping into my consciousness, but the stillness made me feel more comfortable, more balanced.

"Stillness triumphs over the heated," she replied. "And Clarity and stillness bring order to the world that is your mind."

I blinked.

"Its from the Tao te Ching, or the Dao de Ching ... depending on how you play with and recognize the T and Ds in your Words," she said gently to pull my mind back from where ever it had wondered off.

I smiled, knowing I was missing something at the moment. But I was just so ... was happy the right word? ... to be sitting here, feeling like my mind was becoming a still pond. Could a mind be like water?

She laughed and the sound moved the air between us and brushed across my face. "One of the reasons I like you so much are the questions that float through your mind. I love to laugh. Do you?"

Her question tugged at my attention and I struggled to understand her words, but my mind slipped back. "Why was I suddenly sensing the world around me, my mind ... in terms of air and water. My body felt calm, my heart had found a nice beat and I was starting to feel totally unlike my normal self. How could I change in such a short time? Or was it the world around me that changed? Where was all the stress I had when I entered the tent? Was it possible for it all the slip away in a few moments?" I thought and spoke silently to my self.

"Its okay. Why don't you reach in your pocket and take hold of your troubles?" she spoke gently across the tent towards me.

My mind didn't understand, but my hand reached for my pocket, and found nothing there. And my fingers warm through the lining brought me back to reality, if this was real. The smell of the desert seemed real, but seductive and I had the strangest sense that I had been here before.

"We travel many places, but often we remember only a few. So when we again step into the same river, it seems familiar even if the water has changed or the clouds have moved. Sometimes the clouds are floating in our mind, calling us to distant places, and sometimes calling us home." She paused a moment. "Do you need to be anywhere else?"

I shook my head. And kept shaking it, trying to wake up.

"Try stretching instead of shaking. I find it works better." Her words were enough to get my head moving.

"Where the mind goes, the body follows ...." and I found myself stretching my whole body like a cat waking up from a very pleasant snooze. It felt good the stretch, letting go of both tension and slackness.

"The same applies to your mind," she said. "A little stretching day by day to new ideas can have a profound effect over time."

I nodded and found that brought me back to why I was here. "I can to find out how to become wise. Do you have a clue how to do that?" leapt out of my mouth, like a sphinx playing pounce in the desert.

The Wise Woman was deeply amused. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a desert mouse scurry back into the corner of the tent.

 

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Tao 45