The Middle Way.
Episode 63.
My last SHIFT was titled Non-fiction. I accounted the blurred line between fiction and nonfiction, not just in writing, but in life...the convergence of fantasy and reality; of imagination and truth. Our own stories that we are just playing out as actors on a stage and set, harnessed upon the backdrop of "reality". Life just spilling out as marbles from their velvet bag, onto a white tiled floor, rolling and bouncing and pinging and colliding...
I just finished a book- labeled fiction- but not really- because scenes have material shapes and characters emerge as subsisting beings. The pages abound with real truths and lessons and unearthing of our buried human stuff under the cloak of "fiction". Even though the theme of the book does not directly pertain to my life, this particular passage is striking as a lesson that arises recurrently my life... the middle way and change.
I will share a scene from "This Is How It Always Is" by Laurie Frankel, where a young Thai woman is sharing her wisdom on life and growth and never being finished...
"It is the Middle Way of being. Middle Way of living with what is hard"
“How do you do that?”
“You keep remember: all is change.”
“All what?”
“All life. You are never finish, never done. Never become, always becoming. You know? Life is change so is always okay you are not there yet... There is no before and no after because change is what is life. You live in change, in the in-between.”
“And how do you do that?”
“You learn over lifetimes. You keep try. You will find Middle Way to be. This life. Next. You find your way...
The Middle Way is hard for the same reason the Middle Way is right...There’s a fork in the road. It seems like there are only two choices. It seems like the task is to figure out which way to go, left or right, forward or back, deeper or safer, but in fact any of those choices is easy compared to the real trick. The real trick is you have to forge your way straight ahead through the trees where there is no path.”
These words swell in my heart. The full human experience. There is no path. There is uncharted territory. There is fear and safety. There is heartache and love. There is a lifetime of growing up to become an entire person. Whole despite our holes. Safe despite our fears. Loving despite our heartbreaks. Middle Way despite the choice of left or right. Leading to Ways beyond...
Beyond...
Thank you for reading. And for being.
In my path.
And Beyond.
Love,
Jessica
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” - Rumi
Do it all with Love. Nothing is promised. But everything is workable.
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