being and doing
blessing the boats
By Lucille Clifton (1936- 2010) American Poet
may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that
“In the bigger scheme of things the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that’s a whole different thing.”
-Lucille Clifton
This quote by Lucille Clifton captured my attention as I was reflecting on the characteristics of our current time. How are being and doing, science and mysticism, inner and outer world, as a few examples, related to one another? These may serve to set a framework for sensing and knowing more acutely, the dynamics and effects of that which we live and breathe. As Lucille Clifton’s words state so succinctly, “And that’s a whole different thing” it is both fascinating and disturbing, to varying degrees how completely our current reality saturates itself in the ‘one thing’ or ‘another thing.’ Where do these ‘things’ meet and what is the effect of the meeting? Science and mysticism must have infinite finely- tuned interwoven threads. Art and mathematics, spirituality and religion, the list goes on and on. The question may be fun, torturous or unanswerable, yet asking and reflecting on a less dualistic perspective proves challenging and worthwhile for me.
The world of doing inhabits such a major part of our Western paradigm it may be challenging to some to imagine what being really means. The idea that the universe asks anything of us at all is one that many may question or simply not subscribe. However, Clifton’s use of the phrase “in the bigger scheme of things” immediately pulled me into a place of wonder, a place where I just may lie on the grass gazing up at the immensity of the night sky and imagine into this place of the bigger scheme. At this moment being is experienced as undeniably real and there is really nothing to do.
Where would this post be without mentioning social media? The question I would like to pose is simple, yet nothing is simple… when we are engaged on social media, is this a place of being or doing, both or neither? I refer to a quote by Emerson in the nineteenth century when he warned that technical achievements may not be in man’s own best interest- “Things are in the saddle and ride mankind” (Tarnas,1991). Poets often set the stage in my life for prompting new and deepened questioning, as opposed to charging toward one opinion and another, more thiss and thats.
The poem below embodies a sense of being in the world in a felt sense. This is one poem from a collection of China’s tradition of rivers-and-mountains (shan-shui) poetry which span from the 5th century c.e. and stretch across two millenia. The poetry reflects a deep and spiritual sense of belonging to a wilderness of truly awe- inspiring dimension.
Ch’in Song in Clear Night
The moon’s risen. Birds have settled in.
Now, sitting in these empty woods silent
mind sounding the borders of idleness,
I can tune the ch’in’s utter simplicities:
from the wood’s nature, a cold clarity,
from a person’s mind, a blank repose.
When mind’s gathered clear calm ch’i,
wood can make such sudden song of it,
And after lingering echoes die away,
Song fading into depths of autmn night,
You suddenly hear the source of change,
All heaven and earth such depths of clarity.
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Hinton, D. (2002). Mountain Home: The wilderness poetry of ancient China. New York, NY: New Directions Books.
Tarnas, R. (1991). The passion of the western mind: Understanding the ideas that have shaped our world view. New York, NY: Random House Publishing.
