Silent Morning, quiet mourning

I am awake at 4 in the morning waiting for the dawn. The house is quiet. The others are asleep. 

I had fallen asleep earlier than usual while reading Chinese Buddhist poetry and so, of course, I am sitting here writing earlier than usual. 

The posts on this blog may at times seem like sermons but the message is always for me. Writing helps me reach a deeper wisdom and I am often surprised at the result. It aids in giving clarity and direction to whatever is going on in my life. 

(I sometimes wonder if anyone else reads this but it doesn't really matter.)

After a series of unplanned and unexpected events during the summer, now as the dust settles and I have time to reflect, I feel so many inner shifts: peace and restlessness, determination and fear, strength and weakness. Nothing lasts long but flicker on and off until I find myself in quiet emptiness.

I am releasing and healing. The "emptiness" is the result and I welcome it, though at times it gets uncomfortable for someone like me who tries to keep busy with one thing or another.

Yet, within me I yearn to be like those hermit poets of ancient China, like the one who wrote:

I follow my impulsive feet wherever they go

my body is a pine tree surrounded by snow

sometimes I simply stand beside a flowing stream

sometimes I chase a drifting cloud past another peak

But for now I am stuck in a house I did not want with furnishings bought for someone else's comfort, a place filled with sad memories of a woman's loneliness and death.

I wait for the time when I too can follow a drifting cloud.

Until then, this part of the journey is just keeping still.