Duality

Early morning, I love to sit on the deck behind our house where I’m surrounded by the lush green vegetation we have here in Central Virginia.

Still barely awake, I feel so blessed by the beautiful cheerful songs of the birds heralding the new day and the faint sweet fragrance emanating from the majestic flowering crepe myrtle trees in our yard. Their large, delicate clusters of white and pink flowers glisten under the pale yellow light of the rising sun. The branches sway under a light cool breeze and entice me to join them in a slow dance.

Today, I followed their enchanting call and walked to our adjoining larger deck to dance and meditate. As usual, the floor was covered with debris. Our crepe myrtles, towering over the deck, are magnificent messy trees. The more flowers produced, the more petals and seeds fall to the ground. Earlier in the growing season, I found it quite annoying to have to sweep the floor before I could dance. But it was necessary – as the seeds fall and dry up, they become very hard and break open, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation to land barefoot on their sharp edges. These graceful trees also regularly shed their old bark. The trunk and branches molt just like snakes do, and the fallen bark adds to the mess I need to clean before dancing.

I used to lament (cuss even) about having to sweep up this debris. But today, instead of grumbling, I was moved to smile. In fact, I felt quite ridiculous to have previously reacted at all in such a negative way.

It struck me that, in life, there are so many more important decisions to make about very serious topics. Why let myself be bothered by trifles? I realized that it’s a very small price to pay for the privilege to live surrounded by so much beauty. And for all the mess, the fresh new tree bark is gorgeous and gives beautiful distinctive patterns to the smooth trunk. I choose to enjoy the beauty of the trees and use the inconvenience of clearing the floor to my advantage. Instead of treating the need to sweep the deck before I dance as a chore, I decided to treat it as an active meditation and as part of the warmup I need to do before dancing.

This acknowledgement that events could be viewed from very different perspectives reminded me -- we live in a world of duality where everything and every situation has two sides: night and day, cold and warm, left and right, hatred and love, sad and happy, etc. These opposites define our world and help us navigate our life path. When we need to make a decision, we have two choices. Either we face it in a positive way, or we let negativity engulf us and not only make ourselves miserable, but also affect the lives of the people we live with.

Although it’s sometimes challenging, I always try to look for the silver lining – or alternatively the lesson – in any situation. For example, letting myself be grumpy about having to sweep the deck could likely cause me to either dance in a bad mood or decide to not dance at all. Since my dance improvisation is a form of meditation, it would defeat the purpose and prevent me to start my day on a positive note.

We always have a choice. Let’s choose the path that makes our lives richer and more meaningful.

Writer’s Block

Here and Now