Day 6 - #55

"She who is filled with goodness
is like a newborn child:
wasps and snakes will not bite it,
fierce beasts will not attack it,
birds of prey will not pounce on it.

Its bones are soft and its muscles weak,
but its grip is firm.
It hasn't yet known the union of male and female,
yet its organ stirs with vitality.
It can howl all day without becoming hoarse,
so perfect is its harmony.

To know harmony is to know the eternal.
To know the eternal is to be illuminated.

Prolonging life is not harmonious.
Coercing the breath is unnatural.
Things which are overdeveloped must decay.
All this is contrary to Tao, and whatever
is contrary to Tao soon ceases to be."

How can I begin to understand all that is good within me? For so long I let myself believe it all bad, all wasteful and self-indulgent. Instead I find this desire within me pure and holy and good. Best of all, there is someone else who sees and embraces that as well, hard as I still strain to disbelieve it.

Hard to hear the harmony--
above the clangor of my grief--
Like a wave breaking on a new
and untouched shore.

I finally know--
untouched does not mean
unloved.
unexplored does not mean
unknowable.
untapped does not mean
unreachable.

I reach
I love
I grow

I believe