Flow

When I lived in the Middle East, people often told me, After you come to the desert, you'll always have sand in your shoes.  

But it took me a long time to understand that you can't separate one grain of sand from another.
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Flow

I've been thinking so much about memory, experience in aggregate, and experiences in particular, of late.  

I remember once having returned from a 24 day trip down the Grand Canyon.  I returned with eyes wide open; it felt as if a thousand lightning bugs coursed through my veins.  People commented on it.  But I don't feel that way anymore.  

.......

I have a good friend who recently lost a brother in an avalanche accident.  Trauma.  Depression.  There was nothing on the landscape but that accident.  Then he was asked to row a baggage boat down the Grand Canyon.   He'd never rowed before.  

16 days later. 

Eyes wide open; a thousand lightning bugs coursed through his veins.  

~~~~~~~~

What about the trauma?

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (جلال‌الدین محمد رومی)

I said What about my eyes?He said: Keep them on the road.I said What about my passion?He said Keep it burning.

I said What about my heart?
He said Tell me what you hold inside it.
  
I said Pain and sorrow.
He said Stay with it.  The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

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And what about the lightning bugs coursing through his veins? 

Taro-san describes it well.

When you first fish, you want to catch a fish.
Once you catch a fish, then you want to catch many fish.
After you have caught many fish, you want to catch a big fish.
Then you want to catch many big fish.
Then you may come to a place where you want to catch a particular fish.  It may not be a big fish but there is something about this fish, this river.
Then you may go fishing but you cut the hook from the fly.
You may then just go to the river without your rod.
Then you may find you no longer need to go to the river at all. 

                                              pc: K. Inbody


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Thanks to Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Jed Workman, Nick and Sarah Sisk, Dave Richards, and Russ Costa.  And as always, Norman Maclean.