"The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people—eternal life... Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good—death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me." --Hermann Hesse
The last 10 days were spent blissfully on Cape Cod, beaching, eating and enjoying friends. It was a simple, small town vacation that was so perfect. My friend Alicia even found a tiny pearl in an oyster that she ate.
I've been thinking about pearls ever since she found it, and how they're formed. A foreign substance, perhaps some stray grains of sand, gets between the mantle and the shell, which irritates the mantle. The oyster protects itself by layering on nacre, that beautiful pearly substance. I love the message here: It's only by being uncomfortable that an oyster can create it's truest beauty. It's only by being rubbed the wrong way, that the best of you can be brought out.
I have had a foreign substance in my own mantle for almost three years. It has most certainly rubbed me the wrong way (to the point of causing contusions, many times.) Could it be, that I have been layering on nacre for the last three years? Perfect, as Hermann Hesse says, in every moment? I am now able to give my loving understanding to both the sin and the grace within this process. Could it be that I have become what my father used to call me: his "pearl of a girl"?
The sun is setting on this process and rising on something new. The clouds are breaking and the light is perfectly arrayed.
The last 10 days were spent blissfully on Cape Cod, beaching, eating and enjoying friends. It was a simple, small town vacation that was so perfect. My friend Alicia even found a tiny pearl in an oyster that she ate.
I've been thinking about pearls ever since she found it, and how they're formed. A foreign substance, perhaps some stray grains of sand, gets between the mantle and the shell, which irritates the mantle. The oyster protects itself by layering on nacre, that beautiful pearly substance. I love the message here: It's only by being uncomfortable that an oyster can create it's truest beauty. It's only by being rubbed the wrong way, that the best of you can be brought out.
I have had a foreign substance in my own mantle for almost three years. It has most certainly rubbed me the wrong way (to the point of causing contusions, many times.) Could it be, that I have been layering on nacre for the last three years? Perfect, as Hermann Hesse says, in every moment? I am now able to give my loving understanding to both the sin and the grace within this process. Could it be that I have become what my father used to call me: his "pearl of a girl"?
The sun is setting on this process and rising on something new. The clouds are breaking and the light is perfectly arrayed.
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| Taken in Sesuit, MA, while eating Baileyberry pie |
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