One day she messaged the poet a photo of her summer morning walk.
The landscape was all green and gentle but inside of her there was a storm of rage.
"It's not as peaceful as it seems", she wrote.
"And why is this peaceful-looking meadow not as it seems?", the poet asked.
"The meadow is peaceful but my mind isn't", she answered. "And I am shooting second arrows at myself by thinking it should be."
"I would take those arrows for you if I could", the poet wrote.
That didn't bring her peace.
But it brought love.
Love is big enough to contain both peace and rage.
It is big enough to hold anger, despair, grief and even hate.
Love is not the opposite of hate. Love is being present with whatever arises.
Love is to accept, to hold space for first and second arrows, for peacefulness and unpeacefulness and everything in between.
"Love transform everything it touches into itself", one of her teachers once said.
She hopes that this is true.
Because sometimes her mind is a battlefield.
"No mud, no lotus", the Buddhists say.
Maybe flowers will grow from her battles one day.
By the way, she loves the word "meadow". Isn't it delicious?
Photo: canva
