I quested in spring this year. The juniper and sage chaparral of the Modoc land was alive with the buoyant flute-like song of the meadowlarks. The nights were crisp and clear, the days warm and breezy. Each morning a lone tawny brown antelope with black and white facial markings and a round white rump leisurely grazed her way across the terrain while I sat motionless, s
avoring the encounter with her wildness. I'll confess that things can get borin
g during solo
fasting time, which made her daily presence an even more welcomed treat. I was gra
teful for the company.
Antelope are extremely adaptive,they live in unlivable places. I am drawn to this idea of living in the paradox, where things seem contradictory but also express a possible truth. I wrote several of these paradoxic
al truths in my journal while out there:
~I have nothing out here and yet I have everything I need.
~It is calming and peaceful here and yet it is invigorating and stimulating.
~There is nothing out here, and yet the place is bursting with life.
~I am so joyful, and yet at the same time sort of sad...the list went on, while the antelope kept her attention on the green grass of the present moment.
Buddhists call it Advaya, the nondualism of living in a both/and world. Honestly, it sounds like a relief to surrender into the mystery of the paradox, holding two opposing truths at the same time without trying to make sense of it all, and living moment to moment.
"
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.
Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
