Haibun: Know Yourself
Life is constantly changing. In this haiku, what started off as a seed became a sapling became a tree and became a rock and then a bridge. Yet not far from it, in the desert, grows some flowers.
If we have family, we know how things are ever evolving as people. Take my dear niece. Her family is on a bus that was renovated into a skoolie and she rides along with them to New York. Here’s what I texted to what was my little niece and is now becoming a woman:
“…I tell you about knowing yourself is the way to lead others into who you are and how they can love you more that way? Also, I say you can’t lead someone to a place inside you that you’ve never been emotionally, spiritually, mentally, etc.
“So now think of Niagara Falls? Think about if [your boyfriend] has never been, wouldn’t you want to show it to him so he can experience it with you? Same idea, but knowing ourselves is a whole world, like travel, that we can bring those we love into because we know ourselves and our boundaries.”
Life is in the becoming and unbecoming and becoming something new. Though we feel safe in a controlled, fixed world, that is not where life is. Life is the growing and shrinking, the push and pull, the unbecoming to become something different and fresh. And it is with our consciousness that we observe it, and it is the bringing others along the process that community happens. Community is in the process, not the perfection our society thinks can be bought.
log turned stone through years, but now
summer monsoon’s drear
