Float Along With the Crowd

When I get out of bed every morning, at least I'm still alive and not dead like Ruth May. So I must have done something right. Sometimes you just have to save your neck and work out the details later. Like that little book said: Stick out your elbows, pick up your feet, and float along with the crowd! The last thing you want to do is get trampled to death. - Barbara Kingsolver in "The Poisonwood Bible."

Day 320. As careful as I have been to keep my reveling within the moderate range of snappiness, I still feel a fatigue reminiscent of my "before-thyroid-regulation" days. I think exhaustion is in the air at this time of year, like an annual weariness molecule that exists only in December. I truly believe there is a cumulative lassitude that builds all year and whacks me at precisely the time my To-Do List doubles. Right, like I really keep one of those. But if I did, it would definitely be doubled during December.

I took Ruby and Katy for a romp today. Canines are excellent revelers. Any time they step outside the perimeter of the electric fence (and yes, I take their battery collars off first) is a cause for celebration. Dogs are masterful teachers of being in the moment. As we circled the block, my mind briefly wandered about, searching for a possible blog topic. I got nothing. Zip and nadda. No thoughts whatsoever. Why must the Monkeys wait until I am solemnly perched on my cushion to start their clamor?

For inspiration, I leafed through my Kingsolver novel, eying the passages I can't resist underlining as I read. The "little book" referenced in the quote I selected was a "survival guide" that provided instructions for staying alive under different types of dangerous circumstances. The sage advice given came under the heading "What to Do if You Are at the Theater When it Catches on Fire." Stick out your elbows, pick up your feet, and float along with the crowd! I assume the advice is generalizable to any situation involving a fleeing mob, like the mass exodus of a demonstration gone wrong or a riot after tear gas has been launched. Intuitively, the advise makes sense. To avoid being trampled, meld yourself to the throng crushing in on you, lift your feet, and be swept away on the sea of humanity.

The survival recommendation captures much of the feeling state in which I am enveloped as my Zen year hurtles towards completion. A lot of the time now, I just float along with the crowd. The "crowd" isn't metaphoric exclusively for human beings. It symbolizes the inevitable throng of thoughts, feelings, perceptions, opinions, and preferences that comprise the Illusion that constantly threaten to crowd out Reality. I imagine if you "fight" a swarming crowd with ideas of your own about the direction you want to take, the speed you want to move, and the specific people with whom you are in contact, your danger and risk are increased. Ultimately, the crowd, at least while it is swarming, is going to determine what happens. Just like Reality.

Peak Experience! I just recognized that the survival advice in the little book read by Kingsolver's character is a perfect summary of the Zen lessons this year has given me: By sticking out my elbows, (wedging myself into reality), picking up my feet (surrendering attachment to a certain outcome), and floating along with the crowd (relinquishing separateness by reconnecting with the One), I won't be trampled to death (by the great press of Illusion)!

I love accidentally bumping into a magnificent metaphor. Especially because, like all good metaphor, once you bump it, there is nothing more to say!

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc