Problems in Paradise

The waterfall sounded wrong when I got to the porch this morning. I couldn’t see, but it didn’t sound like the usual amount of splashing. I set my laptop down and traipsed down to the koi pond to see what the problem was. Immediately I could see that the water flow over the rocks was much lower than usual.

Now our waterfall here at the Temple is actually a trick. The water appears to be moving only one way—down. But it is actually moving in a circle. The part where the water moves back up to the top of the waterfall is, however, hidden. Off to one side of the pond, hidden under a plastic ‘rock’, is a submerged pump that pushes the water up through a buried plastic pipe. It unnaturally flows uphill until it reaches the top and then naturally tumbles down over the rocks.

Sometimes I feel like the water is a caged animal that we are making perform tricks endlessly for the amusement of the zoo-going audience. Forced upward again and again, to do its lovely watery thing of following gravity and falling down.

But other times I suspect the water particles vie for the chance to take the ride. Like humans in an amusement park jostling each other eagerly as they wait their chance for another ride on the roller coaster. Into the dark mysterious pipe. The thrill of flowing upwards (not a usual occurrence for water). Then out into the light and the exhilarating and effortless falling down. Finally exiting the ride, back in the pond to tell stories of adventure and bravery to their waiting friends who weren’t chosen for the trip.

Of course I know the water doesn’t choose, it merely responds to the forces around it. It always says yes. When the wind blows across the top of the pond, little waves appear as the water. Without thinking, water allows itself to be touched by the wind and the energy of the wind expresses itself as ripples. And when the water in the pipe is pressed by the pump, it moves in the direction of least resistance, which, in this case (when the pump is working properly) is upward. Naturally rising.

What are the winds and pumps of my life? Is nighttime the same for me as water in the pipe? Are there invisible forces that restore my potential energy – that raise me up during the night so that I can again tumble down through my next day? So much happens in darkness. Maybe it’s the dark and invisible work of my gut that invisibly digests my food and sends the potential energy to each one of my cells to burn in whatever way they desire. Maybe metabolizing is like water falling down a waterfall.

But really, the pump submerged in the pond is like the heart that is carefully hidden away in my darkness of my chest. Like the water in the pond, my blood is a closed system. The heart beat and impels the blood through the vast web of watery roads in my body. The miles of piping that wander everywhere and bring the energy of oxygen—giving each cell the potential energy to follow the gravity of its natural function.

I once had a procedure done where they smeared my chest with goop then pressed hard with a cold metal sensor around to ‘see’ the blood flow in my heart. Aside from being messy and slightly uncomfortable, it was amazing. Amazing to see the wild pumping of this vital hidden engine. My heart itself was nothing like a hallmark card.   It was more like a small anxious animal of amorphous form. In constant motion. Every beat a matter of life and death. The blood constantly passing through. Generating enough pressure, but not too much. No waterfalls here, just a closed system of water and tissue and bone pumping the urgency of life day and night.

The waterfall in the pond is small potatoes compared to the cascade of blood through our bodies. The pump submerged in the water is of simpler stuff than the beating heart of each one of us.

Seeing the low water flow, I thought of calling Oldin, our sangha member who is an EMT, thinking that he knows a thing or two about pumping things. But decided rather to call Corwin, our pond master and figurer out of mechanical things. Hopefully, he’ll be able to come over this morning and correct our watery problem. In the meantime, I’ve pulled the plug to save the pump from its straining.

All is quiet now.