100% Snowfall

The storm has begun. Up from DC, Baltimore and NYC; the snow has begun to fall. The latest predictions call for 9 to 15 inches before it passes out to sea tomorrow morning. A white day. A snowy day. Memories arise of assembling a pile of books and some hot chocolate along with a blanket and a young daughter to sit by the sliding doors to the porch and watch the snow fall. We were safely snuggled and inspired by the water-color pictures of Miss Rumphius planting her blue, purple and pink lupine as we watched the porch slowly disappear under fluffy mounds. Over a quarter century later, I am still warmed and delighted by that one white morning.

Now having another young friend who’s almost two, I’m amazed again at the life-giving properties of very young people. As a child, I was sure that I was just waiting to become an adult for real life to begin. I thought being a child meant being only a partial being—someone who was limited by physical, emotional and mental immaturity. But now that I’m nearing the end of my 7^th decade on this planet, I’m much more aware of the equality of it all.

Of course there is little and big, young and old, strong and weak, more able and less able. But looming much larger is the beingness of it all and some mysterious exact intertwinkling necessity of each and all. As living beings, we are always limited, dependent and contingent. Even a person at the ‘height of their powers’ cannot jump over tall buildings nor survive without food and shelter, nor exist except within the interactive support of sun, earth, water, plants, stars, stray dogs and mosquitoes. Limitation is not a limitation, it is life itself.

In some ungraspable way, we are, each one of us, a part of it all—perfectly arising beyond our intentions and plans, perfectly manifesting ourselves in each moment, and perfectly passing away at some appointed and unknown time. In each moment, from our first breath to our last (and I have had the privilege to be present with others both in the arriving and the departing) we are 100% full of life. 100% living into the circumstances of our life. Even resisting and complaining and wishing it were otherwise is 100% too. Beyond measure.

Yesterday I walked with a friend beside a partially frozen river yesterday where geese swam easily in the water that would quickly kill either one of us. We, for our part, did our best to resolve the great issues of life-and-death, meaning-and-purpose, red-and-blue. We didn’t get very far, but we did arrive at the realization that measuring is irrelevant to the most important things in life. While there are innumerable and fierce measures that are pressed upon us from the earliest ages, many of which become an unthinking part of our constant self-evaluations—none of them can measure life, nor tell us what we should do.

Buddha spoke of the eight worldly winds: prosperity, decline, disgrace, honor, praise, censure, suffering, and pleasure. We are all subject to these dynamic, erratic and unavoidable conditions. His teaching was that it is our attachment or aversion to the coming and going of these conditions that causes our suffering. Prosperity comes and we feel good. Decline comes and we feel bad. When we allow ourselves to participate in whatever condition arises, we can appreciate the fullness of our unlimited conditional lives.

So I appreciate the perfect ‘help’ of my two-year-old friend when we wash the dishes together and am honored to help him change his soaking shirt after we tire of our chores. He is 100% full of life though he does sometimes seem to leave me at about 30% as I do my best to keep up with him. Nothing lacking on either side. Exhaustion is 100%. Squealing and jumping up and down is 100%.

As the snow falls today, the little ones of past and present are here with me. We are all playing and working and struggling and delighting as best we can. May we all today appreciate the whole miraculous catastrophe of our 100% life—in whatever form it may appear.