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Freedom, like wisdom, is in the air, always available. However, it is not to be taken for granted. Many of us, for many long years, must keep our eyes on the prize, that is, of survival, so our eyes, downcast, but not downtrodden, we meditate upon the clay that revolves beneath us, and sometimes, perhaps often, we are the grindstone beneath the wheel.

Life seems cruel in that way, but dwelling upon cruelty has no utility. In fact, it is cruel to ourselves to believe that we are only beneath the wheel, we are so much more, we are doing so much more. When we suffer, in the specific way that we suffer, we somehow make it possible for someone to suffer less in some other way. When we toil, our labors bring fruits, whether it be service, or cantaloupes, there is a sweetness we bring to life even when we don’t know it.

Others can see it, see us working so hard trying to make it work so that work becomes our leisure, and so often, so many obstacles are put in the way of that, as if the corporate world was trying to make border walls out of speed bumps, as if that were it proof of purchase and proof of purpose.

But you cannot wall the sky, and our eyes reach towards it, even from inside a prison cell, it can be known that the sun hides beyond, behind, and even within all walls, all bars, all obscurations. This is deep work, it does not come easy, nor does it come shortly, it is a long reach with short arms, that tire quickly, and yet we must reach up again and again, and wither only so that we can lift our appendages once again towards the light that we are both part of, and that our body blocks into shadow.

Freedom, to know that shadow is only an aspect, a facet of the light, defining darkness so that we can see its true nature, which is only, to help us define the light. There is mercy in all things, if we would only allow, have the faith of a narcissus in spring, and know there is nothing to doubt, and that all fear is just an aspect of waiting for something better when something better has already arrived.

I want to go back, but I am already back, in every forward motion, every memory is the propellant that makes the decision into more connections possible. Like a butterfly, we must both remember and forget the lives of the caterpillars. Form. Meaning. Haiku in between the lines:

Flying free
Monarchs unsee caterpillars’ below them —
Because their bodies now live inside wings