It’s hard to know what to do when the work is done.  It’s a deep enough mystery that even the Tao is cryptic about it (work when it is time and then stop, or something super helpful like that).  But what do you do when there aren’t more questions, more problems, more wants, more anything – but things still aren’t done yet?

I’m not done yet.  I don’t mean that a situational way – that’s not for me to choose.  But this experience is still changing me in important and valuable ways.  I’m not sad.  Not angry.  Not empty.  Not full. Not grieving.  Not hoping.  Not confused.  Maybe all of those things in moments, but equally grateful and content.  I haven’t been wronged in material ways.  I haven’t wronged anyone else either.  I have won.  I have lost.  It’s all exactly clear and exactly perfect.  There’s no work to do.  Everything is how it should be.

But it’s not done with me.  I’m rearranging on what feels like a cellular level.  I look different.  My clothes are getting bigger and bigger by the day.  My eyes are clear.  There’s light and fire in every bit of me that was never here before and it knows what it needs to do.  But all the pieces are still falling into place and it needs more time.

I’ve always stayed in loss or pain as long as it took to process it and move past it.  But this isn’t exactly loss.  It’s something else.  And it isn’t to be moved past.  It’s to be moved into.  And that’s new.  I’ll stay in it, but could someone chuck me a crossword?  Thanks.

11

Thirty spokes join one hub.

The wheel’s use comes from emptiness

Clay is fired to make a pot.

The pot’s use comes from emptiness.

Windows and doors are cut to make a room.

The room’s use comes from emptiness.

Therefore,

Having leads to profit,

Not having leads to use.