2019-08-27

Raven 112: The Way

The Way is the way of ordinariness. The quest of specialness in ourselves and our experiences: this is what the Way abjures.

Case
The folks were sitting around one moonlit night, enjoying one another's company, when Woodpecker asked, "What is the Way?"
Raven said, "The Ancestors got up and stretched.
Woodpecker said, "Well, we do, too."
Raven nodded.
Woodpecker asked, "Then the Way is nothing special?"
Raven said, "I'll always remember this full-moon gathering."
Woodpecker said, "It's nice, but how is it special?"
Raven said, "The moon."
Verse
The Way

Picture it:
A woman, or a man, in a grocery store.
Also, a second shopper -- not hard to imagine.
Each peruses the shelves on aisle 6.
Each selects a jar of something
and is attended by the same thoughts and feelings
Running along the grooves of the same habits.
Implausible, I know, but imagine it.

If I then tell you that one of them does this
With greater freedom than the other,
I would mean that along with
The matching cognitive and affective processes
One of them is also listening,
Listening for a call
From far away or near, from any direction,
To something different
or the same.
Case by Robert Aitken; introduction and verse by Meredith Garmon
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