When it comes to knowing things
There is receptivity and there is penetration
Or you could call it
Welcoming and projecting.
Looking at the twig structure of the late-flowering cherry tree next door
I settle into an awareness,
An opening.
And become aware that
All the tree comes to me in that small section of twig.
But also that I only know the twig
Through the wholeness of the tree.
And that going wider
The whole earth, the whole cosmos
Shows up in that twig.
And that the twig
In it’s twiggyness
Only makes sense
In the wider presencing of the universe.
It offers the nature of the universe
In its simple twiggyness.
And I look at my right hand
And sense again
That the whole universe is present there.
And the whole universe
Only has its fleshly quality
In the soft being there of my hand.
And that my hand, the twig,
Can only be itself
In my welcoming, receptive gaze
Through its Universing-ness.
The phrase of William Blake
Obviously lurks near
But to go to it
To allow it to come fully to mind
Would flip me from presencing to a projecting thinking
And the softness of the welcoming receptivity would slip away.
To “think” that I know it
Is to put “knowing”
Out of reach.
