Icicle Moon

A fingernail of the waning moon hangs in the sky at dawn, flirting with a small pink cloud, which drifts away as the sliver of moon rises into the day and disappears. A nearby icicle watches all of this, frozen as it is on a freezing day.

The moon disappears though we "know" it is still there. Sort of like Awareness, there but invisible to ordinary eyes. Our ordinary eyes focus on icicles, freezing the ever-changing movement of Now into things. And we play with these things as if they are real. As one teacher says, "Nouns are just slow-moving verbs." Nouns make us think that things exist. Nouns delude us into everyday reality.

We catch glimpses of Awareness, just as we catch glimpses of the fingernail moon. Awareness is always there--quietly saying nothing.

Invisible Impermanence

My concert pianist sweetie has lyre-back dining room chairs. (Just think of them as musical chairs.) I recently had their seats recovered, since the old seats were beginning to fray.

Somehow, i managed to make just one trip to the fabric store. Even though i came home with a floral pattern, he approved. The last time i did this, i made 3 trips to the fabric store and could not twist his arm into flowers. We finally agreed on trees.

He actually likes the new seat covers. Whew!

The seat covers slowly, surreptitiously, become worn and tattered. Invisible impermanence. Our bodies, too, slowly, invisibly unraveling and sliding into tatters.