Empty boxes

 

"We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use."---Tao Te Ching

 --------------------------------------------------------------

Empty boxes.

My sister and I go on box-finding expeditions, because we ship objects out that require unique sizes of cardboard. My sister, especially, is the one who uses the big boxes to ship her woodwork out into the world. It's a funny phenomenon because when we need boxes, most businesses are happy to let us scavenge their trash bins. Some even offer to save their boxes for us. It's quite nice, and an interesting way to get acquainted with people. 

Word has got out that we like boxes, so when people see us, they usually give us boxes, to the point our car usually is filled with them.

We gladly accept their boxes. Though sometimes, people give us some pretty weird shaped ones that just need to go back in the dump. But the thought is appreciated, and the love along with it. It's a fun giving and receiving, so everybody is happy. We usually give whoever gives us boxes, hugs, and appreciation---love. 

The more fun the exchange, the more boxes seem to appear out of nowhere. Sometimes just the right boxes come at the exact right time.

Sometimes some very odd boxes come, and sometimes they are just a little wonky.

But they are all just boxes.

It's all just cardboard. 

But the currency of kindness is felt as the boxes change hands.

There's nothing in the boxes. But the boxes are valuable because they are empty

Whatever we put in the boxes will eventually vanish, as will the cardboard itself.

I think we, too, are like little cardboard vessels, little boxes, all moving around in car boxes, and box houses, filling our lives with boxes within boxes, hoping that one day we will be a "real box," full of our accumulated things, so other boxes, hopefully not as full as our box, fill our box with something, as well. 

All boxes are biodegradable. Plant food, mostly. Only here for a little while. But we pretend like our flimsy cardboard is made of gold, and going to last forever. Yet the more solid we try to make our boxes the less light shines through. The more labels applied to the outside, the more heavy and dense it becomes. 

We can collect stuff inside the boxes, lots of stuff, so the space gets very cramped, and the box bulges at the seams. We can tape our boxes together to make the cardboard stay together a little longer. 

It's funny because my sister and I have let a lot of things fall out of our boxes, mostly because the bottom fell out by default, and we just surrendered to it. Taping it together was hopeless, and we realized how much the stuff inside was weighing us down, and the labels just started peeling off bit by bit, storm by storm.

The more empty we have let our boxes be, the less box shape and definition we have. The more space there is, the more transparent our box feels, and the more people think we have something especially valuable in our box. No. Not really.

Just space, mostly.

And when people be spacious together, and allowing, anything can be fun.  It is something that comes out out the space, a light in the box that just shines through when the labels get scraped off, and nothing sticks to the outside anymore.

The other day we were just sitting on our porch, talking in the sun, and the postman came up and said, "it wasn't fair that it looked like we were having so much fun."

We laughed. 

Yeah, we were talking about cleansing, and poop. But I wasn't going to tell him that. 

Super, duper fun.

Just two empty boxes, enjoying a moment of space, and realness.

Then early in the morning, while Bess and I were milking goats, I noticed a different mailman who was having a difficult time with our packages, so I ran to help him, and he told me he saw us out milking our goats, and said it looked like we were just having too much fun.

Yeah. Okay. We were actually quite hot and tired. Probably grumpy too.

A couple of empty boxes just working together. 

I think he must have saw something that wasn't there. 

I don't know.

 Shopping, someone told me it looked like I was having a party. 

I was just buying some food.

This seems to happen a lot.

Washing dishes?

Party.

Taking out the trash.

Party.

Got a tiny part in a play. No fair. You have the best part. 

Diving for boxes in the dump. Gee you're having way too much fun. 

How do I get what you have? 

Get what?

Ummm...nothing. 

I have to scratch my head lots of times, wondering.

Okay...

Maybe...it's...

“Not what you do, but how you do what you do determines whether you are fulfilling your destiny. And how you do what you do is determined by your state of consciousness.”― Eckhart Tolle

I've always said to do what you love. I still believe that. But maybe it's a higher state to put love into what you do, as Eckhart says. And stop doing---if we we can't be in that space of love even while washing toilets, or hammering nails. 

Kinda sowing either goodness or pain, and reaping more of the state in which you started from---good or bad. 

Though it's much easier said than done. And my box changes states of consciousness by the hour.

Empty your box. Fill it with love.

Somehow that will equate to an instant party!

Maybe it's the space that makes parties worth having. Without the spaces, there's no reason to come together in the first place. No party worth having because we are so sickly, grumpy, and tired, and needy, and instead of endless peopling, and parties, and churching, and meetings---we would all be better off taking a nap, communing with nature, taking a cleansing salt bath, listening to soothing music, watching the stars, sitting utterly still, and alone. And when, and if we did come together, it would be out of the fullness we that we found by being empty.

Then we would teach each other whatever we learned in our solitude just by being together. It seems that if this is not the case, and you're not coming from a place of spaciousness, and you go into the world in a hungry manner, you're just robbing yourself and everyone else of life---trying to get from a place of object, to spirit---When it's spirit that breathes life into creation. 

Not the other way around. When you realize this, when you get with this, if you decide to be with people, it comes more out of a place of realizing that there is nothing a person can give you, no thing to be obtained, only very small moments of spaciousness to be shared.

  Everything seems a lot less serious, and a little bit silly, and not as important. There's nothing to get.  Only everything to be given, if that's what you decide. Then your being in the world is more of an act of service, than a getting. And what you give, is only a small portion of what someone must really get in their own communion with stillness.

If we really got with the empty spaces, the canvas in which life exists, the blank spaces between the words, the pauses between the notes of music, the breath, the little gaps, and empty spacious pouches where there's no-thing, life would be richer. Our relationships with ourselves, and others would be meaningful, and real, and on point. Where we are all connected on a level of spirit. So we don't always have to be nose to nose with one another all day.

 
When you really get with stillness, and meditation, it feels like you're spending time with God. Something not definable by the human mind, or with human words. But when you do find that space, it creates space inside you, and you find a fullness that nothing else can fill.

If we really knew this secret, I don't think we would be in such a hurry to fill our boxes, nor race to the finish line to get our boxes decorated, and garnished and manicured, stamped and labeled, sent off ready for another porch to arrive at.

 Yet we are schooled to fill our boxes from childhood as fast as we can, to get ahead of the other box fillers, and every moment something new is added so that no space is left untouched. Every box properly labeled, and packed into its designated box pouch.

Every awkward, empty space, or lull in a conversation is usually quickly covered up by flicking out a cell phone, or turning on a screen. No moment is left to chance. There are no cracks or holes where the light can shine through.

Our souls are stacked to the brim with information, every itty-bitty, teeny weenie crack is stuffed with labels, judgments, objects, pursuing a solid identity our ego can decorate daily, like a gaudy Christmas tree so much so that no original green is visible because it is so heavily laden with decorations, adding solidity to ourselves, to our spaces, to our lives. Unless it gets so heavy that grace, disguised as wind, tips it over, and the tree is uncovered by sheer weight of its collected burden.

No space left spacious. 

No silence left silent. 

No bit of ground not covered with something.

No person undefined. No child unlabeled.

No mystery in even God. Or Heaven. Or each other. 

 Every hour planned.

Even the food we eat has no element of spaciousness in it, and then we eat so often and fill ourselves up, we have no idea what it is like to feel empty, so we can hear what the space has to tell us.

Our sky's are now filled with satellites, as if we are trying to compete with the stars, and outdo and fill the vast, real connection the heavens supply.

So much content. So little satiety. 

You would think that at this time when we celebrate freedom, how very few of us truly feel free, and are liberated from the bondage of or own minds, and its incessant need for control, and offer that freedom, in all its glory to those we meet.

So many meetings, activities, people, books, media, things to consume. So little real fulfillment.

You think we would all be full to the brim, and flooding over, not lonely, full of love and light, and a sense of satisfaction---if consuming and filling boxes with the buzzing of the world actually made us full on the inside.

But none of us ever usually stop, unless we are forced to, and when we do, we end up resisting the space, hating the stillness, and rejecting it because it is freighting. It is the ultimate guru, shining light into the attics of our soul, and our accumulated stacks of accomplishments our ego holds on to give us value. 

The space quietly reveals the truth no one wants to see. So the space usually never gets realized, unless we are ready to embrace it, or life demands we come to a screeching halt and we have to surrender to its message.

And if you really listen to its message. It transforms you.

It gives perspective. It makes you realize how beautiful the space is, and you start tossing stuff out of your box on purpose, events, parties, meetings, even family stuff that just adding a lot of noise.

The other night, after coming home from a long play practice, where we were are all learning an exuberant amount of dances in a small window of time, to the point I was not retaining anything, and feeling discouraged, wondering what I had gotten myself into, and reconsidering what I traded my space for? I lay in bed listening to the crickets.  The air was cool, and smelled like rain. 

The contrast was telling.

The busy evening, the dancing, the talking was  all fun enough, but no thing can ever compare to stillness. Nature reflects that. The rain's purity made me feel the rain in my own soul, my own crickets chirruping, my own cool wind, and the trees growing in my own space.

There is a pulse, and heartbeat of spirit in quietude, peace, and holiness in nature, that can only be heard if you are listening. It is the soul's housemaid, and can be bring you into a state of mediation that sweeps away accumulated box clutter.

I couldn't help but think that I enjoyed this bit of quiet alone, more than even all the days events.

I never thought that I would come to a point in my life where stillness, and my time meditating---emptying my box, would be more desirable that filling it. That even with all the interesting things you can do, places you can go, stuff you can accumulate, there is no comparison to the peace found in the empty spaces of life. It fills you up, where most of our doing will impoverish you from yourself. 

It makes me feel a bit like a tree, or a rock, or a stream, or a sunset. Not that interesting to the people that I used to vibrate with.  The more space you let in, the more a part of earth you become---quiet, serene, and not something people want to spend too much time in, because it doesn't have edges, labels, nor can it be defined, and put on a shelf.  Everyday there's a different sunset, every day different weather, and different clouds form. Every day there's  an unknowable spaciousness dangerousness that is real, sometimes intense, isn't always fun, or safe, or knowable. Nor does it talk in words. It speaks in a unique language of emptiness.

We are afraid of the space, and earth, and sky. And shield ourselves from it. And mostly crawl inside our cramped boxes to stay away from the stillness.

And in doing so we shut out the voice of God.

“Silence is the language of God,
all else is poor translation.”― Rumi

 Rarely do we listen to that silence and hear that voice. It is a sermon that is more powerful than any human words. 

Silence.

It's very interesting to try silence out, especially in conversations. You know if you are in an okay place with someone when you can be silent with them and not feel that awkwardness---just enjoy sharing a space with someone, no need to fill it with anything.

Then if and when you decide to create, or talk or sing, or dance on the canvas of life, though you may not be as busy, nor invested in your creations as before, it feels more alive, and fulfilling, because you're not doing it to get anything at all. You are just creating because it's more spontaneous, and comes out of your stillness, like rain, or wind, or birds chirruping, or kittens purring. It is an act of love, born from love itself. Therefore all need is gone, and your action is pure.

Stuff falls away.

People's conditional games are now clearly glaring, and you no longer want to play them.

Conversations die.  

Parts of yourself you used to hold up and value, shed like a snakeskin.

You outgrow the old.

You don't have anything to prove. No competition = no competitors. 

It feels a little bit like a death. 

But a good one.  Where you mourn a false deity you once served---your ego, and the egos that held you under bondage in the name of goodness.

You don't have anymore shiny gold bricks. Nor do you have stories telling of your pursuit of them.

No gold bricks means people who used to like to be around you to get a piece of the "gold brick" also falls away.

The only gift you get is the one you give, and it is a gift of being in the present moment its self.  Seeing the space, being the space, and bringing that beauty in this eternal now.

We are all just little vessels of light moving around in cardboard boxes, pretending that the stuff we put inside, and the labels we acquire is who we are.

All the while it is the space that is the treasure.

Space.

It is beautiful.  The sooner we find out, the better. The more people think you have something in your box that they don't, that you possess something valuable, they want your box, and think it's had a golden childhood, and perfect pain free safe boxed-life.

They sometimes see small fragments of light shining out through the battered cracks of your box and think, something really interesting is going on in that box.

Something...

 So, yeah, you want to look like you're having too much fun. Have an empty box. Be empty and real with another person, and people will wonder what's inside. They'll think you're got a party going on. Who knows, maybe you do.

And they'll want to know the secret.

Then they will scratch their head when you open your box, and let them look inside, and they find....

                                  Just an empty box.