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Angles against lavender sky
Flung far across heaven's vault.
Unfettered, swallows
Circle back to the nest.
Swallows are famous for their daring speed and the unpredictable path that they take in flight. Yet no matter how far they fly, they circle back to their nests.
The idea of returning is significant for all of us. We must work, explore, travel, and make our achievements in life. No matter how much we strain and how wide we wander, we all need some lodestone, some center from which to operate. For some of us, this is a place, a home. For others, it is merely withdrawal into our own hearts.
Followers of Tao believe that there is a core spirit to which each of us should return. This core spirit is increasingly obscured by our own thoughts and the complexity of civilization. All education, while a necessary evil, is a stain upon the primal soul. Therefore, returning is a process of simplification that throws off the unnecessary problems of socialization. One gradually peels back the layers and makes one's way back to the unsullied, pure inner person. The time to do this is long, and one needs a great deal of guidance and self-cultivation to achieve it, but until one returns to the natural state, one cannot truly hope to be one with Tao.
returning
365 Tao
Deng Ming-Dao
Daily Meditations
A Great Kite
By Wang Ani
No. JKG01-002
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a note about this meditation:
Each year when I transpose this I am reminded that our nesting swallows
will be here soon! We have nesting boxes for many birds in and around
the meadow and each year; swallows return to nest in the one closest to
us. Each summer we watch them fly those wonderful loops and dives,
catching the mosquitoes and other small flying insects to take back to
the little ones - then we watch to see them teach the wonders of flying
to their hatch. Spring is coming! The swallows return soon!
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