Heigh Ho

Psalm 142
By the road that I am walking
they have hidden a snare for me.

Numbers 24: 1-13
“I summoned you to curse my enemies. But here, you have done nothing but bless them — three times already!"

Romans 8: 12-17
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to bring you back again into fear...

Matthew 22: 15-22
“You hypocrites! Why are you trying to trap me?

The Way:
Snares, contrariness, fear, and traps. That’s samsara, is what that is. The literal meaning of “samsara” is “continuous flow.” If you want a synonym for ‘samsara’ maybe “flux” would do.

Necks in a noose, getting the opposite of what we expect, being betrayed by freedom, and hearing our own double-dealing words echo in our ears. There’s no escaping it, until we stop trying to escape it. That’s when all the sticky tangles just dissolve without even a sizzle. Where did they go? Who cares?
There are so many clues embedded in our language that tell us what we already know:
“There ya go.” —  “It is what it is.” — “Even so.” — “Can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” — “It’s a catch 22” — “You can’t get there from here.” — “What goes around comes around.”

 We get it!” — No, shut up already, we get it!

The Futile Flux; the Vile Vortex; the Muddled Maelstrom; the Whimsical Whirlpool; the Elemental Eddy: constantly changing and yet never changing at all. We can struggle and gasp, flailing around and complaining, or we can “go with the flow” and align ourselves with the ‘current’ moment. (You may groan here, if you like…)

All along the trail there are hidden snares, and even though we know they’re there, we still get snagged.

We want curses and we get blessings; we want blessings and we get curses. Who decides whether we deserve what we get?

We escape captivity into fearful freedom, and freedom betrays us back into contented captivity. We can’t win for losing.

Our own words circle back to embarrass us, but we keep right on flimflamming because we are so good at putting one over on ourselves.


Heigh Ho.