Feeding my fires

The sky has struggled all day between great calm and storm, unable to decide which way to go. But its fight is over now, and a great quiet evening has settled over this city. I feel it. And it makes me think that perhaps I'm about to hear a good thought.

"In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us," says Rilke. With me it is often right in the middle of the difficult that I feel my joys most intensely. Perhaps this is because there's a certain pleasure in feeling challenge tap the unused in me, in being told, "begin to notice all that you are." It's a curious thing -- as if the darkness were a backdrop for a flash of light.

There is a part of me -- an always present part - that sits back and watches the struggles in my life as if they were some separate happening. That part is such a trusting heart, so full of expectancy, so aligned with some great order that she is never really afraid. I like her very much, and always wish she were pusher; I'm forever wishing she would sweep into may dark dramas on her wings of transparent light and vanish all things unlike her -- but she refuses. She is quiet and sure, and sits still waiting for me to stop and notice her. For me to see her is essential in order to call her forth. So it is with all light, I guess.

I believe there is a great richness within all of us, a wealth just waiting to be born. It's curious how so much of that richness is born because of struggle. Lots of times I wonder why this is so. I wonder why I don't seek light until it is dark. I would like to be wise enough to realize continually that even when I think I've sufficient light around me, there is more. But too often, I am follish; I warm my hands on my fire until it's a mere flicker, and then, just before it dies completely, I stoke it and feed it and call it back to life. What would happen if I fed it continually, even when it was blaxing with a light so extraordinary that it burned my cheeks and made me squint for all the brightness?