Mystical Balance

 

                                              cape may sunrise


So few grains of happiness

measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.

The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.

from The Weighing by Jane Hirshfield


In these lines from  Jane Hirshfield’s beautiful and provocative poem, I cannot help but wonder: does happiness “weigh” more than darkness? Perhaps that is the wrong question, the physics question instead of the mystics’ one.

John O’Donohue relates dawn’s breaking and darkness as friends which coax one another. Certainly there is something wondrously “balanced” in the rhythms of day and night, rising and setting, which belies any measurement of quantity.

And so I am led to think of equanimity, that word of balance which is less about equal parts than balanced wholeness, integrity. Its potential is eternal and our power made possible is enough and more.


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