The Tao of Parasol

All out flat on my back. On this hot hot afternoon in june I was laying on one of the terrace benches, keeping as quiet as possible. On the other, equally self made wooden, bench Willemien was having her nap. Uphill on the forest road there was some traffic. But all around the world kept rather silent as if on a sunday morning. The heat preventing from making fuzz out of anything. I looked upward straight into the yellow parasol, saw the sun through the Oaktree leaves beside and sighed...

On the table my favorite books of and on Plotinus remained untouched. Only some mountain poems of Wang Wei and Meng Haoran could hold attraction for reading and musing. Meditating would not be the appropriate expression for my dozing on and off. As I shifted my view from Parasol to Oaktree Canopy, I remembered laying here for the first time. In June 2009. On that hot monday after visiting the GP down in town. I was coughing, out of breath then, very tired and had swollen legs.

“Serious heart failure,” the doctor had said after putting aside his stethoscope. Wanted me to take in for hospital-research. I was released on condition of medication, reducing high bloodpressure and drifting the waters out. That narrow escape was only temporarily.The life saving “open heart” surgery would follow some months later. But that was still unknown as I came home that monday, relieved, no longer hampered by that deep unrestfulness. I layed myself down on that terrace bench. I looked up seeing the the sunny sky though the rustling leaves and felt a deep inner peace. For the first time since years…Peace, no fear for dying.

I feel very fortunate and deeply grateful for being granted this extra term to enjoy all the Beauty of life together with Willemien and Mischa. Looking up into that parasol, I saw the Wheel Spokes from the Tao Te Ching:

Thirty spokes join at the hub:/ their use for the cart/ is where they are not./When the potters wheel makes a pot,/the use of the pot/is precisely where there is nothing, when you open doors and windows for a room,/ it is where there is nothing/that they are useful to the room./Therefore being is for benefit,/Nonbeing is for usefulness.