Things To Stew

Here's an idea to stew over--from the mouth of a zen master, to the ear of a friend, to me--an analogy for life. We are like kids sitting on our parents' lap driving a car. We have our hands on the wheel so we think we're really driving, but we don't realize that our parent has a hold of the wheel as well. According to this zen master, that parent is our higher self, already aware of the path we are on and what we need to get out of this life. Sometimes it is best to just let go of the wheel and let things happen as they're supposed to happen. Just be at peace and the universe will happen naturally.

And in honor of the late great poem Seamus Heaney, here's one of my favorite poems by him:
Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park or capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.