the TV show

.
For the third day in a row, the dawn comes up pale blue and clear from end to end. Looking into a sky like that, it is hard to pay it much mind. There is no contrast, no point of reference, no excitement ... none of the dazzling or delightful clouds that float and shape-shift. It's a little like looking at a TV that's off.

When things are the same, people get agitated or confused or bored: They know instinctively that things change and yet this blue sky is the same. In the army, everyone wears the same clothes, day in and day out. In the zendo, everyone wears a robe. And each morning the employee seeks out a different tie or skirt, a change for what the mirror tells us is the same -- this blue, blue sky -- but different.

It is hard to face up to the fact that there is something that doesn't change. Not intellectually or emotionally, but really -- really, there is something that doesn't change in our lives, some cloudless blue sky.

Part of the difficulty, of course, is that the moment we say something doesn't change, we are cruisin' for a bruisin' because, of course, everything changes. Running around and spouting snuggly words like "god" and "oneness" and "love" ... well, if blue sky laughed, I imagine it must snicker fiercely.

What is it that is the same but will not accede to any notion of same-ness? What is the same but different ... and does not accede to difference either? What is the principle that cannot be grasped and yet cannot be escaped? What is it that, despite all the mystical and religious maneuvering, is at peace ... that is solid as a rock and yet when we try to sit on it, we fall flat on our asses?

Just now, on the porch, beneath the blue, blue sky, I could hear a flock of Canada geese somewhere in the distance. A schoolgirl with a backpack passed by, talking on a cell phone. And on the porch, some old fart nitwit conjures up words to evoke something ... to turn on the TV.

It never changes.

Time for breakfast.
.