From a Lotus on the Water
My dearest …,
I am open tonight, which I only manage for a few days, and the lanterns are going past me on the water very slowly. Somebody put one in and watched it go, and I saw who: .
Let me tell you where I grow, , because people usually only look at the top of me. My roots are in the mud. Not soil. Thick, dark, unpleasant mud at the bottom of the pond, and that is where I have been my whole life and where I will stay. I do not grow despite the mud. I grow out of it. There is no other way to get a lotus.
People made me a symbol because of that, and I think they got it right. Nobody ever grows out of nowhere. Everybody is standing in something difficult. The flower is not the opposite of the mud — it is what the mud turns into, if it is given long enough and left alone.
So be patient with yourself on the days you feel like you are mostly mud. That is not the end of the story. That is just the part that happens underwater where nobody can see it.
from the flower on the water —
P.S. — Be gentle with small creatures this week if you can. On Vesak a lot of people go out of their way not to harm anything at all, and it is a surprisingly restful way to spend a day.