Balance

Friday, March 13, 2020

This morning, after hearing the latest bad news about the coronavirus, for some reason the idea of balance came to mind. At the age of 78, I now have some problems with balance, but it occurred to me this morning that the universe itself certainly knows how to keep its balance. If balancing is defined as a state of equilibrium where all forces are perfectly matched by equal opposing forces, then the universe is a master of the art of balancing. There are countless forces at work, but they all seem to offset each other perfectly. There are strong storms, but sunshine is just as strong. There’s sadness, but it’s always balanced, somewhere, somehow, and soon enough, by happiness. There’s sickness, but health enduringly flows onward all around it. There’s the sorrow of death everywhere we turn, but life is always there too, flourishing in its invincible way. For every dismal nightfall there’s a rousing sunrise. What all this means is that the universe is in perfect equilibrium, flawlessly poised, unassailably steady and stable. There is plenty of discord in the world, like the current coronavirus, but if we look closely, we will see that harmony always soon neutralizes it with its own powerful pull. At the end of the day, all that really exists is perfectly balanced forces cancelling each other out, thereby maintaining the eternal symmetry of things. Our old, old universe could definitely teach this 78-year-old a few things about keeping a strong, steady balance.

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SCENES OF BALANCE …

… from my walk in beautiful Elm Grove Cemetery this morning …

and here’s Delycia and lucky me on a walk earlier in the week.

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“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.” 
― Jelaluddin Rumi