In a conversation with my sister a couple of nights ago I was telling her that I think I am 50/50. 50% calmly and completely trusting of the universe and 50% terrified and uncertain of it. I was telling her this in more personal detail, but that is the gist. Sometimes, actually often, I think I am bi-polar. I adore the gift of life; I want out – each feeling is enormous, and each in equal measure. I dare not elaborate.

The yin/yang symbol is maybe the most true, powerful, telling, strong image we have of the universe. I was thinking of it strongly as I drove home toward the glorious blue ridges of the Blue Ridge Mountains, lit by the light of dusk. The mountains, like the lilies, “toil not, neither do they spin” or want. Here I come; toiling, spinning, wanting. Having looked squarely into the eye of the deepest poverty imaginable in Kenya, I come home, with everything I need at arm’s length, and am worried about the next stages of survival.

I feel bi-polar, swinging between poles.  But, in this world of opposites, isn’t that true of the universe? If I am bi-polar am I one with the universe?

On the one hand, this is a ridiculous and rhetorical reflection on the symbol, on the other hand…