Decrease Combined with Sincerity

mountain above, lake below

Beaconsfield, Quebec — Photo by Jonathan Potter ⓒ 2023

"Decrease combined with sincerity"
is what this morning's I Ching reading
suggests I meditate upon.
Canada the mountain above,
America the lake below,
Myself the evaporation of

liquid water into drifting clouds
heavy with the bounty of the rain
to be transubstantiated
into the gifts of grapes and wine
and, flowing with the river, love
pouring into the simplicity

of the vast and mysterious sea.
Not hesitating to help when help
is needed — but with sensitive
awareness — is an element
of this release of assertion.
But to do so with one's dignity

preserved — a stranger in a strange land —
is also paramount when one's home
is no longer separate but joined
at the culmination of a 
long journey together that ends
precisely at a new beginning.

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