submission

Give in, to submit, does not mean giving up. Rumi has a poem about the chick pea and cooking which I have used as so much as a metaphor for life. The chick pea climbs to the top of the boiling pot, and the chef beats it down again and again with a spoon. Finally the chick pea's nature is revealed, its basic form is transformed into something edible and it thanks the chef for helping it reveal its mystery. This is life, this is the transforming power of love and even of anger, of sorrow. It transforms us into another form, an edible form, more palatable, more accessible. If love does not transform, and its cousin anger, does not activate, we lie there, a hard seed. And so this has been my challenge throughout life, to be strong, and to be willing to transform for love, for sorrow, and yes, for anger. I have and do, hold back out of fear. And yet, to grow, to be palatable, for my vegetable love to become edible to my lover, for my anger to transform it into the ashes of a fertile soil, for my sorrow to rain upon the future, I have to let go. And it is hard. Wine transforms, with a price. Music helps the transition, but lamaze like, I breathe through the hard times, and the transformation sometimes needs help. Yelling, loving, sighing, whispers of the past espressed help to move all of us forward into new love and yes, anger, and sorrow. You cannot only have one, it is a sacred trinity of emotion that I struggle with. In the confessional, in the last suppers and first mornings of our communion of souls I want to be that chick pea, expertly managed, submitted into my new self. And, I too, am a chef, I also have that transforming power for someone else. This is the great mystery, we all submit, we all give into the hope that, despite the fear, we can move ourself into the next realm.