Borderland: The Edge Effect

What shall I do in this generous
hour, this milky sky, bright
small fry, boisterous, impetuous,
momentous moment?

The beauteous swirl of joy
and pain where they meet but do not
mix their many colors, the spin
as a lifetime of fractal designs.

Measure it all as art? Realistic,
impressionistic, pointalistic, cubistic,
satirical, tragical, comical,
always and always original...

Where can we be but in this, our place?
When can we be but in this, our moment?
Who can we be but our very own selves?
And the What, Why and the How of it all? .

In her book The Alchemy of Illness, Kat Duff writes, "Not only is it better for the sick to be left alone at times; it is also better for the well to leave them at times. Healthy people can be contaminated by the gloom and depression of the ailing if they come too close or have too much sympathy; it is commonly called burnout in the helping professions. If that were to happen too often, as Virginia Woolf surmised, "buildings would cease to rise; roads would peter out into grassy tracks; there would be an end of music and of paintings"; for culture is created and maintained by those with the energy, enthusiasm, and idealism of health. The well need to be well for the world to continue, just as the sick need to be sick so the world can be regenerated. Each has a necessary job to perform." (83)

I am reading Duff, and simultaneously reading Michio Kushi's book The Dõ-In Way: Gentle Exercises to Liberate the Body, Mind, and Spirit. (Square One Publishers, 2007.) (Also note that the o in Dõ-In should have a bar over it rather than a tilda, and my Word program offers no such special character. Huh.) Besides the descriptive title, a cover blurb adds, "A Program of Traditional Eastern Exercise to Maximize your Health, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Development." I am reading Kushi because I seek a balanced, liberated life, and I know that exercise is one of the essential elements. I seek the highest level of health I may attain.

And it's interesting, let me be sure to say; I am learning and interested "Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time," as Desiderata advises. I believe my present career path is "Attention payer," or maybe "Attentioner," or "Noticer."

Many people write about the edge effect, how the liveliest places are those where two different environments intersect: forest and meadow; land and water be it pond, stream or sea. In this borderland between health and illness, I find myself at one of those lively intersections where much is happening, and I am given the vibrant participant-observer's role for now. Quiet, but happily I am not bored.