“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in,” writes Leonard Cohen in the chorus of his song, “Anthem.” I love that notion.

"The good news is things change.... The bad news is things change. Can you? How quickly can you accept change? How gracefully, how even-temperedly can you pivot and twirl, move forward and step backward? Or are you paralyzed by obstinacy? (Karen Maezin Miller, Momma Zen, Trumpeter, Boston, 2007. 48.)

"Exhaustion is not a strategic spot from which to defend your turf. It's not the best place to start drawing lines and setting limits. It's not the prime state of mind for calculations of any sort. It's not a power position. And therein lies the extreme benevolence of it. Be tired. Be so tired you will let the troubles and turmoil wash over you. Be so tired that you stop measuring the length of your hardship and stop looking for an end. Let the encroachments advance. Lose ground.... (G)ive way." (ibid. 53-54)

So it is my present challenge to regain balance and regain balance and again and again and again. When we experience normal health, we make the subtle changes to retain our physical balance when we're vertical without a conscious need to pay attention. And physical balance is only the beginning. Everything requires balance. Everything.

Our breath, also, usually flows, ever changing, without our conscious need to pay attention. Meditation time creates an intentional space from which to pay attention to what is usually ordinary and under the conscious threshold. Meditation creates a new awareness, creates a new brain-wave pattern, according to researchers who have studied the question.

A simple, daily time of quiet to observe the changing flow of breath will change one's view of the world.

The cracks in my way of being, showing in the guise of illness and aging, allow my life to flood with the light of being. Just being, and through the cracks, ever changing light comes in. Too exhausted to resist change, I let encroachments advance, I lose ground, I give way. Drama quickly overwhelms me, does not entice me. Let my peaceful soul shine from this, my place; let peace radiate into the world around me.

Will such a simple, do-little-and-give-way stance keep me out of trouble?