Legacy

Editor’s Note

And still, after all this time,

The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe Me.”

Look what happens with

A love like that,

It lights the Whole Sky.

Hafiz

I’m writing now at the close of the day of this summer’s solstice, which happens to feature the simultaneous arrival of our sun’s significant other—a fully radiant and vivacious moon. Both the physical and the metaphysical shine with an unmistakable presence this day and evening. This is the time within our solar year that calls our attention to the Light that fills the sky and feeds our planet’s many bodies and souls.

And how generous, inspiring and mysterious it is! Especially as we note that the Light itself is invisible to our visual sense, that is, until it meets and reflects off of another body. A similar enigma might be shared with legacy, as well, in that much of what we each “leave behind” has little recognizable impact until it is received, taken in, and reflected by another. Yet are we not called to radiate something life-giving and true regardless of our ability to see the result? To be like the sun as it speaks through Hafiz’s refined sensibility, simply living our Love, and not looking back. How that might, indeed, light up the sky!

There’s a story from the Taoist tradition that sheds further light on the subtle dimensions of these matters, taking aim at what might serve as a useful foundation for a fuller embodiment of legacy. It tells of a seasoned master potter:

A prince was riding through a village in ancient China and stopped to watch an old man, a potter at his wheel. The pots were of exceptional beauty and the prince, admiring the fine workmanship, asked the potter how he was able to create pots of such excellence. 

The old man looked at the prince and said, “Oh, you are looking at the mere outward shape. What I am forming lies within. I am interested only in what remains after the pot is broken.”

What remains of a life, after the body leaves? What do we generate in the wake of our passage through life, as life? What are we living now, leaving now, as we make our way through each day and night? Such are the considerations of Legacy and the contemplations of each of the articles that follow.

Wishing you a Joyful Solstice renewal… may your Love shine!

Joseph Jastrab