Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;
it is on the hole in the center that
the use of the cart hinges.Shape clay into a vessel;
it is the space within that makes it useful.
Carve fine doors and windows,
but the room is useful in this emptiness.The usefulness of what is
depends on what is not.~ Wayne Dyer version
I find this a beautiful, thought-provoking verse of the Tao Te Ching.
It is so easy to go through life only focussing on what is able to be seen and touched, as opposed to the invisible things that have so much power, yet are often under-appreciated.
This verse is both so incredibly deep and so incredibly simple.
The usefulness of what is depends on what is not
This stanza of the verse is the one that has echoed in my mind over the past week.
I remember once in my year 10 art class when my art teacher piled a stack of chairs haphazardly on top of a table, then he said “draw the space between the chairs”.
For a moment my classmates and I were baffled.
What did he mean? Draw the space? How can you draw something you can’t see?
But eventually I got it.
The space is what makes a chair a chair, just as Lao-tzu says about a clay pot or a wheel.
And in drawing the spaces we could see, the chairs would suddenly appear on our paper.
The ability to draw and be an artist depends on being able to see what is not as much as what is.
Later in my drawing experience I was to learn the eraser was as much a tool in my grey-lead drawings as the pencils were. Erase a small part of the picture and suddenly a nose looks more like a nose, lips look more like lips.
As I reflect on it here, when you are drawing or painting something to try to make it look like what you are seeing – whether it be a face, tree or sunset – you are actually focussing more on what is not than what is.
What do I mean?
Particularly when drawing a face (my main area of expertise), it is the shadows – the absence of light; what is not – that you draw on the page in different depths of colour or gradients of black. It’s the shadows and the space/lighter spots that make a picture a picture.
The usefulness of a drawing/painting depends on what is not.
The space within, The space between
I’ve pondered this verse a great deal and could write so much on it.
As Wayne Dyer points out, it encourages us to really get present to our “invisible life force that eludes your five senses”.
He suggests the main access to this is seeking and exploring our “inner nonbeingness” by spending time in silence and meditation and by allowing.
Your inner nonbeingness isn’t a separate part of you, so seek that mysterious center and explore it. Perhaps think of it as a space contained by your physical self, from which all of your thoughts and perceptions flow into the world. Rather than trying to have positive, loving notions, simply be sensitive to the essence of your beingness. The way of the Tao is to allow rather than to try. Thus, allow that essential center of pure love to activate your unique usefulness. Allow thoughts that emerge to enter your physical self and then leave. Allow and let go, just like your breathing. And vow to spend some time each day just being attentive to the awesome power of your imperceptible vital essence” ~ Wayne Dyer, Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, p. 54.
Once again, my daughter was my greatest teacher in this process this week. Or perhaps I should say my relationship with my daughter was my greatest teacher.
We had had an argument over her desire for a smartphone and my insistence that she doesn’t need one because it is costly and very distracting.
We both retreated to our respective corners (our bedrooms) to cool down, and this is when I took a moment to assess what was really going on for me – and for her – to look beyond what was obvious; what could be seen, heard or felt.
I realised it wasn’t completely about the cost and the distracting elements a smartphone would involve. I realised it was about my own fears for my daughter’s health.
Considering the severe migraine-like headaches I get from even just looking at my smartphone (even texting causes facial pain immediately), I am aware more than most parents of the potential harmful effects of the electro-magnetic radiation that comes from mobile phones.
I also know the research that shows harmful effects to the brains of adults who use a mobile phone next to their ear, and the research/advice that children have softer skulls and, thus, are more susceptible to the negative effects of mobile phone EMR.
Frankly, I just don’t want my kid (or anyone else) to ever have to live the way I live at the moment, with constant pain (such an inadequate word!) from all EMR-emitting devices.
So before going into my daughter to try to talk through our different views, I took a moment to clear a space within myself so that the conversation was one of true equal communication and not dictatorial and fear-based.
I took time to remember what it was like at 12 to want to be just like everyone else, and how the old-fashioned mobile phone I’d given my daughter for emergencies was something that embarrassed her.
And I took time to acknowledge that my true objections towards a smartphone were more to do with fear for my daughter’s health than the cost/distraction aspects, although they are also valid.
THEN, after consciously creating a space for a true connected communication to take place, I knocked on her door and asked to talk to her.
From this space – this invisible void – we had a conversation. I was able to tell her my fears from a personal perspective and own them. I was able to see my daughter as a partner rather than the enemy, and vice versa.
Together, we explored ways that we could honour both our concerns, while reaching a point of compromise.
And within that space of peace, calm, connection and communication, it allowed us to do that.
It turns out the phone isn’t the main issue for my daughter wanting the smartphone either.
It’s the camera she wants more, as her iPod only has a forward facing camera (when the salesperson told me this 3 years ago I thought “yeah, that’s fine. Forward is normal right?! Like any other camera?” But NO, this is a forward-facing camera in the sense of it being selfie-only. Not good when you wanna take a normal photo!
So we came to a compromise to save up for a new iPod for her birthday in August and for me to change her SIM to my slightly cooler old Nokia phone with the QWERTY keyboard.
Without me taking the time to tune into my own inner goings-on – the unseen stuff – and then having the conversation with my daughter from a space of peace, calm and connection, we would still have been butting heads over this topic.
This incident showed me the power of the way I have learned to go inside myself to clear a space for a real communication to be possible.
Without a clear space that comes from no-judgement, there is no space for such communication to show up.
“It is the space within that makes it useful” … taking the time to clear that space is so important in our relationship with others and the relationship with ourselves.
The following quote from Brene Brown that showed up in my inbox today seemed to fit so well with what I was writing here. It is the opening up of “an emotionally clutter-free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question” that is so key to living a fulfilled live.
This verse made me think of the many things that are unsaid in our communication, but which have so much power. It also made me think of the way people can dominate relationships by not doing, by not taking action, and how powerful that can be in moulding the relationship – and in causing resentment from the other party.
Wayne Dyer mentions in his chapter on this verse that a composer once told him the spaces between musical notes are more important than the notes themselves. Without the spaces between, music would not be music. It would just be one long noise.
Without pausing within our day to be still, to look within and connect with our inner essence, our lives also become one long noise.
When we get caught up in the “busy, busy, busy” of life, we are merely distracting ourselves out of fear of what we may see, hear, feel if we take the time to quiet our mind and our body.
Sometimes getting in touch with our inner voice and essence is a very scary prospect. There is a huge abyss of the unknown sitting inside us that is like an unexplored wilderness.
It often feels safer to keep our lives busy and make excuses for not making space for stillness. I am very familiar with this path.
Realisation & A new commitment
Interesting that I’ve left this big realisation to the end of my post.
Two days ago I acknowledged something that I have long been resisting, and from that I have made a commitment that frankly scares the bajeebers out of me.
Every day, or at least every second, I question the path I’ve chosen with my online endeavours to earn an income. I question my sanity for continuing to pursue a career based around a device – the computer – that causes me migraines within seconds of sitting in front of it.
I spend almost 25% of my monthly income on just maintaining my body so that I can function – massages, chiropractic, kinesiology, yoga, etc.
But whenever I get to the point of saying “I can’t do this anymore” it doesn’t take me long to get back to the conclusion that if I don’t do this, “then what?”.
Living like a hermit like I did in the first years of the electrosensitivity is just not an option in my eyes anymore. Plus, I feel I’ve found my calling and now have a way, via the internet, to connect with thousands of people around the world while working from home and bringing up my child.
The other day I had one of my “I can’t keep doing this to myself” moments. And then it hit me!
IF I continue to choose to do this – literally inflict pain on myself daily – I need to commit to balancing that out with yoga and meditation, and other nurturing activities.
IF I’m truly serious about continuing this masochistic, “no-matter-what” pursuit of making a difference in the world, I need to get equally serious about nurturing and re-energising my body, mind and spirit.
My conclusion: I need to commit to doing the same number of hours of meditation, yoga and other activities to nurture my inner essence – and my outer shell – as I commit to activities that deplete my inner and outer spaces (my body, mind and spirit).
Even writing this scares me, but I feel a need to declare it and increase my accountability to myself and others. I am particularly good at keeping my word because I am traditionally a “pleaser” 🙂
So yoga and meditation are going to become as much a part of my day as writing blogs, building websites, building relationships over the internet and phone, and watching evening DVDs with my daughter.
Not just 10 minutes here and there. I’m talking BIG chunks of time. Equal to the amount of hours I expose myself to EMR.
I know that this commitment will have untold effects on my life. I am nervous. I fear not being able to follow through. I fear the restructuring of my habits and routine.
But I am stepping into the abyss because if I don’t, I won’t be able to continue doing what I love and what I feel is my calling in life.
Stay tuned my friends.
Keep Smiling
Louise
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