Canal Tao #04

Canal Tao #04— When the Water Is Left Alone

For two days the canal was muddy.

Boats had been coming through, engines churning up the bottom, water levels dropping, everything stirred into a pale brown soup.

Now the locks on both sides of the pound are chained shut.

No boats.

No propellers.

No constant disturbance.

And already the water has cleared.

This morning I could see little silver fish moving underneath the surface, maybe ten or fifteen centimetres long, rising up through the water and disappearing again.

They were probably there the whole time.

I just couldn’t see them.

There’s something very Taoist about that.

We often respond to confusion by doing more. Thinking harder. Poking at the problem. Stirring everything up because surely action must be better than stillness.

But sometimes clarity doesn’t need to be created.

It just needs the disturbance to stop.

Leave the water alone long enough and the mud settles by itself.

Apparently the same principle does not apply to walking a cat.

Merlin disappeared into the bushes halfway through the dog walk, so Sabre and I are now practising an entirely different branch of Taoism called accepting that the cat will do whatever the hell the cat wants.

We’ll wander home.

He’ll find us.

Probably.

Some things become clear when you stop stirring them. Other things are cats.

Silveness