Canal Tao #06

Canal Tao 06— The Leaks That Keep the Balance

The locks are still chained shut.

Big signs say DO NOT USE, and nobody has passed through for three days now.

But the water is still moving.

I’m standing by the lock watching it leak through the gates in a steady little stream.

Not a flood.

Not a failure.

Just a leak.

And the strange thing is, the water level in the pound hasn’t really changed.

So if water is constantly escaping through this lock, then somewhere above us, another lock must be leaking almost the same amount back in.

And the one above that.

And the one above that.

Five or six locks stepping down through the landscape, each one losing a little water, each one receiving a little from somewhere else.

Nothing is sealed.

Nothing is perfect.

And yet the level holds.

We tend to think balance means nothing is being lost.

No energy wasted. No mistakes. No cracks. No leaks.

But nature seems less interested in perfection.

Sometimes balance is simply this:

Something leaves.

Something arrives.

The system adjusts.

And for a while, everything holds.

Stability is not the absence of movement. It is movement finding its balance.