We Are the Water!

I’ve been told throughout the years
I’ve spent as Bill, to take great care
lest I think too highly of myself,
lest I grow too big an ego.
“Who do you think you are?”
has been the question that reins me in.
But now I know that the ego itself
is the author of that question.
Ego depends on flaws to keep its job
so it creates them where they don’t exist.

Spiritual nabobs insist that we must be “vessels,”
through which the Divine can move.
I believed that once, but no longer.
It is an ego trick supreme.
We are not the vessels,
we are the Water!

I am the Water, not the channel.
I am the Water, not the lake bed.
I am the Water flowing always home.
Obstacles have no meaning.
They are simply terrain through which
my essence leads me.

I do not have a message to share.
I am the message, and each moment
of my life is the telling of that message.
Does that seem grandiose?
Only at first glance,
for you, too, are the message,
as is the robin bobbing around the field,
and the mycelia below the surface
connecting things together –
we’re all the message.

If you ego insists that it’s in charge,
smile as you would to a frightened child,
then give it something to play with.
Let it build a bridge, design a computer,
paint a picture, write a book.
Let it teach a class or cook a meal,
and feed 5,000 people.
Just don’t let it push you.
Be pulled instead by the power out ahead.
You are the Water, always, ever,
and flowing is your nature.
All the rest is just terrain, interesting,
but ultimately nothing worth a sweat.

We will find our way despite whatever seeks to hinder.
We will flow around or over,
tunnel under or patiently wait
until an opening appears.
We will nurture all we touch
by the very nature of who and what we are.
Someday, of course, we will reach a point
where who we thought we were will say,
“Sorry, I can go no further,”
and we will laugh and thank that person for the ride,
then evaporate and rain down on the other side.

We are the Water.