Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost (1874 –1963)
This time of year, things get busy. There is a palpable hustle and bustle as “doing” mode kicks in. And yet the purpose of the “doing” is to create memories that we can truly only imprint on our hearts from a state of being.
This learning has become crystal clear to me recently after breaking my ankle this month tumbling off a cobblestone curb in Italy. I use this experience as a window into understanding, but any personal challenge will do in place of mine to highlight our sometimes unhealthy relationship with doing versus being. In a split second, I could not walk, carry anything, go anywhere, or help anyone physically. I went from the hustle and bustle to a place of needing to STAY where I was in an instant.
And then I remembered…
A few years ago when we were teaching English at an orphanage/Ashram in Indonesia, we were invited to a meditation with the monk in charge just before our tenure was coming to an end.
He asked us, “Why do we meditate?” as we were still trying to push our knees to the cool earth and “get the pose” right. We answered, “To become more relaxed people.” He smiled peacefully and said, “That is a good place to start but it won’t take you down the path you seek. Walk with me.” We wound through the beautifully raked paths listening to his wisdom…
As long as you are focused on becoming someone you feel you are not currently such as “a more relaxed or connected person versus what you are today,” you are doing and not being.
In a state of doing, you have many ideas about how things should be. You then compare them to how things are, and you create actions to close this gap. All of your energy then is monitoring progress and adjusting accordingly whether it is a personal health goal, building a house, or simply doing the laundry.
There is nothing wrong with a doing state, but you can’t access a doing state and being state at the same time much like you can’t feel love and fear at the same time.
As we wandered along the jungle path, all of us deep in thought, he said something that shifted how we see the world forever…
The problem is there is always so much to do, (he lifted his hand to show us the farm on the horizon where he cultivates all the food to feed 30 orphans in the jungle.) Once the self becomes involved, you see, there is a recurring sense of dissatisfaction because our mind is focused on processing the gap between how we need things to be and how they actually are. Rehearsing this discrepancy will take us further from alignment and success. It will do this over and over unless we interrupt this pattern.
One of our kids said, “Sometimes I like working toward a goal, does that mean I am in a state of doing?”
As his swaying tangerine robe brushed the gravel path, we followed, knowing we were on a path to a new outlook. He stopped and turned toward us, to answer our son’s question:
Whenever there is a sense of have to, must, should, or need to, a state of doing is probably behind the wheel. However…
A state of Being is not a vacuum in which all activity has to stop. In other words, he joked, it does not have to be a monk in a tangerine robe sitting on a hillside meditating. Doing or being are both states of mind that can accompany any activity or lack of activity. But you must choose every moment as one is not possible in the presence of another.
This learning came back to me as I sat in our apartment, with my cast on my leg, rehearsing the discrepancy between what this time was supposed to be and what it is now. I realized that a state of doing isn’t inherently bad, but it is addicting. I was in a state of doing when I fell, preparing for three editorial assignments in three different countries we have always wanted to explore in the fall. For weeks after I got my cast on, this stubborn state of doing kept volunteering for a job it couldn’t do until I surrendered to being and STAYING present. It felt like quitting, but it was quite the opposite.
When people hint at the fact that it may be easy for us to speak to the importance of being versus doing from these beautiful spots around the world, we smile peacefully remembering where we were when we learned the difference. We were sleeping on a dirt floor at an orphanage in the Indonesian jungle. The stories of these children were as tragic as your mind can fathom and yet it is the place we felt peace in every smile, every mango we plucked from a tree, every bat that swooped in and out of our hut, every class we taught, every breath we took of the sweet sticky air. It is a choice. In a state of being the mind has “nowhere to be but here” and can focus fully on STAYING here now. We can switch off doing mode by simply choosing to STAY:
STAY in the tranquil darkness or the blinding light
STAY in the contagious laughter or the flowing tears
STAY at the comforting table or picnic under the stars
STAY in the embrace or relax in cozy solitude
STAY in the meandering forest or let the city skyline envelop your senses
STAY at the open window or give thanks for the safety of the closed door
STAY under the covers or enjoy the brisk wind on your face
STAY in prayer or sing your thanks from the rooftops
STAY in the decision or just take the leap of faith
STAY with the moment and know the moment will STAY with you extending itself across borders, seas, or generations. The moment will STAY as long as you do.
We must remember that to STAY is not effective as a judgment or a command: to STAY positive, or STAY calm, or STAY focused. STAYING present is an intensely personal choice and once what we should do bubbles up or we let it be introduced by others, the moment passes.
Not to worry, the monk told us as we arrived back at our hut, allowing yourself to STAY is always waiting for you and it is a very natural state, but you have to relinquish the doing even for a moment to come into your full being.
As Robert Frost said, “Nothing gold can STAY,” and it is autumn’s hardest hue to hold. We have a choice and what a privilege it is to have the freedom to decide. Whether something is broken, and things feel hard, or the momentum is strong, and everything is moving in the right direction, are we choosing to assess the present, the future, and the past, relating to each through a veil of concepts? Or are we choosing to STAY in a direct, immediate, intimate experience of the present?
It was nearing Thanksgiving in the USA when we were leaving the jungle in Indonesia, and we felt by being there we understood gratitude in its fullness perhaps for the first time. What a contrast, having fewer comforts than ever before, and yet feeling an abundance like we have rarely felt.
As these lessons rush over me, I take a deep breath and for the first time since becoming stationary due to my injury, I allow myself to STAY, and I am overcome with joy for the lessons we have gathered from these teachers around the globe.
Since we will be far away from our boys and our extended family and friends this Thanksgiving, these lessons envelop us and make us feel closer to ourselves. From that state of being, you are all with us in this place of gratitude and we hope you will STAY a while.
“So dawn goes down to day” and perhaps the gold can STAY, in the fullness of this moment.
