I think the entry below was a premonition of the past and what was yet to come. When I wrote this I was still living in Massachusetts and was about to begin a short stint as the Interim Town Planner in West Warwick, Rhode Island. I had been taking the Master Gardener classes at the University of Rhode Island Extension Service and still lived in Fall River. I had become a Master Gardener in Massachusetts the previous year. We wouldn’t be moving to Florida for another six months. I was offered the job as the permanent Town Planner but turned down a salary of $45,000 a year to move to Boynton Beach, Florida to become the Assistant Planner making $32,000. We moved to Florida in May 1995. More on that move as the story unfolds.
Finding new patterns that lead to places where new beginnings and endings are simply waiting. The previous entry describing the weeds in my yard needing to be removed setting the stage for grass to grow is emblematic of our lives. Removing those things that do not reflect the path we need to follow allowing what we want to flourish. (see above) New growth of grass will fill in where the weeds were pulled.
Beginnings and endings don’t always follow what we think we need at the moment. Our environment and situation often dictate how we respond with something we don’t now understand simply waiting for us to respond. The way ahead never appearing in a straight line, but as a circle. Events keep reappearing until we finally say ok, what is this telling me. What needs to change first is how we see ourselves responding that is conducive to our best interests. Everything appearing continuously as though in a circle, repeating old habits until they disappear.
It is what nature does and the essence of what Taoism has always been. The circle of life is not just us… the circle is reflective of all things found in nature. In popular culture we think of the movie The Lion King and the song. The Circle of Life is found all over the globe as Indigenous peoples have always acknowledged the importance of our lives being reflective of what we find in nature. I am reminded of the prayer circles of the Hopi and Navajo and the Sioux. Stonehenge in England, we have visited also comes to mind. They knew instinctively that man was universal and simply a part of something much bigger than themselves and saw themselves as guardians of all things found in nature. That nothing remains the same, dies, changes and is reborn into something greater than before. That it is the eternal spirit that remains to grow into something new.
My Travels with Lieh Tzu / Interpolations along the Way
Introduction – Your Writing becomes You
5. Coming Full Circle
Walking in circles. Searching for references in the passing windows and sidewalks. Looking for things you recognize from the times you came this way before. The 
street ahead but a reminder of where you have been and places you have yet to see. Walking in circles. Keeping to yourself. Lost in the memories of who you thought you were when you were once considered someone important.
Forever moving ahead. Finding new patterns that lead to places where new beginnings and endings are simply waiting. As your footsteps are heard coming around again. Now running in circles. The soles of your shoes are worn with a certain knowledge of places and things important before. But now lost in the moment never to be found again. What was once seen as inevitable is now becoming only a distant memory.
Keeping to a steady pace. Knowing distances are but to be traveled if the journey is worth taking. As your breath, your inner chi, keeps everything to an even keel. Finding a rhythm is needed only for the long run. Peaks and valleys ebbing and flowing. Both coming and going with a certainty inevitable as a clean finish.
Walking in circles again. Ultimately getting nowhere except back to beginnings to be found again and again. What was important found along the Way in the end is only what you find you can carry in memories you savor and forget as you keep moving forward. Walking in circles. With no beginnings or endings.
Only time fleeting away. As you have now come full circle to where you were when you began. Nothing more ‑ nothing less. But eternally grateful to the end. 12/15/94
Number five of one hundred fifty-eight entries.
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