Life is Mystery. We may think that it is math and physics, hard and immovable, but in fact it is poetry and song, liquid and dynamic. Life is the living, breathing water in which we swim. Even just a single strand of our hair reflects all the shimmering colors of the rainbow as it flows through the living water.

But we don’t know this. We can’t see it. In sadness and confusion, we seek out a wise sage on top of a high mountain and ask, “Where is the beauty? Where is the joy?” And she answers, “You are the beauty. You are swimming in the joy. You cannot see it because it is everywhere. You are a fish asking ‘Where is the water?’ You are a bird asking ‘Where is the air?’ You are a dancer moving gracefully across the stage, twirling and leaping with each step and asking, ‘When will I begin my dance?’”

“I do not feel joyful or beautiful,” we reply.

“That’s because you have defined joy and beauty very rigidly. You expect it to a look a very specific way or feel a very specific way. Let go of your illusions of joy and beauty and discover joy and beauty, live joy and beauty. Let it unfold in you. Let it be you,” she replies.

And this makes sense to us and we can feel it, and so happily, we descend the mountain. But then we forget again. It evaporates like the mist of the dawn giving way to the noonday sun. We forget that we are not only dancing, but that we are the dance. We are both verb and noun. We are the reason why.