"Notice that the stiffest tree is easily cracked,
while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind."
- Bruce Lee

I'm writing this on the evening of September 16th.  Tomorrow's my birthday.  And I'd like to celebrate it with you by sharing one of the best birthday gifts I've ever received.  I'm not saying I've never neglected, forgotten or taken this gift for granted - because I have, more often than not.  The guy who gave it to me didn't intend it to be a birthday present.  I doubt he even knew when my birthday was. 

Harry Eisel is a retired prison psychologist.  In 2003, though battling multiple cancers, he wasn't yet totally retired and I attended this really cool, intriguing group he was facilitating where we touched on Reiki, the Tao, living in the moment... ah, any words I use only seem to limit the experience and not do it justice.

In September 2003, he gave me three simple little watercolors he had done the previous night.  They featured poems contrasting an oak tree and a blade of grass and were small enough to fit inside the back cover of my one dollar Dover thrift edition of the Tao Te Ching, which collected dust after I acquired several other "cooler" editions of Lao Tzu's classic text over the years.  I forgot about Harry's watercolors until they fell out of that old book today, exactly four years later. (I know because I had written on the back of them in pencil "Harry Eisel 9/16/2003.")  Accident?

Now I have shared the gift Harry gave me with you.  I forgot these objets d'art for a season.  But I've not forgotten the lesson I learned from Harry about the blade of grass.  I've never been particularly good at putting it into practice, especially these past several months.  Still, I've always been happier and had more peace when I've done so.  Coincidence?  Fritjof Capra wrote in The Tao of Physics, "An enlightened being is one who does not resist the flow of life, but keeps moving with it."  Something to think about....

[In a related note, Harry's book Life Really Is That Simple is now available for free and in its entirety on MySpace.  You may also contact Harry personally by clicking here and visiting his personal profile.]