If you do woodworking - because you enjoy it - you've probably
experienced
the "Zen Thing". You get into doing something this "thing" happens
where
stuff just happens and you're just part of whatever "it" is. Evertyhing
does what it's supposed to do effortlessly - just so. Ambient noise
just
disappears, time stops, things just happen - and though you're a part of
whatever this thing is - you're just that - a part of something -
somehow
linked to something unimaginably larger- and older - though relative
time, or
time itself is anything other than a human construct to mark our
individual
comparitively brief existence.

But the "Zen Thing" is like a dim star in the night's sky. If you try
and
focus on it and really try and see it - you can't. But - if you can put
it
in your field of vision - but not focus on it - it's there to see - but
not
directly.

Most of us live in a night environment filled with streetlights and
signs
and car lights, man made attempts to conquer darkness, to impose our
will on our environment. The price tag of course is that often those
lights hide the wonders of a clear "dark" night's sky - and all the
amazement of all those little points of light out there - and perhaps
the realization that what we can see is just a tiny part of an
inconceivable whole.

For me, it's when "I" get out of the way "we" tap into something that
can't be explained but only experienced. It doesn't happen very often,
but just often enough to act as a reminder that Me/Not Me, Them vs
Us keep me from being part of that Zen Thing. And that carries over
into other daily things which makes life, this manifestation of a minute
part of the whole, fun.

charlie b
taking off his robe, hanging up his meditation beads
and heading off to play WITH some wood, make a Shellac
Shake - and maybe, just maybe Get In The Zone - again.