Constancy and Change

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Constancy and Change ...

Two Red Dragonflies ~ Yi Wen Seow

Each time I travel to New Zealand I fill my suitcase with novels that I have read since the last visit. My sister, who lives in the North Island of New Zealand, does the same. One of the first things that my Mother, sister and I do on these family reunions is to have a little book fest.
One of the books my sister offered me this trip was a volume which highlighted the essences of many of the world's religions and philosophies.

Hajimi Namiki - Woodblock print

The first chapter I read was entitled Constancy and Change.

You are made very aware of change when you visit your home town and see how your childhood home has shrunk...

when you stand next to your father - once a tall, strong, strapping, athletic and energetic fellow and notice that you now tower over him - a frail and unsteady old man

Hajimi Namiki - Woodblock print

when you walk through the queue of deciduous trees that lined your bike route to school and see that their branches join in an arch over the sky

Hajimi Namiki - Woodblock print

when your childhood playground, where you roller skated and cartwheeled has changed from being a suburb of boisterous young families with green lawns to becoming a dormitory suburb of university students whose priorities do not include mowing the grass and weeding the garden


when the city's bypasses and highways wrap and curl around your once quiet suburb, where you rode your bike safely and played tricky trackers with all the neighbourhood kids weaving through the summer streets, hot on the heels of a sunburnt pied piper

Hajimi Namiki - Woodblock print

where nothing from your adolescent hangouts and the designated places you stopped to meet the high school boys after school, is recognisable and huge sprawling malls consume block after block of homes, vegetable gardens and trees.

Mother and Daughter ~ Rebecca Cool

But you are reminded of constancy when your Mother, hard of hearing and slow in pace, gives you the same love and affection and support that she has always shown you


and your Father asks the same kinds of curious questions of your life, adventures, enterprises and travels, that he has asked so many times before, but which show that he is interested and even a little proud of you; and compares your very different life to the one that he has lived, in another country, another age, another world and which, God willing, will continue for another little while.

Constancy and Change ~ the twin aspects of the single energy of the Life force.

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