A precocious four year old was cavorting about the
living room playing charades with her mommy, grandma and me. Acting out a terrifying Tyrannosaurs Rex, then a slithering snake, she was totally engaged in
the excitement of the moment. Then, with a skip and a hop, her attention ricocheted elsewhere
and she whisked into her mother's childhood bedroom.
The tiny lady re-emerged proudly wearing a bead necklace, compliments of mommy's suitcase. But instead of resuming the game in which we were embroiled, she marched straight up to me and delivered the following words about one inch from my face - a feat made possible as I was sitting on the floor:
"Everything is real in reality."
Then she made poste haste for the bedroom, to adorn herself in yet more finery. When she re-entered the gaming area, she remarked, "I'm smart, kind, and beautiful," then resumed the game with a wonderful pantomime of 'a moon'.
I was gobsmacked. Why did this fun-loving little one, with no apparent interest other than charades and mommy's necklaces, suddenly veer into metaphysical musings squarely directed at me? To top it off, her serious communication resembled a zen koan, and zen koans always bedevil me.
After pondering the meaning of her cryptic message for 24 hours, one interpretation rose from the depths of my foggy mind. Perhaps Reed was assuring me that the phenomenon we were acting out have their counterparts as three-dimensional life forms but we are not the parts we are playing. It was an act of compassionate to tell me that - otherwise we might have been dinner for the Tyrannosaurs Rex.
Still, there is something in her pointed lesson that remains an enigmatic Rubik's Cube of the mind. So I leave you with Reed's koan to contemplate for yourself...
Everything is real in reality.
Go figure.
The tiny lady re-emerged proudly wearing a bead necklace, compliments of mommy's suitcase. But instead of resuming the game in which we were embroiled, she marched straight up to me and delivered the following words about one inch from my face - a feat made possible as I was sitting on the floor:
"Everything is real in reality."
Then she made poste haste for the bedroom, to adorn herself in yet more finery. When she re-entered the gaming area, she remarked, "I'm smart, kind, and beautiful," then resumed the game with a wonderful pantomime of 'a moon'.
I was gobsmacked. Why did this fun-loving little one, with no apparent interest other than charades and mommy's necklaces, suddenly veer into metaphysical musings squarely directed at me? To top it off, her serious communication resembled a zen koan, and zen koans always bedevil me.
After pondering the meaning of her cryptic message for 24 hours, one interpretation rose from the depths of my foggy mind. Perhaps Reed was assuring me that the phenomenon we were acting out have their counterparts as three-dimensional life forms but we are not the parts we are playing. It was an act of compassionate to tell me that - otherwise we might have been dinner for the Tyrannosaurs Rex.
Still, there is something in her pointed lesson that remains an enigmatic Rubik's Cube of the mind. So I leave you with Reed's koan to contemplate for yourself...
Everything is real in reality.
Go figure.
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