So, I was eating my Bagna Calda at Goodfellas, and I was contemplating whether the Garlic was roasted in oil or water. And it seems obvious that the roasting takes place in oil, or oil with maybe a little butter, but it didn’t say on the menu, and it didn’t exactly taste like olive oil to me, probably because of the garlic and anchovy tastes overwhelming the olive oil, which probably wasn’t a very thick olive oil. And thus, a meditation on the nature of water occurred to me, obviously.
And so, as I was contemplating my olive oil in lieu of water, what struck me was this: Ya ever notice that water becomes what it touches? I mean, initially the thought was something like “If this is water, then it mimics the flavors of the garlic and the anchovies such that it is no longer discernible as water.” And of course the reality of the time was probably olive oil, but the extrapolations therefrom became all about water.
The next logical association in my mind was lemon mixed with water. Never mind lemonade when sugar crystal breaks down in the water molecules to become a water-sugar, no, just the lemon alone without the sugar. The water becomes as the essence of lemon. Just a squeeze goes a long way for a glass; the glass of water becomes in essence filled with lemon. And anything water touches water seems to become.
When blood enters water, it is almost as though the water begins to become blood. The ancient Greeks used to mix water with wine. You seep a leaf in hot water, and it becomes as the essence of that leaf. You run hot water through a coffee bean, and the water becomes infused with energy and Earth.
Even solids water becomes, or is it that that which enters water naturally tries to mimic the water? Dirt mixed with water becomes mud. Even a rock breaks down into sand finer and finer, as though to become the water.
Water is of such substance, purely life giving, and it seems that all of creation tries to become as water when it touches it. Even a human being whose life is dependent on water, who must transmute some form or another of water in order to continue to live, and who will benefit most from pure water itself, strives to attain with the fullness of their capability the divine exercise of emulation of “the motion of the ocean.”
What greater example of living is there than water? What higher to attain to? For life it perfectly sustains, all that it touches it strives to become, all that touches it strives to become like it. Perfect reciprocity of existence and partaking of mutuality. May we all serve as though the water of life. May we never thirst!
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
~ Tao Te Ching: Chapter 8 ~
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