The Zen of Fencing

Last weekend I traveled to Western North Carolina to visit my parents.  The area had been recently hit by the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which dumped multiple inches of rain, causing catastrophic flooding and destruction.  My parents, fortunately, came through just fine, thanks to a goodly amount of preparedness and a fortunate location high on a hill.  A solitary tree was blown down by the hurricane-force winds, crushing a portion of the property boundary fence my dad had built.  He and I worked together to repair that fence, spending a few hours hiking up and down his steep property to put it back in working order, if that’s the right term.  The fence is made up of short metal posts and hundreds of feet of plastic coated electrical-looking line.  It was complicated extricating the fence wire from under the downed tree, untangling it and reattaching it to the posts.  For the most part, there are four strands of fence wire, but the upper portion has five for some reason and my dad puzzled over why he originally built it that way.  At the time, I was hot and sweaty and battling the jungle-like undergrowth and steep terrain, and I told him to let it go, whatever reason that caused him to install five strands in one portion of the fence and four in the rest, was in the past, and really of no concern now.  My dad really enjoyed that, the Zen of fencing.  I think that far beyond the fence on that steep hillside, that is good advice.  Not to dig too deep into Zen, but letting go of past things, putting events and behaviors behind you can be a release.  Letting go of everything isn’t truly possible.  We are all the sum total of our experiences, and holding on to some is not only good, but it defines us.  But letting go of little things, things that don’t matter, can be very good.  In the movie The Lion King, Rafiki whacks Simba with his staff and when Simba asks why, Rafiki replies, “who cares?  It’s in the past.” Perhaps we can all do that, make our lives simpler by letting go of some of our baggage, and looking forward instead of looking back.  It’s certainly worth a try!