There is a famous Buddhist proverb:

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

Lots to think about in those few words.

I personally enjoy what are referred to as menial tasks: digging in the soil, exterpating weeds, chopping wood, carrying water to the garden. I feel a connection to nature and to history as I do these things. There is something immensely satisfying about completing something that requires real physical effort and that you know has been done for generations, eons even, before you.

Chopping wood, I think about what it took for the tree whose wood I am now chopping to grow, why it fell or was felled, will it burn slow and clean, fast and clean, will it spatter and spit when it burns because it is too green.

I think of my father, slim of build, but able to split logs with the ease of a hulking lumberjack. I see the scars his years of log splitting left on the concrete floor of the garage where he undertook his chopping and splitting. Not normally persnickity about anything he was very particular about the right size for his logs.

Maybe menial work makes me feel good because it’s hard work and for a Protestant suffering is a path to betterment and enlightenment, in which case perhaps Buddhists and Protestants have something in common and that’s what the saying is all about.

In any case, “chop chop”. It’s getting to be the time for chilly evenings, blazing fires, boiling kettles, tired dog at your feet, good book in your lap.

That brings to mind Ghostsniper, who will surely be mourning the loss of his beloved pup, Shannon. Here in the photo is a little dog poem for him. I hope he’s back here at the site soon.