The Big Lesson

There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state of principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he; then is a teaching, and by no friendly chance or bad company can he ever quite lose the benefit. —Henry David Thoreau, shared by Matthew Wood in The Book of Herbal Wisdom

I have understood this, more or less, at different points in my life, but I have seldom been able to make it work for me. In the past, I had no idea why. Now I understand. First of all, I never really questioned my motives: did I simply want to share (as I thought) or did I want to teach, and who was I to imagine that anyone else, especially a friend, would want to learn from me?

But there is no one reason for my shortcomings in this department. Like all of life, it is nuanced, not black and white. Straight lines are not to be found in nature; is perfect black or perfect white?

How many of us, though, wish for those lines and pristine hues: in every interaction, conversation, transaction?

Maybe the Big Lesson for me is a negative one (as it is for so many): being forced to learn from what I’ve been unable to grasp, the mistakes, the failures. Maybe my job is to make and stumble through the rocky, winding, spiraling path, picking myself up whenever I fall, collecting what I find and might need, all the way being willing to share with anyone brave enough to meet me somewhere but never getting fooled into stepping onto their paths.