by Regina Stribling.
On the border of right and wrong, good and bad, black and white there lives a small house. This particular day is a day when the sun decides to cast a brightness that creates a vast shadow on the right side of the house. It is summer, mid-summer. On the right side of the house lives Shadow, a black retriever dog. He is a bad dog that cannot do anything right. On the left side of the house, where the sun shines the brightest during this time of year, lives a white siamese cat named Light. She is a very good cat and does everything right. This is how it is during the day in mid-summer at the house of duality.
On this obscurely saint-filled day, Light is curious about the dark side of the house. She creeps around the gutter that rests on the grassy patch near the back porch. Slinking every so quietly, she hops up the cement porch and stops to lick her paw. A crow caws on the phone line that runs along the backside of the house. Shadow, the retriever, perks up his ears and takes caution of the mildly cool breeze on this very hot summer day.
Light now descends the porch by crouching next to the muddy pink vinyl panel of the house. Slowly, but surely she sees Shadow, wrapped up in a ball in the darkness of the house, where the sun doesn’t shine. In one more step, Light sniffs the air. Suddenly, Shadow springs from the dirt hill and attacks Light-except that Shadow is on a chain from which he is yanked back into the darkness once again. This is how it is during the day in mid-summer here on the border of right and wrong, good and bad, black and white.
Inside the small pink house, there lives a man and a woman. On this highly pious mid-summer’s day, a discussion occurs in the black and white tiled kitchen. The woman, who sips her tea with one pinky flared, happens to be mostly right and the man, who drinks his coffee with honey, happens to be somewhat wrong. The woman brings up the topic of sex and whether or not it is the same thing as intimacy. She notes that intimacy happens with more than the genitals, it happens with the eyes too. The man, on the other hand, breaches the topic of sex and intimacy with his view of warships being less intimate than corvettes. Furthermore, he sustains that eyes are for seeing not for having sex. This is how it is during a mid-summer’s day here on the border of right and wrong, good and bad, black and white.
Outside, the sun sets behind the hills in the distance. This makes room for the moon to be seen more clearly and for the night to be more full. During the night on the border, a switch-o-roo happens that is quite enveloping. When the stars twinkle in the vast space of sky, the moon hovers closely while crickets play their somber songs, and a change happens here. At this time, especially during mid-summer, Shadow, the black dog turns into a white dog and Light the white cat turns into a black cat. In this tricky situation, the personalities are also switched. What once was bad is now good and what once was good is now bad. The paradox of living on the border of right and wrong, good and bad, black and white now commences. All the more stranger events happen on this border of a house, especially when the moon is in the sky during the night of time. In the commencing of the night is when the man of the house becomes the woman and the woman becomes the man. It is all very normal here: the switching of opposites, the switching in the duality of being.
One might begin to think that the cat, the dog, the man and the woman would be quite schizophrenic or even have Borderline personality disorder. But quite the contrary. In fact, the outcome might shock the socks off of the nearest bystander if there ever could be a bystander on the border of right and wrong, good and bad, black and white. If a bystander witnesses the ongoings of this place, peculiar occurrences would be observed. In the switching, the good cat that becomes the bad cat feels complete. The bad dog that becomes the good dog feels happy. The man who becomes the woman gains compassion for her. The woman who becomes the man also gains compassion for him.
How can this be?
There are only simple answers here at the house of duality. The simplest answer for the question of-How can Completeness, Happiness and Compassion arise from such contrasts?-Grace in Paradox.
Through the experience of one extreme then the other, each animal and human shift perspectives so completely that an alteration occurs inside of their brains. An automatic bridge builds between both hemispheres in the brain which creates the feeling of Completeness. In the creation of this bridge, Happiness occurs because the two parts build the bridge together, working as a team. And, in working as a team, Compassion holds true as the value that creates success. The only kind of success that can be had on the border of right and wrong, good and bad, black and white.
During both day and night, the dog takes actions and non-actions that assist with building this bridge. The cat does the same. Inside the house, the woman and man also exercise certain actions and non-actions that assist to build this bridge between right and wrong, good and bad, black and white. Innately, the animals and humans that live on the border of right and wrong, good and bad, black and white recognize that by the end of the day: what we reap, we sow.
And, in any given moment, the cat, the dog, the man and the woman have the opportunity to recognize the duality and shift perspectives. Causing a ripple in time and space where the bridges of Completeness, Happiness and Compassion become whole. Causing duality to become unity and the house to disappear temporarily from the border of right and wrong, good and bad, black and white.