Is my soul asleep?

Have those beehives that work

in the night stopped? And the water

wheel of thought, is it going around now, cups

empty, carrying only shadows?

 

No, my soul is not asleep.

It is awake, wide awake.

It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,

its eyes wide open

far-off things, and listens

at the shores of the great silence.

Antonio Machado

Machado’s allusion to the busy bees of thought and the image of the water wheel turning, cups empty, was so apt and so visual. I could see that wheel in my mind’s eye; one of those primitive irrigators along an ancient river, the wheel perhaps being turned by the monotonous pedaling of a thin man. So it is with our thinking minds, always turning, often empty, sorting, classifying, judging, evaluating.

Although thought may be asleep to life in its constant round of activity, the soul is awake, its eyes wide open, watching; listening to the silent sea of life. What is the soul but an emissary of spirit sent to this reality to observe and listen and report on the great goings-on of creation.