As a wonderful Zen saying expresses it, “After enlightenment, the laundry.” Endings and beginnings, emptiness and germination in between : That is the shape of the transition periods in our lives, and these times come far more frequently in adulthood and cut far more deeply into it than most of us imagined they would. But the same process is also going on continuously throughout our lives. As humankind once knew and celebrated, it is the same rhythm that puts us to sleep at night and wakes us in the morning after a dark time full of half-remembered and enigmatic clues. It is what carries us
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