The Happy Absurdity of an Exploding Jar of Beets
My Story of Exploding Beets
A jar of pickled beets slipped from my hand the other night. In its triumphant, three-second flight, the jar arced playfully as if to say, “Hey! Ready to be humbled?”
Crash.
The glass exploded against the floor in a clamor, sending glittery bits every which way. Sliced beets slid in an almost mockingly perfect row. And, best of all, the juices bloodied every off-white wall in sight.
One might have expected my spine to warp into a defeated shell. But instead I laughed.
I laughed at myself, the rogue root vegetables, and the cat, whose wide eyes couldn’t fathom this unprecedented show.
This, I recognized, was one of the world’s games. For sometimes you are the pigeon, and others you are the statue it pooped on.
Heralding Happiness (For the First Time in a While)
Minutes before the beet jar became shrapnel, I was smiling—genuinely smiling, in both heart and effect—for the first time in a long while.
I had just returned from running a new path. My mind-state has been stagnant recently; it’s required me to shoulder the weight of a cruise ship simply to get back to baseline. But breaking the pattern of the mundane, I knew, would help.
And it did. By the time I returned home, my spirit was lighter.
Coincidentally, one of my nostalgic, bop-to-the-beat songs came streaming through my headphones the moment I stepped inside. It prodded at a freer version of me: Dance, it said.
So I did. And by the time the song was through, I was as uplifted as a helium balloon.
The Up-and-Down Duality of Existence
Aloft in that recently scarcer joy, I fixed a bowl of food. Thus entered the jar of beets, a curious cat, and a new mood.
This duality is our existence:
Just as you breathe in and breath out,
— Tao Te Ching, Verse 29, as translated in Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life by Dr. Wayne Dyer
there is a time for being ahead
and a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
and a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous
and a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe
and a time for being in danger.
One moment I was elated in dance. The next I was mopping up beet juice with a paper towel.
There is, in fact, a time for being ahead and a time for being behind.
A Season (and Reason) for Everything
This comical vignette was precisely the reminder I needed. My laughter in the moment the beet jar shattered was an acknowledgement that, indeed, it’s my turn to muddle through a darker season in life.
That does not mean it’s wrong. I’m not paying repentance for sin. There may be a few cogs missing their spokes here and there, but the machine is still working, and I am still going.
This is what the Tao te Ching means when it says,
Everything under heaven is a sacred vessel and cannot be controlled.
— Tao Te Ching, Verse 29
Trying to control leads to ruin.
Trying to grasp, we lose.
Allow your life to unfold naturally.
Know that it too is a vessel of perfection.
[…]
To the sage
all of life is a movement toward perfection,
so what need has he
for the excessive, the extravagant, or the extreme?
Letting Go of my Grasp on Beets
If I had let the beet jar situation cripple me—which I’ve been prone to doing as of late—I would have been indulging the extravagant. Likewise, if I continue to give so much merit to the darkness of this season in life, it will continue to consume me.
Trying to grasp leads to ruin.
In this conscious moment of surrender, I became the witness instead of the “victim.” That was how I could recognize the wonderful absurdity of my “predicament,” the divine game at play.
Letting life roll freely, the spill became a savorable joy, even if it was objectively an inconvenience.
Allowing the Way of Things
In this life, there is nothing that must be eliminated or altered by our interference. The more we struggle, the more we strain. This is how we keep ourselves stuck, too.
I would know; I’ve been living that stuckness for months.
The sooner we can accept and surrender to the Way of Things, the freer we shall be.
Whether it’s the contrast between a dance and a broken beet jar or a pigeon and its poop, every experience belongs. They are the universe’s loving nudges toward growth… growth that is necessary for us to find our ultimate freedom.
Be well, fellow life-traveler. May your lanterns stay intact—or not, if the moment is right.
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