Work and Joy

"When the sun rises, I go to work,
When the sun goes down, I take my rest
I dig the well from which I drink,
I share creation, Kings can do no more."
 Chinese Proverb- 2500 B.C


Sometimes, it seems to me that there is a basic threshold of what people need to feel fulfilled:  A warm place to live, good healthy food to eat, clean water and air, friends and community to share their life with, inspiration, and real connection with their world. ( or at least least that is what I need, and I am assuming that I am not that unusual of a person.)
I think about the drive to accumulate consumer goods to which a false emotional expectation has been attached at times, and wonder about it, how it has effected me, others and, how much energy can I spend on worrying about that kind of thing verses simply observing what brings joy into my life, then trusting that.   

For the time being, I feel secure in accepting that  a life which is full of  the actions of living; growing and gathering what you will eat, preparing it, all the various activites of firewood. These actions create a seamless world where work and leasuire all have a definative satisfaction of being something that is very necessary to the day.  Its action that clearly needed to be taken or else a undesireable situation would arise.  There is a very simple and honest satisfaction in that kind of work. It is subtle, and sneaks into the day in scattered, beautiful moments, then rushes away again as the demands of the day rush on through.  The familiarity of living within seasonal and daily rhythms has an intimacy which blossoms within it between the land and its caretaker.  Though that relationship is a hard one, its literally laboring; it is a labor which bears a special fruit in the heart of the one who does it. And is a strong, secret thing, that has the unique capability of endlessly being shared, yet never being taken away.