Making do

Nanaimo, BC

For the past little while I have been engaging in a practice I’ve called “making do.” I can’t remember where I stumbled upon this idea, but it has deepend and grown in me as a response to materialist impulses.

Materialism and the acquistion of stuff infects so much of our lives, and goes way beyond simply acquiring material goods. We accumulate all kinds of other things too: practices, tools, ideas, paths, teachings. Sometimes, when we are most lost in this downward spiral, we think if I just had one more theory, one more facilitation tool, one more spiritual practice, I would be complete.

And the truth is, we rarely utilize all that we do have to it’s fullest potential. We confuse span with depth, as Ken WIlber would put it: we think “more” equals “better.”

You could for example acquire a whole range of meditation practices, or you could simply sit for twenty minutes a day for the rest of your life and be mindful of breathing. I would be surprised if anyone could truly plumb the depths of breath practice completly, but how many people simply make the decision to “make do” with one practice and devote the rest of their life to it?

“Making do” means stopping the act of skimming surfaces and settle down into deep appreciation of what we have around us. It is subtly different from “good enough” becasue it is not about accepting mediocrity. It is rather about deepening the uses and possibilities of what we have – finding the aristocracy in the clover.

Dickenson’s poem reminds me of that practice, that the bee looks to every clover flower as aristocracy and makes honey from what he finds there, without regard for whether or not it contributes to any sort of pedigree beyond what it is.