Many years ago, when Dr. Bill Sladen was instructing me about essential swan habitat, I was given a rhyme to help me distinguish some of the wetland grasses. Sedges have edges. Reeds are hollow. I was contemplating this fact of nature and found metaphors in this most unlikely of places – in this family of grass-like plants.
Edges are boundaries. I realized that I have placed boundaries around myself.- walls, really – to shut out the pain and anger of past events. Those boundaries have also kept people out, leaving me alone for most of my life. So how does this sedge with edges, become hollow like a reed?
If I were hollow, the accumulation of emotions could simply pass through me and move on. Instead of adhering to the edges of my vulnerability and weighing me down, they could be blown out into the vast nothingness. How does one become hollow? How can I empty myself of the toxic build-up of emotion? As a sedge, my edges protect me. They are like armor, shielding me; but they are also the bars of a prison into which no one can see. A hollow reed allows all of life’s moments to move through it. A hollow reed offers its emptiness so that it may be filled; yet it holds on to nothing. It allows itself to be used and lets go.
Reeds are used to make musical instruments. From them, beautiful sounds are brought forth. A pane of glass allows light to pass through it. A candle burns so that the flame may flicker from it. We, too, can become empty vessels through which love, light, and peace can flow through.
As human beings we must begin to remove our edges and the boundaries that have kept us separate from each other and from the rest of Nature. We must evolve from being sedges. We must become reeds. We must open ourselves to the emptiness of being so that we – and the world – may be filled. In becoming reeds, harmony may be emitted and carried from us on the wind.
