Between Worlds

I came upon a pond today, still and dark as glass. At first I only saw the trees mirrored back at me—tall evergreens stretching skyward, their reflection rippling faintly. Then clouds drifted across the surface, mingling with the branches, and beneath it all I noticed the faint stirrings of plants beginning to reach upward from the depths.

And there—ever so faint, almost imperceptible until I looked closely—were a couple of birds flying through the sky, their silhouettes caught in the reflection.

It felt almost like a double exposure—the world above and the world beneath folding together in one frame. Layers revealed, layers concealed. Darkness and light contained together, each giving shape to the other. One cannot exist without the other.

I thought of balance, yin and yang. Not this and that, but both, held together. The visible and the unseen, the surface and the depth. All present, all part of one.