No one knows in which direction
the grasshopper will jump.
Not even itself.

Often in my childhood I watched grasshoppers in the fields. And I can testify that the Chinese proverb is right. One never knows which way the grasshopper is going to face for its next jump. The first thing it does on alighting safely from its latest parabola is to turn on itself on the ground; but at one time it turns towards the right, another towards the left, again sometimes it is through the smallest of angles, and sometimes a complete half turn. Jumping and turning, jumping and turning, but never two jumps in the same direction. The straight line was not made for the grasshopper. Olympic weathercock. Record-breaker in surprises. Champion in zigzag. It finally arrives where it wants, but in its own way. And it does not know itself what its own way is to be. Maybe it does not even know where it wants to go. And this happy and free nonchalance makes of its joyful trajectory a wise lesson and a chastening example for human life. We need its open freedom.

Spontaneity on the spot. Unexpected turn at each jump. Bursting geometry in three dimensions. Faith and trust that at the end of all this game and sport and circus and play we are putting up here on earth, we’ll arrive at last at the expected goal through the space labyrinth of untrammelled exploring. The straight line is boring. To know the end of the story right from the beginning, is to kill the story. We must recover at every landing our initial freshness, so that the new flight may face a new horizon under the instant guidance of our inside instinct. The grasshopper never errs.

It is fine to plan and foresee and take insurance and study maps and draw itineraries. Everything is needed in this complicated world we live in. But the greatest need is for the freedom to react at each moment with the intact totality of the live being that knows itself in full possession of its faculties and trusts itself and the whole of nature to let itself be taken where its pointed instinct has just told it to go. Another jump, and another surprise landing. There are even at times little aeronautical accidents. The grasshopper lands on its back or twists a leg. But it straightens itself at once and goes on with its geometric ballet in ever rising curves. It weaves breezes with its flight. And it always comes back down to earth that gives it protection, sustenance, and rest. Carefree life over luscious fields.

The grasshopper is nimble. Featherweight. Therein lies the secret of its liveliness. It jumps, because it is not heavy; it flies, because it is not bound. It reaches incredible heights in its amateur acrobatics. Its body does not feel heavy. Neither do its worries or its past or its future. No weight to weigh it down. It feels light in its body, its members, its mind, its conscience. That is why it can fly. We must discharge ballast. We must empty the warehouse. We must clean the cellar. We carry with us such a weight of memories and resentments and dreams and fears that it becomes impossible for us to take off. Few animals – given the size and weight of their bodies – jump so high in proportion as the grasshopper; and few so low as man and woman. We could improve our record.

It is fascinating to watch at close quarters the travels of the little grasshopper. To watch and to learn. To jump over difficulties when we cannot remove them. To change our grounds as they grow barren. To scan horizons from instant summits in aerial vantage-points. A sudden burst of strength, followed by a span of leisure. Energy and elegance. Activity and rest. High and low. To know how to live on the ground, and to know how to glance from the heights. And everything at the spur of the moment, from jump to jump, from emotion to emotion. Permanent school of life.