This Present Moment

Last day of the year. It’s poignant. Though not. Just a day. Just a thing called a day. Unique in it’s present moment. Yet also with familiar shape and sound. Like a river. Consistent, yet never the same.

This present moment is one of the most compelling themes that engage me and pull me forward. It’s a readied and familiar container that holds life experience and journey for me. From the new that looks old, to the old that looks new. It offers a still point, this present moment, offering a way to encounter what is alive.

And, I suppose it true that I look through my life experience, and the life experience I hear with others, through lens of present moment. It feels like sunshine to me.

There’s Pema Chodron — “this very moment is the perfect teacher.” I’ve referenced her often, and in particular lately. I’ve learned — everything is available in the anything. If awakeness and awareness, kindness, consciousness and flow with life are the journeys of life, we need not look far for helpful and ripe starting points.

This present moment.

There’s the dancer and singer that I spoke with earlier in the week. I asked her, “What have your learned from your performing that teaches you about being with people?” Without skipping a beat, she responded, “Being in the present moment. If you are not with the people you are performing with, it’s flat.”

This present moment.

There’s the former deployed soldier that I spoke with recently. I asked about his gifts and strengths for the complex and dangerous context he was living. “It was utterly important to live in just this minute. Whether the minute was eating a Girl Scout Cookie, or firing his weapon.”

This present moment.

There’s my friends Toke and Monica writing their New Years wishes of the importance of still point together.

The world always moving
Humans in chaos dancing with Madame Corona
and all the rest
Quietly dreaming of
Life in harmony and health

Seeking a still point
Knowing it to be In our own hearts
is a gift we all share whether aware or not 

Who wants to know?
Who wants to grow
More peace 
More lives in beauty?

How may we grow kindness and gratitude for Life?
How may we grow peace  and wellbeing For All?

This present moment.

I would suggest, there is tremendous gift in any of us individually and collectively, finding ability to be in relationship with just this moment. We all have the worries. We all have the learning. We all have our fixations.

But for me, I know, that when I seem to find my way, or my discipline, or my practice, or my surrender, to this present moment, the world comes alive. I come alive in it. And paths seem to shine.

This present moment.

Like a day. This moment. Poignant in its own way. Just a moment. Just a thing called a moment. Unique. Yet also with familiar shape and sound. Like a river. Like a day. Consistent, yet never the same.

I wish each of you, each of us reading this, beauty and freedom and life and flow in finding our way to this moment of now, strung together in so many beads of longer arc.

With love, and appreciation.

2 Replies to “This Present Moment”

  1. Yes. Me, too. This is the thing I keep learning and re-learning, the thing that makes me sigh and smile and want to take a deep breath of acknowledgement. Difficult to stay, delightful to savor. I notice especially the *ease* of life in those moments of being present.

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