Impermanence, Eternity and Presence: Embracing the Paradox of Life
The green of the river has returned to its familiar glacial hue, reflecting the deep, rich palette of the green of late Spring, cast across the valley. Just days ago, the wash of heavy snow melt and release of overflow from the dams upriver, colored the mighty flow with the color of weak coffee and too much cream. As I watch from my cabin window, change is evident in every molecule. What was one drop in the river, with its own world of microorganisms and movement, is another in the next millisecond. Each blade of grass, different, moment to moment, each breath, slightly changed from the last.
I breathe into this change, pulling the air into my lungs, the crisp mountain scent, sweet with the smell of growth, death, change, and regeneration. Pulling in awareness, I relish in my own impermanence, my human suit moving, changing, morphing into the latter part of its life expectancy. The emotions well up, as I reflect on the gift that is this life. All the cell specialization, the genetics and experiences from my ancestors. All the things I do and don’t do that both nourish and deplete the energy of my physical form, the energy of my home, my family, my friends, my animals, the plants, wildlife, mycelium, the vast world of microscopic organisms and atomic arrangement of vibrational magic, forming this thing we call life here on Earth.
It’s all changing, in each and every moment. We’re changing in each and every moment. And yet many of us resist this flow of change, we fear our mortality and impermanence, and we do everything in our power to create the illusion that for us, change and mortality are optional. Clearly they’re not.
One beautiful paradox of Consciousness is that of the understanding of True Self. When we perceive self to be this ‘other’, this pocket of existence sealed off in its own state of observation, with its own life cycle and its own mandates, we close ourselves off to the Universal flow of change, and this acceptance of change and the clock attached to this human experience. We pull our existence into egoic pursuits and the survival mechanisms and competitive ideologies that manifest stressors across personal experiences, familial and community wellness, planetary regeneration, and life as we know it.
There’s a scratch at the door. My little beagle, going into his 17th trip around the sun, indicates he wants to go outside, or not. Cataracts have limited his vision, he’s lost his hearing, and cognitively, he’s showing signs of canine dementia, sometimes staring blindly at the wall in a wobbly stance of perceiving something that is invisible to me. I’ve had the pleasure of caring for this beautiful expression of Consciousness since he was a puppy and I love this dog as much as life itself, for he is a reflection of me, and of everything else, down to the level of the quark, and out into the colossal and unfathomable expanse of the cosmos. He is Consciousness, just like me, just like you, just like each drop in the river, each shift in the wind, and each stroke of my keyboard. Everything is. And everything is always changing.
Acceptance of our impermanence is articulated throughout sacred texts and spiritual teachings. This lesson is one that’s continuously presented to us through Consciousness and it’s one that, when fully understood, accepted, and embraced, completely changes our human experience. The Divinity of Nature reflects this lesson in the track of the sun and stars, the cycle of the moon, the change of the seasons, death, life, rebirth, and the infinite flow of movement and change in every vibrational expression of atomic energy and manifestation of Consciousness. What is the strength of steel when exposed to the change that chips away at the fortress of its form over millions of years?
We are conscious expressions of Nature and change — we are the Universe, observing itself through our somewhat limited human apparatus of sensing. Change is the only constant in the Universe and we have very little control over any of it. The gifts of death and pain are necessary experiences that provide the beautiful contrast to illuminate the gifts of life and joy and fearing those Universal, Divine Truths paradoxically limits our ability to truly find inner peace and live life with Divine Purpose.
All this change, all this impermanence and uncertainty — it can be terrifying or liberating — this is YOUR Divine choice. And although we have very little control over the shifting of the energy of ages and the timeless expanse of the ever-changing spiral of Universal change and creation, we do have complete control over the Divine spark of what is and what will be — the present moment. Our Divine choice in each and every moment of our lives is to choose love over fear and love over indifference and to live our time here in this human experience in a conscious game of taking the path of love and compassion and elevating the Truth of the present moment to what it is — the Divine place in eternity where change manifests, where love can bloom, or where fear creates dark pools of stuck energy and stagnation.
Our time is limited. The clock is ticking. You only have so many present moments in this human experience and each contains the seed of love and creation. It’s your choice how you spend your moments. And the change in your life lies 100% within this tiny sliver of Choice.
Love over fear. Love over indifference. Practice, practice, practice. Practice and witness the manifestation of magic and change in your human experience through the eternal, loving expression of Consciousness.
