It doesn't matter how much you love what has passed. It doesn't matter how perfect this moment is or how much you want to hold on to it. It's gone. Everything that has been, is gone. Everything that will be, is gone. All that remains, for an impossibly brief and ever-fleeting moment, is now, empty, pure, full of potential, a pile of dry kindling awaiting a spark of inspiration.
There is no permanence in anything but change, but change, like fire, must be fed with the breath of life.
So accept each and every moment as a golden opportunity, a moment that you've been given, a chance to do anything you want, or, if you so choose, a chance to sit idly by, daydreaming about what has been or what could be, losing yourself, and that moment, in exchange for absolutely nothing, a dull lifeless stare at a dull, cold, and lifeless pile of kindling, sacrificing precious moment after precious moment, never to see them again, until one day you arrive at the end and look back, upon this frozen and unchangeable wasteland of unused potential, missed, neglected, lost.
So open your heart and open your mind. Breathe life into this moment. The future awaits your hand in its creation, right here, right now.
Look not backward with nostalgic sadness into the frozen sea of changelessness, but forward with blissful gratitude into the warm arms of unwritten possibility.
Even within the second used to take this breath, a moment has gone. But the gentle vibration of that breath passes on to the next and gently inspires the vibration and breath of the next moment, the next and the next…
Every moment is the make up of the ones before, the vibration of those moments & experiences composes the delicate sweetness of being alive.
You see, what’s so absolutely precious about life is that moments never last…what a gift!
I just visualized life like a pool of vibrations, mixing, blending, giving rise to the next while creating a completely different moment to work from, it’s like getting a fresh new canvas to paint with each time.
What a gift to know that the good and bad moments cease while ever so delicately vibrate until they blend with the new…what an experience to live life with the knowing that each new moment is a sweet whisper and loving gesture from the universe and a constant reminder that all things change, grow, and rise up to all it is meant to be.
The hang up with all this, is attaching ourselves to the past moments as if that was all there is left (good or bad) and not seeing the limitlessness of the next. We weigh ourselves down, dreaming about what was instead of seeing this moment has a doorway to create more wonderful moments, to create more blissful vibrations!
The secret is to have the awareness and wisdom too see that this moment is all new and all expansive, while only giving a slight nod to the gift of that last breath (that nod is the gratitude). Do you see what I mean? Thats when wisdom comes in, where we have to have the insight to discern the two.
Understanding the emptiness of moments is beautiful, it is expensive, and alive. I suppose there is no clear way to describe the delicacies of life. For me, it is all pure splendor.
Beautifully said, Andrea! Thank you so much for sharing here. 🙂
This is remarkably similar to a 4th century Sanskrit proverb my junior english teacher introduced us to. It went something like this:
Look to this day,
for it is life,
the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all
the realities and verities of existence,
the bliss of growth,
the splendor of action,
the glory of power.
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today, well lived,
Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.
I remember it being a bit of a wake-up call, especially in my class, which was full of very bright, very ambitious kids living for a faint mirage of what they (and I) saw as success, that was still as yet two years away.
I’d prefer not to post my real name.
That’s beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing it here. My dad studies Sanskrit and has studied it for my whole life, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the basis of this post somehow came from that influence. 🙂