Grace 9: The Present Moment

Today, I invite you to ponder the moment that you are in. Give yourself time to root your being, and get deep into the joy of now. This is a subtle, yet deeply transformative practice...

Photo by Dylan Alcock on Unsplash

The Present Moment

This moment
Will never come again
and is all there truly is.
You are here.

Can you find stillness in your body?
Can you find quietness in your mind?
Can you find clarity in your vision?

Each tick of the clock
Is its own death,
Its own rebirth.
If you blink, 
You will miss it,
And it is gone.

Sadness and Joy,
Fear and Redemption,
Anger and Forgiveness,
Disbelief and Hope,
Despair and Awe, 
Are all Here.
Now.

When this moment becomes sacred
And the mind slows
Its frantic gait…

Can you feel the ineffable there?
Can the world glow and sparkle?
Can peace fill your heart?

No matter where you’ve been,
No matter where you’re going,
We are the same,
In THIS moment.

We meet each other,
We meet ourselves, 
and we meet God,
Here.

A small but important Grace on my awakening journey was developing the ability to ground myself in the present moment. The works of Eckhart Tolle found me at just the right time to guide this part of the path.

As our worlds demand more from us, and blind us with more technology, this subtle shift can easily escape us. For me, focusing on what must be done for work, for my boys, for my house, for my inbox, can consume so much of my day that I forget to have a grounding in the here and now. However, presence is the gift you can give yourself, and the world, at any moment.

For me, presence is a stillness in my body, a quietness in my mind. Open eyes, clear, humbled, observing creation. Feeling the space between the things, hearing the stillness between the sounds, feeling the body rooted, grounded. Staying there until I feel the magic sparkling from the plants, animals, and ordinary things around me. This is where I can create, this is bringing my best self to the world. Anything else is a performance or an illusion.

Presence is not letting my mind torture me with to-dos, shoulds, regrets, or any form of self-depreciation. It is not being distracted by my devices. It is not allowing small annoyances to take me from my practice. And while meditation is important, we can’t spend our whole day inside our spirits. Presence, and being one with this moment, is a subtle yet radical shift in the way we may go about our day.

What difference might this make? There are no problems in the present moment; there is only joy and awe. Can you imagine a world where we all live and create from this sacred space? What might we bring into the world as we look upon it with the fullness of awareness? This is where our collective power lies. My deepest wish is that we can all find the true, ineffable joy of the moment and bring forth our truest selves from this sacred place. I can see you there.