“At first, the idea of ‘being in the moment’ scared me. I imagined that I would spend my life thinking, Right now, the wind is blowing and I see a butterfly. Now the butterfly is gone, but the wind is still blowing. A mosquito bit me despite the blowing wind. Oh my God–make it stop! I can’t do a play-by-play of every moment. I’ve got things to think about–work to get done. I basically was afraid mindfulness would disrupt my flow–what the scholar Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes as that sacred intersection of deep enjoyment and disciplined concentration.”
–Brene Brown, Rising Strong
being in the moment
The Sky
The Sky
it was pomegranate.
A dark
night
sky
Not fading and deepening blues–
But
Pomegranate.
Focused upon focusing.
Something grand to attend.
The Sky
it was pomegranate.
Such a slight thing
without evident meaning
or intent
Can’t there be anything else?
No.
It was pomegranate.
–by elisabeth connelley
Oh wait, this, I thought, was a blog, but now I think it was a poem. I tried asking it, but so far, it has not answered and I’d rather stay with the pomegranate.
Am I Going?
Somewhere, in the middlin-end of the night, a light shadow flicked across the surface of my brain and I knew it was light moving through legs and calves and feet. Feet wearing oxford shoes, manly-type oxford shoes. Flexed a toe, to feel for new, inflexible and squeaky hard bottomed platforms. Flexed a toe to feel for the groove, a careful bend and give, familiarity, soft scuffles and the touch of the earth terrain–lumps and bumps and LIFE!
I heard rain. Gentle drips and splatters sneaking through the canopy of trees, making the slow motion crash from surface to surface slowing down until at last perching upon the perfect tip with minute point awaiting(of course)the touch of my finger that mine eyes might glorify such perfection in drop, for an hour or two minutes, whichever comes first to mind.
To lick manly fur or drop? My mouth IS dry! I neeeeeed a drink! Such treasure hunts for dew, endling-walks at night. Manly fur it is, good choice, thirst quenched. Now.
I contemplate opening one eye. I practice. Definately NOT the left one first today. Where am I going? I am going to open the right eye, just to see. And then, close it again. And be distracted by the manly scent of fur. And pine a moment for the going, and the coming back again. This moment is sublime. What does sublime mean?
Ah! Too late, I am already going down the stairs and making tea as my feet hit the floor and I sigh and I stretch. And I make the tea, and I check the mail, and I see Janet, asking me if I am going…someplace, somewhere. Janet? I am always full of ING things. I do not at this moment know how to provide a more accurate accounting. I will try to shorten it to, I am always going. How can one NOT be always going?
More About Being In the Moment
“It may seem paradoxical to say that we have been expelled from the present, but it is a feeling we have all had at some moment. Some of us experienced it first as a condemnation, later transformed into consciousness and action. The search for the present is neither the pursuit of an earthly paradise nor that of a timeless eternity: it is the search for a real reality.
We pursue her in her incessant metamorphoses yet we never manage to trap her. She always escapes: each encounter ends in flight. We embrace her and she disappears immediately: it was just a little air. It is the instant, that bird that is everywhere and nowhere. We want to trap it alive but it flaps its wings and vanishes in the form of a handful of syllables. We are left empty-handed. Then the doors of perception open slightly and the other time appears, the real one we were searching for without knowing it: the present, the presence.”
– Octavio Paz
Elisa's Spot 