The Ephemeral Nature of Life
embracing the tension of opposites and the transience of beauty
We live in a world of paradox. Often we find ourselves standing in the seam of life, reminding me of the child’s game of tug-of-war. Feeling a pull in one direction and at the same time a tug in the opposite direction. All the while doing our best to hold the center and hug the mid-line.
A sunrise fills us with hope, a freshly fallen snow wonder, a beloved’s kiss joy, and the immensity of the range of our emotions drops us to our knees.
For nearly 40 years after my morning practices, I’d rise, open the shutters, and be greeted by the sun cresting over the top of Black Mountain. Knowing that the Arizona sun would soon blaze across the sky warming the hard clay dirt and desert plants. Temperature rising would bring another day of sunshiny people walking their dogs, playing tennis, riding bikes, hiking, or practicing yoga outdoors.
My current morning ritual is to sit in the still dark hour of pre-dawn breathing into my belly and heart space, noticing the rise and fall of my chest, the expansion of my ribs, and paying attention to my thoughts swirling like a dancing dervish.
I sit even as my left foot begins to tingle and then cramp, my left hip aching. I’ll make a slight adjustment to attempt to ease the discomfort and feel into the sensations until I no longer notice the pain, and a settling naturally happens. For a moment, a minute or more, I’m unaware of my body, my thoughts, and my surroundings. I’m no one. I’m nowhere.
Instantaneously, I’ll likely be thrown back into thought and wonder, even after 35 years of practice, where was I? Where was Paulette? Where did my thinking egoic mind go? Will I ever return to shedding my body and losing my mind in the quantum void? Simply free-floating?
Today I carefully unfurl from my seated pose of meditation massaging my left foot and bringing back circulation to the foot and leg. Slowly I place both feet on the floor, take a deep breath in, and stretch my arms overhead.
Grabbing ahold of the string I lift the shade to the unexpected. A wonderland. The world outside my window covered in white. The ground spotted with marshmallow puffs of snow. From the mountain peaks to the floor of the valley enshrouded in icy-white brilliance.
The beauty so foreign to this Arizona transplant and yet so familiar; so home. In the morning hush and pureness the tension of opposites palpable I stand in the mid-line. Awed. Pieces of my long-frozen heart sad with unshed tears.
Tomorrow, the rain will come and wash away the beauty. Tomorrow I will wonder, will the magic ever return?
You and I are here on this Earth for such a short time. As I celebrate one year of life after another, I become afraid that I’ve not spent my precious time wisely. I begin to wonder if I have lived in true harmony with the cycles of nature, with my nature. Did I think I had all the time in the world to do what I was born to do?
Some days I feel a resounding yes and a great comfort that I have, and that I will continue to do so. Some days not so much. Is that the sadness I often feel, the not so muchness? Or is it this being human as the great poet-saint Jalaluddin Rumi wrote about?
“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all.” Rumi
Life is transitory. Like the morning snow warmed by the sun and washed away with the afternoon’s rain. Fleeting and impermanent the thought of it all rushing by so quickly unnerves me. And yet, the wonderment of it all, the beauty, fills me to the brim. The blessing of life itself causes me to lighten up, to ease up. To laugh and twirl like a child at play.
Yet, to stand in the mid-line holding the center allowing the gentle sway between the morning light and the dark of the night is a never-ending practice. To hold steady between the wonder and the horror, the sweetness and the bitter without grasping, without pushing anything away is called living.
Life is more than the tension of opposites. And it’s nothing but the tension of opposites. Which is the gift after all.
With love and appreciation, Paulette
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