When I breathe in and out mindfully I notice that there is a pause at the end of the out breath. It feels like infinity to me, or perhaps
The Pause Under Everything…
mortal and immortal, real and unreal, known and unknown. During this pause I experience a letting go of effort. It is enough just to be present in this sliver of a moment between breaths.
There is a pause under everything that, if entered, will unravel the knot in your heart.
— Mark Nepo
It is for moments like this pause that I practice meditation. There is an ineffable peace in the pause and also possibility but most of all simple presence. Ahhh, here I am. In this breath, and now again in this one.
When I go out with my camera I experience this pause in a larger sense, not necessarily associated with the breath. If I am open and curious I find beauty all around me. All I need to do is to slow down and look through eyes of love. At the same time as I see eternity in my surroundings I see life and death writ large before my eyes. And I recognize my own mortality as well as that of everything all around.
Recognizing that life is a moment-to-moment gift meant acknowledging not only my friend’s mortality, but my own as well. The realization that in fact we are all dying, all the time, to something, nearly broke my heart, but it also opened it, helped me begin to recognize the fleeting beauty of all of life. We mourn summer’s passing, but winter comes nonetheless, revealing a different landscape altogether, equally lovely in its own way. The sweetest day draws to a close, night settles in, and we turn our bodies to one another for comfort and release. The moon waxes and wanes, the times come and go to their own eternal rhythm, relationships bloom and blossom and fade, hopes rise and fall, children are born, grow up, and leave home to create lives and families of their own. Old challenges are supplanted by new ones, and somehow we must adjust and adapt, learning to ride the waves of impermanence, change, and loss with poise.
— Katrina Kennison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
I hope that your coming week brings you moments to appreciate the pause under everything.
May you walk in beauty.
0 Comments