Time takes everything.
Yet we play it like a piano falling through the sky.
Time eats life and passes in either jubilation or terror.
How do we occupy time beautifully?
I’ve been meditating on time.
What it takes. How it passes. Where it leads. And how to live within it without trying to own it.
Time can never be owned. Only borrowed. We are forever in debt to the sweet bewilderment.
The Trick
We spend so much of our lives trying to control time—measuring, filling, and stretching it. But what if we allowed time to pass through us, instead of trying to contain it?
What if the trick isn't to control time, but to learn how to collaborate with its fleeting nature?
What if time became a vessel for timelessness instead of a grim reminder? A wooden ship on the stormy waters of what we wish to forget and hope to find?
What if we could dissolve time and, in so doing, extend our horizons?
In this letter, I’ll show you a practice of using time to dissolve time, leaving only pure presence.
No Need
To turn the death of time into the sun's warmth, we need to put down our tools and collaborate with what’s slippery.
We let what’s over our walls grow uninhibited.
We turn away from the past and towards what touches our shoulders.
Stand up straight and let the fruits of our labor drop to the ground to be devoured by future teachers. What holds us together links us to others. Time is a link between those who pass through it in our light.
No need to fire a gun, light a fire, or till the soil
The other hand can only be reached if we drop the handle of our blade and, in this soft palm, turn the hands of the clock or freeze them altogether.
Time spins in softness and cuts when we look at what it has taken.
Wave Made of All Waves
If we master turning our splintered intention into the sun's rays, we can become time, looking ahead and wearing its warmth like a shawl over creaking limbs.
Time is not kindling or gold, not a number or a chain, but a vessel for carrying water from the river. When we live well, we carry time’s burdens beautifully without spilling a drop.
But if we do spill, we can know that what we lose will nourish the ground beneath our feet, inviting flowers to blossom in our footsteps. Nothing is lost, especially not time.
Time leaves a trail of beauty and is only known by those who carry it well—only nourishing those who use its dint in the service of the first day of thirst, forgotten wishes, and a wave made of all waves.
(?)
Questions to ponder and write about:
What activities slow down time for you? Which activities speed it up? What helps you feel completely out of time?
Do one of each today, if even for a moment.
What’s a moment in the ocean of time?
(!)
An experiment to try:
Here’s a practice to live in time by dissolving it completely.
As I practiced this process dozens of times, my sense of presence grew, my dread of the future shrank, and the past became irrelevant. A soft, calm openness lowered over me like a cloud extending my horizon.
It’s called:
The Presence Process
Feel "the past". (Even just the vague sense of what that word evokes for you.)
What comes up? (Thoughts, images, emotions,
body sensations, identities). Either jot this down or verbalize it (even if you’re alone). Externalizing what comes up releases a square of burden from your heart’s puzzle.Feel "the future". What comes up? Just the first thing that pops in. A thought, an image, a body sensation, an emotion. Jot this down or verbalize it.
Repeat two more times. First, feel the past and notice what comes up, then feel the future and notice what comes up. Externalize what comes up each time.
Feel both "past" and "future" at the same time. Simultaneously. Inhale & exhale. Hold them in one moment together.
Can you feel "past" separate from "future"? Do they feel like two separate concepts or no? Or have they blended into one indistinguishable presence?
Repeat steps 1-5 until you can no longer feel the past and future separately. They will have blended into one experience, with no seams uniting them. This may take many repetitions.
When you’re done and the past and future feel as one, only presence will remain. Repeat as needed until you dissolve completely.
How did this practice go for you? What worked? What stalled? What got better?
I’d love to hear from you.
I look forward to seeing you this Sunday during our Community Healing Hour. This time, we will dance with anger.
Come with a tangle, leave with slack.
Warmly,
Lucas