As 2020 approaches, time is in the forefront of my mind. Running deeper than lines on a clock face or flip of a calendar page (“swipe” for you digital divas), my concept of time morphed over the years and invisibly orchestrates my life.
On a grander scale, the new year transition symbolizes life itself — passing and birth, loss and gain, here and gone, doors closing and windows opening, full and empty, flowers dying back to bloom next season — transformations all illuminated by the paradoxical Tao. In the Tao, there is no beginning or end. It is simply a continuation of a force, an energy, the “flow.”
The Tao expanded my concepts of forever and eternal which were often intertwined but mistakenly so as in the nebulous differences between an eastern hemlock and a Tsuga Caroliniana, a sparrow and finch, or twilight and dusk. Mother Nature’s subtleties are far-reaching. So are we in humankind. So are my thoughts on time.
Like fraternal twins, eternal and forever share gossamer-like characteristics — forever indicating an endless or continual period of time; eternal meaning without beginning or end, always lasting. If something is eternal, it always is and always was. It exists outside of time.
If time is man made, why can’t we produce more of it? Does staying in this exact moment freeze time — being neither in the past or future but always and only right now? Is “staying in the moment” the only way to make time stand still?
Featured photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash
