Participate the Present
Unmade bed, and mind
Unmade mind, unready day
Night turns into dawn
~Michael Kroth
The “new” year is nothing more than another day. We, humanity that is, make it more than that when we give significance to it. The annual accumulation of days becomes meaningful as a counting device.
How many?
How much?
As a planning device.
When will?
How might?
As a remembering tool.
When did?
What happened?
It’s a time, January 1st, the “new” year, to take stock and to make plans.
But then we can take stock and make plans on any of the 365 or so days during that time period.
Who loved?
Who lost?
Why care?
Why not?
August 10th has just as much importance as December 31st or January 1st. August 10th at 9:00 a.m. or at 1:37 p.m. No more or less significance than any other time.
A pilgrimage generally has a start and a finish. But that shove off can be any day, usually a day you select; that completion any time you choose.
The sine qua non of time is now. Right now. This moment both portentous and puckish. Reverent and irreverent. Solemn and insouciant.
All wrapped into one, astonishingly ordinary, singular, bit of experience. The extraordinary in the ordinary. The ordinary of the extraordinary.
How did it/is it/will it go/going/go?
If it all sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook to you, it does to me as well.
Most simply, this all reminds us to revel in this moment. This sublime, glorious, sumptuous moment. Ponder the past; prepare the future. Revel is one word for it, but it just means to profoundly participate the present.
It’s January 2nd. The most important day of our lives.
January 3rd will also be the most important day.
And January 4th.
And June 23rd.
(Last March 23, 1998, was also the most important day, as it turns out. And you might not even have been born yet, eh? Go figure.)
You get the idea.
