We are all here, now. But maybe too much so.
We run our lives on this immediacy and live contentedly with dense myopia to reality with a Capital R. We are in a hurry to…
Beyond the view of what is in our hands just now, beyond the action items on today's agenda, we are too often deaf and blind. We live in a series of instants in time, doing what it takes to get to tomorrow. We like our reality in really really teeny highly-dissected bites and prefer the view of the ground beneath our feet rather than the view ahead.
It is easy to ignore all else but the things we are touching now and the moments that populate our to-do list.
Yes, Ram Dass, there is some merit in being here now.
But "all the flowers of all tomorrows are in the seeds of today." Learn this by repeating it aloud until it sinks in.
This anonymous phrase bears deep thought. And I highly recommend you do so while sitting for an hour in a quiet place in a forest. A full hour. You will not be “wasting” your time but distilling it.
Every single plant you see in your view from your sit-spot is the visible tip of a genealogy of parents from this forest--which was once virginal and old and devoid of the marks of man. The distant ancestors of the tulip poplar at your back dominated what is second-growth thrice repeated. Once, there was nothing more here than the jagged peaks of bedrock granite and quartz bones of these old mountains.
Every plant you see as you become comfortable and familiar in your sitting place is the product of a genetic lineage whose beginnings can be traced back to the Carboniferous.
Likewise, each bird and bird species. Each moss and lichen and their kind. Even the boulders and outcrops have a history and a future.
And when, after your hour, you stand and brush the pine straw from your jeans, you will have dipped your toe in the stream of life-time and rock-time and plant-time in which you, too, are a seed of tomorrow.