It is often said that the past and future do not really exist and that the present moment is all we have. It’s a powerful lesson to be returned to again and. Being present to what is, without attachment or expectation seems a sensible course of action after we have banged ourselves up trying to make the world and its phenomena fit other models.
There is more however, since the model of time, past present and future, is the construct of the human mind. Time itself and the processes at work on things within time are notably oblivious to human psychology. Time does what time does.
If we search within ourselves and open to possibility, to seeing things beyond the veil of our senses and cultural programming, we begin to see evidence that perhaps we do not live in past or present or future modes exclusively. The truth is that we live in all times; some, live from one place more than another and each modality has its benefits and risks.
As some of us strive to be present, we may forget that human culture, time and history have been weaving a spiral through time. This magnificent pattern is sacred, for those who came before us created it with us in mind.
As we see the pattern of consciousness left for us by our ancestors it is hard to not feel overwhelmed and even more difficult to recognize the temptation to ascribe more power and meaning to the past than to what we have today.
We cannot live hoping to create a future with keys and holy grails found in the records of the past. The things that have fallen away, are in precisely the place they belong. Yet past, present and future, the whole continuum of time it self, is always available to each of us, to be utilized for the imagining of possibility
Those who live primarily looking towards the future help imagine and create the present. Our species has the ability to imagine and create the future, the cultural record of the human world bears this out. Often, we may search through a village of visionaries, all intent on 'someday' or 'somehow,' with growing anxiety. We need hands that will feed the hungry, save the trees, do the work of social justice, today, right now, this minute.
Right now many feel that the future has risen up to greet is in a menacing way. Our species has made mistakes, the earth cries, the trees lament, society itself turns over on itself from the symptoms of neglect to what is healthy and sustainable for us as a species.
In our lifetimes we now confront the stark reality of nuclear bombs, human genocide, global warming. So many of us have witnessed atrocities and all of us live subject to the risk and consequence of an earth that may not bear humanity and its ways for too much longer. How do we sleep soundly, safely, through the night?
It is sometimes remembered that our ancestors move ahead of us in time and space, making a way for us. It helps to imagine that far from lying in a distant past, they are right now finding a way for us as they move. In our world, we understand that nothing is ever truly lost. Intergalactic dust and vibrating atoms, energy and time have spun a universe too large to chart. It is the work of many lifetimes; those who loved us so long ago moving now through space into places we have yet to imagine.
Along the journey they perhaps have passed through many of the events this generation has expectantly waited for. From Y2k to Harmonic convergence to the end of Mayan days, from Atlantis to the Greeks, along the plains and sun dances, pyramid steps and carved Andean plateaus, people wait for things, dates on calendars, mathematical reckonings.
It is an always unfolding universe, the sky is always falling, stars born and dying in many places. Through the vast emptiness of space itself there is energy traveling even faster than light speed through eons of sleeping and awakenings. In this sense, it is always our time, in time and on time, in the perfection of what is. Its never the last time, there is always a promised land awaiting us in the dessert, and there will always be time for laments along the way.
The ever breaking wave comes up again and again, with menace and power. And many like me will continue to seek answers, add to the collective vessel of humanity. Within the vessel are the vibrations and energy patterns we create, set into motion, and leave behind. In the future more will be revealed, twas ever thus. There will be technology through which we will be able to measure and document the energy systems that surround us daily. These machines will do nothing other than corroborate what has been known and revealed to many throughout time.
We make the way. We pray and dream the way. We let the reluctant brilliant and stubborn place we still believe may exist in us rise up, call it up, invite and plead it up and let it , allow it, to be heard. We bring it down, like saints and sages and heroes. If you believe in anything believe in yourself and your place in the world, be open to messages of hope and love. Be present, be mindful, watch your thoughts.
Occasionally something comes across our field of cognizance that is peculiar. A different kind of thought. The thought is not part of the well ordered world we have calculated and mapped. It will not fit into things from the past, will not have a word in Sanskrit, nor have been taken into account by Buddha, Jesus or Einstein. It will be perceived unlike a feeling, but we will have feelings about it. One of its peculiarities is that although you will be able to share it and others will discern its presence, it will be virtually impossible to name, or place within known systems, contexts, paradigms.
Can you catch it? Will you let the DNA unravel into its next helix strand? Twas ever so. If Atlantis, if the Mayans, if the Egyptians, if the gurus and saints, then, you too.
It is one and we all carry it, codified into our being. Stop searching the sky, the stars the past or the varied geography of the planet. The revolution, the evolution, begins right here, inside.
Francisco Letelier 2008
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