The eternality of now

"The eternality of now — something that never changes, but is always new." (E.S)

In this very moment, I am sitting here typing my morning pages. My mind has quieted down, my body is comfortably sitting on my chair. Outside, the sun has risen but is hidden behind the clouds. My room heater is running near my feet, giving me abundant heat to overcome the chilly air of the February morning. Instead of my morning espresso, I am sipping the tea my friend Yeung gave me: made of green tea and orange peels, amber in color, with a smooth taste. All of these, I know, are in the present. And I know that this moment is eternal, not just by memory, but because it is woven into my fabric of being. If I temporarily withdraw my perception of time as linear, I will know that this moment does not pass away since time is congealed into the volume of being, everything is self-contained, and everything happens all at once. There will undoubtedly be other beautiful moments in the volume of being, but I will always have this moment.

The night my sister died, I stood in my backyard. In the distance, I heard the traffic on Highway 101, and the droning of planes bounding San Francisco Airport. There wasn't a moon, but the sky was clear, and I could easily see the stars. I could see six stars out of the seven that made up the "Big Dipper". I breathed the winter air of the Bay Area—of a place filled with enterprising spirit, optimism, joviality and confusion—and I knew that despite all the loneliness, despite all the grief I had, and despite the loss of what could have been—the joys and sorrows we shared in this life are eternal. I have found eternality in every moment of being¹.

¹ Julia Cameron, in her book "The Artist's Way", shared a very similar moment after her mother's death. Her work has not only inspired this very paragraph, but also me as a writer. My gratitude to her.