Time And Again

Time and Again

Every year we try to pinpoint the season: cherry trees, chickweed, st. john's wort, acorns. Things happen at the same time, the same season, the same world. It's funny that if we know something is going to happen, we find ourselves more intelligent for it, even though we've only inserted ourselves into the equation.

I can't help but think that we are only feeding ourselves a bone though. Yes, there is a time in the year for everything, but is time still running along for us as it did last year? How morbid last year, but this year a break in the sun, only a fool would believe they were the same! And yet, we are still living here on earth, on this planet we never leave. A part of me believes we have already gone through two or three of them in this lifetime, maybe another very soon. Don't they say, 'You never step into the same river twice'? And if you only step into it once, is it the same river if you just look at it time and time again, remembering that one time? That's where the problems start perhaps. 

Our realization that our world is our point of view, and our point of view is made up of everything we have wanted and not wanted in that world is the fine line between our comfort and our transcendence of banality. So then what we see is only what we are allowed to see. Many of us walk right past the chickweed; indeed, right past another world, another dimension, and just so, another life that we are at the moment living. We could also make a case that our life is already over and this point of remembrance is merely the consummation of light catching up to consciousness. Perhaps then, what appears before us is no longer nourishment but for those who have an appetite for reflection. And so we keep plugging away.

Douglas Thornton