As long as I am present in this body, I am assured of change. Every instant is completely new, and fully different, even if I cannot perceive that with my senses. Some cells have died and some have regenerated, the weather has shifted, the thoughts that arise are new and even fresh, although they seem like thoughts I’ve had before.

What I am not sure of is most everything else, and that is an immensity hard to consider, certainly impossible to wrap the mind around. The house could be torn asunder by a tornado. A meteorite might smite the very place on earth where I sit at this moment. I might win the lottery. I might die of a heart attack or an aneurism in the next instant. None of these events seems likely, but in the bigger scheme, absolutely anything could come to pass. In one moment I find this terrifying, and in the next, comforting. None of us know! We are all in the same completely-out-of-control, wacky, careening boat. And if you question that, just watch world news for a minute or two.

I spent most of my life trying to control everything—to line up life in a way that feels secure and managed. This has taken an staggering amount of energy, and to no avail—nothing feels safe or contained, nor could it ever. That is not the nature of life. Imagine if that energy had been applied differently. Yet the heart still beats, and breaths enter and leave the body with regularity, for as long as they do.

What else am I sure of? The perfume of that-which-does-not-change: that untouchable, transparent ground of reality which is wholly reliable and the source of all.

©Amrita Skye Blaine, 2012
photo credit: Jeffrey Foltice