When have we ever been anywhere but right here?

When has it ever been other than right now?

It is so easy to glaze over these questions, convinced that we know the answers–but the questions point to implications that are vast–if we are willing to deeply open and look with innocence. It is easy to be caught in the web of our culture’s beliefs and not even realize. It is also easy to search within thought instead of noticing our direct, immediate experience.

The impersonal “what” that notices has been with you always. It is the consistent thread throughout experience that we couldn’t lose if we tried. Look now and see. That noticing is effortless and continuous–even when we believe it is uprooted by a torrent of thoughts or emotions. It may be veiled, but it is noticing, here, in this placeless, non-locatable place.

And so it is with “when.” It is only, ever now. Memories of the past occur now, just as thoughts and dreams of the future happen right now. Now is not a small increment between the past and future; it is outside of time altogether. Eternally now.

© Amrita Skye Blaine, 2013
photo credit: Jeffrey Foltice