I’ve been thinking on this concept since I read it recently in The Joy of Health. This is how I began: We cling to time as we resist change. We cling to what we think IS, or what we want IS to be, because we fear change. First, we fear changing our perception (belief), which would then…motivate us to change our behavior. This is why we identify so intensely with the physical world around us that we experience any loss with fear (not knowing/loving self).
Our perceptions of right/wrong are related to or dictated by time more than we know or accept. We can see how we create and how easily we accept change as “time passes.” Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” As I live my life (age), and as those I know and love change, I am encouraged to more gently, graciously, appreciate this gift, this art of life and how precious such love is. I remember little gems from my father as they flash into my mind’s eye: excitedly talking with him when I was a child, clamoring for his full attention (as I saw it) because what I had to say was all-important and really all There Was in that moment. I remember his expression as he patiently listened, even as he continued tinkering with his project of the moment. I remember his nodding as he listened, every now and then looking out the window. I remember his comment as he watched the birds, which he loved to do: I wonder why that bird keeps coming back to that one spot. I remember stopping for a flash, looking where he looked, maybe seeing the bird, then diving back into the well of thought I’d been whipping up for him to taste. Where was I? He smiled, continued listening patiently, inviting my attention to the bird, to the air, to the quiet. He might answer directly too, but mostly the point was he listened, and he invited me to listen more deeply.
As I listen to a friend’s disappointment about the outcome of an application, another’s intense adventure in a new job which requires full focus and adjustments with high stakes, as I continue the daily maintenance of a life – a house, a body, a mind, a pool, a car, a tree, a flower, I remember the power that guides us as energy in motion. We’re encouraged to fight (do not go gentle), to rage against what we feel are injustices, and we interpret, express this “fight” in many different ways – some violently, some persistently, some gently, some quietly, etc. I appreciate the drama of passion as the power of love and creation – birth and death as cycles of change as the best example. Firmness, dignity, growth, humility – as an Ethical Value passion is paired with discipline and knowledge. I understand this more clearly now. Passion, in its pure joy of creation, seeks, savors, and requires the knowledge of discipline and the structure of us as energetic beings. This is how we know and expand our power – to share, to love, to feel compassion, to enjoy the pure freedom of choice, will, and intention in our life, despite the challenges that may come (what dreams may come!) Our choices reveal our intentions, and in every expression, always visible as energy, our attitude about change as our most intimate internal relationship.
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