Savoring the Present

“There is a moment in each day that Satan cannot find.
Nor can his Watch fiends find it, but the Industrious find this moment and it multiply.
& When it is once found, It renovates every Moment of the day…”

~ William Blake, Milton

At some moment every day, we perceive the mystery. At some moment every day, we are gifted with its presence. But all too easily we are brought down by the tide of circumstances, and by the great rush to nowhere that our lives have become.

“Living in the Present” has become a cliche, unfortunately, but what if one were to realize that the “present” is “a present,” a gift? What if, instead of all the vain efforts at meditation, or purity, or health; one could stop and receive the gift that appears “at some moment every day,” and reconstruct the day around that grace?

This is not an exercise in sentimentality, this is an exercise in opening the doors of perception, of breathing in deep appreciation, of acknowledging those minor moments of revelation. Last night, we were in circle and someone was chanting powerfully in an unknown language. Instead of closing my eyes and trying to go somewhere else, I kept my eyes and ears open to receive the gift. And for a brief moment, the bowl of water in the center altar of the earth became the center of everything, and everything and everyone fit beautifully and perfectly into that pattern emerging from the great center both ever full and empty at once, a miracle in a blink of an eye. But acknowledging these moments, by writing about them, sharing them, affirming them, we move into the world of renewal as opposed to the world of strife and loss. There is a moment in each day….