Sunday, November 20, 2011

For Those In The Now


Be Here Now
the Buddhists and Ram Das admonish;
Be in the Moment,
for there is nowhere else to be.
The Power of Now
is the only strength needed,
Eckhart Tolle tells us.
And yet, and yet,
the mind is such a creative tool
it can conjure up landscapes and spacescapes
and whisk us to our wildest imaginings,
deepest desires, and darkest fears
in the sighing of a single breath.
Never mind.
Bring it all back to this moment.
It is all we ever have.


28 comments:

  1. That looks like a lovely video work - Bill Viola?

    ReplyDelete
  2. a very zen moment - it helps if you have a blue view like that (ie my terrace!) Greetings from the Riviera...

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a lovely picture, is it taken at the musee in Montreal (like your label suggests) I'd like to go and see it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Spent the last thirty minutes trying to achieve just that.
    It is not easy to silence the litany of regrets and file away the list of wishes. But it can happen.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lulu,
    I regret to say that I didn't register the name of the artist who created this vision-and-sound experience. There were many rooms with videos playing. This one captured a storm blowing in from the horizon in the Arctic. Added bonus, no frostbite!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Catherine,
    Oh yes, I would love to be in the azure moment of your now!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jenny,
    Yes, it's currently at the contemporary art museum in Momtreal as part of their Québec Triennial, which is a large and varied exhibit, well worth an afternoon's stroll through. As I said to Lulu above, it captures a storm blowing across the frozen landscape of the arctic, complete with surround sound. Best way to experience such an occurence, I'd say.

    ReplyDelete
  8. DCW,
    Yes, miracles can happen. I met a woman who taught yoga and Hakomi and who used a system of counting for her meditation practise. Every time the mind wandered she'd start again at 1. She said that once she realized that she'd never get beyond 1, she was comfortable with meditating. Maybe it's more to do with acceptance of what is rather than struggling with an ideal of what "should" be?

    ReplyDelete
  9. I was (am) absolutely entranced by this photo. I looked and looked and looked trying to figure out how this bare-shouldered woman ended up sitting on top of a snowy world. A prize winner!!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I agree, learn from the Past, but live in the Present and the Future will be much brighter.

    ReplyDelete
  11. jann,
    Absolutely the best way to experience snow and cold! This photo, for once, is straight out of camera...but your comment about a bare-shouldered woman sitting on top of a snowy world makes me wonder what wonders a few Photoshop effects might produce...hmmm....Oh, but why argue with perfection!
    ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Shirl,
    When did you get so wise? One of the percs of living a long life? Although, I think one has to start out with a certain amount of innate smarts; wouldn't you agree?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Ah it can be tough to keep that balance sometimes.. often. To silence those thoughts that are anywhere but in the now.

    Lovely photo.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hilary,
    You're so right: easy to talk the talk, much trickier to walk the walk!

    ReplyDelete
  15. For some reason the notion of living constantly in the "now" as attractive as it is, is hard for me to get a handle on. The now is always slipping into the future, time is liquid, going down the universal throat, like waves ever rolling across the sea, we have little choice but to surf the waves as they keep on sliding, sliding... nothing in this universe is static, so is the quest for living in the now a quest for stasis ? But a few quiet moments of contemplation are always a good thing, to calm our busy minds, emptying the mental trash, as it were.

    Btw, in reference to the song mentioned in response to the chicken post just now, one of my favorite albums ever is Al Stewart's "Past, Present, and Future", with songs like Nostradamus and Roads to Moscow...

    ReplyDelete
  16. What a gorgeous and unique image! It just took my breath away. Would be a perfect cover for a book by one such as Tolle. The best thing I got from Eckhart Tolle that I am able to put into practice consistently is to pause, observe what I am thinking, and then decide whether a particular thought is an opinion or a fact. That alone has spared me a lot of wheel-spinning and grief.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I hope that the artist who created the video can see your image.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Owen,
    The now is ever present and ever moving. No stasis, yet ever- present stasis. We are all just little sticks bob-bob-bobbing along in the sea of nowness.
    When you are enraptured by a scene or an object or a flake of rust and have your camera stuck in front of your face to capture that image/shock...is that not being in the present, being in the "now" of that particular experience of that precise moment? Photos want to rest forever in that now. But as soon as they are "taken" they have become the past.
    Being in the moment, accepting what we have here and now, not escaping into fantasies and fears about the future, or daydreams about the past, but being fully present and alive to what is...much more difficult than it at first appears, yes. I am not a practitioner, only a preacher, for purposes of illustrating this photograph with words.
    I think when we are somehow engaged with nature we tend to be in the moment,and that is partly why it is so enjoyable and refreshing.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Stickup,
    I am simply stunned that a photo of my making could take your breath away.
    You know, I really can't remember anything in particular that I learned from Eckhart Tolle, except that The Power of Now made complete sense to me while I was reading it. It was perhaps from him that I learned that there are only three choices to be made in any situation, "acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm"; anything else resists being in the moment, causing pain and stress. Difficult when the very best reaction that can be mustered is acceptance. I'm still working on it.

    ReplyDelete
  20. nouvelles couleurs,
    Oh yes, the video itself was intense. Perhaps I captured a bit of its feeling in my photo.
    Thanks so much for coming by. Great to see you again.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Patricia,
    I doubt that the artist will stumble upon this obscure blog and I sadly neglected to collect the videographer's name so cannot send a link to him. A search on the museum's website didn't conjure up his name, either. Note to self: make notes when capturing moments that involve another's art work. But I'm grateful that your comment indicates a certain appreciation of this photograph.
    :-)

    ReplyDelete
  22. My mind is boggling at the possibilities of now-ness versus then-ness versus yet-to-be-ness.

    This afternoon I worked so hard at being in the now, while lying flat on my back under the quilt on the bed, that I fell asleep for an hour... Now that is now-ness, it was lovely...

    ReplyDelete
  23. nOwen then,
    I recall a yoga teacher, or meditation teacher or some sort of such being saying that if one fell asleep during meditation that was precisely what was needed in that moment.

    Lying under a cozy quilt flat on your back and falling into a deep refreshing sleep, if that is not zen it must be now.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I was HERE AND NOW I'm not. xx

    ReplyDelete
  25. Saj,
    That's a pretty good disappearing act you've got going! The empties gave you away, though.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Robert,
    Excellent response! Thank you.

    ReplyDelete