So. Imagine two strings threaded through a bed that can run up and down the strings changing the shape of two opposing triangles. The bead represents where we are. It is the present moment. The top triangle is all that has transpired to create the present moment. the bottom triangle is all that will transpire from the present moment on. The bead pushed to the top represents early life. at the bottom it represents late life. Where ever the bead is in the span of a life, all that has transpired funnels into it. and all that is possible proceeds from it.


This little model is just something to visualize an exercise I am engaged in. A sort of meditation in which I try to place myself in the present moment. being someone for whom participation in the present moment is a grate challenge. I tend to place my self in the future, or in the past, for most of my conscious existence. Which means I am figuratively not here now. Not very present in the moment. When my fear and anxiety levels start to increase, this is when I have to come to terms with the fact that I am in a fools game of contending with what is past (regret, or guilt, or self dis-satisfaction, or resentment, or failed expectations) or, I am contending with what I am afraid is coming. I am in a realm, either the past or future, that I have no control over because neither exists in the place where I actually am. More critically, neither the past or the future provides a place of peace and well being. A big part of experiencing peace and well being in the present moment is coming to terms with all that has transpired to create it. Coming to terms with the reality of what is. And the reality that it is unalterable. Having difficulty accepting the conditions and circumstances of the present moment is one of the primary reasons I kick myself out of it and go searching the past for reasons, or the future for possibilities. Coming to terms with what that upper triangle is, provides the means by which I cam come to an embrace of where, and what, I am. Of what my life is: the good, the bad and the ugly: the blessings and the brokenness. To embrace it in total is the only real option I see other than to reject it and pretend it should be something else. The things that help me do this are recognizing that my present condition and circumstances are made up, not only of all that I have done and chosen, but of a gazillion circumstances and choices and conditions that took place completely out of the realm of my control. To see a larger picture leading to my present condition helps to ameliorate my angst. The other thing about this exercise is recognizing that my progress from here forward, into the lower triangle, has a tremendous amount of opportunity inherent in it. If I can come to terms with what I am in total. I am then free to move forward from where I actually am. Which is reality, rather that being paralyzed in a false realm of fantasy. A fantasy that either exaggerates my circumstances and abilities, or diminishes them based on my out-of-touchness with what simply is.