As I’ve got older I’ve come to dislike the passing of time and it markers more and more. The last one in a book of bus tickets, ordering another repeat prescription, tearing the daily newspaper voucher out.
Pleasurable sights, the first spring flower, a warm summer day, a hight hawk, are all tinged with the sadness of time.
A close friend died a while back, they knew what was coming, I saw no benefit or gain.
I think on my last day if I was aware of it and pain free enough to think, I would be paralysed by fear and indecision.
In the linked reading for today’s stillness the author writes:
we share the same faith and beliefs that we will be together again.
This to, my mind, somewhat invalidates the point she believes in something permanent, she is not so much feeling the fear but hoping, praying, her safety net is in place.
I’ve a dim recall of a story, perhaps a zen one, where the master says something about waking up every day feeling it could be his last. The pupil says something like, that is the same for us all. The master answers, “but how many feel itâ€. I suspect this might be the problem there are few of us who have the training, belief or strength of character to feel this is a positive way.
In short I long for permanence.
The image, of course, is of a temporary flux in the earth’s surface.