I've never been able to understand the theory that there is nothing else at all, except the current present moment. 

Until now. 

I finally get it. Everything else is actually just an illusion. It's either a memory, or a thought. It doesn't exist except ethereally. So the only thing that matters....the only thing that IS literally matter, is this present moment. For instance,  don't know if this bench I am sitting on in Florida will actually even exist in matter even one second from now. What if a hurricane came and blew it away? Or a truck ran through it? We never, ever, really know what the future holds. Though I do imagine we can trust with some certainty that there is a future and that it holds the same things in it...do we really, ultimately know? People in Hiroshima probably thought they had a future. And in the last moments of Pompeii. And on that plane that went down recently.

But this isn't about catastrophe.

It's just about a new reality I'm sinking into to because it also happens to be that my gene keys tell me that I'll really only be happy when I can live in the present moment. I am starting to understand that. Maybe it's one of the lessons that I am learning by having the reality of cancer in my body this past year. It's teaching me something.

Does this idea of present moment mean I don't make any plans? 

No. I've been planning to travel to Egypt for months and it is finally about to happen (and it's next week!!!!). 

Does it mean I don't dream up my future?

No.

But after I am finished dreaming, and doing some planning, from the present moment, then I've got to stay right in the present moment and do the next best thing that I'm called to do, like eat breakfast mindfully or notice the cardinal that is staring at me, or the giant grasshoppers making a huge commotion over there, or the cute little tiny lizards everywhere, and the loud sound of the air conditioner over there. I've got to stay present. Or I'll miss something. Like the messages that all of them have for me. The vibrations they have. The beauty I see and drink in. The air on my face. The smell of sea air.

It's human nature to go go go go go. And I do like to move quickly and in fact it keeps me happy. But even in moving quickly I can be in the present moment paying direct attention to exactly now and how I am breathing and what I am seeing or feeling or thinking. All of it matters. It's one of the best reasons our souls came to be in these bodies, I imagine. We are spirit in matter and that matters in terms of how we live this existence.

This past year I've been present with a health crisis in my body and I've experienced such a range of emotion, pain, thought of death and dying, hope, fear, grasping, surrendering, confusion, certainty....and so much more.

But lately It comes down to some simple things: Surrender to the moment and surrender to my body. Love the moment and love my body. Trust the moment and trust my body. Take actions based on love for myself and my body and my life (I'm calling this Love in Action.) And be in inner peace and freedom...even if that means emotions come and go.

In my experience when I realize things like this and want to change into them, they first become practices that turn into habits that turn into reality, and through conscious choices one after another.

I don't know what the future brings. I can't know. I can guess. I can intuit. I can ask. I can choose. I can plan. But really, none of us truly know and frankly the future could be so much better than we could possibly know...so sometimes it's best to let the Universe deal the cards. 

Maybe it's because there rarely are so few concrete answers, that being in the present is the less crazy-making option. Sometimes, when I've really been IN it and mastered it, I've found it can be waaaaay more fun than trying to figure everything out and think I know. I don't really know.

I just know I am here right now. I'm finding peace in being in the present today and I wanted to share because as I was sitting in this beautiful little atrium on my daughter's campus on family weekend in Florida I heard a voice speak through me that said, "This Golden Present Moment Is All There Is."

And so it is. 

Amen. And I hope you have a wonderful day.

--Suzanne