Preparing for Impermanence.

 

It’s three weeks until teacher training graduation.

We count on the things, like this, in our lives. The ones that enrich us. That we look forward to each week or each month. It is hard, I admit, to imagine that this studying—this lovely group of individuals—will no longer be present in my life in the same way.

But this is how it goes, yes? The acceptance required to put one foot forward in the fog of change is much of what this blog is about. What the last eleven months of teacher training have been about. What, really…existence is about.

Early on in my studies, my teacher said to our group, “Don’t let things become permanent fixtures in your life.”

I heard those words, but I didn’t grasp them. My mind went to my house, my parents, my husband, my job, and they all felt secure. Sturdy. Immovable.

For months, though, her simple statement has found its way back into my mind time and time again. And, finally, it dawned on me:

There is no constant impervious to the force of life.

To be alive, to breathe the air, is to be ever-changing. Existence, at its will, lifts us into the clouds with good, and, at other times, drops the floor out beneath us with heartache and sorrow.  

Part of resilience, of bouncing back, of not allowing life’s every little stumble get us down is understanding the sheer power and momentum of living. There are no promises, no guarantees, and not a single thing stays the same. Feel it, accept it and embrace the fleeting. There's beauty there too.