I was out of breath by the time I reached the top of the hill where I usually take a little rest during my morning jog. As I looked back at the lake from above -where a few minutes ago I was running- a strange feeling overwhelmed me. I was just standing there, with eyes closed because the sun was already shining brightly from over the opposite ridge and I was just watching this familiar feeling which was filling me up from top to toe. 

It wasn’t familiar because I have been stopping here almost every day recently, but because a picture of another distant hillside flashed in my mind on this hilltop this morning. Another hilltop, in a remote country where I often used to stand in the same way.

As I was standing on top of the hill in the same way and to see better what was invisible to the eye. I closed my eyes as I had done before and more and more pictures came, of more hills and of more valleys, lakes and mountains where I had already stood and where I had felt the sparkling freshness of life.

I was present in each and every one of the places where previously I had managed to stop time … the same Sun was shining on me as it had so many times during my life… the same wind was soothing my skin … the same air filled up my lungs which also fills the lungs of all sentient beings since the beginning of time on this earth.

 It was interesting to experience the permanence and the permanent change at the same time. Because just as I can’t enter the same river twice and I change from moment to moment, we still have a part of us which is shared, and which is eternal and timeless. Or perhaps it is more accurate if I say that we are part of -or we have a part in- the eternal immutability.

And this duality, both permanence and impermanence -although apparently opposite- complement each other to form a unity. 

It is an uplifting experience. As I stand on so many hills and in so many valleys at the same time, in the liveliness of the present … and I just feel how my tears are running down my face from under my closed eyelids … and the wind unites with the sun to dry my tears and take them to all the places where I have stood and to all the places where I will stand in the future …  over time and space …  right here and now. 

What a wonderful world it is … and how wonderful it is that we are part of this miracle – and this miracle is a part of us.

Blessing