This post is excerpted from my August 2023 newsletter. If you would like to receive a free monthly newsletter delivered directly to your inbox, please email me at [email protected].

I’ve been grappling with change lately. Big changes, like the floodwaters that ravaged the towns near my home, and little changes, like the progress I am making each day toward healing my injured elbow.

All of this against the backdrop of the sun’s migration southward and the shifting of sunlight and shadow, the changing birdsong in the mornings, and the familiar sequence of blooms in the gardens outside my window.

And this brings me to an exploration that is currently top of my mind, an exploration of the nature of time.

What happens when we imagine each moment as filled with all the possibilities we can envision (and many we cannot!)? Is it possible to play with time as a construct—what happens if we sit in this moment with a full acceptance of life as it is, allowing our resistance to dissolve and be replaced by curiosity?

Time zones are arbitrary lines of demarcation superimposed on a revolving planet—like the post-Renaissance emergence of time tables and clock-driven jobs, time zones were created to facilitate flows of information and goods across continents and hemispheres.

What happens if we release the impatience driven by the staccato beats of linear time and invite a sense of time as flow, emerging from where we are right now? The need to control or direct our lives, and the sense that we might miss out on an opportunity, is replaced by a trust in our inner knowing and a sense of open listening to ourselves and our unique harmony with the world around us.

When I drift through an hour or a day fully awake and aware of Summer’s gifts, the tensions and contradictions of my life come into perspective, and often fall away. I recognize and relish the joys of where I am right now. I feel more relaxed.

When I stop forcing my thoughts into the day, the week, the year ahead, I can receive the gift of resilience that comes from grounding and presence in this moment.

A Summer Meditation

Sit comfortably and breathe deeply into your belly a few times. Come fully into your body—feel the soles of your feet on the Earth, and allow your energy to flow downward.

Invite any tension you have at this moment to flow down your body and out through your feet.

Tune into the center of your head, just behind the place where you feel your thoughts swirling around. Allow yourself to step out of linear time for a moment.

Take a few more deep breaths and sense a flowing of energy that connects you to everything and everyone, to all space and time.

Now bring your senses back into your body and invite neutral green Earth energy to flow in through your feet. Invite golden Cosmic energy to flow in through your crown.

Sense these two energetic flows bringing warmth and resilience into your entire energy body.

Take a few more deep breaths and come on back.