From the time we are born until we die we are given many, many things: Love, pain, special trinkets, memories, people that come and go, opportunities, etc. but these “things”—these wonderful, horrible things all eventually fall apart and decay.
By Debbie Lynn
IMPERMANENCE
noun im·per·ma·nence (ˌ)im-ˈpərm-nən(t)s, -ˈpər-mə-
Definition of impermanence
: the quality or state of being impermanent
Simple Definition of impermanent
: not lasting forever : not permanent
We all know impermanence is a part of our life yet it is neatly tucked away and filed under “later” so we don’t have to deal with it.
We grapple with the whys and ponder our existence and we make up stories about what happens after we leave this place we call home. We search for some kind of tangible explanation for the things and people that disappear, yet the truth is so blatantly simple, so delicate and so embedded into our soul—we just miss it.
We miss the fact that we/life/nature are all tied together—the essence of transience itself—and if we stopped complaining about it all, the cycle of birth to death would be so much easier on the heart.
From the time we are born until we die we are given many, many things: Love, pain, special trinkets, memories, people that come and go, opportunities, etc. but these “things”—these wonderful, horrible things all eventually fall apart and decay.
Change is imminent. We change, we are change, and thus a somber dose of reality is: trying to hold on to any of it is futile.
Here today, gone tomorrow.
We latch on to ideas, to family, to rites and rituals. We latch on to the highs, to the lows and spin them into the fabric of our life and when it all begins to break, we break as well. We hold on to possessions, ideals and our importance and don’t let them breathe naturally. We literally suffocate ourselves in our self, boxing our lives in tightly with no air, no light, no life.
“See, if you analyze stuff long enough, you’ll eventually break ideas down to the quantum level where nothing makes sense and there’s no longer any meaning to anything. And then when you try to put it all back together again, you realize the pieces just don’t fit anymore. Worse, you realize that the pieces never fit in the first place. And then you’re left with a heap of broken ideas and beliefs that are shattered beyond repair. That’s reality.” ― P.S. Baber
We always want things to be different, or we don’t want them to change at all. We complain when it is winter, and we curse the summer heat. We spend too much time in the past and worry about the future losing sight of “right now.” And the truth is, everything is transient.
Why is that so hard to hold? Because we haven’t embraced the totality of life itself. We can’t face the other side which is loss, and there is such an importance around loss. It washes us out, cleans up the sick, the toxic and the unwanted, and in turn, gives us back a new life…but only if we allow it and/or celebrate the cycles.
Yet trying to keep gratitude in the midst of atrocity is beyond difficult. It’s not impossible, just very difficult. We are all a bundle of emotional fluctuation and it is not something easily controlled. Over the years, life has shown me that attachment is very painful, my emoting is pitiful and everything, (for better or worse) must change form.
I wish we could disassemble the idea of ownership, because more often than not the things we want to keep via “ownership” simply become a burden, and this burden is where worry grows, greed expands and a myriad of emotional clinging habits sprout roots.
Weed your garden. Let life do its thing. We experience enough pain as it is so why add more to the pile?
For resolution, maliciously pull the toxicity out of its dramatic form (the form we all love to hold), and just let it lie in the dirt. Everything returns to nurture us. Yes, that includes all of our emotions, all of our senses and all of our reality because nothing, nothing lasts forever.
It simply changes time, space and shape.
Photo: Pixabay
Editor: Dana Gornall
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Debbie realized at a very young age that the outer reality was a far cry from her inner truth and meeting her inner wisdom head on always turned into a challenge. The wonderment, curiosity and hypocrisy of life led to exploration and a cumulative documentation (art and journaling) of what she lovingly calls “the purge”. It is her way of ridding any negative energy from the daily grind. She says, “In essence, it is a way to start fresh and cleanse the soul.” Debbie has had numerous articles published in Elephant Journal, The Edge Magazine, Sail Magazine and Cruising Outpost Now a featured writer for The Tattooed Buddha. Her daily posts can be found on Facebook-360 degrees of Inspiration (full circle)Facebook .
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