One of the ways to help make it through the arduous path of growth and change is to be enamored and moved by words - the words we create, share, and receive. These words aren't my own but are lovingly shared from the Kinfolk publication (Volume 8, from 2013) by an author unknown.
We are creatures capable of awe and reverence. And we can position our selves and our hearts to feel heavy and wonderful things. But to choose to see the beauty in the passing is no easy task. We must first cast off our illusions of control, and then we must take a step back and prepare ourselves for the full spectrum of pathos - love, beauty, loss. Perhaps then we will see all the gold that doesn't stay as beautiful instead of defeatist.
Mono no aware tells us to love now. Act now. Be here now. Invite our friends over, and stay up late. Because this time, this opportunity, this season will soon pass. Bask here while it is still possible.
Our days are ebbs and flows. Our lives are a collection of seasons where tides approach and recede, and trees flower and wither. The green fullness of summer is made more precious by the skeleton branches of winter. So don't fight time and don't fight the season. Don't keep things from ending, but celebrate them for the life they have now.
Our lives are rife with endings - the close of an evening or the triumphant finality of summer's last stand. If we reorient our hearts to accept and appreciate these endings, we begin to see our lives outside our limited terms - not only for our wanton control and desires, but also for mankind as a whole. Time is not ours. We can't slow the Earth's rotation, and we can't expect a wedding celebration to last forever.
I want to respect that which is larger than me - the sun that rises in the East and sets in the West, the gravity that keeps my feet perpetually on the ground below and the rhythm of time that says to all creation: this too shall pass.
