March 2023

Tomorrow I will be reaching the end of an age decade, at the junction of a rare New Moon, the Spring Equinox, and the Hindu Lunar New Year. Existentially, such age landmarks might be irrelevant, but I guess there is some psychological impact, and for good reason. Among other things, there’s lots of mystery and enthusiasm. A sense of destiny, as well, but a in a very particular way: the sense of “𝘐 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘮𝘭𝘺” that is accompanied, apparently in a paradoxical way, by limitless possibilities where nothing is set in stone. (Many times I’ve wondered – and this is by no means a rhetorical question – if free will is just an illusion that is precisely a part of the game of destiny, for reasons we may not be able to fathom.)

As I’m writing all this, I’m rather tired and I should be sleeping, but I once again find myself awake at a late hour, discovering yet another African band (:D) and wanting to wrap up all sorts of things that keep piling up, in a mix of joy, drive, and, on the other hand, a warm, meditative need to just sit still and experience the silence within sound, the stillness within motion. If anything, there’s a growing awareness of the time that passes and swallows everything, regardless of what I do or don’t do, which feels both serious and serene.

Many times I’ve felt that nothing really matters – not as a form of denial, but as a deeper kind of awareness. And there’s another reality existing simultaneously, without contradicting the former: everything matters, everything is important, everything is precious. As I’m contemplating all the things that I want to do and experience in this lifetime, most of them fundamental ones, there’s a spontaneous, healthy, sobering realization that time keeps passing and I shouldn’t keep postponing what is truly important to me and that there are no guarantees. Not an anxiety-ridden realization, but a lucid one, that comes with clarity.

Such moments of awareness, even when recurrent or even ongoing, are unfortunately not a guarantee that one will act. They might still experience fear, some sort of hesitation, the roots of which can be rather deep and mysterious – like some sort of archetypal inner battle. A distinct kind of courage is needed in this regard, one that is, essentially, a form of love.

Time and death have long been an obsession of mine, albeit not in a morbid way. They continue to fascinate me like a mystery that is the very seed of life, that goes hand in hand, inextricably so, with the insurmountable, glorious, exuberant embrace of life.

I’ve also felt plenty of times that, in a sense, everything has already happened – in this equation, doing is not properly speaking doing, since it’s already been done and there’s nothing else to be done. Just as I’ve felt that linear time is an illusion of our perception and, in fact, past, present, and future coexist in a dimension where these distinctions mean nothing. From another perspective, though, time does pass and one feels its unapologetic, indifferent, or even crushing weight. And yet there’s such unshakable peace within all this. All these words are superfluous, really. There is only life.

(Featured photo: two of my favourite cards from the splendid Tantric Dakini Oracle by Nik Douglas and Penny Slinger)