#49. Impermanence

We bargain with the clock, wish for four hands or time machines to go back and correct the things we just have had no time to.

We make plans to escape this country or that town in order to find more evolved experiences.

We beg others to quiet, or we scream on our own, disturbed that we cannot hear enough to understand the situation.

We look for facts to stand firm on so we can yell out our opinions.

We pray, begging, sobbing for GOD to heal miraculously or intervene with just the right conviction to make them repent.

We scan our environments looking for safety, making judgments about who feels too hyped-up and who feels too in need of showing off.

We wear anti-wrinkle creams, add fake tans to our skin, and liposuction fat from our stomachs. We water lawns all winter and we cover wrinkles with make-up and contouring tricks.

All of this is resistance to the objective fact that ALL THINGS CHANGE.

The leaves, the skin around eyes, the fruit on trees, the aging crack of cliffs falling and the chasms created by earthquakes. The candle that burns out, the well-loved, cracked leather couch, photos of people no one remembers and clouds passing through the sky.

Everything that is a part of this mortal, Earth experience (which includes EGO: physical, emotional, intellectual, relational being, with memory and free will, existing in time and space) is impermanent. There is the most beautiful and subtle miracle in this idea.

Grab a pen and paper and try a little exercise with me?

Draw a small circle and in the middle write the words, I AM.

Then draw 6-8 petals around the inner circle. Then another layer of petals around them until your flower is the size you want it to be. It might look something like this…

In each petal, write down something about yourself: from basics like sex and age, job titles, or ethnicity to more extensive ideas of who you are like your spirituality, relationships, or challenges there are being you.

Try to hit all of the ego categories: physical you, emotional you, intellectual you, relational you with memory and free will existing in time and space.

Fill it up with those parts of yourself you feel super proud of and those secret words that mean something much darker you’re ashamed to write. Write it all. Write the parts of your history you are proud of, the decisions that built you into who you are. Write how you like to spend your time, what things are priority to your efforts, and those hobbies you lose track of time while doing. Write something you’re ashamed of, no one will see it but you. Be honest with yourself. Who are you?

Now, take a highlighter and color each petal that is impermanent. If the quality you wrote down can end, color the petal. If you can lose what you wrote, color the petal. If it can be taken away from you, color the petal. If it can be improved upon or altered, color the petal.

All of these things you just wrote, examined and colored are IMPERMANENT.

You cannot take any of these things you use to define your personage and your worthiness with you when you die. None of it. Not your gender or even your race.

What is left? What am I? Who am I if not these titles and names?

What is left?

I AM.

This is your introduction to yourself. You are not daughter or son. These are roles you play on Earth. You are not your mental or physical illnesses. You are not your career victories or family embarrassment. You are none of these things. They are all roles you played temporarily. All of these things are impermanent.

Who are you?

The only thing that never dies, never changes, never leaves.

You are Spirit.

Impermanence is a portal into understanding. Impermanence reminds me on days that I wake up depressed, this too shall pass. When I am sitting in my hot tub while the breezes chill my shoulders and raindrops fall lightly on my face, I feel like I am in Heaven! And I know this too shall pass. Everything on Earth is an impermanent gift. And you, you are the eternal receiver, the radiant and subtle awareness of all the stories and all the roles.