Life is like a high-speed bobsled ride in a glittering, sunlit tube of ice. Breathless in near silence, chill wind in your face reminding you that you are Alive in this moment. It is all you can do as you rush downhill on this too brief thriller to try Your Best to be present in each moment while keeping your eye out for the every present danger lurking just 3 seconds ahead around the next curve. What has come before is less than a distant memory, it has passed and will not ever come again. What is to come, you know, is the end of The Ride, most often unexpected and most likely always too soon. Each and every tenth of a second is Beyond Precious, and we are challenged to show up for ourselves in a way which honors this gift beyond measure..

That is not to say that sitting in the quiet of the darkest night and contemplating the stars is not equal to the rush of the bobsled. In fact this moment is a part of that ride, quite inseparable. Starlight, like cold air, falls upon our face to remind us we are here, in this very moment, and that magnitude beyond knowing is not just before us but also all around us and even within us. What is great is also immeasurably small (although we are getting better at measuring both!).

So are we stopping not just to “smell the roses” but to say to ourselves, “I will never, ever, ever pass this way again.” The older I grow, the faster the ride; yet somehow, miracle of miracles, the scenery seems to move in slower frames and I feel like I can hold each frame more deeply with each passing millisecond than the one I held before.

And perhaps that is “that moment.” The moment when, listening carefully to the wind as it dies down, noting how the leaves are becoming still, how the tree no longer bends, we approach and recognize the moment when we are gone.