“One clear moment, one of trance
One missed step, one perfect dance
One missed shot, one and only chance
Life is all…but one fleeting glance.”
― Sanober Khan

Life has a precious timing.

This inner mechanism often lies sleeping, woven into the fabric of being, beating alongside the heart.

But it has a pulse all its own. And when it wakes, the pulse of life calls the world to attention and stands firmly present, like a parent looking you in the eye and waiting for the truth.

And, it has awoken once again.

Here, we find ourselves in a sphere unlike any other, a sphere of countenance and faith, of acceptance and of fear.

It has come time for us all to stand under life’s firm position, and tell our truth.

I’ve been struggling with conformity to the new norm lately, as have many of us. Across the world, we are all rearranging our lives in order to combat a silent and invisible enemy. And it is this enemy whom we cannot see, touch or feel that threatens our way of life.

But, was our way of life even working to begin with?

For some, maybe. For others, something has always been amiss.

Being the naturalist that I am, I’ve read a lot of works by renowned and prolific writers covering environment and nature. In regards to one of my favorite suppositions known as The Gaia Hypothesis or Gaia Theory, formulated by James Lovelock, I can only say this:

All signs are pointing true.

The Earth regulates itself. All life regulates itself.

Audacious and naïve are we to think that we can control life, or that we as people don’t have an effect on our surrounding environment. We and all living organisms are a part of a great symphony, one that resounds throughout the planet. When out of tune, the music we make is far from harmonic.

And we have been out of harmony for quite a while.

These are tough times for everyone, and without pointing the finger or soapboxing on any specific cause to the problems we face, I’ll simply say that a reset has been long overdue.

We’ve all been in grave need of stillness.

We’ve torn and scarred the world. And lately, with the lack of bustling human activity, we can see just how beneficial to the environment as a whole our inactivity truly is.

The wilds are blossoming again. Animals are roaming again. The sky is clearing and the Earth is breathing. Our waters are reflecting a purity rarely seen by many.

Life is returning to its natural flow, its primordial form.

The universe has a way of slowing us down when it’s time, and now life’s timing has spoken and we’re all sitting in the principal’s office, waiting to be scolded for our juvenile actions.

But, there’s still far too much at stake.

The lives we’ve been living have largely gone unchecked, unbalanced. We remain bewildered to what’s happening because, how could this have happened to us?

How could we, as a people, become victim to such a small enemy–one who has tuned our world upside-down?

We’ve all been a part of our own misery for far too long, and now life has come to collect.

This has happened, because it was time.

For now and the foreseeable future, I hope we all are able to use our time of stillness wisely. I hope we can all reflect and truly see what we’ve allowed our lives to become.

I hope we can all truly see what we’ve allowed into our lives, and what isn’t working anymore.

And I hope we can become selfless enough to understand how precious life truly is, how things like status, money and possessions are made only of rancid dust and spoiled ether.

We must understand how one moment is just as fleeting as the next. How that smile on your face grows only so far when you’ve conquered the day and won your prize.

But what is it worth to you if your smile goes unnoticed, with no one to look at it, no one who cares about it?

Does it make you smile now?

In this great reset, or The Great Pause as it is being referred, I truly hope we all come away better, more fulfilled, more in tune with what is truly important to us and to the people we love.

And above all, that we all might leave the world a little better than we found it.

Because it’s our job to do so. Mine, and yours.

Life is short, and tomorrow isn’t promised. So, make it count.

Be safe out there, and be well.