A thousand birds were winging their way around scattered everywhere with very little rhyme or reason and it reminded him to look up. And it reminded him to look around. It was dusk. The trees and ground and buildings were that dark violet silhouette you only see at dusk. The sky filled in the rest behind it and from east to west it was blue then green then orange then yellow. Dan could almost pick the place in the sky where the color changed to the next the transitions were so abrupt. Birds and more birds silently slid amidst this visual beauty.

It was moments like these that Dan found were most easy to find himself and forget the past for a moment, stop rehearsing the future. There in that moment he felt he more understood what it meant to be aware. Being. Awareness. Was this kind of what the books talked about when they talked about enlightenment? Dan saw himself not at all as someone who was enlightened and in fact had kind of given up on the idea of this supreme realization that tore his old perception of the universe in half leaving the solace of pure understanding. Only in times like these when he could be content in the moment did he feel there could be something more, even just a shred of that enlightened solace.

He did gain a deeper understanding of the value of things in that moment. He saw more clearly how that moment, and each concurrent passing moment, or as we just call it: the present, was all we had. There was no value in endings, any ending. Death or loss or heartbreak. None. The universe is ending incarnate, built into everything is an ending. Nothing, nothingness, is inevitable.

Truly beautiful, and all that is worthy of celebration are beginnings. And havings. The briefest of moments when your world rubs against anothers and something glorious sparks between these heavenly bodies. These are the rare and beautiful gems in the universe, worthy of all your adoration and gratitude. When they’re gone, cast them aside, and do not mourn. That moment was special but now it is gone with the infinity of other lost things. Keep your mind on the ground under your feet or you will lose all that you’ve ever had.