Whatever we decide to do, there is a freshness in everything. This freshness doesn’t require organic matter pressed into a coveted object, but instead a perspective of excitement. The clouds settle into their normal rhythm, the light resumes its daily routine, and we are made whole by the sunrise. Every moment is new, even if you don’t see it. When we love into this newness, the darling moments of the day become ours to keep forever. Falling into the joyful abyss, we are frozen in the amber of the present moment. We are kept in the cage of presence, a cage we lovingly accept. Without anything to hold us against the moment, we are free to experience it as a rock would, a child would, a blueberry would. Who are we to think we understand the reality we’ve been trying to crack for centuries? The story is as old as story itself: understanding through observation. The glit-glit-glit of the camera shutter can only capture a fragment of what we experience with our whole being. And this whole-being experience, what I call the honeyed moment, is the delight of all delights.

What happens when happiness doesn’t leave? Having spent all your time dripping into the future, hoping for some electronic savior to reach through the screen and code you awake, finding a fresh moment every second of the day is a lightening of the load. You hold in your constellation-rich palm the ability to make every moment thick with meaning. When the swamp-heavy air settles into your mindscape, you can see the dreary as delightful. We are not one but parts of one, a whole so large, it is invisible–camouflage through vastness. The whole exists here and now, without any chance of understanding, because understanding is also part of the whole.

And so we watch and wait, painting the world with our emotions and feelings, never seeing that the entire experience is in the untied shoe, in the smoke from your oven, in the plump bird on the neighbor’s roof. Tenderness rings out from each experience, but it’s our duty to make sure we capture it each second of the day. This isn’t a goal that has an end or a winning point. There is no flag-laden finish line where cheering spectators give you a surge of motivation. But return to the experience of here and now frequently enough, and that surge of motivation will come nonetheless. Because experience should be your compass. Experience should be the unencumbered walk through the woods. Experience will lead you to enlightenment. The very act of observation shows you exactly what will wake you up.