We are ceaselessly engaged in cycles of returning. We attend to breathing and then we get drawn into stories. We dwell in those stories for a while until something prompts us to the fact that we are not being present. In that moment, we have the opportunity to come back. The breath is there waiting. The body is there waiting. This moment is always here … waiting. This is our process of becoming–moving away and coming back, disengaging and reengaging, forgetting and remembering.

The present moment waits without judgment. It does not recriminate; it does not reproach. Perhaps we can do the same when our minds wander. Perhaps we can pick up with this very moment instead of forestalling it by “could haves” and “should haves.”

I’ve been away from posting for quite a while. I succumbed to the flu, which gave me plenty of practice observing sensations in the body, particularly the heavy, warm sensations of fever.

Just as we return to the breath, I invite you to return here to see what will be happening next.