Audio Version:
Mark Nepo’s Poem:
This morning, I found myself returning to Mark Nepo’s October 22nd entry in The Book of Awakening, titled “Staying Present.” As I sat with his words about patience, not the kind where I tap my feet waiting for life to hurry up, but the kind that deepens understanding of life’s mysteries, I felt both inspired and, honestly, a little overwhelmed.
Let me share what’s real for me: changing these ancient habits of rushing and controlling is like trying to redirect a river that’s been carving the same path for decades. My mind is so conditioned to race ahead, to figure everything out, to protect me from uncertainty by constantly planning the next move. Even as I write this, part of me is already three steps ahead, wondering what comes next.
Nepo’s gentle reminder that when I stop rushing to interpret or escape my experiences, the world quietly reveals its meaning, sounds so simple. But simple isn’t the same as easy, is it?
It’s humbling. My eager, interpreting mind wants to package every experience into neat meanings before I’ve even felt them fully. This habit runs deep; it’s how I’ve survived, how I’ve felt safe. And now Nepo is inviting me to surrender this habitual drive to control outcomes. To stop anticipating. To simply… be here.
These new muscles of presence are tender, weak from years of not being used. It’s like learning to write with my non-dominant hand, awkward, frustrating, and requiring such patience with myself.
What I’m finding in these brief experiments with presence is so quiet I almost miss it: when I stumble into this patience Nepo describes, nothing spectacular occurs. The world doesn’t suddenly make sense. Instead, something in me simply stops trying so hard—like a clenched fist slowly opening, finger by finger, until my palm rests open to the sky.
The practice he describes is beautifully humble—it’s less about me mastering presence and more about allowing presence to master me.
So I’m taking it one breath at a time. One precious, imperfect moment at a time. I pause in the grocery store line instead of checking my phone. I feel my feet on the earth during my morning walk instead of planning my day. I notice when I’m racing ahead and gently, so gently, invite myself back.
No fanfare. No grand transformation. Just these small, almost invisible shifts. And yet… something is changing. Without any announcement, without my even noticing when it happened, I’m finding myself here more often. The world is indeed beginning to whisper its secrets to me, but only in those moments when I’m actually present enough to hear them.
What if this is how all real change happens? Not through heroic efforts or dramatic breakthroughs, but through these tiny, faithful returns to presence? What if the mystery I’m trying to solve is actually trying to reveal itself to me, and all I need to do is keep practicing getting still enough, even for just a moment, to receive it?
Today, I’m not trying to master anything. I’m just taking one small, precious step toward being here. And then another. And another. Building these new muscles slowly, tenderly, with great compassion for how hard it is to change patterns that have protected me for so long.
The world has so much to tell me. But it speaks in whispers, not shouts. And I can only hear it when I’m truly, deeply here, even if it’s just for a breath or two.
With love and patience for this slow, sacred work.
