Sometimes, we learn by looking ahead to what hasn’t yet been discovered. At other times, we learn (or re-learn) by looking to the past. When it comes to learning to live life fully, it is important not to overlook the four basic rules of life that first came into existence 2-4 billion years ago! One of the earliest forms of life is the cell. You and I are constructed out of approximately 30-trillion cells, all working together, and all sharing four basic functions. These functions take place across the cell membrane surrounding each cell. In short, the key to life is what happens at the junction between our inner world and the world around us.

Far too many people seem to unintentionally subscribe to the idea that their past is the best predictor of their future. While it is true that we can’t change the past, it is absolutely not true that the past has to be allowed to keep exerting such an outsized influence on our “as yet unlived future life.” When we act as though each day of our life is somehow transcribed into a ledger that records every event, every misstep, every regrettable act, and every personal shortcoming. we can become convinced of our flawed nature and heavily weighed down by what we are powerless to change.

I have found kaleidoscopes to be a great model for how we can the challenges and opportunities of our daily lives. Sometimes, when faced with new possibilities, whether in our work, or our relationships, we get excited by how fresh and new and novel the experience can be. Similarly, when we feel pleased by how we face a significant challenge, we take comfort in our ability to draw upon resources we may have even known we possessed. We seem so capable of changing when we need to, of adjusting and adapting to whatever it is that life has in store for us.

This kaleidoscopic image was created by METALICHT. More Kaleidoscope Videos on Youtube - Channel: World of Kaleidoscopes. The video in this practice was used with their permission.

Perhaps you can think of an hourglass as time in motion. As the grains of sand fall through the narrowed waist in the middle of the glass, we observe how what is still in the future (the upper bowl), passes through the present moment (the narrow waist), and begins to accumulate in the lower bowl, which represents that past. The lower reservoir is where what has happened accumulates, grain by grain, slowly illuminating how much of our limited time we have already lived as compared to how much time is left (our unlived future).

When combined together, syllables make a whole. In language, combining syllables makes words. Imagine applying that concept - combining separate things to make a single whole - to breathing. Each cycle of breath involves two respiratory syllables - the in-breath and the out-breath. Together, they make a single cycle, a complete experience, a single unit of breathing.