The Power of Now, Yesterday, and Tomorrow

THE TOOLBOX FOR YOUR: PAST<>PRESENT<>FUTURE

"The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." Albert Einstein

We live our lives in all three places: the past, the present, and the future.

Each hold a special power that contributes to the unfolding of our lives, each has its own rules and methods, sacred rituals and practices important to the heart, body, and soul.

Generally speaking we have trouble with one or more: we cannot remember our past and suffer from a kind of self-imposed amnesia, sometimes born of trauma or guilt, sometimes as a consequence of being checked out in the moment when the memory was made, sometimes because we’re just out of practice accessing memories.

There are those that fear the future or have had it stolen (illness, loss) from them to those who simply can no longer locate a future, their horizon is lost, either because they are overwhelmed in the present moment or have lost faith or are stuck in the past.

And of course there are those that avoid spending one minute if they can in the present moment as they are lost in daydreams of the future or past, feeling only the pain of the current moment in body and soul and scrambling to avoid it.

To be sure each aspect has its enemies who have constructed philosophies around their target: those that say the future is unwritten, the past an illusion, the now the only place of power or those that say you’re doomed to repeat the past if you’re unobservant and can’t learn from it, the past is prologue crowd, to those who only live in the future be it heaven or hell or some idealized ascension.

For us to become fully who we are meant to be, to realize our character, to express our daemon, to follow the soul, to unravel our karma we have to find a home in all three places: the past, the present, the future.

To be trapped in the past is just as horrific as to be pining for a future that may or may not come but to live in the moment only cuts off the soul from the much needed nutrients and rich soil of the past and from the vibrant eros found in the imagination of the future.

Most of our psychological problems concern the past.

Most of our spiritual problems concern the future.

Most of our behavioral problems (addictions, relationship conflicts, career challenges et al) concern the present moment but the present moment can only fully be engaged when one is free: free from the past and free to dream a future.

Here then are some ideas, exercises, book recommendations for how to get in touch with all three of these aspects of your life.

PS… I limited myself to ten books per aspect.

PAST

"We are all, almost afraid of nostalgia and we have been told all our lives not to trust it; which in a way, is once again, being told not to trust our own bodies and the many expressions of that body, living through the thresholds of time and tide as it does. This was my attempt to rehabilitate not only the word, but the felt experience. Nostalgia fully felt always flowers into something merciful, forgiveness for a former partner, heartfelt gratitude for having had the gift of a good father, forgiveness for a difficult one. The difficulty lies in allowing ourselves to fully experience the absolute physicality of what is emerging. Nostalgia is imminent revelation arriving from deep below our horizon of understanding, from the center of the body, rather than from the heavens above.” David Whyte — Friends Past and Present

We can tap into the past one of three ways: memories, written history, and archeology/architecture.

I find it fascinating that memory has come under fire recently, it is deeply mistrusted, as we all can point to stories of people wrongly convicted by eyewitness testimony and have experiences with our own faulty memory.

I’ve met therapists who don’t believe memory is anything more than a make-believe story we tell ourselves, that history is a collection of dates and names at best, it too devolving into story and make-believe and that whatever context say the Egyptian Pyramids were built in is long gone and we can only see those glorious constructions through the context of the present moment.

Of course you have the counter to those arguments: those that can remember the past with specific detail, those who have past life memories, historians who work tirelessly to bring the past to life, and to felt experience when we enter old buildings and travel down roads that were built thousands of years prior and get goosebumps.

The soul knows how important the past is and how we carry the past in our genes and in our unconscious.

Ways of connecting with our past:

+ Pilgrimage — maybe the single best way is to have an adventure to a specific place that’s meaningful to you to connect with past… some place that holds your values, what’s important to you, some place deeply beautiful that calls to the deepest part of your soul, someplace you hope is around a thousand years from now. ?

+ Shrines and Temples — not the formal ones but just private ones you build for yourself at home to honor those past… can be pictures, keepsakes, a combination but it should hold power and provide a connection to your strength and remind you of who you are and what your values are at the very core of your being. ?

+ Holidays and Anniversaries — remake these in your own image to fit the religion of your own. I took Halloween (ultimate union) and Easter (individuation) and remade them into the two most important dates on my personal liturgical calendar. ?

+ Dreams — when the past shows up (people, places and things) pay attention, write the dream down, spend time with it… ?

+ Writing — write letters to your ancestors or past relatives, write stories about your childhood and coming of age, write about your favorite movies, hobbies, travel experiences, relationships all ways to connect with the past. ?

+ History — read history… your family or books from historians, about a specific topic like say space exploration to the history of the kimono. Doesn’t matter. Each of us should read at least two to three books on history a year. ?

+ Clothes and Fashion — there might not be a better way to get in touch with the past than through clothes and fashion. Be it cosplay or going to the Renaissance Faire as clothes can connect us directly with the past. Wearing an old family watch or neckless, refurbishing an old car, sketching old architecture can bring the past wonderfully alive. ?

+ Food and Recipes — old dishes, old flavors are wonderful ways to connect to the past.

Any resurrection depends on a vibrant connection to the past, to let go of any place we’re stuck, to free ourselves from the past and the best way to do that is to give praise and honor to the past.

BOOKS

ANCESTRAL MEDICINE

Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing by Daniel Foor PhD

Badass Ancestors: Finding Your Power with Ancestral Guides by Patti Wigington

Earth Magic: Sacred Rituals for Connecting to Nature's Power by Starhawk

HISTORY

A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman

The Love of Destiny: the Sacred and the Profane in Germanic Polytheism by Daniel McCoy

The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion by Daniel McCoy

Nordic Ideology: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book Two (Metamodern Guides) by Hanzi Freinacht

ETHNOGRAPHY

Ethnographer's Toolkit

Second Edition

EDITED BY JEAN J. SCHENSUL AND MARGARET D. LECOMPTE

From Notes to Narrative

Writing Ethnographies That Everyone Can Read

By Kristen Ghodsee

Confluence: Tools for Thinking about How Organized Plans and Self-organized Patterns Flow Together by Cynthia F Kurtz

PRESENT

“I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.”

― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

No matter where we turn these days we’re extolled on the value being present in the moment be it Eckhart Tolle and the Power of Now, Dr. Hew Len and Ho’Oponopono and Zero Limits, Abraham-Hicks and their connection to Source, Phil Stutz & Barry Michels “The Tools” to NLP’s Timeline Editing.

Frankly I tend to mistrust those that don’t have a relationship with the past, it’s almost like they’re trying to forget something, as accountability is always about the past.

I get “That Was Then, This Is Now” as it was one of my favorite books as a teen but the past and future hold just as much power in the human mind and body as the present moment.

Generally those focused on the present moment want two things for you: to end your suffering and help you feel fully alive AND to stop the repeat of old dead patterns in your life driven by unconscious beliefs that just put your life on an endless loop.

They will argue that only in the present moment and only if you are free from your past can you connect fully to God/Source and make better choices that improve your life right now and in the future.

They’re not wrong.

They are however misguided in how to get there though as the past present and future have to be rowing in the same direction and you only get that, as any rowing crew will tell you, through near constant communication and practice.

The present moment can be a sticky wicket as they, a tough target, just like the past and future it takes a bit of practice to master.

How to tap into the present moment:

+ Nature and Animals — being and nature and with animals is simply the very best way to be in the moment, watching a sunset, listening to the burble of a stream, watching a Great Blue Heron fish, watching clouds, sun bathing, moon bathing, breathing the pine but the important thing is to not be DOING anything in nature… recreation, gardening, reading, hunting, fishing… all wonderful and soulful but that’s not the same as being present in the power of now.

+ Walkabout — ?just walking in an direction with no destination in mind, being fully with what and who shows up...

+ Meditation: Presence NOT Flow — like with being in nature it’s easy to slip into your mind and doing (thinking) versus being present. We mistake flow (being in the zone, enjoying something that requires concentration) with meditation. Being present is having nothing to do, nowhere to go. The primary goal of mediation is to observe the thinking and let it go and come back to now again and again and again. ?

+ Breath — Just breathing. Breathing exercises can take you out of the moment, just observing your breath not doing anything with it…

+ Observation — People watching, looking around your house, watching traffic…

+ Soma Exercises — What’s your hand doing right now, your left foot? Like observation the goal here is just to settle into the present moment. ?

+ The Body Electric — Shibari and other forms of restraint, like yoga, can help the mind settle.. ?

+ Drugs — Some drugs and some experiences with drugs can help you connect with the present moment, some take you out of it completely… results may vary. ?

+ Art — Color in art and shape and form and emotion can bring you right into the moment… story takes you out of the moment, analysis does as well. Being with art has an impact on the body… art can only ever be experienced in the moment. ?

+ Music — Same with art… it can be transportive which takes us out of the moment, puts us in flow, but some forms, like sound healing, rhythms can bring us fully to the moment.

BOOKS

Any poetry will do… poems are silence making organisms

Anything by Dr. David Hawkins

Making Friends with Your Mind: The Key to Contentment by Pema Ch?dr?n

The Wisdom of No Escape by Pema Ch?dr?n

The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh

Shadow Dance by David Richo

Meeting the Shadow by Connie Zweig

A Branch from the Lightning Tree: Ecstatic Myth and the Grace of Wildness by Martin Shaw

Brain Talk -- David Schnarch

Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist

FUTURE

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller

The future is tricky, in some ways the past is very much prologue and the more things change the more things stay the same and meet the new boss same as the old boss kinda thing and it’s turtles all the way down.

Yet without a call to adventure, to unpredictability, to surprise and delight, to shock the soul dies.

The soul needs a connection to the eternal to be sure but it just as much needs a connection to unknown possibilities.

I really liked the show “Peaky Blinders” and it had one of the best scenes about the power of the future ever: Thomas Shelby goes to visit an old war buddy who is in prison for the criminally insane. Horrific conditions and Thomas is shocked how this man has endured an inexplicable level of suffering, why hadn’t he killed himself Thomas asks him and the man is drooling and doesn’t answer but looks at Thomas and he gets it… “There was a chance however small you’d get out of here.”

Most of our visions of the future are dystopian at the moment but the soul thrives on the promise of a brighter future.

It’s not enough that we resolve the riddles of the past and hold those accountable for the atrocities, it’s not enough that we master our mind and fear and live fully in the present moment as we also must catch sight of a future so alluring that we will work hard to make it so.

How to connect with your future:

+ Read science fiction and books that predict the future, read reports… there are so many experts that write these amazing reports about where things are headed in every single field of human endeavor and they're all online now and while they may not be correct on all aspects they often get a few things bang on.

+ Vision Quest — head off into the wild to settle down, fast, sit still, and let a voice bigger than your own come to you… find your compelling vision

+ Dream — dream about the future you want to see, have utopian fantasies.

+ Goal setting kinds of activities.

+ Feel the future — both ceremonial magic and Abraham-Hicks is all about envision it then feel that it is true... live as if

+ Paint and do art around the future and vision boards

+ Divination: Tarot, I-Ching, Tea Leaves… all are conversations with potential futures.

BOOKS

+ LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World by Margaret Wheatley

+ Wilber’s The Religion of Tomorrow

+ Singularity is Near - Ray Kurzweil

+ Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark

+ Homo Deus - Yuval Noah Harari

+ AI 2041 - Kai-Fu Lee

+ The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

+ The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

+ Our Final Invention by James Barrat

+ Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

CLOSING

So hopefully this will provide some tools, connection, outline of how the soul connects to the past, the present, and the future.