Everything is in Perpetual Motion and Transition

words & photo by Brian Thompson.

The other morning I was out on my stand up paddle board and I found myself absolutely mesmerized by the beautiful orchestration of motions I was a part of. As the board’s nose glided over the top of the ocean water, I was witness to a symphony of natural movements that was as beautiful as anything Beethoven had ever written, and yet to the rest of the world, the song I was privy to was silent and ignored.

It was a privilege to be audience to such a breathtaking performance, but this dance of life is all around us; it’s ever-present, everywhere and within everything. It is the movement of life itself.

As I paddled I observed how my torso, hips, legs and feet all swivelled in concert together (seemingly all on their own) to maintain my balance. My arms, shoulders and back twisted as they pulled the paddle through the water with each new stroke, alternating from side to side. My board skimmed across the rolling water in perfect communion with the waves, the current, and the wind. The board’s nose gently shed the oncoming water to either side, creating v-shaped ripples that went skirting off into the distance.

Just imagine all of the droplets of water that were flowing past me and beneath me! It’s unfathomable. Everything was in perfect synchronicity.

These are the moments I find to be the most precious in life—ones of quiet contemplation, stillness and lucidity—ones that awaken profound new insights.

As I observed the water it became clear how all things are in motion, or rather, how everything is motion itself.

The sea is forever flowing, it never stops. The tide is forever rolling in and out, it’s never still. The nature of the ocean is always changing; its waves are always shifting; its movements are co-dependent upon the currents, the wind, the weather, and all things with which it comes into contact with and which its waters interact—which is everything.

It’s a perfect analogy for life itself, and thus is the moving sea. This principle of the continual transitioning nature of life goes all the way up, and it goes all the way down—there is no escaping it. As the hermetic maxim goes, “As above, so below”.

All things are in constant movement and continual transition—this is our common state of being. This unity of movement brings together all things—including every single one of us—every one of our actions sends ripples from one shore to the next.

The entire universe is in perpetual motion, forever expanding—and so too is our ever-blossoming awareness. The galaxies, the stars, the planets—all, always in motion. The Earth and all its people, animals, insects, oceans, forests, mountains, deserts and prairies—all in a perpetual state of transition.

The wind is always blowing. The seasons are always changing. Time is always ticking. The grass is always growing. People are always dying, and people are always being born.

Even at the quantum state, every single particle is vibrating and popping in and out of existence—even within the most seemingly inanimate and form of objects, including metal, sticks and stones.

We are literally tingling with a million billion trillion particles that dance throughout our entire being. This is the ecstatic energy of life that swims within us—that IS us. This is what it means to be alive!

But it’s not just our physical bodies that are always moving, morphing and changing, but so too is our mind. Our thoughts and beliefs are always transitioning from one thing to the next. Even our ego (our false sense of self) is continually changing—who we believe ourself to be seems to be completely differemt from one day to the next.

"Everything is moving. The breath that is within you will be in me a little later. And the breath is life, so your life and my life cannot be different, because the same breath you breathe I breathe."

When we try to resist this constant movement that defines the entire universe, we cause ourselves to suffer greatly. If we try to remain unchanging—physically, mentally, emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually—it goes against the very nature of our being. We were meant to change. When we resist change we fight the very movement that energizes life itself. It’s impossible to resist our new becoming, whatever it might be. We can never escape the process of aging; the unfolding passage of time will always catch up.

We must get out of own way and let all things flow where they may.

We mustn’t hang on to how things were, or how currently are—we must embrace this constant inner movement of our being. We must afford ourselves the privilege to change without impediment, without resistance.

We must realize that no thought is timeless, no belief is solid, no emotion is eternal, and no problem is permanent.

Under the scrutiny of an inquisitive eye, all things appear fluid and porous. In the end, all things become undone—even our greatest of worries and anxieties.

When we realize that we are one with this eternal process of movement and we no longer push against it, we step into the natural flow of life itself. This is what it means to act in accordance with the Tao. In such a way, when we act in unison with the universe, rather than struggling against it, our life becomes one beautiful song. In so doing, we no longer experience friction in our life—the struggle disappears.

We are the ever-flowing and sparkling energy of awareness—as all things are—perpetually in a state of new becoming, forever transitioning from one state of being to the next.

We must hop atop our boards of wisdom and surf upon the flow of life itself!