How would my life change if I measured it by moments rather than by the clock?

This question resonates for me, I think because it feels to me there’s a crucial difference between measuring time by a clock and measuring it by moments (which seems to be a different kind of measuring altogether). I think of times immersed in nature when I forget time altogether, and only the changing of the light and hunger in my stomach give me a sense of how much time has passed.

At these times, it feels I’ve become attuned to a time that isn’t of my mind, that isn’t wired into all my thoughts around what I imagine is important to do in order to keep my life in the world together.

I’m not saying these things aren’t important to do – but it’s also so important for me to be able to drop them, and to remember the heartbeat and flow of nature’s rhythms, and that this rhythm is also the heart of my own life.

What happens when clock time falls away for me is a sense of my deep connection to life, a kinship with life, an encounter with trees and moss and clouds and sun not as the objects my mind makes them, but as the mysterious, living beingness that is also my deepest, truest self.

That seems to be the essence of the shift for me – when all of the mind’s measuring recedes into the background (without completely disappearing), and the life of which I am a part takes the foreground, where I know in my bones and my blood that there is a belonging beyond all my thoughts…