“So just maybe it is these small silent moments which are the true story-making events of our lives.”  Douglas Coupland

Nature reminded me of this yesterday when I was out for my daily walk.

It was dusk as I walked around the bank of the Cudgegong River. The river meanders through the bottom of our farm as it heads towards town. As I rounded the curve I was met by the sunset in the western sky. The hills that cradle our valley were alight with the setting sun and the sky full of the crimson flames that meets us so often at end of our day. I observed a blaze of magnificent glory and wanted that moment to last forever.

I had a camera but no shot comes near capturing the beauty. When I’m out walking  these moments are common: The small black wallabies that live on the bank that are disturbed  as I walk by – the rustle of the long grass, the thud, thud of their hop and then the “splash” as they scramble and swim across the river, away from the perceived danger.  The wombats who come out forging at dusk or the cheeky little thrush as she guards her territory – a log in the middle of the river- they are moments I want to hang to forever.

Mindfulness reminds us that moments arise, stay and pass away.

Whether it is a beautiful scene, a beautiful mouthful, or a beautiful sonnet. All things observed in a moment arise, stay and pass away.

Some moments are fleeting. Others like the jonquils I find seeded on the side of the road while out walking, or the wattle coming into bloom,  may last longer. But they too will, in their own time, pass away.

The mouthful of tiramisu, a signature dish of The Wineglass, will stay in my memory forever, although it is from a table long since cleared away.

I was offered just a taste, a spoonful and I ate it in silence.

There was no possibility of seconds, it was just that mouthful…in that moment.

A mindful eating moment that will last in my memory forever.

Imagine if each time we ate, or engaged or lived – we lived it like this?

No clinging, no attachment, no desire for more. How much freer our spirits would be.

The magical moments of life when there is no camera, no other way of trying to capture it. All that’s to be done is observe it, be enveloped by it.  Enjoy it arise. Behold it and let it fall way.

I can be truly grateful though – that I was there – not lost in my head, in some conversation past, or lost in thought about some meeting to be had in the future. That I was there, awake in that moment. Aware and alive.

For this is the only moment we can be sure we’ll ever have. Moments are fleeting and they can only become memories if we’ re mindful enough to be awake to them. Awake enough to the moment to capture it-  and make it a memory – for then it can truly last forever.