Present moment | Contemplative Inquiry

Tag: Present moment

Over the lifetime of this blog I have made frequent revisions of its ‘About’ statement. Most are small. Occasionally, I make a major revision which I also publish as a post. Below is my revised and edited ‘About’ of 19 April 2019.

I am James Nichol and I live in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England. The Contemplative Inquiry blog started in August 2012, and includes personal sharing, discursive writing, poetry and book reviews. It explores contemplative themes and their role in human flourishing within the web of life.

In my own journey, I have found an At-Homeness in a flowing now, not linked to any specific doctrine. For me, this experience and stance enable greater presence, healing and peace. They also support imaginative openness and an ethic of aware interdependence.

I began this work within British Druidry. I continue to follow an earth-centred and embodied spiritual path, ‘secular’ rather than ‘religious’. I draw on diverse traditions, especially resonating with naturalist, eco-existentialist, pantheist and animist currents within and beyond modern Paganism.

I am wary of metaphysical truth claims, including materialist ones, with an ultimate stance of openness and unknowing. At the time of this revision, I am exploring a tradition initiated by the Greek Pagan philosopher Pyrrho of Elis, who developed his own school of contemplative scepticism after a visit to India.

My book, Contemplative Druidry: People, Practice and Potential, was published in 2014. https://www.amazon.co.uk/contemplative-druidry-people-practice-potential/dp/1500807206/

March 23, 2018

PRESENT MOVEMENT

“We have been taught to think of ‘the present moment’ as an infinitesimally small slice of time, sandwiched between the past and the future, but that is not quite right. Instead of calling it ‘the present moment’, let’s call it ‘the present movement’ and see it differently: as the present dance of life, this real-time, immediate, vibrant, ever-changing dance of thought sensation, feeling, sounds, smells, urges, impulses, images, memory and dreams.

“When we take a fresh look at where we are, all we ever find is this present movement, not ‘in’ the past or future, but alive and happening Now. Of course, past and future appear here, too, as images and feelings, as memories and projections. There is only this present movement, inclusive of ‘your’ past and future, and it’s all you’ve ever known, and all you will ever know, for it includes all knowledge and doubt, too.

…

“Now is not a tiny slice of time between past and future, but the capacity for past, present and future, the unlimited potential for experience, and so we can say this:

“You cannot go ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the Now. You are the Now.”

Jeff Foster The Way of Rest: Finding the Courage to Hold Everything in Love Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2016. (Extracted from a longer piece entitled In and Out of the Now.)

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Contemplative Inquiry

Tag: Present moment

April 19, 2019

REVISED ‘ABOUT’ APRIL 2019

March 23, 2018

PRESENT MOVEMENT