The Forgotten Language of Presence

I often carry these contradictory thoughts about doing and about simply being. Not that doing is right or wrong, but sometimes it feels different from what we usually define it to be. Other times, I just sleep, or sit deep in thought, and I wonder: is that being? Or is that only thinking? Would I call that being present? Maybe I am present, but lost inside my own ways of making sense of the world, through the act of thinking itself. And yet, these questions keep guiding me back to the heart of it all: what does it truly mean to be here, in this moment, alive and part of the living world?

We all know too well that nothing is constant, nothing is guaranteed, that is the law of nature. And with so much uncertainty ahead, I often find myself asking: what does it mean to move forward now? And perhaps even more deeply: what does it mean to simply exist, to live in this world? With these big questions, I know I cannot expect one answer that will always fit.

Spending time in nature, being with the land, keeps teaching me that life is not always about getting things done fast and efficiently, or finding shortcuts to success, or endlessly chasing improvement, though I must admit those have their place in modern life. However, it is also about learning just to be, about just being, about being present with the land and river, about noticing how the soil loves and always seems to welcome the water, how the moisture floats through the air. And I don’t mean this in some unreachable philosophical sense, but in the simplest way that there is so much life in the present, IN THE BREATHING FLUIDING NOW. I don’t want to paint this as a step-by-step guide, because it isn’t. It is something that belongs and accessible to all of us. It’s just a matter of how we value it, how we see ourselves in that practice and when we are ready, we will see it. 

It is also about learning just to be, about being present with the land and river, about noticing how the soil loves and always seems to welcome the water, how the moisture floats through the air.

Being present, I’ve come to realize, is not about forcing the mind to be still. It feels more like a soft surrender. Letting everything be as it is, even my restless thoughts. I don’t push them away because they like to come and go, like a child running in the field, never seeming to be still.  And that instead of resisting, I've learned to flow with the current and wave of my own consciousness, I find that I can make enough space inside myself to hold whatever arises, in whatever form it takes or in any ways it chooses to show up. 

Yet, sometimes I still do find myself drifting, my thoughts run ahead over time or fall behind under me. But maybe presence also means allowing myself to wander, and wander, and come and go. Maybe it’s not about holding on tightly to anything at all, but letting what needs to arise, arise. Letting it come, and letting it go.

I think of the trees. They do not rush, yet they are always growing. Their being is also their doing. Perhaps I am learning from them that being and doing do not need to be separate, they can weave together. When I walk slowly, when I notice the sky, when I pause instead of rushing, that too is a kind of doing. A softer doing.

The world often tells us to measure our worth by progress, by results, by how much we produce. But nature reminds me of another rhythm, another pace, one less about achievement and more about belonging and connection. To sit under a tree and simply exist feels like remembering a forgotten language, a life language indeed. Or sometimes, to share a simple dinner with the people you love can remind you: what else could matter more than that? Belonging. Love. 

To sit under a tree and simply exist feels like remembering a forgotten language, a life language indeed.

So maybe being present is not about getting it right, or finding some perfect stillness. Maybe it is about noticing, noticing what is here now, even if it’s messy, even if it’s uncertain, even if you don’t know what it is. Because in that noticing, life feels more alive, more raw, more true and that life is life in itself. And in that aliveness, maybe we begin to notice that the earth too is a breathing being, pulsing beside us. That the earth is not something for us to take from, not an unmoving entity, not a thing to consume and extract, but that earth is a living presence. And when we start to remember the language of the land or the river, the language of the earth, we begin to honor the many other life forms that live alongside us. They too love to live, they too long to live fully and deeply and happily, just as much as we human beings do.