blueblaze - tripping into now

what? what the hell is tribhu philosophizing about now? ya, tripping into now. there is this amazingly cool phenomenon that has been happening to me almost on a daily basis. i am hiking along and i glance up at the sky to the west. i see clouds, so immediately my mind jumps to the future predicting weather patterns and whether or not it'll be a dry night in camp and bam!!! i trip. the only thing saving me from a totally mangled face are my two best friends, my trekking poles (i think i have mentioned my hiking bffs before). later on i hit a big incline and start to predict in the future where the trail will go up around the next turn - will it be switchback and head west, will it continue up the hill to the north east, or maybe it'll go straight up and bam!!! i trip and luckily my bffs are there to save me. i continue and later on up the trail i start thinking about the 16" pizza i devoured yesterday and how it tasted so good and oooooo, maybe the next trail town will have good pizza and bam!!! i trip. do you see where i am going with this? i am lucky to have these amazingly intelligent things called trees that endeavor on a daily basis to remind me, by way of their root system, to stay in the now. i thought i would share this little metaphor for life because it is easy to observe in everyday life how we get distracted and pulled out of the now into the past or future. you are driving along and you start to think about the various things you have to get done at work, get distracted, and bam!!! you just rear-ended the person in front of you. only it doesn't always end there. oh no. sometimes that still wasn't enough to bring you back to the now. cuz now you are in the future thinking about how you will be late for work, how this will affect your insurance, do you have enough money to cover the deductible, etc. how much of a crash or a trip or a slam or a bam or a boom does it take to bring you back to the now? i fully admit that i am in a pristine environment in terms of being removed from the day-to-day distractions that pull us into the future or past and out of the now. however, i have become very thankful for these little reminders. when i am not in the now and i trip i am then forced to react. think about that word - react. re-act. by breaking down the word i am re-acting the action of not tripping. well, yes i am! i am catching myself and re-acting as opposed to taking the appropriate action in the now. when i am in the now i see the root and take the appropriate action thus avoiding having to re-act an extra step to negate my misstep. one of my favorite theatrical allegories for this concept is the movie "crash." the narrator sums up and ties the whole movie together by saying something to the effect of sometimes we just need to crash into each other . . . and here is where i would say to bring us back into the now. these moments are there all the time to remind us. it just depends on whether or not we pay attention. i could easily just allow my tripping to become habit, but i think i will accept the lesson the trees are attempting to teach me by paying attention to what time frame my mind is currently focused upon. stay golden!