Where the stream meets the sea.

The leaves blow in circles on the paving stones.

The branches of the tree rustle in the wind.

Molecules of air rush past skin, cooling it.

A man stands in the spot where past and future meet.

At the still point.

Neither from, nor towards.

Where the feelings blow in circles. Where the ghosts of past and future whisper in your ears.

Where floods of hot and cold appear in your skin and the bottom sometimes falls out of everything.

Where time seems to run past your ankles, like the rushing waters of a stream.

And where a different kind of time rushes up to meet you, like a wave out of the sea.

Where the stream meets the sea.

There, the dance is.

Chronos ticking by from behind us, Kairos sweeping forward to meet us.

And, perhaps, to carry us away.

Gathering ourselves, seeing the possible futures unfold. Sensing that two waves are coming, and we could choose to take either.

Sensing the possibility of the parallel world, where time split apart and one of us was carried by one wave, and another of us was carried by another.

—

The baby birds squeak from their nest.

The calves stand up on spindly, wobbly legs.

Spring is here again.

Amidst the cold breeze, life blossoms. Growing with the impossibility that only it can really hold.

Sparked from nothing into a small, feathery creature.

Or a fragile animal that will one day be a majestic bull.

Or a baby, once the size of a walnut, once the size of a kidney bean, once just two cells.

And now, with the full universe of life opening up before it.

And with the trickle of Chronos starting to run past its ankles.

And the waves of Kairos coming up to meet it.

And maybe to sweep it away.

Down one path or another.

Carried by the right moment.

—

The grass moves in the field like the ripples on a pale green lake.

A reminder of the forces at work in the world.

Forces we can’t understand, despite all the knowledge of science.

Forces that move us, that catch us, that sweep us away.

As we stand, with the water running past our ankles, and the waves rushing up to meet us.

There, the dance is.

Where past and future are gathered.

—

PS My new book, The Power to Choose: Finding Calm and Connection in a Complex World, is out now! Get your copy here: https://geni.us/powertochoose

This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.