
Last month, I had the incredible opportunity to be in Alaska with my teacher and sangha, immersing in both spiritual practice and the ethereal magic of the aurora borealis.
We were treated to breathtaking displays—vivid greens, deep reds, flashes of purple and yellow—as the night sky transformed from black and star-studded to a kaleidoscope of color stretching from horizon to horizon. Starbursts shimmered overhead, and glowing pillars reached endlessly upward.
Standing under the aurora, staring into the dark sky for hours, is a rare and humbling experience. It reminds me how small and insignificant I truly am—and I cherish that feeling. Nature has a way of pulling me out of my mental loops: the stress, fear, anxiety, and endless attempts to control outcomes. In that vastness, I remember the grander universe I’m part of.
When the sky suddenly opens and a quiet flicker of green morphs into a streak of red tipped with violet, everything I was thinking about disappears. The aurora calls me into the present. I’m captivated, still, deeply content just to be.
My teacher often speaks of the eternal now of Kālī—the goddess who dances in the cemetery, who devours time. Kālī is time: both the linear time we all know and the timeless time of the present moment, where time dissolves completely.
Time is such a fascinating construct. A single minute of pain can stretch into what feels like hours. A vacation week can pass in a blink. Yet time itself doesn’t change—we do.
My logical, linear mind can’t quite grasp the idea of transcending time, but my direct experience can. When I’m waiting for the aurora to appear, I feel every second stretch. I feel the cold. The tiredness of being up so late. Time crawls. But when the sky lights up and I’m lost in awe, I don’t feel the cold anymore. I lose all sense of how long I’ve been gazing up. I don’t even notice that my mouth hurts from smiling. Time disappears. I simply exist—merged with the moment.
Awe and wonder can unlock this state of timeless presence, but so can shifting from doing to being. When I’m looking for the aurora, I’m in doing mode: checking apps, watching solar wind data, anticipating outcomes. Then—suddenly—I receive what I was seeking, and in that moment of satisfaction, all grasping falls away. I rest in being.
Then, as the sky darkens again, doing resumes. Time returns.
Doing isn’t bad or wrong—it’s necessary. Life is happening through doing. I’m writing this post. My food is digesting. Consciously and unconsciously, doing continues. So the question becomes: How can I access being amidst all the doing? How can I experience the eternal now within the structure of linear time?
What I’ve learned from my teacher is that doing is linked to outcomes—future-oriented—and that what we do is shaped by our conditioning—past-oriented. The past and future form the line we call time.
For instance, I became a yoga therapist because of my own powerful healing experiences integrating yoga and mental health. That past experience shaped the path I chose. If I’d had a profound experience gardening with my grandmother, maybe I’d have become a horticulturist instead. What I’m doing today is a result of past events and choices.
Now that I’ve built an identity around being a yoga therapist, I unconsciously seek to maintain that identity—through the books I read, the practices I do, how I present myself to the world. I’m often acting out of a desire to be seen a certain way, to uphold this self-image I’ve grown attached to.
Think of an identity you hold—parent, friend, professional. If you trace it back, can you see what experiences led you there? Can you observe how you now work to preserve that identity?
Now recall a moment of pure awe—skiing, playing with a puppy, catching a glimpse of Mt. Rainier through your car window. In that moment, you’re not your job, your role, or even your name. You simply are.
These moments of awe and presence are usually fleeting. The “doer” quickly returns, but they help me remember that I can access the timeless now. The more I remember that feeling, the more available it becomes—even in ordinary moments. I can feel awe washing dishes, walking in Seward Park, or eating my meal.
This is the gift of mindfulness: the capacity to be fully present, to touch the magic in every moment—not just in peak experiences like witnessing the aurora, but in the beautiful, quiet rituals of daily life.