Where Do the Past and the Future Live?

The medicine of showing up now — in the circle.

Taita… What do you see inside of me?
Said the young Colombian woman in her mid-twenties as she turned to the healer.

Sitting on the wooden floorboards of the maloka the morning after a community ceremony, the healers were performing their morning cleanses on everyone.

“What do you see in yourself?”
was the Taita’s (Healer) response.

We are constantly looking for recognition, for acknowledgment — putting people on pedestals and creating hierarchies in our minds. We are the ones who create those hierarchies, and we are the ones who put ourselves below others.

When we start a job at a new office, we scan the room.
We look at the people in different positions.
We make the work environment a linear, hierarchical system:
The CEO is at the top, and I’m at the bottom because I just started here.

But what if we looked at it as a circle?

A circle — not something linear.
Something with no end.

That’s how we should be looking at life.
The circle is continuous movement.

When we use straight-line ways of thinking — of being, of energy — there is always a beginning and an end. You shoot an arrow from your position in the company: it has a lifespan, yes, until its destination — let’s say “CEO.” But then it ends. It fades. It dies out.
The energy and force behind it stops. It’s not continuous.

Circular energy — the circle of life — has no beginning and no end.
It is a continuous cycle that lives in this moment — because that’s all there is.

If we approach our working life with this mindset, we begin to understand that there is no start and finish — there is just the circle. And everyone has a role to play. Without the others, the circle would be incomplete. The energy would instead move in a bent arrow — still with a start and finish.

Native ways of thinking revolve around the circle.
And although there are positions within communities, it’s just a seat in the circle — no more important than the seat opposite, even if it belongs to, say, a medicine person.

The circle depends on self-responsibility for the collective good.
The circle mentality only functions if everyone is “coming to the party” — fully committed.
But in that commitment to the collective is a commitment to oneself.

The hoop of life and the people.

It’s saying:
“If I show up to the circle — the hoop of life — whole, a circle of energy myself,
I am then contributing to the greater circle of life.”

It’s not a pyramid.
It’s not a line.
It’s not about seeking recognition or relying on other people’s thoughts or intentions.

“What do you see in yourself?”
That was the response.
And that’s what it is.

I am not responsible for your well-being — just as you are not responsible for mine.

Yes, we help each other. Healers are there to offer healing, to guide, and to offer wisdom — to be in service. But if we are not showing up and fully embracing this moment, and making our hoops complete, how can we contribute to the circle of life?

Distractions, scrolling, overthinking, emotional imbalances…
It’s a complicated world — thirsty for our attention and our energy.
But in that vampiric world of squares and screens that only allows a crack in the present reality… it’s up to us to push that door open wider and step through it.

There, we understand:
This constant battle in our minds — the past and the future — does not exist.

Show me the past. Show me the future.
Where is it? Where does it live?
Does it have a place out there somewhere?
Or is it squatting in your mind — without paying rent?

When we push open the ajar door and allow the present moment in…

Everything we see is curved.
It’s circular.

From the swirling of water in streams to the rocks that hold the riverbed,
to the trees,
to the sun they feed off…
Even the way we think — when we return to the present — has no end.
It doesn’t ricochet from one thought to another.
It just is.

Cycles of the moon.
The turning of the seasons.
The steady pull of the compass.
All of it… circular.
And all of it… here, in this moment.

The past and the future — they don’t exist out there.

Look up to the clouds and realise:
There is only this expansive now — this universal moment.

The opinions and thoughts of others are not what form our circle.
They form lines — with beginnings and ends.

It is our own knowing of ourselves — our mind, heart, and spirit — our internal fire, that create our hoop, and that contribute to the circle of life.