Presence, and The Passage of Time
Sep 30, 2026
by Sally Gill, Managing Partner of The Yoga Effect, E-RYT 500, Yoga Educator
As I age, I am acutely aware of the passage of time.
Every morning, I see my lovely neighbor out for a walk with her little dog “Buddy.” She is in her early nineties, and begins her day just like me, with self-care. She lives alone in a sweet little bungalow just down the street. I worry if I don’t see her, that maybe something has happened to her. I wonder if she, like me, is also acutely aware of the passage of time?
For me, yoga has a way of softening that question. It doesn’t stop time, or stretch it out, or promise us more of it. Instead, it invites us into this moment, this breath, this step, this quiet rhythm of being alive.
When I practice asana or pranayama, I feel the subtle shifts; the body changing, the mind wandering and returning, the breath rising and falling like a tide that has no urgency, no fear.
Time, in those moments, feels less like something slipping away and more like something unfolding.
Maybe that’s the practice in action. Not to hold onto time, but to meet it. To greet each day the way my neighbor does; simply, faithfully, with presence. To walk, to breathe, to begin again.
Yoga reminds me that while time passes, presence deepens. And there is a kind of timelessness in that quiet coming home to the only moment we are ever truly given. I am grateful for that.
