Treasure: what is it? I’ve worked at museums long enough to know what an artifact is. Usually, it’s an object that you find or dig up. It can tell you about the environment, what kinds of things lived there, what they did and when. Paleontologists like to say that archaeologists study garbage, stuff people throw away, while they study bones and fossils.
Some artifacts get handed down from one generation to another instead of being thrown away. There is a sense of value in the thing itself. It’s special to someone in some way. It carries attachment, and those attachments are preserved along with the object.
So, maybe ‘treasure’ is really about our attachment, the things we want to hold on to. Many times those things are ephemeral: feelings, living beings, pleasant moments in time. We know they will not endure, so often we transfer their significance to objects that may last a bit longer.
And, of course, this is just what we’re doing when we take photographs, isn’t it? But what is it that we actually treasure? Life and love. How do you preserve that kind of treasure? You can’t, really. What you can do is be absolutely present while it is within your grasp. Celebrate it, bring yourself to it, flow with it. Enjoy it, with all your heart.
