Sometimes the most ordinary object can open a door to life’s greatest mysteries.
For Paula Sager, it’s a wristwatch—one that takes on a life of its own after her father’s death, prompting
questions concerning synchronicity and the nature of relationship. Paula walks alongside her father to
the threshold of life, bearing witness to every step. Time is the landscape. Contemplative practice
spreads out the crumpled map. The Watch delves into the mystery of time as lived experience, and to
the possibility that every moment can be a portal to the invisible realm beyond time.
Insights from the author’s own well-developed paths of practice shed light on new ways of perceiving,
new ways of knowing and being. Cultivating embodied presence, intuitive insight, and the capacity to
bear witness can enhance our most essential relationships: that of parent and child, teacher and
student, doctor and patient, and even our human bond with nature and the numinous.
The twelve chapters of the book are framed by a prologue and an epilogue. At the end of each chapter,
the reader finds a place to pause and reflect. Here, in poetic form, Paula Sager invites the reader to enter
their own contemplative experience and inquiry. With the aperture of the lens keenly focused on the
final year of a life well-lived, The Watch offers a compelling perspective, bringing new questions to
important conversations about life, death, and relationship beyond death.
