High on Happiness

“Ice,” said the voice in my head as I glanced at the puddle.  “Tea,” it said, noticing how the sticks intersected.  I laughed out loud.

The labels go on and on and on, from the moment we learn the words.  I suppose it keeps us anchored in the world somehow.

Then the words trigger memories and dreams.  So although it is late January and I am standing in freezing rain, in my mind I am gazing at fields of tall, green corn on a hot, windless day in mid-July, and it is not rain but perspiration running down my cheeks, and I hear the tinkle of ice cubes in a tall glass of tea and smell lemon.

All the sounds are liquid and deafening.  The pouring rain beats on the tree bark, on the melting leaves.  It plunks into the pools gathered in the hollows of the ground, the round ripples leaping in tiny waves.

I splash through it to the bank of the green, swollen creek and its roar rises to meet the falling rain.  Even the drenched air cannot mute it, though it wraps itself, cloud-like, around every twig and fills all the spaces.

The light is like ground pearls, milky and luminescent.  It laughs as it rides the rushing waters, as it slides down the naked braches and over the leathery surface of the leaves.

In town, people hurried along beneath black umbrellas, their shoulders hunched, their eyes cast down to the drab sidewalks, blind to the rivers of light that ran down the gutters.

But here, the colors glow, and the world is raining beauty.

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What if you had a hundred arms that you could lift up to the heavens?  What if you lived to be two hundred years old and stood in one place as the world changed around you?

What if birds perched on your wrists and sang in the morning?  Or built homes on your shoulders and raised their young there?

Would you be afraid of tomorrow?

Would you dwell on your yesterdays?

Or would you long only to stretch higher and farther and to welcome the wind?  And to revel in the rain and the white, sparkling snow?  And to dance beneath the sunlight and the bright moon and twinkling stars, and to be so very glad just to be?

Except in rare moments, we, who count our lifespans in mere decades, tend to forget that our vision is short-sighted and focused narrowly on the inconsequential, quickly fading moments of our days.

Tossed by the tides of our concepts and emotions, we get caught up by the he-said, she-said, and the us and them dramas and lose sight of that which is, beyond our stories.  No wonder we despair.

But we are luckier than we remember.  The dream that we inhabit is larger than our own, and truer.  And now and then it signals us.  It paints the world with a certain slant of light, or stretches a rainbow across our skies.  And something in our souls responds, leaping with joy.

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Giggle, wiggle, wink, jig.  Holler, whistle, toot.

It’s not the how that matters, it’s the getting in the game.

It’s finding a little minute for a tickle now and then, for tapping and clapping and slip-sliding away.

The power of perspective is hidden (whoot-whoot!) in play.

Bam! You’re a kid again with a wide open mind, where all the magic is free to roll in (giggling) and grab you (tickling) and where every circumstance is your rabbit-in-a-hat ally just waiting for a wave of your wand.

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Morning comes pouring out buckets of light.  It splashes on the snow, turning it to diamonds.

You can see the hoofprints where the deer were dancing in the dawn.  The trees are still laughing at the sight of them.

The light rolls down the hill, and morning keeps it coming.  It slides down the tree trunks and bounces up into the sky.

The air is filled with it and you feel it shimmering into your lungs when you inhale.  It turns to clouds when you breathe out.  And it’s inside you now, riding your blood, slipping inside your very cells.

And you breathe some more.  And morning keeps turning it up, brighter now and brighter.

Pause now.  Take this gift of spaciousness and let it dissolve all your cares.   Carrying them won’t bring their solutions any faster.  And sometimes when you free yourself of them, new possibilities appear.

At any rate, you will be stronger, refreshed, revived by letting them go.  Just for now.  Just for this small interlude of calm, of quiet, of peace, where you can simply breathe and be.

See how winter has etched the day with subtle hues?  That is her clue, her offering, her wisdom.

Pause. Breathe. Be.

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I wake to windows adorned crystalline landscapes, with plumes, forests and flowers gleaming in the morning light.

Each pane is more beautiful than the last.  I am mesmerized.  I don’t even notice the cold.

A clump of frost feathers catches the light of the rising sun, looking like finger-painted palm fronds, etched with innocence and joy.

I want to reach through the dimensions and feel the texture of the leaves, to hear their silvery sound as the birds that hide in them take flight, to watch their light ripple through the sky in shimmering waves.

And if I might, I would ask to bring some back with me, some of these feathery fronds, to set in a vase on my piano.  And I would gaze at them and play their song and children would laugh in innocence and joy.

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She’s a mistress of subtlety, this one, scattering her tiny snowflakes on the grass.  But we who have seen many winters know her signs.  This glittering dust is but a sneak preview of what is to come.

By morning, the world will be transformed.  Oak leaves and grass will be only a dream.

With one tiny crystal at a time, January will create her wonderland.

I look at the tiny changes I make, bit by bit, in my own world and take heart.   So much is possible!

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Think of the power the smallest glint of light contains.  The flame of a single candle can illumine a room, a heart, ignite hope, show the way.

How much more, then, can you, who are made of light, do?   What magic you have!  What beauty!

Strangers find solace in one of your smiles.   Your touch comforts and soothes.  Your gentle glance heals.

And when you turn it on, when you fill it with the breath of your heart, birds sing and stars dance in the heavens.

Shine on, gentle light.  Cast your comfort into the night and bring us home.