High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘wonder’

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The snow comes whispering its secrets.

It tells them to the chilled cheeks and outstretched tongues of children, to the welcoming leaves of the azalea, to the sweeping branches of the pine.

To the animals, the secrets are lullabies and they nestle their young beneath their soft bellies and dream that starlight is tumbling from the sky.

If snow fell only once in your lifetime, you, too, would listen in wonder, holding your breath.

As it is, you must remember what it was to be a child, dazzled and eager and glad.

To suppose is one thing.  To do is another.   We must imagine first, of course, and wonder.  What lies beyond the horizon?  Within the heart?  Beyond the stars?

But only by venturing past the known do we find the true treasures: the certain proof, the cellular experience, the dazzling new what if’s.

To be sure, it’s not a journey for the faint of heart.   It’s full of the unexpected.  Dead ends, scraped knees, and broken theories show up all along the way.  Nothing stays put, and each door opens to yet another infinite world.

Still, there’s no avoiding it.  The best you can do is pull on your boots, polish up your sense of adventure and shout to the skies, “Bring it on!”

This is our long ascent, the journey from wonder to wonder, forever enlarging us, forever expanding our perception and joy.

Don’t be afraid.  In the end you’ll see that you were safe all along, that the scares and disappointments were only there to stretch and deepen you.  And along the way, oh, what beauty!

As if to cushion the terrible news coming from Japan, winter played her encore.  I’d been following the reports since the quake and tsunami first struck, sleeping only when I could stay awake no longer, trying to grasp the immensity of it, praying that my friend there and his family were unharmed.

I woke with a heavy heart.  But the scene outside my morning window so astonished me with its beauty, that it instantly lifted me past my pain.  It didn’t erase my concern, but it expanded my vision.  It enveloped me in a kind of grace that let remember that our planetary experience includes heart-stopping wonder as well as heart-wrenching pain, and that both are worthy of my reverence.

I cooked breakfast, appreciating the warmth from my wood stove, the sizzle of eggs as I broke them in the pan.  Then, sipping my freshly brewed coffee, I returned to my computer and found a message that Charlie and his family were safe, on the part of the island most distant from the catastrophic quake.  I called in to work to let them know I couldn’t make it in.

The news from the other side of the planet, of course, only worsened throughout the day.  But for an hour, I put it all aside and walked with my camera in the transcendent beauty outside my door.  The snow glistened, even though the sky was thick with clouds, etching every branch, every twig.  It fell in fat plops from the trees and blew in powdery sheets when a breeze danced past.

“How unpredictable life is,” I thought, as I processed my photos.   I expected to be at work on another routine Friday, and instead I was snowbound and watching whole cities disappear before my eyes in a thousand-year event.  I expected to be seeing daffodil buds on the verge of blooming, and instead I’d been wading through drifts of shimmering snow.

None of us knows when we wake to a new day what its moments will hold.  But wonder and compassion will always see you through and, when the days are done, leave you knowing that you were a part of life’s ineffable, perfect Yes.

So here I stand, a consciousness broader than the horizon, deeper than the sky, focused through this little dab of protoplasm, wearing this coat of ego, standing on this pebble of a planet, staring at a star that’s 93,000,000 miles away.

How did this come to be?  All this life?  All this balance?  All this beauty?  Why do we make music?  Why do we love?

And amidst the vast, unfathomable mystery of it all, how do we become so blind that we take it all for granted?  So arrogant that we think we have the answers?  How do we get so lost that we lose our context altogether and forget entirely who we are?

How can we stand in the face of this majesty and feel anything but awe, but reverence, but thanksgiving and transcendent joy?

Oh, may our eyes and hearts be opened.  May the gift of wonder bathe our souls and set us free.

May the season wrap you in comfort and joy.  May laughter fill your halls and music fill your dreams.  May those you love be near, if only in spirit, and may you feel their warm embrace.

May the child in you revel in wonder and delight.  May you see beauty everywhere.

May kindness flow from your hands.  May your lips speak the love of your heart.

May generosity pour from you in sweet measure.  May you offer peace and good will to all.

May you sense the connection of your soul with all living beings and see nothing that is not alive.

May you rejoice in the grand unfolding drama and overflow with thanks for the part that you play and for the wisdom it brings you.

May you walk beneath a star-filled sky and marvel at the mysteries.  May your heart open to embrace the flowing moments, whatever they may hold.

May you hear the infinite Yes speaking your name and calling you its own.  May you know that all is well, and that you are loved.

Stand in a snowy field at sunset beneath the sweep of the infinite sky, your boots powdered by snowflakes.  Watch your breath crystallize in the air.

Look! You are alive in the midst of vast radiance.  The same force that powers the sun is sending, right this very minute, warm blood to your toes.

How did you come to be here?   And to realize that you are?  And to feel the stirring of awe, of wonder, in the face of this majestic beauty?

Oh, we are so arrogant and foolish to think that we have cornered truth; our arguments and notions are so small.

And yet, we are alive and filled with wonder.  And the same force that orders the cosmos is beating our hearts.

When beauty rains down, showering you in its reality, bathing you in its grace, washing you in its freshness, give thanks, that it may come to you again.

When beauty rains down, carrying starlight and all the cosmic colors, pouring out its symphonies, flooding you with its oceanic joy, give thanks, that beauty may visit you again.

When beauty drenches you in wonder and dissolves all your walls, when it steeps you in its tenderness and sets your heart free, give thanks.  Give thanks.  Give thanks.

There comes a moment when the light ribbons through the forest just so, when the smooth air floats gently above the fragrant earth, when the dome of sky takes on its deepest blue, that all the woods breathes praise.

The wild turkey calling from the brush, the deer nestled in the ferns and the ferns themselves, the ants and snails, the woodpeckers and jays, the asters, the mushrooms and toads all sing the song.

The trees reaching to the sky, and the fallen ones, the leaves turning crimson and gold, and the fallen ones, the ripe spores of weeds and the fallen ones nestled in the soil breathe praise.

The minerals and molecules, protoplasm in all its forms, the dancing chemistry, the vibrations of light both seen and unseen and all the sounds, the spring flowing underground, the earthworms and moles—everything, everything upon the earth, and beneath and within and above. it sings praise.  Even we who stand so still, rapt with awe and wonder.

When the Grand Yes saturates every molecule of air, when it paints the world in every direction as far as you can see, when you hardly dare breathe lest you break its spell, surrender, and give thanks.

When beauty is so complete that it dissolves every lie ever told, when it dispels every last shred of arrogance and melts every memory of pain, when it tears away all but the awe and wonder of being, revealing to you the central truth of your heart, whisper your yes, and give thanks.

This is the moment that love wrote.  This is its gift and its joy, all for you, all for you.  Sink into it with gladness.  Drink of its splendor, and give thanks.

Snatch a pinch of dreamtime on a summer afternoon.   Lock your cares in the closet, put your chores on the shelf, and just for awhile, let your mind drift, lazy and free.

Sink down into easy, all welcoming and warm.  Let it slide around your shoulders and pour out your toes.  Melt into the glow and the shimmer of your being.  Feel the liquidity of you dancing through your veins.  Feel the fire and air inside you, alive and coursing and real.

Feel the rhythm and the sounds of your breathing and your heart.  Sense the miracles of chemistry at play in your cells.  Wonder at the depth of your fingerprints, at the automatic flicker of your eyelids, at the sensitive vibration of the membranes in your ears, at the moisture that comes to wet your mouth.

Watch your mind machine spin thoughts, as light as cotton candy.  Watch them float in and flow by, your feelings rising with them.  Watch how you want to hold them and then choose to let them go.  Wonder at the choosing and at what it is that makes the choice and let the wondering go, too, as the sun pours onto your skin and the sounds of the world drift by.

Pretend you’re a feather and float on the breeze.  Hitch yourself to a cloud and sail it to the sea.  Dance with the wind.  Ride the sunbeams into the open mouths of flowers.  There’s nowhere you can’t go, nothing you can’t be.  Time and the cosmos are at your command, and all your wishes turn into stars to guide you, and always will.

Take an hour of summertime and let yourself dream.  The world will wait; it understands.  It has dreams of its own, not the least of which is you.