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| Find the two bald eagles... |
For me, this is how it works. I experience something beautiful and my soul is comforted. I feel a deep connection with someone or something and I am soothed. This week I have found myself seeking the nourishing waters of refreshment for my spirit through:
· Low tide walks on the pebbled beach
· Pointing out to a boisterous two year old the rising, huge, orange, wet-paint, full moon and watching him pause (if only for three seconds) to look and then loudly proclaim, “Moon!”
· Collecting stones that are encircled with layers of other types of rock: each brings together two disparate halves into a whole
· Deeply rich and meaningful engagement with others (clients, friends, family, hospice recipients, acquaintances)
· Being followed by the rainbow that straddled Puget Sound a few days ago
· Watching the clouds dance with the now-waning moon, obscuring and revealing the brightly-lit ball like a game of cosmic hide and seek
· Hearing, watching, noticing, noting, photographing, standing in awe of two mating bald eagles high in the Douglas firs during my repeated visits to the water’s edge
· Breathing, consciously - during a death vigil as my own exhale caught in my throat each time the dying woman’s breathing diminished; during meditations; while in yoga poses; as I placed my hands in a muddy puddle at the edge of my yard
· Laughing until my stomach hurt
It is in these events, the everyday happenings in the course of life, that we are healed. It is how we are made whole again after the inevitable wrenchings, tearings, riftings, shiftings that are the changeability of our lives. These simple things add up to a short list. The effort of compiling the list is an act of gratitude, of peacemaking, of surrender to this Life that is. It is also a way to honor the sacred that is part of our everyday. The “big stuff” just happens; we can count on that…it comes in shapes and sizes that fit, and others that are grossly oversized or minute and cramped. But the healing (“whole-making”) comes as we allow the little things to impact us over and over again. I would rather not wait for that one huge moment that I can unmistakably identify as a “Miracle.” Instead, I would rather count the small things, the many diverse nuances in a day - those things we call “ordinary” – as the healers and miracles of my life. I may or may not see the “burning bush.” But surely the cycles of day and night, seasons, disease and death and laughter, beautiful stones and simple conversations, movement and breath will continue to flow in and out of my life each day; it is these I embrace!
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
