Ordinary Wonder

The mist lies upon the land, a blanket of grace and quietude. I am listening to a haunting song of essraj and harp*. The coffee is silken warmth. My journal is spread out like the field outside the widow. I write. Whatever comes, I write. Happy. Free.

Then I’m called out of the room. Just for a moment. A change.

Coming back. Sitting down. Same coffee. Same music. Same scrim of fog outside. But a new moment. The old is gone. The old inspiration, the old story being carefully scribed, the old way of thinking, the sense of flow, Gone. And I sit, blank. Blank as the grey of winter. A little befuddled. What can I expect? Everything changes. The old reverie morphs into new questions. After five decades I am learning to be open over and over again.

Yet.

I long for how it was. Long for the coffee and the music to soothe like it did before coming home to a new moment. Long for the flood upon the page. Long for the happiness of a sad song. Then I let go and open my eyes to what Is.

Over and over again, our experience is never the same.

Looking toward my short horizon, I see the field again. In and out, the mist comes slinking and snaking through the forest. The window frames greys and greens in a deep shadow with no sun. Soon enough the sun will come. Someday the forest will fall and rise or burn. The field will awaken and then be harvested. Or some other calamity of ordinary wonder will arrive. 

We are guests, passing through this life. We are passing through these mists and occasional clarities.

Moment by moment, what remains?

Who is experiencing this grace of being alive?

What would life be if we could answer these two seemingly simple questions?

Perhaps we’d be free to roam through time.

Perhaps we’d be free of the leaving everything behind as the next moment comes.

Perhaps we’d be free to peer through the fog.

The answers must remain as mysteries. For now, I simply try to reach out to you. Through the electrons and the weavings of space and time. Satellite to Earth and back again. Through the cable filled with light and into your flickering screen. Now, this moment shared with you is not ordinary anymore.

Thanks for reading this and for taking time to experience a small part of this morning with me. I pray that you find happiness today in the moments shared with those you love.

Rick

*A wonderful album: Within by Benji Wertheimer and David Michael

(c) Copyright Rick Sievers, December 2013, All Rights Reserved