Extraordinarily Ordinary Mystic

In the mailbox this Friday...

The ordinary and extraordinary are infused with the mysteries of The Watercourse Way. We are, each and all, an everyday mystic. What distinguishes us is awareness amid encounters with moments such as epiphanies, silence, in a song, a line in a poem, or conversation. Such moments are not confined by the dramas of relationships, rituals, nor the majesty of nature and its vistas. Once experienced, we are changed—expanded.

Witnessing the birth or first step of a child, the rising of the Harvest Moon and it's blood-red eclipse, the Aurora Borealis, a caring – even “accidental” – touch. These differences collapse into singular, undifferentiated experience.

There are no words here. The vista and silence of the Grand Canyon cannot be embraced by the words “awe” and “ thankful,” even while being filled with a gratitude the dimensions of which we were not previously aware we possessed.

Sometimes I need

only to stand

wherever I am

to be blessed – Mary Oliver