Micro epiphanies

I like to think that just beneath the surface of our awareness and knowledge there lies a special capacity of human consciousness to apprehend quick and unexpected feelings and emotions not at all readily explainable and which are constantly present in a more beautiful or, if you will, eternal realm of being. Our daily lives and routines seem ordinary and predictable only because we allow and want them to be . It’s as if we shy away from the more profound realities of existence out of self-defense because these mortal coils out of which we are fashioned keep us fastened to this earth of dust and grit and time.

The other morning as I walked through the garden to my car on the way to work, I passed under the crepe myrtle tree which was full of small sparrows chirping with such happiness and delight that I was immediately drawn into the midst of that sound and swept up for mere seconds in a tiny, fleeting epiphany. Life was good and beautiful. It was as if a sunbeam had suddenly emerged from the clouds and illuminated my path. That lovely sound brought me back 40 years to the courtyard of the liberal arts building at the University of New Orleans where I used to wait on a bench for my classes to start. There always seemed to be these same little birds chirping away singing and communicating as they pecked here and there for seeds or bits of bread. My first year of college was full of much anguish and awful events and circumstances beyond my ability to comprehend. Why were such things happening to me? Springtime and little birds held the healing power to help me rise above the memories of that awful year.

Then I was in the car, absorbed in the rush to get to work on time. I got the first red light and as I paused at the signal, I looked over to my left at a corner of a yard in the housing project, a rather spare and bleak sight in normal times. However, at just that moment I saw a little patch of red blooms on an azalea bush next to an electricity meter. Again, for just a fragment of time, beauty inhabited that place in a special way seen only by me. A sudden wave of well-being passed over me and was gone when the light turned green and my car began moving again.

How near and yet still so far away….

This entry is a micro epiphany for me. Thank you.

I’m happy to see you enjoying these sweet moments. It’s funny, my husband will often say how do I notice so much that he doesn’t see. My life is spent extracting all the beauty and joy one can, because we need it to balance the hard stuff. There is something especially beautiful and renewing about beauty in nature. When can birds sing sweetly and we are not transported to joy 🙂

ryn – thank you 🙂 I’ve been feeling a bit crabby with all these boxes and unable to unpack them. Okay, a lot crabby ha ha. At least my physical restrictions are temporary and not as severe as some. I don’t know what I’d do without the birds singing and the creek gurgling in the back yard until I can get out and about.

Sago

March 3, 2012

What a wonderful entry! I thought of the time when K’s last parent had been buried and we were at their home for the last time…people were there with us after the funeral. I was in the kitchen and looked out to see the nearby bluff simply made gorgeous by the setting sun, something that possibly happened daily but it caught my eye and lifted my mood until I was flooded with happiness, unexpected and deeply personal. It was the one moment in the day that was uplifting. May you continue to have these moments–you do have as a gift the eyes to recognize them, Oswego.

I like how you take the time to see beauty when most of us are too busy rushing around to notice it.

Aragon

I agree that as we pass in our ordinary lives we do have to take moments to realize God’s great creations here on earth. They literally bring me back to reality. I can not remember who said or wrote this, but basically it was about farming/working in nature and in nature was a close to God as you can get here on Earth. I believe the Amish truly believe this..I forget who said it!!

🙂

Gypsy Spirit

thanks for your kind note recently. hugs p

~Katherine

March 4, 2012

This was lovely to read. I can think of terrible times in my life when I walked out in the yard and my spirits were lifted by a songbird or even a comical grackle strutting across the yard with his head in the air, showing off for the females who weren’t even looking at him. One cold winter morning several years ago, I was washing dishes and feeling almost too bleak to breathe. I heard amourning dove and looked out the window over the sink to see him sitting alone on the fence and felt comforted by his presence. Thanks for sharing your micro epiphanies with us.

WebWoman

March 5, 2012

I’m glad you notice these things. I live surrounded by trees and birds and they often uplift and sometimes entertain me.

ryn: they had algebra way back then???? LOL When I started 25 years ago our entire paper would be 12-14 pages, with a couple special sections each year. Now we average twice that page count each week, and we publish two visitors guides (44 tab pages), two slick magazines (72 pages), and 14 page Letters to Santa. Yowza.

Glad you got to enjoy those special moments!

We catch little drifts of beauty that sweep the bad times away…even if only for a while.