Everyday Miracles...
Miracles are not just for children.
Have we become jaded? In our technocentric AI generated world, have we lost our sense for the miraculous?
The plastic capitalism of convenience has a way of taking the magic out of our relationships and connections. At times it seems true beauty and value have been replaced with sheen and gloss.
But, my friends, magic is not far off. The miraculous is right here. But it can only show it's face when we turn towards it... when we create space in our lives to notice and acknowledge.
It can be simple. A subtle shift from looking with our eyes to seeing with our hearts. Feeding ourselves with poetry and then stepping outside to watch the birds flutter in a tree.
Perhaps the innocence of children allows them to see miracles with more ease. Those of us gifted with the opportunity to spend time with toddlers get vicarious vision.
It’s unfortunate that innocence is associated with naivete, giving it an almost negative connotation. “But the roots of the word mean to be free of injury or hurt. In Spanish, the word inocente is understood to mean a person who tried not to harm another, but also is able to heal any injury or harm to herself,” according to Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, author of Women who Run with the Wolves.
She continues:
“This state of wise innocence is entered by shedding cynicism and protectionism, and by reentering the state of wonder one sees in most humans who are very young and many who are very old. It is a practice of looking through the eyes of a knowing and loving spirit, instead of through those of the whipped dog, the hounded creature, the mouth atop a stomach, the angry wounded human. Innocence is a state that is renewed as one sleeps. Unfortunately, many throw it aside with the coverlet as they arise each day. It would be better to take an alert innocence with us and draw it close for warmth.”
“Though an initial return to this state may require scraping away years of jaded viewpoints, decades of callous and carefully constructed bulwarking, once one has returned one never has to pry for it, dig for it, ever again. To return to an alert innocence is not so much an effort, like moving a pile of bricks from here to there, as it is standing still long enough to let the spirit find you. It is said that all that you are seeking is also seeking you, that if you like still, sit still, it will find you. It has been waiting for you a long time. Once it is here, don’t move away. Rest. See what happens next.”
I invite us to reclaim this word and state of being, and in doing so integrate all of it’s deliciously potent healing.
Imagine a world where we all embody innocence, even just a wee bit.
Might that world be a bit… miraculous?
Might we goad miracles through the vale with our tender hearts relieved from the burdens of a tarred history through self-forgiveness?
Let’s find out.
Warmly,
Noah