Ordinary Mysticsm
A personal essay recounting my experience of a continually evolving earth shared by species whose ancestry predates our own. The reader is encouraged to see her/himself within the context of a planet humming with life, and to see life as a gift in which each moment presents the opportunity for reverence.
Excerpts
"The practice of ordinary mysticism begins with a recognition that the world is alive, and that it is aware of us.
. . . .
Like the winter sunlight pooled on the sill of the window, the heart of existence is always waiting to receive us, to enfold us in an intimation of belonging . . . These are the moments when we come face to face with what is more enduring, more mysterious, more generous than anything we know. And while we may forget and stumble numbly forward, these awakenings are like the moss on the tree that dries and shrivels in summer. Already it glows after a single early rain. Who would have thought it would take so little to restore that wet and brilliant green?
. . . .
To live in time is what we hunger for, not to run to catch up with it, but to return to it. Thousands of years of life on earth made us capable of being here, in time. This is ordinary mysticism. . . . You could find your way here, your own way. The paths are many and worn like deer trails. Come if you can. The world is waiting."
This article was anthologized in Face to Face, Women Writers on Faith Mysticism and Awakening, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2004.