August
5, 2019
Greetings from
the confluence of awe,
The ditches
along the country roads are deep with rainwater. The reeds have filled up the low place
between the road and the field, taller than normal because it’s too wet to cut
them. Here is where rabbits wait to be
released into the mad dash across the tarmac, where yellow finches dart and
swoop.
I ran a few
feet from the edge of this, lost in thought, watching the road come to me,
running effortlessly, sweating in the morning sun. My thoughts were floating as easily as I did, moving
through the miles.
In this
moment, from a low place, a catch basin at the edge of a field where the
culverts come together, suddenly there was this glorious movement. Out of the reeds came a phoenix, graceful and
impossibly slow against the pull of gravity, stretching into the first feet above
the tips of the grasses. A Great Blue Heron
flowed into the air, opening its wings to a six feet span, a beautiful powerful
display of movement and color. She crushed
space around her, folding the tips in as she surged up, and then captured the
air again and pushed into the sky.
I was held in
awe, too amazed to even be startled. The
heron was facing me, wings fully open, pointing its long beak up, and then
turned in the blue background and swept again and rushed higher away from us
mere earthbound mortals.
For a mile or
two after this encounter, I remained in a state of amazement. I held on to the image of this incredible example
of life that happened, just inches from where my own was taking place.
Ahead of me
clouds of gnats were held in place by the sun, their tiny wings glistening in
the light as they swirled together in a choreography nature wrote before I
existed. It is something that is easy to
miss, or to take for granted, but I had just been taught a lesson from the heron. See it, David. It is a miracle you are here in this moment.
The thought
came to me, not in words but images, that as I gave witness to these things, as
they happened right in front of me, I happened right in front of them. I was a miracle for them. I say this with the full knowledge of my
frail, fractured existence, knowing that I only can be here out of the graciousness
of my Creator, and it is still true; I am a miracle too.
Each person
who you meet today, whether you think you planned it, or the moment is
serendipitous, the cumulation of actions that make it possible are
remarkable. Look at that person with all
of that and be in awe. Oh, and by the
way, they should be in awe of you. Not
only because you both exist in that same moment, but because of everything that
is in you and them that made it possible.
It is fantastic. The potential is
even more inspiring.
Somewhere on a
lonely road a heron waits, thinking heron thoughts. A couple of hours before I sat on the lip of
my deck, the first cup of coffee in my hand, watching the day come. The hint of light in the inky sleep of night,
the peach-rose blush, the first taste of the richness of the day coming my
way. I don’t think too hard about these things;
it is an instinct of mine to be there as the day shows its passion. I am never disappointed.
I dawdled and
stretched and retied my shoelaces and rethought my route and took a hundred
other actions that filled the seconds and minutes before I took my first
step. Miles later, not a coincidence,
but the perfect unfolding of living, I met a heron. And she met me.
Some weeks
ago, before Summer staked its claim, I was in the garage and I saw something
moving on the door going into the house.
I looked closer and it was a circle of white, and inside there was a
movie of leaves dancing. After a few
minutes of searching I found where the sunlight was focused through a tiny nail
hole in the flashing of the outside wall.
Beyond that was a maple tree, its new leaves waving to me in the morning
light, now projected on the inside door.
The sun was
only in that place for a moment, passing over a hole so small I would never know
its existence otherwise. Its trajectory
in the day, as our planet rotates, and its path in the year as we roar around
the sun, was a miraculous confluence of timing. Add to that I was there to
witness it, which with the thousands of variations that could happen that
morning, might not have been true. I was
there to see what played out, and all of existence around me was there to
witness me as well.
The moments that
pile up in your day that lead to the next intersection of you and beauty, or
whatever waits for you, are a convergence so incredible that they will likely
never be repeated in all of time, and since they occur they will be true for
all of time. It is fantastic.
I do not know
the experience of the heron or the gnats or rabbits or the sun before I crossed
paths with any of them. I think there
are a billion variations that might have led us to intersect in a different
way. But that morning they existed as
they did, and the heron rose out of the grasses, and was amazed at a man passing
by. Graceful and powerful, glistening in
the morning sun, floating along the road as if he owned it, moving across the
earth away from mere feathered mortals.
The heron rose into the sky in awe of me and was changed for all of its
existence.
Hope
this finds you in awe of you,
David
Copyright
© 2019 David Smith
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