Everyday Mystic
Since I was very young, I have taken secret delight in the signs and symbols offered up in the course of daily life. I’ve spent lots of time throughout my life in various religious institutions or studying various streams of spiritual thought. But the most consistent source of actual spiritual experience for me has always been the ordinary yet transcendent moments that point to the Mystery that is bigger than all of us. I am an everyday mystic. Maybe you are too.
Last week, while we were signing loan documents outside on the back porch for COVID safety, the broker commented that we have a lot of birds in our small backyard, which we do. They are a source of great delight to me. But she was looking at something behind me, so I turned around to see that about 100 cedar waxwings had arrived in to eat privet berries.
I don’t know if you’ve been visited by cedar waxwings before, but they arrive in a large group with great fanfare, eat and chatter for a while, then swoop away together. It is dramatic, and their arrival is both unpredictable and undeniable. The whole loan signing was done to the accompaniment of the sound of bird wings as the waxwings flew back and forth in the small area. As we finished the signing, they flew away.
I knew I had witnessed something magical, an everyday mystical experience that connects me to the Mystery, to the Divine, to the Ground of All Being. But I might well have forgotten about it if I hadn’t written about it in a group of soulful entrepreneurs that I belong to.
The truth is that these experiences happen to me regularly throughout my life, but I am often quiet about it. That quiet can breed forgetting, diminishing the potency of the signs and symbols and serendipities that appear. This revealing of magic and mystery followed by forgetting is a pattern I can fall into.
Poet and wise woman Mary Oliver writes in her poem Sometimes:
Instructions for Living a Life
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
The practice of paying attention to the world and to our nudges leads to astonishment. In fact, it is hard not to be astonished when you are paying attention. I am learning that “telling about it” is also essential. When I tell about it, it is an act of gratitude and recognition that helps me to remember and connect. When we tell about it, we confirm these mystical moments of astonishment for each other. We can say, “oh you too!” It gives us confidence in the signs and symbols we notice, and in this way of being in the world.
I choose to live in a world of meaning and mysticism, where a flock of cedar waxwings catches my attention and points me to something much bigger than myself.
What are your everyday mystic moments? I invite you to take time to pay attention and allow yourself to be astonished. And then, please, please tell about it. I, for one, would love to hear about what you discover.