This Magic Moment

Maybe there is magic.

More magic in the moment than we notice.

Or have time to notice.

Moment to moment, we exist in a state where we no longer identify the ordinary.

We remain staid. Anchored.

Held in the energy of what we expect.

And so, even as we look, what we expect becomes what we see.

It happens slowly.

Over time, the wonder of life downshifts from the joy of dancing in the rain into the routine of bus stops and classrooms. Dorm rooms and interviews. Afterschool pick up and who’s making dinner.

The magic never disappears.

Maybe it’s us that disappear inside it.

Perhaps we simply become so accustomed to the world around us that we forget to actually look and see it.

So let this week’s post help us see smaller.

And cradle this as an invitation to remember to read between our lines.

Moment to moment.

Here we can notice what we’ve already named. And still, become consciously aware of what refuses to rise to the surface.

What has always been there.

Waiting for us to simply see.

It’s the light that changes on the wall.

The breeze dancing with the leaves.

It’s what catches our attention for no particular reason; and for this week, let’s take a second and follow it.

The thought that arrives.

The feeling that shifts.

That bird that calls a single note as it crosses the sky.

Nothing has happened.

And yet, happening is all around us. And beneath it, the minor miracle of us beginning to see.

There are tiny movements all the time. Little things within little things, unfolding.

And maybe this is where magic hides. Just beneath our line of sight, in and out of our peripheral vision.

Almost imperceptible.

So we go still as bobcat hunting. We stop movement, take a breath.

We look at what’s in front of us, then we look beneath.

Deconstructing moment to moment and seeing what it’s made of.

We are so accustomed to looking toward the horizon. Toward what comes next. Toward what might happen, what might change, what might finally make sense.

But what happens when we look smaller?

When we bring our attention closer?

When we let ourselves become interested in the things that don’t poke us fifty times asking if we’re there yet.

Can we begin to notice that something is always moving?

Arriving.

Leaving.

Around us the universe is in the constant state of becoming.

We don’t always understand it.

Don’t even have to name it.

But we can pull back the covers and see the unfolding.

To notice the tiny shimmer of a moment before it disappears.

To be there when it happens, and aware that it was there after it’s gone.