The other day there was a miracle, but I was looking the other way when it happened and it blew past me like a round of silent artillery. So does it count if I figured it out a week later? If I pieced it all together? And if it does count, do I just make a notch on a piece of wood or something? Once I get ten, can I trade ’em in for something else? Do I get an extra man or a free throw of the dice?
I think at the time I was imagining how it would be if I was more rustic. Like if I knew how to hike up into the mountains in late fall and not come down until the ice broke, and I was comfortable banking fires, setting traps, cleaning skins and knives in the half light, and getting on the same wavelength as the mountain slopes and the snow squalls, if it would be any better. Part of me likes to think it might be. Part of me likes to interrupt from time to time and carry out some inner discourse on topics such as these, and I miss things. The miracles streak past, and an hour later I discover the life I thought was my own has a hole in it.
Miracles scurry around like fugitive bolts of lightning, like firecrackers that leapt off the end of whipped leather and dove for cover, so if you want to see one you can’t be distracted. Because they also blend right in with everything else. You stand looking at a street corner, watching laundry wave from the balcony, watching cars and spinning hub cabs and big buses, watching faces. The miracle is looking right at you, piecing together the next world from the one already here, but you can’t cull it out from the rest. You can only squint and listen quietly, and then feel yourself slip away. Feel yourself loosen from your coordinates. Feel the way faces are oddly familiar, the way dimples in curb stones and painted street markings couldn’t have been any other way. That’s when I feel closest to it, when everywhere I look it’s looking right back. Invisible. Massing like a cloud.
It’s not whether the cars collide or not, whether the sirens come or not, or whether the deal gets made. It’s something inside of all that, something like a rock climber with one grip on the moment in front of you, one grip somewhere ten years ago in a corn silo, and a foot that’s carrying the weight of everything, pushing off the darkness inside of an egg. Then that climber moves and the whole world moves with it, but I can only see that the light turned green. Everything shifts but it all moves together so it looks like it was always gonna’ do that anyway. The front two cars burst off the line, boring a hole through the cloud.
What if I could just look at somebody and know their regrets, or their shoe size, or whether or not they were in love? What if I could just stand on the corner and send little ingots of light into the people walking by, and the ingots of light always knew exactly what to do– like go to the pancreas and throw a few switches, or ride the blood up into the pituitary gland and sing a song, or grab a few hooligan-shaped molecules from their liver and crack them into little tiny flower petals?
Would it be any better if that were so? I can’t answer that. The whole world flickers through its eternity and reappears fresh in every direction, and all I can see is one thing at a time. But it’s enough to suggest a closeness– an intimacy with places far away that brought me here. When a large bird takes off in the forest, too far away to hear, you just see fragments of wing tips, and tree trunks lined up still as posts concealing splashes of white and warmth. I get carried along by that. The world moves me along even though I froze ten years ago, and ever since I’ve been trying to piece together what I saw. With each breath, we all get whisked over the edge by the current, because it was always gonna’ be that way.
The best thing is to just relax and catch your thoughts– the ones that were meant for you. They crawl up inside of you and then go to work. They open up over time. That’s the whole world, taking you with it. The miracle is realizing it’s all happening at once. Everywhere at once, it’s just right. The miracle is the ticket mashed deep in your heart, crumpled and silent, that you were given to this ballet of wing tips and ruffled darkness that somehow takes you exactly where you need to go.
Embracing Forever 
“The whole world flickers through its eternity and reappears fresh in every direction, and all I can see is one thing at a time. But it’s enough to suggest a closeness– an intimacy with places far away that brought me here.” – Yes to this, and indeed I enjoyed the whole post Michael – “The miracle is realizing it’s all happening at once. Everywhere at once, it’s just right.” – *nods a great deal*.
– esme upon the Cloud
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Thank you, Esme. I am long overdue for a visit to your lovely abode in the sky, where I always realize just how very true it is that miracles are happening everywhere at once. I hope you are doing well these days, my inspiring and creative friend!
Peace
Michael
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Dear, dear Michael! It is not every day that I can read a beautiful soul’s words that speak to me with such intensity and honesty…oh…but wait a minute…I take that back 😉 I have been choosing a poem a day from your BEAUTIFUL BOOK, “A Cannon, a Heart, and Now This…” so my above statement is just not true!! Yesterday I read, “Playing it Cool (Your New Home)” and it was so perfect for me in the moment I preside. And here, today, you have rocked this feeling…in a very sensible, peaceful way. I suspect that it wouldn’t matter which poem I chose for the day…they would all be perfect!!!
Thank you my friend. Thank you for the live you shine into the world…it is so very noticeable 😉 Blessings ♡♡
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Thank you so much, Lorrie! That one is one of my favorites… It’s always good to stay alert and be prepared for the cessation of normalcy…! For the world to move us along into a new frame…
I appreciate your warm words Lorrie, but most of all your friendship. Such light as arises here is the result of the light that you and others have so graciously extended to me. It is a blending together of connection and possibility– what happens when we meet each other with respect and compassion…
Blessings
Michael
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Ah! Yes, Michael…I agree wholeheartedly 🙂 This connection of souls is a beautiful thing, and I am so blessed and full of gratitude, Blessitude, that my heart feels like it overflows!! I wish we could have a convention…a weekend filled with wonderful people…incredible souls!! I know that we don’t all have to be together physically to feel the energy…but it would be fun!! 😉
Hope you are super and that you have a beautiful week!! ♡
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!
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Dennis, I was about to say this is the comment of the year! But I realized the year is so young this wouldn’t do at all… I come back to this again and again… And always leave full of joy…
Peace, brother!
Michael
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I believe I told you once that as the years have been going by lately I have found it most appropriate for me to say what I want to say with less and less words. Well, “!” was what I wanted to say to you. I may comment less or not at all on your future work but know that I am reading, I am nodding, and I am smiling because it’s good and I’m pretty sure I get it. So peace and love and creative joy always! ~Dennis
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Thank you, Dennis. I’m glad we’ve made this connection, and I think you absolutely get it…!
Michael
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You know Michael, this was a privilege to read .. Yes the world is all happening at once, and often we may miss what is right under our noses.. And wouldn’t it be great if only we could capture the light of another’s thoughts and blend our thinking to mould a world into a miraculous ball of love..
You Do send Ingots of Love/light Michael, every time you sit down to write.. You create something beautiful for all those who take the time to visit and digest your thoughts..
Sometimes we take a while to ‘Thaw’ out from our Frozen state of mind..
May you continue to take our own breaths away with your thoughts Michael.. And If I have not yet done so.. I wish you a very Happy 2016 where no doubt more Sensations of Miracles will be felt.
Love and Blessings..
Sue
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Thank you very much, Sue. I do think there is a way in which we can participate in the realization of a world that is a miraculous ball of Love, and think it starts with the recognition like we are sharing here– the seeing of it in what already is, and in one another…
I will do my best to keep it up in 2016, my friend, and you do the same! It is a joy to be on this ride with you.
Peace
Michael
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Likewise Michael 🙂 Here’s to Illuminating the World with Balls of Love.. 🙂 Love it 🙂 ❤
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Ditto what Sue said Michael. I love the light beams you send out filled with heart, unique insights and whispers of a world far more connected and miraculous than we can typically see. Keep sending those love ingots and maybe we’ll catch up in 10 years or last year, however that time bending stuff works.
Thanks for sharing your gifts Michael. To miraculous connections!
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Thank you, Brad! To miraculous connections!
And you keep it up, too! Ha! You’ve put together quite a collection of the miraculous on your site and it is always a joy to visit and read about some of the amazing people we share this lovely planet with…
Much Love
Michael
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Thanks my friend. May we inspire and uplift many along the path.
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Thank you Michael for articulating what has been buzzing in my mind lately. Miracles abound and are often spontaneous and/or very subtle. I am embarking on a miracle/magic awareness practice where I pay more attention to the present. Mindfulness with a twist. I want to heighten my awareness, while also knowing I will not catch them all.
lovely, luminous, read…
peace, Linda
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Hi Linda,
That sounds like a very nice practice. I love this: mindfulness with a twist! I look forward to hearing about your experiences. It really is the case for me that often the biggest ones often only become visible to me in hindsight. Sometimes in the midst of a difficult time, it only seems difficult, but then when we pass through it and discover what it really was and might have been– the miracle is obvious. I remember a teacher once told me to always remember what you pray for, and I think this is why… We seldom realize it is dawning all around us, until we have a little perspective… I wish you happy hunting! Ha!
Peace to you also,
Michael
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What a beautiful piece to come upon this morning. My heart delights in your writing, Michael.
I know I miss a lot of miracles, being involved in something other than complete awareness in the present moment. But perhaps they enter anyway, though I don’t see it consciously.
I loved what you said about sending ingots of light into people walking by and that it would know just what to d, “like go to the pancreas and throw a few switches, or ride the blood up into the pituitary gland and sing a song, or grab a few hooligan-shaped molecules from their liver and crack them into little tiny flower petals?”
I agree with Sue, here. You do that with your words. I read your beautiful book every day, too and feel those ingots each time. Funny, I read that very same poem that Lorrie read last night. How synchronistic is that? Wouldn’t surprise me if it was the very same moment. Haha.
Your last paragraph opened up a place in my heart, a thicket that will grow however it needs to grow, and I thank you for that.
Love,
Mary
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Dear Mary…it wouldn’t surprise me either!!!!! 😉 That poem walked right into my heart and sat down…kicked its feet up and said, “NOW you understand!!!!” ♡♡♡
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Hi Mary,
Thank you so much for this. These exchanges we have open a place in my heart, too. It is all the giving and receiving of it– the way it happens for all of us at once, and we find ourselves suddenly surrounded by light and possibility. May much beauty grow from the opening that has emerged…
I miss a lot, too. There have been times I was in the richest of miracles and my feelings at the time were quite the contrary. Even recently, when I was working so much to reach a deadline, it felt very difficult at the time, but we made it… And since then many things have cropped up that needed correction or adjustment, and somehow they waited and gave many people the break they needed… 🙂
Love
Michael
PS — I think that’s awesome about you and Lorrie and the poem.
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Michael, somehow I read your words and that crumpled ticket in my heart gets released into the wind, into this endless beauty, without any coordinates, and I forget whether I am following the ticket, or I am the ticket itself. 🙂
I have a four year old here, who repeats at least 10 times an hour: We are so lucky! He finds unexpected picture in the book, he exclaims: I am so lucky! He falls in the snow: I am so lucky! He sees extra cherios in his bowl: I am so lucky! He sees fewer cheerios in his bowl: I am so lucky!
Thank you for these unfreezing words. We are all so lucky. Peace, love, and beauty to you. 🙂 Kristina
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Hi Kristina,
I love your lines here, and your beautiful description of the lucky one. How lucky to know we are lucky and loved! Does that make any sense? We do make our own luck in that regard… Ha! Yes, we are the ticket and following the ticket both. Lucky to be here, and lucky to be the types of beings that can never cease to open…
A miracle we seldom comprehend I think, is that we are innately good– that the Buddha entered our minds, that the Christ entered our world, that Love is at the root of everything… Sometimes I think on that, and it causes the whole world to wobble…
Blessings
Michael
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This is a beautiful poetic piece. Yes, miracles are sometimes hard to catch. For me, there are often patterns of events which carry a metaphorical meaning. I usually don’t catch the meaning at the first time. But the universe patiently repeats them over and over again until It catches my attention and I got the message. Are these events miracles ? Hmmm, I don’t know. But I am always in awe of the hidden single invisible force which moves the seemingly separate objects around and conveys messages.
Your post is beautifully written an rich with meaning. Thank you for sharing.
Peace and blessings,
Karin
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Thank you, Karin. I think technically speaking, in the Courses we both enjoy, the miracle is the moment we recognize the pattern, and perception is healed. It is the moment we see things differently, and in doing so abolish the suffering they needlessly engendered. But yes I agree– the amazing way the invisible force nudges the pieces around the board. It is truly inspiring when we glimpse its subtle perfection at work in our lives, particularly when we realize we’re being moved, too!
Love
Michael
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Yes, you are right, in ACIM the miracle has a different meaning than how I use it.
Today, I just discovered that Windows 10 and Internet Explorer 11.20 somehow don’t go well together with the WordPress.com reader.
Ahhhrrg !&§!)”&=§
I wonder what the hidden blessing in this is about…
Wait, now I have an excuse to never post again because it won’t work anyway. Hahaha.
Love,
Karin
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Hahaha! Good one! Now that would be quite a miracle! Unfortunately, miracles don’t work on software. Ha! I hope you get that worked out. There is nothing quite like a computer challenge to put me somewhere very distant from my happy place.
Love,
Michael
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i’m inspired by your realization, Michael!
just seeing the shapes & colors
on this screen illuminating before me
& somehow discerning meaning
that affects my heart & consciousness
is nothing
less than
a miracle 🙂
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That is a fine miracle, indeed, David! Who would have thought we’d be carrying these windows around with us wherever we went, windows we could tune to so many places and times, to find just those ones we were meant to share a moment or two of realization with…?
Such a loving madness in which we stew!
Peace
Michael
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Speechless…but that would be so unlike me…I read this and I think of when I had cancer…moments I don’t like to revisit but to stand on a corner and send the Thoughts though invisible out to the world, to heal, to help….my how that would do justice to those alone in such a good and awesome and beautiful way. But to touch someone, the miracle, whether known or not….to make time stop for but a second, to have that person to hold in their hands a miracle….and maybe you didn’t see it…but that’s okay, they did….now that is the invisible thread at work, twining together…Michael, that is what your words do….make me realize your gift, to see things from he perspective I hadn’t seen, and the words come when needed….and I feel like I am flying…gift to gift, life to life. Wow. I hope you know what you do for this world….I am awake and I am convinced the miracles need to come fast and hard and you have started the rock rolling down the hill. This world will vibrate in goodness….oh, I’ve missed you, as I feed off of the power of your wise words…..going forth and creating….in glee. Peace and love and sorry to be so long winded….you made me do it….K
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Hi Kim,
You are most kind and thank you for sharing so freely your thoughts of reaching others, connecting, helping and twining together the healing the world needs. We are weaving threads together– never alone. Your lines say it all: gift to gift, life to life… The only place change can arise is the place where we meet one another. I truly hope the ball is rolling, and I don’t see any of us alone as starting the ball… so much as running alongside of it, together, narrating what we are seeing… that others may hear of this ball and this world that exists inside of our own.
Peace and love,
and never be sorry about writing!
Michael
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Can it be a small red ball, shared amongst friends where one never fit in…yet in hindsight, the gift of knowing, we were really one after all? That would make me smile, truly……I am happy kicking that ball with you my friend, not merely crab soccer style, getting pelted in a winner take all, but that we are all crawling about on our hands and feet, trying to score the big cosmic prize, and so excited to find that by participating, we all have won after all….Geesh…there you go again, bringing up not so fond memories and tweaking them into a glorious rally for a win…..I think Hafiz is working extra hard with his magic. My friend, I do so love our interaction and the things you pull on a moments notice…..and that Michael is what you dredge from my thoughts on a moments notice, and I go to bed to dream silly things, childhood sports and things I never thought I’d revisit again, yet so looking forward to the celebration as we all win. Peace and deepest love, K
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Oh the life lessons of those elementary school recreational periods! I so wish we still had PE at work! How fun it was to exit the building and pick up some plastic hockey sticks and play street hockey in our tennis shoes with a little red ball. But this is exactly what I mean about that little red ball… we’re finding things out… realizing things were never quite what they seemed… Ha! Dream well, my friend!
Love
Michael
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Ah, what of the smell of the purple ink on the dittos….how I loved passing out the tests fresh with ink. What amazes me is every day my mind retreats and pulls out fresh memories, the presidential relays we went through, and trust me, I was not The most athletic child….too shy…yet when it came time to win something where you were on an even level playing field, everyone was treated the same….wow, talk about excelling….I remember like yesterday, Forty or so some odd years later,why do you think our minds flash those images, like an old time movie on a screen that leave us smiling, remembering and embracing? These days make me cry remembering….the sweetest and best and yet oft times worst days, I think the sweetness fades the darkness…so hat we are left remembering things like beautiful skies and sunsets, family members gone, those who still remain…and yes, the smell of dittos that remind us that we are alive, and eight again….must be your buddy playing with us again..give him thanks for me, will you?
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It’s the ticket that takes you home, back to the loving source from whence you came. It is light, it is love in its purest form, it’s a yearning, it’s a hand reaching out to hold you in His keeping. It is Grace animated and visible. Very enjoyable and truth-filled post, Michael. Blessings, Natalie 🙂 ❤
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Amen, Natalie. It is all that and a bucket o’ chicken! I love the notion of it becoming visible, as for me that is such an important element of it– the way the miracle can reveal and offer and make it something you can contact directly… Thank you very much for your visit and sharing your kind words.
Peace
Michael
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What a lovely ride that was from somewhere a thousand years ago to this pure moment of sitting in a colourful Mexican living room exactly as it should be. How could anything ever be other than exactly what it is – miracle upon miracle upon miracle.
with love
Alison
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Are you in Mexico now!? Miracles do abound! I picture you guys leaving this invisible trail of grace behind you, wrapping around and around the Earth like that scene in the first Superman when he spins the world backwards. Maybe that’s what we’re doing… linking up these threads unknowingly, being nudged gently into position, and at the same time drinking from the depths of every moment along the way… Miracle upon miracle…. 🙂
Peace
Michael
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Yes we’re in Mexico. Apparently. We’re slowly adjusting to our new home for the next 5 months. Warm days and cool nights. And gorgeous ochre and rust coloured Spanish colonial buildings.
A.
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Sounds lovely. The one time I was in Mexico a bull and I once found ourselves standing on opposite sides of a shrubbery beside a stream you could hop over with one large step, at around 2 AM. I was waiting for a ride, and I thought the bull was a horse I’d seen earlier in the field. I could only hear it’s breath through the shrubbery, and I thought surely it was the horse I’d seen. But when the car came for me, I saw the shadow of the beast adjacent to me had a chest as wide as a refrigerator and rather serviceable horns. It was quite a moment of dawning realization for me… 🙂
Michael
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OMG I’m sure it was. I would have freaked!
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The more I slow down and breathe in the moment the more I see the beautiful miracles you speak of. They are there now, tommorrow and the day after, as you say, moving with the current of life. Just beautiful. 🙂
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Hi Karen,
Thank you very much… It is wonderful to see the flow of it, to feel oneself being “seen through” even… We are not really in the driver’s seat of it, and yet there is this choice we seem to have, to see beauty for what it is, and to see ourselves as emanations of something endless…
Peace
Michael
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This is beautiful! And I can relate. So many miracles lately. Thank you, God! And thank you, Michael. You express so wondrously.
Love and cookies,
Sarah
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Thank you, Sarah. And cookies! But who said anything about God!? Ha!
I liked your New Year’s reflection very much, which I just read. So many miracles, so much life inbound, so much opening up…
Love to you, too–
Michael
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Oh yes! There are always cookies. What kind are your favorite?
I love your writing. The comments section is really the place to see and be seen too. Lovely community you have here!
Love and more cookies,
Sarah
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Good question, Sarah. I think I’ll go with chocolate chip, homemade, dipped in my father’s after dinner cup of coffee!
And yes, I am at once astonished and grateful to have made contact with such beautiful people…
Love, cookies, and wonderment,
Michael
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“Morning star you’re beautiful, yellow dime on high. Spin you round my little room, miracle goodnight. Evening flower all alone, pazanane capeche. Haven’t got a death wish, just want a little more.” – David Bowie.
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Anyway, the above was simply what first jumped into my mind when I read your exquisitely written piece Michael, and the words are from his song Miracle goodnight, as you may know – hence the memory trigger in my mind. Everyone has spoken so glowingly of your piece, it seems somewhat superfluous to add further along the same lines, though I agree whole-heartedly with all such fine sentiments. As I mentioned to you in responding to your previous prose article, I find these more fleshed-out workings of your thoughts somehow more contemplative, or is it that they are more restful, giving greater time and space to whatever may lie beyond the signposts you construct for us? Either way, the writing here is deliciously wrought, honed as fine as the best prose deserves to be – like a virtual morning star, a yellow dime on high spinning ’round my little room here in Glastonbury. H ❤
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Thank you, Hariod. In college I took a creative writing class as an elective– a bit of an odd move for an engineering student, but I enjoyed it very much. The professor who led the class thought I would do better writing novels than short stories after reading my writing style, and perhaps there are some analogues here. The poems are fun. I can’t explain it, but the mood of the creative act is somehow a little different when I am writing true prose. I like them both… I’m glad you do, too!
Knowing that music is in your career and your background I always enjoy the references that come up for you, and often feel I’m seeing a glimpse of something that is to you richly meaningful. And even though I don’t always understand, there is a kind of beauty to knowing I’m witnessing that meaning on display. It’s like seeing a piece of your scrapbook… something both past and present, both living and dead, something that ties diverse points together…
Love
Michael
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I wish I was a sailor a thousand miles from here…
I wished I had a future, anywhere…
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Thank you for this incredibly rich piece, which I’ve read smiling several times over the past few days. Every bit of this is “wow”. The 4th and 5th paragraphs are the ones that initially spoke the loudest to me. The imagery – concentrated intense motion of climber, the delicate eggshell, cars zipping by, and stillness – and my lifelong propensity to want to quietly “send little ingots of light to the people…”, learning to be patient with myself, to look within, to practice self-compassion. Yes, indeed, “the best thing is to relax and just catch your thoughts… you were given to this ballet of wing tips and ruffled darkness that somehow takes you exactly where you need to go.” Thank you for the unique way you convey deep peace and unity, the secret soul of delight that dwells in everything and everyone!
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Hello Lanessa,
Oh my goodness… I’ve missed a few comments here. My apologies, my friend. Thank you so much for your thoughts shared. I’m glad it resonated with you. I think of you often, especially this time of year when the temperature doesn’t climb above freezing and I think upon our winter walks through Kiesel so many winters ago… 🙂
Love
Michael
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Dear Michael – Your rich, but humble words always give me a new way to perceive reality. Thank you.
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Hi Julie,
Thank you for this! I’m glad. Yours do the same for me, and it is always a treat to encounter new perspectives. Hope all is well!
Peace
Michael
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Michael – amazing, I understand how our inner discourse can become a distraction. I do it all the time. And what I wish I would do more of is sit back and relax – I am finding ways to introduce it into my life,as part of my routine and doing what I am doing now, sitting back and relaxing and enjoying your wonderful expression. May all of your miracles qualify. Peace, Harlon
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Hi Harlon,
Good to see you back! it’s a good plan indeed, if ever a plan is good: to kick back and soak in the miracles that find their way to you, and give them a home for a while. A beautiful soul in which to roam. For this is what we are, we Michaels and Harlons, something which is mysterious, arising…
Peace
Michael
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