An Everyday Mystic

When I was in high school, many moons ago, a friend gifted me a poetry book, “There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves,” and she told me it was perfect for me.  She said it with a bit of a giggle because I’d already earned the nickname of “The Prophet” from my classmates. “So deep,” they’d say. “Always spouting philosophy or lost in thought.”

That book was full of beautiful writings on communing with nature, trusting the companionship of animals, and validating that peace and solace could be found in nature. Like Thoreau’s Walden Pond and Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, it became and remains one of my most beloved books. Since then, I’ve also fallen in love with the works of William Wordsworth, Joy Harjo, Terry Tempest Williams, so many more than I can name, and perhaps my most favorite of all, Mary Oliver.

Obviously, I’ve always been an avid reader, but what was simultaneously happening was my evolution into becoming an everyday mystic! Being an everyday mystic doesn’t require any fancy degrees, the study of archaic languages, or visits to ancient civilizations.  It doesn’t even require you to be a participant in any formal religion. It requires one key ingredient—conscious awe—living in a state of an awakened heart and soul. Reading initially opened me up to the beauty and possibilities in the world, but developing a higher consciousness is what really connected me to the world.

So, here’s what my soul knows to be true: I live in a sacred world, and all is holy ground. That I am a spark of the divine, connected to all. I respect all life, the earth itself and all her creatures, of which humans are just one. I have a relationship with the trees in my yard and sit admiring their auras on a sunny day.  I say a prayer of gratitude as I place each seed in my garden, thanking them for the beauty and bounty they will bring. I talk to the bunnies who sit and stare at me less than two feet away.  I energize my soul in living waters and feel myself blessed to be alive. I don’t just theorize that we are all connected; I feel it!  I know it!

I weep at the sound of a buzz saw downing the trees, the lawn service spraying to eliminate the weeds, the food sources for so many beings. I am sickened at the sight of yet another dead deer on the side of the road.

But as a mystic I am not embittered or cynical: I believe in the basic goodness of all people. We are blessed to be alive. We are all one soul--individual sparks of the Divine. Our fate is ultimately intertwined. We MUST come from love. Love is all there is.

Those of us living and working consciously strengthen connection to Spirit for all. I humbly offer this first of many blogs as an invitation from my heart to yours, that we as everyday mystics find each other and help to make the world a better place.