Miracles Beyond Ourselves

Sadly, it usually takes some tragedy to wake us up from our stupors, to open our eyes, and make us realize what we have, or what we had. In the meantime, we take things for granted.

So it is often the case that we don’t appreciate someone until they are no longer with us. And only then do all of our criticisms of them melt away into an awareness of the beauty of spirit they embodied. At other times, we might realize just how miraculous good health is, but not without getting deeply sick first. Or realize the value of a limb, and cherish how useful, and astonishing it was, but not without losing it first. Most importantly, it regularly takes calamities for us to acknowledge how trivial and inconsequential most of our daily concerns are.

It is only then that we realize how we have boxed ourselves in, or allowed others to limit us. And that’s when we surface our subterranean longings, and our desire for freedom and liberation arises, loudly calling us and demanding attention.

Why not take an easier road?

Life is a series of miraculous moments, every one of them rich beyond measure with insight, inspiration and innovation, but that awareness comes solely by making ourselves receptive. It is then that we discover that “normal” really means the opposite of what we commonly believe it to be. That is, that far from pedestrian and mundane, we are truly extraordinary beings, endowed with supernatural abilities, of intellect, discernment, delight, sound, smell and taste, music, dancing, and so many other skills that we might never stop living into them.

And that’s just the beginning, because beyond any of these capacities, our most singular one is the power to Love. And not just the sweet and tender love that we feel for our partners, children, friends, or other cherished sentient beings, but the Love that pervades the entire Universe. A Love that encompasses everything that we see, and those things that we don’t see; that bridges all in our world, as well as everything at the edge of our ever expanding awareness.

So, are we not beings far beyond ourselves? Are we not walking miracles?

Nice words, some might counter, but how can we access this insight so that it becomes more than a rhetorical slight of hand, or clever word play?

That’s where contemplation and spiritual companionship enter.

The first, because if we root ourselves daily in a contemplative practice that best suits us, whatever it might be, we are sure to be able to tap into the wellspring, one far beyond our temporary bodies, and into the Essence of all that was, is, and will be, within us and without us, as a sage once said.

And it is also what spiritual directors, companions, and guides are constantly pointing to.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep,” our spiritual sisters and brothers might say to us, quoting The Bard.

But beyond even that, by acting as faithful mirrors, and helping reveal the space from which we can emerge into our growing awareness, they help support and encourage us on our spiritual discernments right now. So that we might not have to wait until we are on our death bed, or at the edge of tragedy, loss and suffering, to realize what wondrous beings we already are.

And with that finally acknowledge that we already walk miraculously among the stars, both now, and always.