It had been typical English weather for 5 days and counting. We were locked into cloud, fog and rain so dense that at 2 o’clock in the afternoon we had all the lights on. I looked up from my coffee and just gazed at the dreary drizzle.
“Want to go watch the sunset?” my friend asked over our Starbucks coffees. Typical dry British humour. I snorted, “as if!” and then I proceeded to tell him about the glorious sunsets that I had experienced, just weeks prior, in Marina del Rey, California. And as I described the sun, the chilly breeze and how walking through the sticky sand made my calves tight, I drifted away into the memories and I have to admit, things seemed to get a little brighter. It occurred to me that I can enjoy a sunset through my memories and my experience and the rush of inspiration and well-being that I had felt was there to be accessed if only I called it forward.
It reminded me of something that Deepak Chopra wrote about shooting stars.
Extraordinary moments happen every day. Not just in remote country villages or sites halfway across the globe, but here, in our own lives. They bubble up from their hidden source, surround us with opportunities, and disappear. They are shooting stars in everyday life.
When we see shooting stars, their rarity makes them seem magical, but in fact, they streak across the sky all the time. We just don’t notice them during the day, dazzled as we are by sunlight, and at night they emerge only if we happen to look up at the right place in a clear, dark sky. But whether we are attuned to them or not, they continue to streak across the sky in plentiful bursts of potential magic.
How many moments of the extraordinary, “miracles”, streak across our lives every day? Could it be that these moments of the extraordinary are like the shooting starts, plentiful and often unnoticed? What happens if we tune into their presence if we assume that even if we do not see them, these moments are going on around us in abundance. What if, based on this assumption of plenitude, we stopped even in the midst of the noon-sun and smiled with awe at the shooting star that just streaked by?
Inspired by readings from The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, Deepak Chopra
What if in the midst of the dreary moments I chose to remember that the awe of the setting sun is going on, at that same moment, if only I would allow myself to access it? Bring on the rain, I can make my own sunsets.
In Celebration,
Tania
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