“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
~W.B. Yeats

Walking around the lake last week, I was taking in all the many wildflowers that just show up and strut their stuff in some of the most unsuspected places. These July days are filled to overflowing with a riot of color everywhere you look. And yet it wasn’t the color that drew my eye, but the simple, white elegance of the Queen Anne’s Lace that seemed to nestle in between the blooms of yellow and purple and pink. This wildflower can be found in fields and along bodies of water in both city and countryside providing the counterpoint to the colors of summer. It is a simple flower. Understated. Beautiful.

But Queen Anne’s Lace has always been a flower that is special to me and carries a wonderful memory of my Mother.. I can’t remember how old I was. It was definitely summer and we had been out walking in a field somewhere. As we walked, my Mother picked some of these flowers and we carried them back to our house. I likely thought she would put them in a jar for our kitchen table. But she instead proceeded to fill some kitchen glasses with a little bit of water. Into the water she dropped food coloring, the same tiny bottles with their teardrop tops that usually only came out at Christmas cookie baking time. She then placed a stem of Queen Anne’s Lace into each glass. “Watch this.” she said. 

I remember the feeling of staring as these flowers turned from white to blue or yellow or pink as the food coloring made its way up the stem and into the delicate petals. It was then that I knew that my Mother was magic. I knew I loved her and that she had always done amazing things to care for me and our family. But this was the moment she was lifted up to something much higher. My Mother was magic! I can’t remember how long those flowers remained in their glasses or how long I marveled at my Mother’s brilliance but, so many years later, I still have a nearly visceral experience of what happened in our kitchen that afternoon. 

Magic. The Irish poet, Yeats, reminds us that ‘the world is full of magic things’. And it is, of course, true. Sights and experiences that boggle our minds and cause us to see things in an entirely new and fresh way are around every corner. We rarely call those moments ‘magic’ but we might do well do so, don’t you think?. And after the year we have just experienced, couldn’t we all do with a little dose of magic? I tend to believe that children are more attuned to being witness to magic. It is what draws them to fairy tales and stories where what might seem impossible really does happen.Yeats reminds us that this ability to see magic is within all our reach as we hone our senses and allow our eyes, ears, fingertips, tongues and noses to be present to what is already there. 

It would be one of my deepest wishes to be so attuned that the magic of the everyday would make an appearance. How about you? What magic have you seen lately? What kind of magical moments have walked into your life? Summer…at least in Minnesota…is a time to be on the look out for that ever-present magic. Queen Anne’s Lace in its simple form carries its own magic. The birds in all their variety eating from the same feeder remind us of the magic of diversity and of co-existing. The tree or flower planted by a seed dropped from a winged or four legged creature that now has its own claim in the garden. Then there are fireflies, fields alight with the flickering of insects. All a kind of magic.

My Mother was most known for the magic she created in the kitchen especially baking pies. Her hands and the recipes she held in her head allowed her to create magic with the simple ingredients of flour, fat, salt and water. Into these crusts she would pour fruit or fillings that were infused with sugary sweetness and, mostly, love. 

In a few weeks my Mother will have been gone from us for a year. I still find myself thinking I will call to tell her about something I saw or read during my day. The Magic Makers stay with us through all they helped us see, all the ways they helped us grow. For this, I am grateful.

He walks into the space and his limbs are already moving with the music. His shoulders jump up and down, keeping the beat. His arms fly and thrust into the air. And across his face, a smile grows from ear to ear, never seeming to stop. Within a few moments he is dancing…finding his spot on the dance floor…switching out partners with the change of each song. And all the while he is projecting… joy…joy in the music, joy in the moment, joy in the dance.

During summer evenings, I make my way to Como Park Pavilion to listen to the local musicians who offer their gifts during these precious Minnesota days of warmth and sun. Overlooking the sweet, little lake that creates the backdrop of this idyllic summer experience, I rest in the sound, the scenery and the beauty of a community that forms when multiple generations of strangers come together, held in the power of music.  And I revel in watching this one particular dancer who fills me to overflowing with deep happiness. Always clad in a University of Minnesota T-shirt and baseball cap, he is a walking…dancing…advertisement for the ‘U’. “If you go to this university, you, too, may be as happy an older person as I am.” This is what his movements bring to my mind.”You, too, can exhibit this ‘joie de vivre’! his movements seem to say.

Joie de vivre, a ‘keen or buoyant enjoyment of life’, say the French. And who among us would not want to be able to walk through the world with such a gait? Especially now, as we creep out of our homes and back into this different world where we are so cautious. The ability to embrace life with such zest seems particularly alluring. When I watch this man dancing, I am buoyed that the world is going to be okay. What he is bringing to those who watch, or those lucky enough to dance with him, costs nothing except a little energy and sweat. And while locked down and in our homes, didn’t we all learn over the last months how little we really need? While the joy may have been dampened in our individual and collective lives, his movements tell me that there is hope in recovering some spirit that declares a keen and buoyant enjoyment of life once again. 

Being witness to his movements, I have to admit that I wonder if this is how he has always been. I tend to believe it is. I can imagine him as a young boy gyrating around his kitchen in the mornings before school. Or trying to contain his body that wanted to bounce and kick while sitting in a desk at school. Likely the adults in his life have said more than once,”Stand still! Keep your feet quiet!” I can also imagine that he was a draw for all the young, high school women who wanted to move from the chairs that lined the gymnasium walls and onto the dance floor with a partner who could really dance.

One thing I know from watching this wiry gentleman: ‘joie de vivre’ cannot be contained. I, for one, am glad that his fit, lithe body still propels his limbs and feet into the world. My life is better for it. My spirit is lifted because of it. And from the smiles I see emanating from the faces around that concert space, I believe everyone is filled with an energy and a joy they, perhaps, thought had been lost.

Agnes de Mille, the great dancer said: “To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful…This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.” 

Wherever you are reading this, the invitation is to breathe deeply, to lift your limbs in whatever way is available to you. To dance. To feel the glory on earth. Yours for the taking. Joie de vivre! A keen and buoyant enjoyment of life!

Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.

~Rumi

One of my favorite drives is down the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River. Taking in the rolling, evolving farmland and noticing the different stages of the growing seasons always grounds me in some deep way. Observing eagles flying overhead while sheep and cattle graze below is a blessed sight. Along with a friend, I made this drive on a recent holiday Sunday as we observed our own kind of Independence Day. The weather was steamy and the sun intense but the scenery soothed us. 

In Alma, Wisconsin we drove to the highest point in this little river town, a park named Buena Vista. It brought an inner chuckle to think of this area, likely settled by Germans and Scandinavians, choosing this name for such an amazing overlook of the valley below. Sometimes we need to cross a bridge into other languages to have the perfect descriptor for a scene, an experience. 

Buena Vista…literally meaning ‘good view’. When I see these words, I often think what the namer meant was really ‘beautiful view’. Good is fine yet beautiful is something larger, more expansive, worthy of flowing words like ‘buena vista’. This was certainly true of the view that met our eyes on this hot, July day. We stood with others who had directed their cars along the winding, rising ordinary road to reach this extraordinary feast for the eye. Standing, looking out over the river, islands, and backwaters I thought of what it must have meant for those who witnessed its beauty long ago. For some it had always been home. Their eyes likely took in the view in a way different from later arrivals. For these it perhaps spelled adventure. Or freedom. Or opportunity. Yet, all…buena vista.

I have been blessed to be witness to countless buena vistas in both this country and others. Oceans, mountains, lakes, cities, countryside, all have placed their bounty before my grateful eyes. Architecture dreamed and built, art that flowed through the artist’s hand, have joined forests and fields planted by both human and the precipitious gift of wind. All have provided extraordinary experiences that served to lift my spirit and nourish my heart.

And, of course, there are the buena vistas that are not housed in the landscape of the natural world. Gazing into the fresh faces of my newborn sons…buena vista. The comforting smile of a friend. The unknowing kindness of a stranger. A perfectly executed table laden with food prepared for celebration. A newborn baby’s eyelashes. My mother’s hands. All…buena vista.

The experience of ‘buena vista’ is in many ways dependent on the viewer. As the wise one Rumi says: “Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.” We see, we notice, we wonder, we marvel and we name. May these burgeoning summer days find us having more and more moments of throwing our arms in the air and declaring with joy…”BUENA VISTA!”

Dear Friends: I am sending this note to let you know that The Practicing Life: Simple Acts, Sacred Living has gone into a second printing. This book, written a few years ago, seems to be hitting a nerve with folks as we traverse these often chaotic times. For this I am grateful. I have announced this on Facebook already so if this is a repeat message, I apologize. In addition to the book, it is also available for Kindle. Both can be ordered through Amazon or Kirk House Publishers. If you know someone who might find it helpful, would you please pass on the information to them?

I thank you for subscribing to these occasional writings. I feel blessed by your reading.

Blessings,

Sally

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made.  Ask me whether
what I have done is my life.  Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait.  We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
~William Stafford

It is not lost on me that I have the privilege, the deep and awesome privilege of living near the Mississippi River. Every day, sometimes many times a day, I cross its waters and once again marvel that this is truth in my life. I look out over the skyline of St. Paul and wonder at the many events and experiences this river has witnessed. I have stood by its flowing at all seasons and seen any manner of things being dragged in the current as it makes its way to the ocean. In these summer months, it is a joy to watch the various kinds of boats that make their way up and down…small kayaks, motorboats, large cabin cruisers and canoes. Most for pleasure but some for the important work of carrying cargo to various ports along the way. This mythic river feeds our country in unseen ways.

Over the years I have learned much from the river. It has calmed me. It has received my tears. It has inspired me. It has been a source of awe and perhaps even fear as I stare at its force from the top of one of the bridges it flows under and I stand above. There is strength and a constancy about the river that cannot be rivaled. It is flowing…going somewhere…at its own, sweet pace. Of course there are times when it carries ice from the north, large chunks that started someplace else and got taken along for the ride. The same is true for the small and large limbs and trunks from trees dislodged from another shore. All of this grounds me in some primal way. And when the winers are severe and the waters rise, it can be a source of destruction and devastation. You can learn much from observing a river. 

Yet, it is not just the river itself that is a teacher. Often I am blessed to watch the barges lined along the rivers’ edge. I wonder at what they hold. And then along comes the lowly tugboat to push them on their way. Just last week I watched as the small, white boat made its way upstream and came to rest behind the long, flat, inelegant metal barges. I don’t know what the barges carried…sand, rock, grain perhaps. All I know is that the tiny, toy-like boat gave the huge barges a shove and there they went. Down the river! Watching the graceful way the tugboat propelled the barges into motion, I thought of all the ways we humans often feel unable to move, held captive by mistakes we think we’ve made and countless other things. We are stuck on the shore like a waiting barge, carrying a load that seems impossible to dislodge. And then along comes the smallest thing…a kind word, a smile, a look of love…and something shifts. The movement may not be as strong or as powerful as what moves the barge but it creates a change that gives courage and hope and the current of it carries us to a new place. 

Like the river, the tugboat is quiet. The river is moved by currents unseen to us and yet we know wisdom hovers near, is present, is true. The tugboat is built in and moves with humility. There is gift in that for both boat and human. Standing on the shore, if we wait and watch, we can be held in something that goes deeper than what appears on the surface. Both river and boat ‘hold the stillness exactly before us’.

As the poet writes: ’What the river says, I say.’