Life Blooms Because of You

April 3, 2025

Article highlights:

  •  What’s your work in the world?
  •  The light of being seen
As I was making my bed this morning I was thinking about the relationship between fun, childlike sensibility and beauty.  I reflected that the childlike perspective is one that’s open, discovering, interested, amazed. My thought was that – with this perspective –  it’s possible to see beauty and delight all around me and at any time.  (See last week’s blog.)
 
I went next to my meditation room to begin my morning contemplations and ruminations.  Still thinking about childlike sensibility – about what it looked like in the adult world – I settled myself to begin my morning time.  Reaching for a Mary Oliver book of poetry called Thirst that lay on my footstool, it opened to this poem that was a delightful continuation of my solo conversation.
 

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird –
          equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old?  Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, yet still half-perfect?  Let me
          keep my mind on what matters,  
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing,
since all the ingredients are here,
 
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart 
          and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
          to the moth and the wren,
          to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
          that we live forever.
 
        Mary Oliver, from Thirst
 

“My work is loving the world…. Learning to be astonished.”  Can you think of a better childlike job description for worthy grown-up work?  I was riveted with the potential written into her poetic expression, excited at its truth.

I let that all sink in then reached for an old volume of my own morning thoughts and writings.  As I thumbed it, my eyes fell on a message I took down one morning in early May of 2018.  You no doubt will feel now the same delight I did when seeing how perfectly it fits our musings today.  

Beloved One,
 
There is a wondrous beauty in every moment, residing there like the twinkling of a star.  It seems sometimes hidden by hurry or distraction or dark clouds but even then it is there, awaiting your notice.
 
At any moment, dearest, you need only lift your eyes and notice.  Notice what is already there, however mundane.  It is then you will truly encounter the spiral on your notebook, the feel of your pen, the unconsciously familiar smell of ink, the sound of your thoughts scratching their way onto your bone white paper.
 
Notice the dearly vulnerable uncertainty on another’s face, feel the same on yours.  See the tubes of flowers in your grocer’s isle, the humanity of the people you pass in the isle.  Notice them.  Catch their eyes and smile.  Notice what surrounds you. Notice and revel in what you see. For what is a Seer but one who sees?
 
The world pines for your notice and Life blooms extravagantly in the warmth of your sincere interest.  All of life opens to the light of being seen.
 
Notice what is before you; your heart adores it all.”
 
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
 
“All of life opens to the light of being seen.” What a lovely statement, and how true!  Wasn’t this entire morning experience a perfect expression of what we have been discussing the last few weeks?  Delightfully so!
  
I have a thought… this week, let’s each create moments of beauty by choosing something we rarely notice.  Let’s see it anew.  ALSO  choose yourself as the subject of your deeply honoring interest – if so, I think you’ll ultimately be overcome by the wonder that you are.

From the glorious child-light within us all that notices the wondrous light in all things,

With love,
X💜Mayet MaHulili Leilani

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