A Pocketful of MIracles

I really love this picture. It has all the components of what makes life miraculous. Mystical magick of a rainbow. The incredible hues of a bluebird. Mother Nature. A sky that's a color that is hard to imagine showing up to cover a world.


I have been thinking today of miracles. Of how I lived for a lot of years in misery and in fantasy and in denial of who I was and what I wanted out of life. Probably it's all part of the learning curve, but if you're a person of my ilk, you barrel through life not paying attention to stuff, intent only on the journey. Never looking up to see where you're going or what you're doing to get there. Burning bridges and breaking hearts and always on the run, run, run. Of always trying so hard to catch up with the how it used to be's...even though I was never that crazy about how it used to be. It was more of an obsession to be in the fast lane. And not really knowing what that was.


Having known the kind of people who inhabit both extremes of the spectrum, I have always been amazed at how people settle for so little in their lives. I felt like that back then, and I feel like that now. Of course the parameters have changed, but it's still thought provoking to me when I see someone still living in the same town, still doing the same things, still with the same people. I couldn't wait to be shed of this place when I was young. I knew there was a big world out there (I was a reader, you know...*snort), and I knew that SOMETHING was waiting for me out in it. And by the time I was 18 years old, I had already lived in 3 states. I would take off for little periods of time, up to a year, and then I would come back and hate it all the more.

What I didn't know then that I sometimes remember now is that ...wherever I go, there I am.What I didn't understand about all those other people who were content to just stay in their familiar little corner of the world, was that THEY weren't being chased around and around their heads like I was. They had some serenity--I had none. They didn't sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop like I did. They weren't constantly living in another reality, because this one was just too much to bear. They were getting on with their lives and their loves and I was whirling like a dervish that couldn't afford to stop long enough to even figure out what I wanted or who I wanted to do it with.


And so the race continued.

Until I was so worn out and so used up and so freaking exhausted from it all that I felt like I was going to die. And that was about the time that a Power completely outside my understanding intervened. And a series of events took place that was to change my life forever. Things happened that could only be called incredible. The stars lined up and the planets followed suit and before I knew it, I was a changed woman.


A Course in Miracles says that a miracle is a shift in perception.When you take someone like me, and you take away all the mind altering drugs, the booze, the collection of what I thought were my survival tools (men, sex, work, money, security, denial), you take away the ego, you take away the old way of life....something is bound to shift. And in that shift, that chasm between the old life and this new life, miracles are born.

Alcoholics Anonymous tells me to "Expect a Miracle". They tell me that for a person like me to recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body is nothing but a miracle. They are absolutely correct.


In my own mind, when I try to reconcile the old me with the present me...the obvious result is awe. I am completely amazed at the things that bring me joy today...things (that are never things) that I used to never even see. Things I thought couldn't possibly matter, in the great cosmic scheme of things. Things that I dismissed...not worthy of my attention.


I know that fear is what separates me from God and from my fellow human beings. I know that love is the only thing that can glue that crack in my cosmic egg...that can repair the damages in my life. Ipso facto, God equals Love. And Love equals God.


And that's all I really need to know. Love is always the answer.



Namaste. What I didn't understand about all those other people who were content to just stay in their familiar little corner of the world, was that