Enchanted By Life

So long as I spend enough time in nature and not too much time listening to the daily news I find myself

all around me.

Seeking out and spending time with birds, squirrels, trees, plants, rabbits, ducks, swans and other wild things fills me with joy and wonder. And when I am out in nature I feel totally and completely enchanted by life.

I find that I need this enchantment these days like I need air to breathe. There is so much war, strife, climate change damage, and human greed and nastiness that I feel the need to ration how much news I watch. For every half hour of news I watch I feel as if I need at least an hour in nature.

If to be enchanted is to fully participate in the world, to be open both to its transparency and its mystery, then to be disenchanted is its opposite. To be disenchanted is to be shut down.
— Sharon Blacke , The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday

I need time in nature as I need air to breathe. Each day I feel the need to seek out beauty, create beauty and share beauty to counteract a small portion of the ugliness in the world. It’s not that I don’t want to see the ugliness (though mostly I would prefer not to spend a lot of time dwelling there). But that I need to see the beauty and experience wonder and enchantment so that I can hold the full catastrophe of life in my heart without succumbing to despair.

Fully Present in the World

Enchantment isn’t about magical thinking; it is about being fully present in the world.

— Sharon Blacke , The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday

Yesterday I went back to Lake Camelot Park with my camera AND my long lens. I discovered the trumpeter swan family near where I last saw them. The cygnets have grown so much! I spent a lot of time simply watching them as well as photographing them.

The community of walkers in that park continue to lift my spirits by their friendliness and generosity. Yesterday a walker stopped to tell me that there was a deer near the path just ahead. And others asked about the swans and whether I had seen them today. Another marveled at the number of water lily flowers on the lake. This place works its magic on most of the people who walk here.

Belonging Anywhere…

I am still working on feeling like I belong anywhere. And I’m pretty sure that I will never feel fully comfortable and like I belong in the center of a big city or in large groups of people. Though I love this city where we live, I prefer the suburbs where I live to living in the city itself. And I prefer smaller gatherings of friends and family to large crowds and big events.

You can learn to belong anywhere…if you choose. It’s an act of creation, and like all acts of creation, it’s also an act of love, and an enormous leap of faith.

— Sharon Blacke , The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday

I have found that when I did extended travel (like my 3 months in Hawaii in 2012) I became more at home in the world. And though I didn’t want to live there for the rest of my life, I did feel at home while I was there.

I once met a woman who did workshops all over the world. She told me that she and her husband (who traveled with her) spent 80% of their time traveling. When I asked how she handled being away from home so much she told me, “I am at home in the world.” It seems a worthy goal to be at home in the world wherever you are. I keep working on it.

Are you at home in the world?

May you walk in beauty.