Above image: independentcinema.wordpress.com
There once was a man who loved to go for walks along unfamiliar trails, thrilled by the idea of exploring, seeing things fresh, smelling the wild , relishing the unknown. Then, one day, he stepped on something round and hard, and looking down he found a silver coin. So excited was he, that he spent his walk searching the trail for another coin. Everyday after that he looked down on his untraveled trails until (his eyes fixed on the earth beneath his feet where he had once found a coin) he ran into a low hanging branch and was knocked off a cliff .
Wow! He was visited by lady luck and immediately, he tried to capture her.
I remember with delight when a wren chose our mailbox as her home. “How dare you clutter up my nest,”she scolded when mail got in the box—her home. Surely fate has a sense of humor, we were delighted and laughed with joy that happenstance had taken up residence in our mailbox.
So has it happened to you? Did you find yourself in the chance meeting with a stranger; get a message carried in the words of someone; catch an emotion or an idea, fully developed and out of the blue; have a vision of an event to come; find a 4-leaf clover? Instead of mail, did a bird arrive to live in your mailbox? Ah—then you know about happenstance!
My father never looked for 4 leaf clovers—he just knew in passing, that one was there smiling at him in a clump of ordinary. How? Once in a blue moon we meet someone for the first time and already know them. From when? And in non-sense ditties—those lines that fly, like the wren that lived in our mailbox, those penetrating thoughts buried in junk-mail, stun us with wisdom we didn’t know we knew. Why? Ah—it’s the magic of happenstance, when what is peripheral becomes central, catches our eye, touches our hearts, flies into our face. But happenstance follows no rules and can’t be boxed in, for like a caged bird, it stops singing.
Next week our Portal topic is a step beyond Happenstance: “Finding Yourself by Getting Lost. ” I was so inspired by that idea that I wrote the following poem to tempt you back here next week for another go-round with a Magic Door to another dimension.
I guess I’m lost
Been here before
When they threw me out
And slammed the door
Which way to go
Where shall I turn
Toward heaven’s peace
Or hell’nburn
But since I’m lost
I’ll look around
See what I missed
Jailed-up in found.
Ah the clouds are touched
With the dawn of day
Birds float and dive
And show the way
I hear the heart
Beat of each tree
And know the rivers
Fall for me
I smell the prairies
Vast and wide
Discover caves
Where I can hide
I’m lost again
Don’t look for me
I’m traveling light
Footloose and free
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