One Minute Blessings

Recently I was speaking with my 88 year old aunt, who resides in a quaint village located just outside of Ithaca, NY.  She mesmerized me that day as she spoke about the one minute vacation she had just taken.  My 90 year old uncle had just frustrated her.  This was not a particularly unusual occurrence as they have spent sixty-five years together.  She went outside to hang up clothes as a brief respite.  However, on her way to the clothesline she encountered a red-winged dragonfly that stopped her in her tracks. 

Aunt Betty then began to share.  “You know, Suzi, as I watched that dragonfly, time stood still.  I thought to myself, ‘Oh beautiful gift, I have never seen anything like you before!’  I watched in amazement as it hovered above our sunflowers, first visiting one; then another and finally resting upon a third.  Before I realized it half an hour had passed and I realized I had been one with that dragonfly.  I was no longer angry with your Uncle Don.  No, instead, I loved everything and everyone.  Have you ever experienced these one minute vacations?”

As I listened to my aunt, tears of gratitude flowed from my eyes.  Once more I knew that I had not come to ISIS, the International Seminary for Interfaith Studies, by chance.  I had been led there by my ancestors and spirit guides. You see, I have the capabilities to share the love expressed by my aunt to multitudes.  I have learned the lesson of loving myself by delving deep within my depths, visiting my inner demons, releasing them, and forgiving myself.  As I have risen anew, I have discovered an inner light within myself that acknowledges multiple one minute vacations, which I call one minute blessings.   

Now as I hit a tee shot across the fairway of a golf course, I also take time to acknowledge the squirrel running across with a nut in its mouth.  Have you ever taken a second to wonder how that squirrel came to be, or the nut for that matter?

Or as I watch a punt go high in the air at a football game, I find myself watching cloud formations that come rolling across the sky at that very second.  How did that cloud come to exist, or our sky with all its massiveness? 

If I go backward in time to when I used to work and remember the intensity of the pressure and stress that I often experienced; I can also recall hearing a bird chirp outside my window.  I would glance up to see the sun filtering between the leaves of the trees.  How did the birds, sun and trees come to be?

And finally when I rest at home within the warm embrace of my  four –legged companions, I feel a joy, peace and serenity that cannot be expressed in words.  At times like this I sit with the words of Lao Tzu,

“She who is centered in the Tao can go where she wishes without danger.  She perceives the universal harmony, even amid great pain, because she has found peace in her heart.”

               

This is the gift Aunt Betty gave me a few weeks ago.  I had never been as aware as I am now.  Just yesterday my one minute blessings included watching a hawk as it lit upon a fence post; watching a Great Blue Heron as it soared above me and landed in a field next to me; watching a small gray squirrel as it tried to camouflage itself as it sat in the crook of a grapevine; and listening to the babbling of the Haw River as it twisted and turned around the rocks that have emerged now that the water is lower with the arrival of fall and less rain. 

And so I awake each morning ever more grateful for being alive in this moment in time … as I start my day with the words,

“Mother, Goddess, Divine within Me, please expand my impact in such a way that I may touch more lives to share your light, joy and peace to the depths of my soul and theirs. And so it is.”

Author: Suze Robinson, ISIS Class of 2013

Suze Robinson is a 2^nd year Seminary Student with ISIS who resides with her two dogs, Logan and Tobi, in Pittsboro, NC.  She is a spiritual counselor, storyweaver and companion to the elderly.