A Life of Wonder

Intuition: a knowledge of instincts, the gut’s recognition that it has been here before, in this life or another. You don’t get it by studying more, thinking more, or even doing more; you get more even it by recognizing the signals sent by the body and felt by the body: the impulses that start in the eye’s green center and travel to each of the toes.

This feeling, which occurs before thought or desire, reminds us that we’re animals. And animals have blessings and freedoms: freedom from excessive thought or reflection, and the abundance of action. The more we learn, the more we are at risk of forgetting our true nature…all these heady things remind me to get back to what matters, these feelings and thoughts, in now order, creating a tapestry of ideas and emotions:

1. The smell of the earth after the rains
2. Rickshaws and bright colored umbrellas
3. The music and cadence of soft speech
4. Library reading rooms
5. Textures: of leaves, bark, dry skin
6. The repeat inhale and exhale of an animal sleeping on your toes
7. Finding a book with writing in it, notes from an ancestor
8. This American Life on Saturday afternoons
9. A true barber shop and remembering what Pablo Neruda once said.
10. Rediscovering song, especially beat
11. Pulling grass and organizing the blades into piles
12. The lighting bolt of recognition seeing in a stranger all that you value in yourself
13. Saints. The words itself. The old European buildings it brings up; the laughing and colorful gods smiling from far away places
14. Rivers. Charles here. Charles in Prague.
15. Discovering the truth behind gestures

Thank you for indulging as I feed the soundtrack of my instincts.