Darkness and Radiance

The autumn wind blows numbing cold and twilight paints the evening indigo.

The orange carved pumpkin sits on the windowsill, grinning like the moon’s strange cousin, and its teeth are flames.

Don’t be afraid.

You carry our own heat inside you, and it is stronger than anything.

In the closing darkness, radiate the sunflower-golden warmth and put the Jack-o’-Lantern to shame . . .

Fascination

Fascination can lead us into really strange places.

Some are marvelous, some are dangerous, some are fascinating in themselves.

Fascination is one of the many faces of inspiration. It is the first glimmer of the great shining golden hoard just around the corner . . .

Just be prepared to find fool’s gold most of the time.

Mobile Riches

It's easier for a rich man to ride that camel through the eye of a needle directly into the Kingdom of Heaven, than for some of us to give up our cell phone.

Indirect

Never look directly at the sun.

Instead, look at the sunflower.

Exception to the Rules

To every rule there is an exception—and an idiot ready to demonstrate it.

Don't be the one!

Vegetable Secret

No one hates vegetables.

Instead, everyone hates to eat boringly prepared, bland, sterile, flavorless, washed-out, unseasoned food.

The vegetables are crying out to you:

“Spice me up! Pour interesting sauce over me! Mate me with compatible flavors! Put me in worthy recipes! Treat me as a worthy main course, not an afterthought side dish! Oh, and enough with that dull horrid steaming already!”

Listen to the vegetables.

Then, prepare to be amazed.

Urban Unicorn

The unicorn flickers in and out of your field of vision. It is white, or possibly steel.

Watch from the corner of your eye as it soars past the cars and the landmarks, as the streets unfold and the buildings tower.

The unicorn cannot fly.

But it moves faster than you can imagine, creating the illusion.

No one else can see it but you. And even you may not see it again, unless you feel the same moment of perfect clarity that allowed you to remember everything—to hum the perfect song and pronounce the unicorn's true name.

And discover yours.

The Best Things

The best things—both material and intangible—in life are earned.

But occasionally certain unexpected good things come to us as a rare and precious gift, almost out of the blue.

How does that work?

To find out, give a small heartfelt gift to someone, today.

Playing

There’s a difference between playing and playing games.

The former is an act of joy, the latter—an act.

Regardless of Season

If you feed the birds and squirrels regardless of season, if you set out a dish for the possums and the raccoons when the weather intensifies, you are the secret master of the world.

Don’t tell anyone how it works. They may only figure it out for themselves.

Maps

Maps are things of magic.

You look at the world flattened into two dimensions on paper, and yet imagine it in infinite layers, directions, and transparencies.

What is a map of a human being?

The palm of your hand.

Good Book

Whenever your read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.

Far Seeing

Sunlight shimmers upon the waters like broken shards of a mirror.

Squint and look out across the ocean at the horizon.

You are seeing the future and the past, rolled into one.

Somewhere, thousands of years ago, another stood in your place, and looked and saw the same horizon.

The First Tree

The first tree grew in a forest of grass and lesser shrubs.

At first it was like all the rest. And then it kept growing, rising to tower over the other vegetation.

At some point it knew it was tall and different and strong.

The tree, new and self-aware, defined and named itself.

So must you.

The Pyramid

The pyramid shape is said to hold many secrets and amazing properties.

One of them is a sense of wonder.

The City

In a haze of fog and smog the city shapes itself in the distance, angular skyscrapers marking the skyline with dreary man-made geometry.

But with evening, golden lights appear in windows, winking into existence like fireflies, until the city is a jewel of infinite blinking eyes.

This is what takes place inside us at the moment of insight.

October Moon

Something wonderful happens to the moon in October. First it grows plump and yellow, transforming into a juicy peach, then into a bright orange pumpkin—great and fat and ripe like the last harvest.

The full moon floats in the cooling sky that has lost the last of its bright summer blue, and can only display the indigo and silver grays.

The season of depth has arrived.

Time to turn inward.

Home

One of the most difficult things in life is losing a home for which you’ve worked all your life.

There are no words.

The heart bleeds.

Then you pick up the objects that mean home to you. And you pack them up, and you uproot yourself and your loved ones.

And you go to plant your heart in a new spot of earth. Good thing the world is a big wondrous place.

And every inch of it is home.

The Invention

A very long time ago, when the world was plain, a brilliant scientist invented a wonderful mysterious device. When touched, it inspired you.

People from everywhere came to touch the device—and were inspired to create problems, solve all masterpieces, heal the hungry and feed the sick. Others were inspired to invent even more amazing inventions. Soon, the world filled with technological wonders.

Because so many people touched it, the device eventually wore down and stopped working. And when the oceans rose to swallow land and rearrange the continents, everything that was left of the inspired civilization sank to the bottom.

But the memory of inspiration remains to this day. It’s why so many of us unconsciously reach out to touch the things of the world, and why we reach out for each other.

There’s something to be invented.

Honeymoon

Every year, the sun goes on a honeymoon to warmer climes—or is it that it brings the warmth with it, transforming the places it visits?

We, meanwhile, are left to bask in the residue of its loving glow.

It is just barely enough.

But love always returns the following year.

Abilities

A great ancient poet was blind.

A great classical composer was deaf.

Many of us are dumb.

What have we to show for it?

Broken Vase

A fine glass vase goes from treasure to trash, the moment it is broken.

Fortunately, something else happens to you and me.

Pick up your pieces.

Then, help me gather mine.

Message in a Klein Bottle

An infinitely self-replicating yet unending pattern suggests something about the flow of our lives.

Truth is inside-out.

Freedom

Freedom is not a license to act but a license to exercise free choices in any given situation.

It is not a “free-for-all” but a “free-to-choose.”

Always use tact, subtlety, mercy, compassion—in other words, your best judgment—to interpret your final choice wisely.

Because everyone else is making the same difficult choices as you are.

Freedom is a thing shared.

The Weight of the World

The weight of the world is a trifle, if we all put our two fingers under it and try to lift together.

Hold the Moon in Your Hand

Who says you cannot hold the moon in your hand?

Tonight when the stars come out and the moon rises in the velvet sky, look outside your window, then raise your hand and position your fingers around the disk of light.

There you go . . .

That was easy!

From the Potbellied Jar

Find an ancient potbellied jar buried in the sand. Rub its sides to clear the dust, and uncork it, to release a genie.

When the genie offers you three wishes, tell him you will think on it. Meanwhile, ask the genie about his own life in those thousands of years gone by—stories of the ancient sunlit times, and the days of legend.

As the genie settles next to you, you listen. And the two of you sip tea and share secrets, while the years again pass by.

When your first gray hairs appear, tell the genie you no longer need three wishes granted, only one. And then, spend the remaining days of your lifetime deciding on that one wish.

In the end, you thank the genie. And with your last and only wish you set him free.

He did grant you, after all, exactly what was unasked.