Zeal Living

Plum Tree and Blue Magpies by Toshi Yoshida

Haikus by Kobayashi Issa
Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually. 

Just simply alive,
Both of us, I
And the poppy



I've been thinking a lot about magical living.  To me, its living life with zeal.  I'm not talking about a zeal where people are so focused on moving energy and being wild frenzy about letter writing and marching; I'm talking about having a zeal for the ordinary that is happening around you that is often going unnoticed.

Its the kind of zeal you feel when you sit back and watch a spider float down and every once in a while you catch sightings of its ghostly thread.  And, you sit there as the spider gracefully descends sailing back and forth in the breeze.  When the spider finally lands in the grass you say wow.

Having zeal means you can be excited by the ordinary.  You can feel the magic crackle at that very moment.  It is like walking in the woods and stopping to watch how the sun filters through the leaves and looking at the light and dark patterns it makes on the ground.  Or standing back and watching the bees hover around the roses or scraping the jelly pot for the last bits that didn't make it into the canning jars.  Or wonder how the birds flying outside your car window follow the music playing on your radio. 

Yes, this zeal to me is about ordinary times when I feel connected with Motherfather Spirit.  These little moments when I feel alive and part of something bigger.  These times I feel most grateful for living.  Zeal living is like eating the first tomato off the vine in the summer - it is something that needs to be savored.

One of my favorite poets is Mary Oliver  She is the Queen for pointing out this zeal of the ordinary.  I think she captures this moment in her poem "The Herons." 

The Heron

Mary Oliver



Herons in Snow by Shoson

This morning

the beautiful white heron

was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of

this one world

we all belong to

where everything

sooner or later

is part of everything else

which thought made me feel

for a while

quite beautiful myself.