A coneflower catches my eye, radiant and unbothered. The golden-pink petals lean slightly, basking in sunlight that, only hours from now, will slip behind a distant hill on the other side of the world. I pause, and in that pause I remember: the sun that rises to greet me is the very same that whispers goodnight to someone else.
In this simple garden, I am immersed in wonder. The rabbit that visits often is nibbling clover in the shade.
The black kitty with white paws stretches luxuriously beneath the hydrangea, glancing at me with those eyes that seem to know more than they let on. The three of us, in shared silence, make peace with the morning.
And I think of transcendental idealism—of Kant, who argued that space and time are not qualities of the world itself, but of the way we experience it. That all we know of reality are appearances filtered through the mind’s lens. The flower I see may not be a flower as it truly is—it is my perception, my arrangement of color and form and memory and feeling. If that is so, then this moment, this rabbit, this kitty, even this coffee—they are not real in any ultimate sense. And yet…
They are everything.
I drift from blossom to shadow, from sunlight to memory, and thoughts arrive without knocking. I hear echoes of Dr. Wayne Dyer’s voice: “Expand your reality to the point where you pursue what you love doing and excel at it.” Is this the path? Is this garden morning—this moment of wandering presence—part of that pursuit? I do not know.
But I am.
I am this breath.
I am this gaze upon petal and leaf.
I am this curious, grateful soul wandering barefoot among green miracles.
I am not separate from this garden—I am this garden.
I am not apart from the birdsong—I am the song.
I am not watching the light—I am the light.
And maybe, just maybe, the lines between the real and the perceived are not boundaries at all, but brushstrokes in a larger painting. Whether divergent or convergent, the thoughts themselves are not the point—the wonder is.
It is, in every way, a grand and glorious day to be alive.
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” ~Rumi
~Wylddane
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