Manna Meditations, Day 6

Yesterday.

Slate-colored sky.  Slow patter of rain.

My eyes are hungry for beauty, and as I first step outside, I wonder — in all this gray drizzle — where on earth I’ll find it.

But beauty isn’t made for eyes alone, even if (for me at least) my eyes are the most ravenous part of me… So I put my camera away, and I walk.

There is an old art to what I do next, I’m sure.

I wander rainwet streets, listening.  After awhile, my ears sharpen, grow sensitive: rain tapping gently on bare branches, or crackling crystalline against frozen grass.

A little longer, and the sound begins to take on color, too:  platinum.  Pale blue.  That faintest edge of lavender.

Suddenly I realize there’s birdsong — green wet notes stabbing through gray.

I lift my head, and as I do, a single raindrop strikes my lower lip:  a silver bell of sound.  A sharp ray of light passes straight through me, flaring like a flashbulb in my chest.

My hungry eyes consume all this — the sound transfigured to light, the rain translated to song — and I walk home, all the neurons tingling.

I’m alive with wonder, speechless and slack-jawed with praise. ❤