magical moments

Happy New Year 2020

We meditated by the water’s edge, saying goodbye to 2019 and inviting goodness and light into the New Year.

We wrote our intentions in the sand with driftwood and allowed the incoming waves to wash them out to sea. 

Three close friends, basking in the sunshine and enjoying each other’s company.

Two small girls walked past, holding their young mother’s hands. They glanced back at us, watching our every move.

The littlest one caught my gaze. I smiled and then added a rose from my garden to the words I’d etched in the sand.

She grinned, grabbed a stick of her own, and lifted it overhead. An unspoken gesture of solidarity among kindreds.

When we left the beach a while later, she was writing her own story into the sand.

Singular events, brimming with joy and sprinkled with magic. This is what we live for. And if we’re lucky enough, we have friends and loved ones with whom to share them.

Happy New Year, everybody! Wishing you every goodness in the now, and every good thing on the horizon.

Writing with wings

Abagail Alfano lives in Pine, Louisiana–a convenient landing spot for migrating hummingbirds.  Lucky girl, about 20 of the tiny birds took a shine to her backyard.

She admired them from a distance at first, but inched closer to them every day. She bought their confidence with sugar water, familiarizing them with her presence as she replenished their feeder. On the morning pictured here, she filled a little red dish with sugar water and…

…miracle of miracles, they sipped the nectar right out of her hand!



This is what some might call a holy ghost moment–a wondrous, shivery-magic experience that occurs when we least expect it. Serendipity, when we most need it to happen.

A similar thing happened for me just last week. Not with hummingbirds, but with my writing. I’m not a fast writer, as my long-time friends already know. I labor over each and every passage, down to the tiniest jot and tittle. But last week, glory be, I had an out-of-body experience in which the words flowed straight from my heart to the page, unedited and unrestrained. When I finally looked up at the clock, I was shocked to discover that hours upon hours had vanished altogether, leaving a trail of filled pages in their wake.

And so it is that I’m holding out that cup again this morning, asking in all humbleness for a similar blessing.

Although I’ve edited it slightly, I got this story in pictures from my friend Karen, who forwarded it to me in an email. For some oddball reason, she said it reminded her of me. J Snopes verified the original story, as did Abagail herself (photos via her husband, credited at the link).

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Magical Moments from the Movies, #1

These freeze-frame photos are excerpted from The Wizard of Oz, one of my favorite movies of all time. When I was a little girl, this scene was peek-through-my-fingers frightening, but as an adult, it’s compelling for a very different reason. 

Listen carefully to the dialogue. Most familiar, perhaps, is the portion where the Wicked Witch bemoans the fact that she’s melting. But catch what she says after “Oh, what a world.” That’s the best part!

“You cursed brat. Look what you’ve done. I’m melting. I’m melting. Oh, what a world. Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness.” 


Isn’t that just fabulous? The metaphor’s perfectly suited to my New Year’s contemplation! 

What are some of your favorite movie passages? I’d love to add yours to my collection, to inspire my theme-based 2007.


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