Our sense of enchantment is not triggered only by grand things; the sublime is not hiding in distant landscapes. The awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time. It is transformed by our deliberate attention.

– Katherine May

Last night, we could hear Sandhill cranes outside. They have a very distinct call, and it’s always a special treat for us to encounter them. I wandered out into our front yard to see if I could see them as they called to each other. They often hang out near the lake across the street, and, yep . . . there they were last night. I sat down at the top of our rock retaining wall to watch for awhile.

What I found, just sititng there, was . . . enchantment.

  • The beginnings of the sunset.
  • The cranes. (You can see one of them in this very distant and blurry iPhone camera photo I managed from my vantage point on the lawn.)
  • My own shadow in the street below . . . reflected from my dining room window as the setting sun hit it just right.

Like Katherine May says (in her quote above) . . . the awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time . . . transformed by our deliberate attention.

Let this be a reminder to step outside. Find the numinous* in your life. Allow deliberate attention to transform you.

Enjoy the weekend!

*Yeah, that’s not a typo . . . it’s “numinous” not “luminous.” I had to double-check the quote, and then I looked up the word. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the word “numinous:”

“Numinous means ‘arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring;’ also ‘supernatural’ or ‘appealing to the aesthetic sensibility.’ The term was given its present sense by the German theologian and philosopher Rudolf Otto in his influential 1917 German book The Idea of the Holy. He also used the phrase ‘mysterious tremendum’ as another description for the phenomenon. Otto’s concept of the numinous influenced thinkers including Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, and C.S. Lewis. It has been applied to theology, psychology, religious studies, literary analysis, and descriptions of psychedelic experiences.”

And if you’ve ever had occasion to hear or watch Sandhill cranes . . . well, it fits.