This morning I walked out to greet the garden at the mystery hour of dawn. The air was so still, warm and soothing, it was as if I’d stepped into a comforting hug.

As I stood barefoot on the moist grass to ground myself, I was fascinated to discover a sea of wild mushrooms had sprung up overnight. Mushrooms are like magic. There was no sign of them yesterday. Yet today, there they were. I couldn’t help but imagine them being birthed under the midnight sky, only faeries and a thousand twinkling stars there to witness the miracle of their essence coming into being.

What other mysterious things are born in the dark hours of night, I wonder? When I lay my head to slumber and my soul returns to its place in the stars? What unseen things manifest before the sunrise of a new day illuminates the world? And also, who plucks the flowers from my tomato plant at night before they’ve had a chance to bear fruit?

It makes me think of Mary Oliver’s poem, Five AM in the Pinewoods. In the poem she talks about how she gathered from spoor tracks in the pine needles that two deer had visited the woods where she lives at night. So she goes to that spot in the wee hours of the morning to wait for them and quietly watches the pair when they show up. Oliver says that this isn’t a poem about a dream, but rather a poem about ‘the world that could be ours.’

Indeed, the world of Spirit and of Nature is so full of precious and wild mysteries just waiting for us to notice. And when we do notice, when we show up and pay attention, we discover a whole new world. One where Goddess is ever present. Along with this comes a deeper understanding of the inner mysteries of our souls. And perhaps by openning up to that world, we too may come to experience what Mary Oliver discovered when she said:

“so this is how you swim inward,

so this is how you flow outward,

so this is how you pray.”

~ Mary Oliver