LOOKING WITH NEW EYES

     Zet and I recently spent a lot of time looking for a small replica of the Alamo to include in the altar I was making for the Circle's annual Sacred Art of Altars show. Because this year's exhibit coincides with San Antonio's Tricentennial celebration, I wanted to create an altar that remembered the Alamo as an ever-evolving symbol of the struggle over property rights and power that's been at the center of our city's history for 300 hundred years and counting.

 LOOKING BUT NOT SEEING

     I took three separate trips downtown to scour numerous tourists souvenir shops for just the right Alamo-shaped tchotchke to glue into my altar. I found hundreds of them, of course, but none had just the right shape, size and color to fit my vision or my budget.

     Then, one morning last week, Zet came into the office, wearing a big grin and holding a beautiful night light, featuring a vintage postcard-sized, silk screened image of the Alamo. It was exactly what we had been searching for over the past few weeks. And the reason she was laughing was because she'd "found" it on our kitchen counter, where it has been plugged into the electrical outlet located behind our salt and peppershakers every day for the past several years! We both laughed till we cried, feeling foolish for having spent all that time and energy searching for an elusive something that's been right under our noses all along.

 LOOKING AROUND

     Reflecting on the incident afterwards, I couldn't help but smile to think of how easy it is to miss seeing things that are "hidden from view" in plain sight. Whether it's a physical object we're missing, or some desirable course of action it's time to embrace - or some challenging patterns of behavior we're being asked to release - it's all too easy to overlook the cues and clues right in front of us.

 LOOKING WITHIN

     As we wave farewell to summer and move toward the season of harvest, I invite you to look within and around you to see if there's something that Life is asking you to view (or review) with new eyes. Some new passion or possibility waiting for you to re-discover. Or perhaps some limited way of thinking you're ready to let go of.  

 LOOKING FORWARD

     As for me, I took the "discovery" of the night light as a reminder to do something about the fact that we have way too many sweet, neat and yet completely unnecessary possessions cluttering up our kitchen (and living room, office, guest room, storage shed, etc.). Time to do some de-cluttering. Who knows what other art projects or possibilities will emerge from the realm of the unseen?

     With gratitude and blessings,

     Rudi Harst

THANK YOU for holding the Circle in your heart by visualizing a generous flow of financial abundance. Thank you for supporting us as we continue our work of fostering a creative, inclusive approach to spirituality. We are deeply grateful.