One of the books I picked up last night was Deepak Chopra's The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the hidden dimensions of your life.  I'm not much of a consumer of "touchy-feely" books, but I've got most of Chopra's offerings, as at certain way-points in my life his books have "spoken" to me in one form or fashion at the precise moments I was receptive to "hearing".

I purchased the book on a whim, as I often do, because of a random paragraph on a randomly selected page [ pg 193 in this case]:

The eleventh secret is about escaping the bondage of cause and effect.  The universe is alive, and imbued with subjectivity.  Cause and effect are just the machinery it uses to carry out what it wants to do.  And what it wants to do is to live and breathe through you.  To find out the truth of this, you need to relate to the universe as if it were alive.  Otherwise, how will you ever now that it is?  Today, begin to adopt the following habits:

Talk to the universe.

Listen for its reply.

Be on intimate terms with Nature.

See the life in everything.

Carry yourself like a child of the universe.

I admit, this speaks rather well to my existing cosmological and spiritual views, perhaps that is why it resonated so clearly and acutely, even though this book was a standout oddity when compared to the others in my stack.

It was that paragraph, freshly planted in my subconscious, that "spoke" yet again when I happened to follow a link posted on Twitter this afternoon that led me to this:

Sometimes We Forget To Enjoy The Journey

Published on 23 August 2009 by Jeff Berman

I received an email forward from my wife this weekend that really made me think.  The email referenced an award winning article from the Washington Post titled: Pearls Before Breakfast. I was moved by the email and wanted to share it with our readers.

Perception ..something to think about…

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

Continues...

The Washington Post article, from April 2007, is worth taking a minute to read.

[snip]

In his 2003 book, Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life, British author John Lane writes about the loss of the appreciation for beauty in the modern world. The experiment at L'Enfant Plaza may be symptomatic of that, he said -- not because people didn't have the capacity to understand beauty, but because it was irrelevant to them.

"This is about having the wrong priorities," Lane said.

If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?

[Emphasis added]

I followed a random Tweet from my Twitter feed today that just happened to catch my eye and discovered something that gave me several hours of consideration as I worked on puzzling out what the universe was attempting to tell me... if anything at all.  That's what's wrong with attempting to listen to the universe: Is it saying anything and are we interpreting what it may be saying correctly -- or incorrectly.

Correct or no aside, it's not really important whether the universe is really trying to tell us things, what is important is that we are engaging the life swirling around us.  And so, as I've done several times over these passing months -- bleeding into years -- I remember words of E.E. Cummings:

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

I believe I keep coming back to that quote because I have to keep being reminded of it -- and its wisdom: To try and find that special spark in everyone I meet.  It's not always easy, and I am not always successful -- which is no doubt why the universe is so frequently reminding me.

For the record: I have never passed a street musician without pausing to listen and making a donation for the gift of music brought into my life.  I believe I remember each and every one of them over the years in various cities around the country.