Years ago, I had a former mentor school me on what he perceived was my “glass-half full” view of life.  He shared the Albert Einstein quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  The quote and his lesson stuck with me.  I came across Walt Whitman’s beautiful poem “Miracles” which was written 157 years ago.  My immediate thought was that while so much has changed – so much more has not changed at all.  Here’s “Miracles“:

Miracles

“Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves

—the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?”

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Thank you Marina Kanavaki, the artist of “The Wood I Pink” (© marina kanavaki) for permitting me to share her work.  Marina was born in Athens, Greece.  She studied art and music in Athens and London including Classical piano, jazz improvisation and classical singing.  She is now a creative art director.  She has had her work shown in Smith΄s Gallery (London) and painting exhibitions in Epohes gallery, in Athens.