I’ve always loved Walt Whitman’s way of turning the mundane into a miracle, or seeing what’s marvelous in the everyday.

Because it’s true. Everything about us and about this world is a miracle, a marvel, when we don’t take it for granted, when we see things as they truly are.

Miracles, by Walt Whitman

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?

I once turned this inner light upon a thing I so often take for granted—my own body—to see what I might discover. Looking through a metaphysical and metaphorical lens, helped me realize what a marvel it truly is.

Field Notes from Within

My heart is a staunch defender of all
I am, beating with relentless passion
the wherewithal of my being.

My bowels are alchemists skilled in
diplomacy, sifting silver from dross
passing peacefully away.

My cells are pomegranate seeds,
deftly designed for simple pleasures,
lushly dense and sweetly sated.

My atoms are ballerinas, twirling
on ecstatic toes, arms flung wide,
faces like suns, dervishes of devotion.

by Deborah J. Brasket, 2021

Even today the metaphor about atoms (which I see as tiny, swirling galaxies) makes me want to dance. Edgar Degas’s painting of the ballerina captures that so well.

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My Novel, When Things Go Missing

“The cracks are how the light gets in” to heal a family falling apart when the mother who glued them together mysteriously disappears.

In some ways this novel I wrote is a miracle and a marvel—the whole process of writing and reading is. That these characters I love could become so alive in my mind, transferred to paper, and become alive in the minds of others (and loved readers tell me) is also a marvel.

I hope you get a chance to know them and read about their journeys to wholeness too.

During this holiday season I’m offering When Things Go Missing at 60% off for e-books and paperbacks on Amazon. And 20% off hardbacks from Ingram-Sparks, the distributor. You can read more about this novel, including an excerpt and reader reviews, on my novel page.