🦊 Gift Yourself a Glimmer
Moments of glimmer await us everywhere. But if our minds are too full, we have no space to receive them.
When I hear someone say, “Is it Thursday already? Time flies!” I usually smile and nod, but in my head I'm thinking, Really? I usually know what day it is. I live and die by my calendar.
But lately, time has felt fuzzy. This happens to me every so often when I’m overwhelmed. I fall into a mindless cycle of working -> watching -> sleeping -> working -> watching…
Hours, days and weeks pass by without notice. There is no end to this game of consumption. Eating media left and right, one piece after the other. No moments to process.
I’m breathing in, in, in… but I never get to breathe out.
Ironically, I was saved from drowning in distraction by a piece of media: A film called Perfect Days.
It’s a beautiful film about a Tokyo man who cleans public toilets, and finds beauty in the mundane moments. “If God is in everything, that includes toilets”, says Kōji Yakusho, who plays the main character Hirayama.
I loved every minute of it. Despite the painful pun, I dare say Perfect Days is perfect.
My favorite part of the film is when Hirayama is mesmerized by mundane moments of beauty, like trees in the wind or shadows on the wall. The Japanese word Komorebi encapsulates the feeling of these moments. It literally translates to “sunlight filtering through trees,” but the idea expresses much more than that (as Perfect Days expresses beautifully.) This phenomenon has also become more widely known in the West as “glimmers.”
As I watched Hirayama, I thought to myself, Hey, I have those moments too!
My backyard is my sacred space, where I cultivate stillness. I am so grateful to have access to it. It’s where I go to recover, to heal, to pause, and to replenish my own humanity.
After sitting under the backyard tree for a while, I become entranced in these momentary “glimmers”, similar to what Hirayama experiences in the film.
For a few precious moments, I am at peace. All my worries fade away. I hear a voice in my head say, Oh. It all makes sense. (I’m not even sure what it is that “makes sense” in these moments. All I know is that it does. The intellectual part of me falls asleep. A different part of me comes alive.)
I’ve been lucky to have these moments in my life. But after watching the film, I had a depressing realization:
I couldn’t remember the last time I caught a glimmer.
The feelings of awe were long gone. The beauty all around me had disappeared.
What happened?
I abandoned my sacred space.
I had stopped going into my backyard since December, when my dear cat Scooby passed away. I was still haunted by the memories Scooby lying next to me, or on the grass by my feet. I couldn’t sit still anymore. Every sound would make me turn and think, Scooby? Is that you? All around me lay the shadows of his little paw prints, tiny shreds of my heart scattered about like fallen leaves.
So, for many months now, I’ve stayed inside.
But after watching Perfect Days, I gained a renewed appreciation for the importance of visiting my sacred space.
Sacred spaces (and sacred practices, like meditation) clear space in our hearts and minds, so when we next encounter the glimmers around us, we have the space to receive them.
I knew I had to find a way to persevere past the pain. As I faced the prospect of returning outside, I thought about what Scooby would want. He would want me to be happy. He would want me to live.
I’ve been trying a reframe: Perhaps Scooby is still there, in spirit. It’s where he spent most of his time, after all, so there must be some of his essence still flowing about. In fact, I’m lucky to be able to walk the same ground he used to lie on. I must make the most of my time there. I must open myself up to feel his spirit, to sense his presence, and perhaps even receive his guidance.
Slowly, I’ve found my way back into the backyard.
My head feels lighter. The sun is doing its magic. Every now and then, I get lost in a glimmer.
A reminder for us all:
We must cherish and protect our sacred spaces like our lives depend on it, because they do.
P.S. Nature is healing, and that’s why the backyard is so powerful for me. But I believe we can turn any place into a sacred space. Maybe for you it is a little book nook upstairs, or a corner in the living room. Wherever it is, it is precious, and perhaps even the most important place in the world.
P.P.S. As if Perfect Days isn’t great enough on its own, its supplemental website is a work of art: perfectdays-movie.jp/en/. Open it on your phone to get immersed into a beautiful “scrolling book with sound.” Your finger’s gestures will morph and move the text, sound and visuals dynamically. It’s all animated smoothly with subtle transitions. The web developer in me was brought to tears playing around with it.
A few fun updates on my book of fables, Wandering Spirits:
The audiobook edition of Wandering Spirits is now live on Amazon! It’s full of whimsical, educational and inspiring stories for you or your kiddos, featuring an array of character voices and accents, narrated by yours truly :) You can also get the audiobook through other platforms such as Barnes & Noble and Spotify.
We’re now at 49 reviews on Amazon—who wants to be lucky number 50? :) If you’ve enjoyed the book, I’d love if you could take a moment to leave a positive review. I’ve been touched by the wonderful responses to the book. So many of you have shared how different stories speak to you as adults, or to your children. It’s been particularly heartwarming to see so many young ones write and sketch their own “storybook” after reading my book.
This Saturday @ 1:30pm PST, I’ll be reading one of the stories from the book, Fox’s Tails, live on stage at the Lafayette Town Hall Theatre as part of the Art Embraces Poetry event celebrating National Poetry Month. If you’re in the area, I’d love to see you there! The event is free. Learn more here.