A still, small moment...

I was sitting quietly in the bamboo border of the Secluded Garden eating my lunch today.  Suddenly a pigeon flew over; and, as it passed out of sight into the trees, a single feather appeared in the air, drifting down. Somehow this feather had managed to fall so that it was perfectly horizontal, cupped against the air.  It drifted down, sauntering beautifully from side to side like something in a cartoon, really taking its time, and I sat with a slice of corn crispbread halfway to my mouth, watching in delight as it sailed, so slowly, so gently, to earth.

It landed in the little watercourse that runs through the Secluded Garden; and the water, again with almost infinite slowness, carried it along, bobbing and dipping and hesitating in little whorls of current, until finally it drifted away out of sight behind a mossy boulder.

It was nothing.  A feather fell.  But it was magical.  I have no idea how long I was watching it - thirty seconds?  Several minutes? - because for those moments as it fell through the bright air and sailed off on the gently flowing water, time seemed to stand still. Somehow it was as if I was becoming one with the creation of this moment, the drifting magic of a single feather.  I witnessed, and I knew myself blessed