Enchanted Moonlight.

Enchantment. The word is enjoying a giddy revival these days. Books and seminars for reenchanting your life are everywhere. The word itself is tantalizing, tickling the tongue like a spoonful of spiced berries. But what is enchantment? It is that innocent sense of wonder that startles us, melts us and lifts us out of ordinary time and space into a magical realm where, for perhaps a heady instant, we know, really know, that mountains and trees can speak.
Living among animals wild and domestic in my Himalayan home, I'm blessed with a steady and magnificent assortment of guides into other worlds. Animals can tilt me off-center like nothing else. My appreciation of their "otherness" carries me instantly into another kind of consciousness. In this state of mind, I am again a child, innocent, playful and wide-eyed. It is on this unfamiliar ground that enchantment is often discovered.
.Last night was a perfect example. In honor of the full moon, my husband and I drove out to watch it rise over our favorite spot. A veil of steam and a blanket of ice crystals sparkling like tiny fireflies welcomed us as we pulled up to the edge of the water. We sat in silence, bathed in surreal blue moonlight. Eventually my attention drifted to the top of a bluff next to us. Silhouetted against the skyline was a moving creature. The creature shifted and took form. A deer! The surprise took my breath away. A dewlap hung from her chin like a medicine bag, and steam curled from her nostrils while she gazed down at me in all her glory. As the moon came up behind her, she pawed the snow with impossibly long silver legs. An enchantress is what she was: stunning, evocative, magnificent. My breath stopped and then fell in time with hers........

Another enchanted moment came courtesy of a flock of white butterflies that danced across our snow-covered yard. Rooted to my desk, I felt my heart slowly lighten and skip-hop in response to the fluttering of a hundred wings. And just last week I watched our dogs and cats wrestle and play. When I turned back to my work, I felt exhilarated, as if I myself had romped away those moments among them. Perhaps I had.

I used to think of these as sweet memories in the making, pleasant interludes in a busy schedule. Now I know these excursions into enchantment for what they really are: small journeys into the depths and corners of reality. I hang bird feeders, plant butterfly gardens and set out cat and dog food, but in return, the animals give me back something far more nourishing.........SOUL FOOD.