YOGAJOURNAL.COM / 88 / DECEMBER 2017
REFLECTION
ILLUSTRATION: ABIGAIL BIEGERTI LEARNED TO PLAY PIANO AT 41. I worked my
fingers long enough that the uncanny dimension
of being played appeared briefly: In those moments,
beyond all logic, my hands started to behave more
quickly than my mind, which was trying to read the
notes and position my fingers. My teacher noticed
this and thought I was ready to tackle my first piece
by Bach, a minuet known as “Bach’s Notebook for
Anna Magdalena.”
In the eighth measure of that minuet, a note
smaller than the rest appears. Almost ghostlike,
it hovers very near the others like a barely seeable
angel or a hummingbird whose path is more readily
seen than its body. It surprised me. My teacher
called it a grace note—a note that, though played
and heard, takes up no time; a note that matters,
though it is timeless. And therein lies its grace.
Now, 20 years later, I realize this is another way
to understand the paradox of epiphany, of moments
that open and transcend their sense of ordinary
time. In truth, every glimpse of eternity I’ve ever
encountered has been a grace note that has affected
how I see and hear, though it has taken up no time
in the measure of my struggle. I find over and over
that the instant that we’re washed open by the swell
of the Universe is such a note of grace. And the wis-
dom of mystics and sages reverberates in the time-
less space their presence holds open.
When these moments occur—when the mind
is touched by something larger than its ability to
understand, when the heart is moved by something
deeper than its capacity to dive, when the impulse
to speak is stirred by the presence of something that
can’t be named—things happen that defy the bound-
aries of time. Such moments confirm that we’re part
of a unity that’s always present but seldom clear, and
to be touched by that presence changes our lives.Moments like the moon—full and stark—rising
over the garage between the oak and the maple in
a friend’s backyard as we barbecue. Suddenly, the
moon is calling in its white silence, drawing the
smoke and fragrance out of the meat into the sky,
and we, without a word, feel coated with a film of
light from another world, the same as cavemen
preparing their game at the mouth of their cave.
Moments like the morning of my annual CAT
scan on the other side of cancer. When I realize that
in the tenderness of being torn open by life, we’re
like these small, red birds splashing themselves with
water as the sun comes up, hoping we will heal with-
out sealing our hearts over.
Moments like watching my friend’s 20-year-old
cat adjust to being blind. All at once, the cat trying
to make its way feels like our sense of being lost,
no matter how we fill our calendars.
Moments of soft, relentless grace like one the
other night, celebrating a birthday. The cake on the
table; the lights off; all of us caught watching the
sparkler on the cake. Each of us peering from our
own personal seat of darkness, gathering as we do,
fixed by the hiss of light flaring between us. Feeling
the sparks fly, afraid one might burn us, hoping that
it does.
Adapted from Things That Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on
Living by Mark Nepo. Copyright © 2017 Mark Nepo. Published by
Sounds True in November 2017.YOGA JOURNAL Issue 297 (ISSN 0191-0965, USPS 116-050), established in 1975, is published nine times a year (February, March, May, June, August, September, October, November, December)
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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Yoga Journal, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235.Grace notes By Mark Nepo
Mark Nepo is a poet and philosopher who is
devoted to writing and teaching the journey of
inner transformation and the life of relationship.
He has been teaching poetry and spirituality for
more than 40 years and is the New York Times
best-selling author of The Book of Awakening.