There was a fire on the hearth, framed by windows looking out at the fire colored leaves.  Ten women had gathered to listen to the wisdom of a man who alternately reads, tells stories, and cries. 

"When did you feel fully alive? Saturated with the moment, and apart from time?" He asked us to dig deeply. Women spoke of the power of giving birth, of waiting in uncertainty at a foreign border, and flying across the country between two strangers who turned out to be passengers worth knowing. 

No one spoke of money, or grandiosity. Being present seems to emerge unannounced, and undeserved. The vignette I shared was from Sunday. The twins and John were part of the music team as were six other musicians. Because of our numbers, the sound engineer snuggled us in tightly around the microphone, such that I had one daughter at each shoulder. I could hear them, feel them, sense them as we sang. A few of the hymns were songs I composed before they were born. Before I was married. Yet here we were, part of a choir on a gorgeous fall morning, singing because we love to. 

It doesn't get any better than that. 

What makes you feel fully alive? Can you remember? Can you pin it down in a frozen frame of awareness, crowded in on both sides by a litany of expectations? It could be this one. Or this one. Calming down and noticing life in its pulsing presentation of possibilities is not on lay away, reserved for retirement when the real business of life subsides. 

Whatever you are doing, wherever you are sitting, it doesn't get any better than this.