Last year I included some writings from Joanna Field, taken from her book ‘A Life of One’s Own’, originally published in 1934. Joanna Field was the early pen name for the psychoanalyst Marion Milner.

In this extract from the same book, Field is describing how a glimpse of glory can be open to us as we become really present to the most ordinary of activities. There’s something about letting go of the self to enable a different level of reality to break through into the very way we look at things. Initially she tries to let go of the control of her head over her hand while she is darning a sock – somehow letting the needle do the work, without any other interference. She describes how the results startled her, and she found herself working with ease and no effort, as she detached her thinking from the activity.

Reminded of the one-celled animal which can spread parts of its essence to flow round and envelop within itself whatever it wants for food, she felt: ‘This spreading of some vital essence of myself was a new gesture … like a spreading of invisible sentient feelers, as a sea anemone spreads wide its feathery fingers.’

This glimpse is repeated as one day she stands to look at a still life painting by Cezanne.

‘…green apples, a white plate and a cloth. Being tired, restless, and distracted by the stream of bored Sunday afternoon sightseers drifting through the galleries, I simply sat and looked, too inert to remember whether I ought to like it or not. Slowly I became aware that something was pulling me out of my vacant stare and the colours were coming alive, gripping my gaze till I was soaking myself in their vitality. Gradually a great delight filled me … it had all happened by just sitting and waiting …

I began to wonder whether eyes and ears might not have a wisdom of their own.’

Whilst reluctant to call this a glimpse of the glory of God, she writes of opening herself up to a deeper and more satisfying level of reality, where things are not as they appear.

Kate Turkington, the South African writer of ‘There’s More to Life than Surface’ describes all sorts of miraculous glimpses of glory covering Native American shamanism, Aboriginal wisdom, and miraculous occurrences from different religions. This includes her own – what she calls everlasting moment, which happens during an ayahuasca ceremony where she felt in touch with the divine, and in a state of perfect happiness, acceptance, and peace. However, I prefer the account of the more ordinary experience some months after this when she is ‘on the most mundane and unspiritual of all journeys’ hanging out the washing in her garden on a summer morning.

‘I had just finished pegging all the wet clothes on to the clothesline when I suddenly had an overpowering feeling – so overpowering that I stopped dead in my tracks, stood still, and let the feeling engulf me. I felt enveloped in a warmth and beauty that I cannot now describe. I shouted out loud with joy, as I stood in the midst of a tangible presence of peace, harmony and goodness.’