Luck unlooked for.  Joseph Campbell called it following your bliss.

I am continually amazed that I am still surprised by serendipity.  It might be karmic or astrological or chaos theory with a side of optimism.  It might just be the way things go coupled with an outlook.  It might be all or none of these.

Luck unlooked for must be noticed.  You must observe it or it will pass you by because luck is perception-dependent.  By its very nature you must see it for it to exist.

Those of us who observe, truly observe, know this.  Detritus is a dismissive colloquial term equivalent to weeds when gardening, both of which we use when we marginalize “stuff that doesn’t matter.”  But ask a geologist what detritus means, or a botanist to define a weed, and you’ll get a very different answer.  Emerson said a weed is “a plant whose Virtues have not yet been discovered” and he was right.

Minutiae are often relegated to the realm of uselessness and those of us who care about the minutiae in our minds are deemed to be wasting our focus.  How can we notice every leaf on a tree?  Or every flame in a fire?  What’s the point?

When I look at a flower I notice every shade and hue of colour, every texture against texture of stamen to petal to calyx, the flexibility of the stem as it bends to the breeze, the insects that come to pollinate it, the sound one stalk makes when it brushes another, its scent unique to itself.  And then I go deeper to the notes of goldenrod yellow and celery green, the crusty bitterness I can taste in the wind pulling grasses together and apart, the shift in the weight of the air when the clouds race across the sun before it bursts forth to back-light clusters of chirruping, purpling asters.

And that’s all in a moment’s observation.

If I didn’t watch and wait and listen and breathe I would miss everything that moment had the potential to share.  And I would be the lesser for it.  I consider those moments to be serendipitous – when I stop and notice – and a part of me respects my own certainty that very few people have seen what I’m seeing.  I smile and know I’m in good company.

Life’s wonder and mystery and awed admiration are to be found in the moments.  Embrace the minutiae now and then if it’s not already part of your routine.  Epiphany is waiting.

When everything feels like it falls into place I remind myself that luck unlooked for is the only kind worth having.  Live an observant life and you will flourish with knowing.