Accidents and openings

My one-year-old son tips over a little space heater in the room and it lies there running until I set it up right again. Okay, maybe Child Protective Services will be calling, or the Fire Department: mea culpa. But once he's turned it upside down, I can see its bright orange heating element up inside the top of it, that I had never seen before. I remember once having half-wondered where the element was located and then instantly forgetting about it. Mistakes are openings. When an accident occurs and topples something out its ordinary place, no matter how grand or inconsequential, an opening occurs. And when we encounter openings, hollow spaces of little or nothing, we are encountering the opportunity to open up a little to ourselves. A little chance to wake up, the first subconscious whiff of coffee in the morning.