Louis Schwartzberg said (Watch it, with his incredible images, here): I didn’t have much money, but I had time and a sense of wonder... Beauty and seduction is nature’s tools for survival because we protect what we fall in love with. It opens our hearts and makes us realize we are a part of nature, and we’re not separate from it. When we see ourselves in nature, it also connects us to everyone one of us because it’s clear that it’s all connected in one....
Wouldn't the world simply be a better place if we all saw ourselves in nature? If we took the time to step out, look up, breathe in, and truly look at our world, wherever and whatever that may be? Look simply to observe, to be, resist the urge to immediately wonder, question or do. Simply exist with what already is.
You think this is just another day in your life, it’s not just another day, it’s the one day that is given to you, today. It’s given to you, it’s a gift, it’s the only gift that you have right now and the only appropriate response is gratefulness.
Gratefulness. The only appropriate response. A college friend and I used to play the "grateful game" in college. When we were especially frustrated about something (classes, finals, boys, friends, money...) we would take turns naming things we were grateful for. Not surprisingly, we immediately felt better. The only appropriate response to today, is gratefulness. We have it.
If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response to the great gift that this unique day is, if you learn to respond as if it were the first day in your life and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well. Begin by opening your eyes and be surprised that you have eyes that you can be opened, that incredible array of colors that is constantly offered to us for pure enjoyment. Look at the sky, we so rarely look at the sky. We so rarely note how different it is from moment to moment with clouds coming and going. We just think of the weather we don’t think of all the many nuances of the weather. We just think of good weather and bad weather. This day right now, it’s unique weather, maybe a kind that will never exactly in that form come again. The formation of clouds in the sky will never be the same that it is right now.
Part of the beauty of life is that every moment is fleeting. See what it is in this moment and every moment. Feel what it is in this moment, taste it, smell it, be it. We can never have this moment again, and not only is that okay, but it's beautiful. That's what makes every moment so special, so sacred. It comes and goes, without judgment, tension or expectation. It simply is. What a beautiful way to be.
Open your eyes, look at that. Look at the faces of people that you meet, each one has an incredible story behind their face, a story that you could never fully fathom, not only their own story, but the story of their ancestors. We all go back so far, and in this present moment, in this day, all the people that you meet, all that life from generations from so many places all over the world, froze together and meets you here like a life giving water, if you only open your heart and drink.
Open your heart to the incredible gifts that civilization gives to us. You flip a switch and there’s electric light. You turn a faucet and there is warm water and cold water, and drinkable water; a gift that millions and millions in the world will never experience. These are just a few of an enormous number of gifts to which you can open your heart…
I wish you, that you will open your heart to all these blessings and let them flow through you; That everyone you meet on this day will be blessed by you. Just by your eyes, by your smile, by your touch, just by your presence. Let the gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you. Then it will really be a good day.
Let them flow through you. Allow life to become you, to lighten your spirit and your heart and to carry that lightness to every place and person you encounter. Be a presence of gratitude, because gratitude is contagious. The more space and lightness you find within yourself, the more others around you will find within themselves. As begin to allow our gratefulness to overflow, we begin to allow happiness, peace and satisfaction to flourish. No matter our circumstances, we all have this moment, and this moment is beautiful, if that's how we see it.
It's so easy for me to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of things, or the tension or conflicts that come up, rather than just appreciating this very moment. I'm reading a book called Wherever You Go, There You Are, and it talks about appreciating the "bloom" in every moment. Right now the sun is streaming through my window, brightening my living room and warming my back, I can hear the leaves outside my window, clinging to the last few days of fall, dancing in the wind, and I feel such a sense of gratitude while observing these things happen. Now, the leaves have quieted, and while I enjoyed their sound and the peacefulness that accompanied it, there is equal peacefulness in their silence. I love this moment, but I will not try to hold on to it, for a new and equally moment has now taken its place. Today.
