Beauty.

Beauty surrounds us. The past couple of weeks I have found myself in a continual state of awe due to fall colors, smells and sounds. Everything outside emanates beauty.

It's easy to see beauty in change. It's easy to love the colors, the light and the sounds. This beauty is obvious. But what about the hidden beauty? As the seasons begin to shift, the days get shorter and our vistas appear more barren, it can be more challenging to see the beauty all around us.

I stumbled across this lovely quotation from 365 Days of Wonder, a book of precepts to compliment the truly incredible young adult novel, Wonder. (And I think the reverse holds even more truth.)

We don't need to make beauty within ourselves; we are completely, utterly full of it already. What we need is to pause and allow ourselves to see that beauty. It made me pause and ask myself: Where am I allowing beauty to be go undetected? At what moment of my day am I rushing to get through a task, get home or get my work done? In each moment, there is beauty. We can either recognize that beauty or block it from our awareness. It comes back to Corey Booker's beautiful anecdote, "The world you see outside of you, is a reflection of what you have inside of you." The beauty is always in the world; because the beauty is always within. Do you see it? Do you feel it? It consumes every pore of your being, but you can only reap it's benefits if you recognize it's existence; your existence.

Thanks, Mike for getting my words into that beautiful leaf up top and for taking the picture above!