Just
Everything
“It's an
ugly woods, I was saying to myself, padding along the trail where
others had broken ground before me. And then I found an extraordinary
bouquet. Someone had bound an offering of dry seed pods, yew, lyme
grass, red berries and brown fern and had laid it on the path:
'nothing special,' as Buddhists would say, meaning 'everything.'
Gathered to formality, each dry stalk proclaimed a slant, an
attitude, infinite shades of neutral.
All
contemplative acts, silences, poems, honor the world this way.
Brought together by the eye of love a milkweed pod, a twig, allow us
to see how things have been all along. A feast of being.”
Mary Rose
O'Reilley (The Barn at the End of the World)
Most of us see beauty in
extraordinary things—a painting by a master, a bouquet of fresh
roses, a landscape of blue mountains covered in mist. We notice the
grander offerings of earth and sky. Some friends of mine just posted
photos on Facebook of an Aegean sunset from a Greek isle—gorgeous.
But if we wait for exceptional moments to find beauty, our encounters
will be few and far between.
For the ordinary mystic,
beauty can be found anywhere. There are good reasons to look for it;
beauty energizes us. It perks us up. It activates our feel-good
chemistry. Just the sight of a beautiful flower, or bird, or sunset
connects us with all of creation. But beauty isn't found only in the extraordinary. It surrounds us all the time if we have eyes
to see, ears to hear.
I love this story of the
dried bouquet left on the path for the next passer-by to find. What a
gift! Not just the bouquet, but also the teaching that beauty is
found by looking at the world as it is—a feast of being. We don't
have to wait for exceptional moments, we can find beauty in the
neutral shades of everyday. We may have to take our eyes off our
screens to see it. Today, try putting your phone in your pocket and
looking with your eyes at what you are passing by. Listen to Andrea
Bocelli sing Ava Maria. Let beauty wash over you and bless you with
its joy. Here's a beautiful little poem to get you started:
“I will
soothe you and heal you,
I will
bring you roses.
I too have
been covered with thorns.”
Rumi
It's
nothing special—just everything.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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