Much of the stress and emptiness that haunts us can be traced back to our lack of attention to beauty. Internally, the mind becomes coarse and dull if it remains unvisited by images and thoughts which hold the radiance of beauty.*
(John O’Donohue)

The only essential is this: the gift must always move.**
(Lewis Hyde)

When we slow down enough to notice, we can stagger at the beauty of nature.

Anyone who has every attempted to offer some commentary of nature knows how inadequate words are and how more fitting are silence and awe.

When we look closer, we see a great struggle, even pain involved in producing the sights that cause us to gasp.

I take away the lesson that there is no easy path to beauty, that we must keep moving in the direction of what we believe in and hope for, to show up, to do the hard work, to give.

Perhaps something beautiful will result.

*From John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty.
**From Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.)