Feel beautiful; surround yourself with beauty; live in beauty; seek the beauty in yourself; seek the beauty in others; add beauty to those around you; and think beautifully.

I rang a friend on Friday to wish her happy birthday and she told me that her brother had died of a massive heart attack in the early hours of the morning.  No warning.

That same week a truly lovely woman whom I had been teaching yoga, left this world.  And, in the same week I heard news that an aunt of mine had died.

Again I reflect.  We are so busy balancing on the precarious tight-rope of life that we fail to stop and notice the beauty.  We rush, run, sprint through the hours, worry, self-recriminate and dilute the day with our angst and mundane utterances. Sometimes we stop to take a deep breath, but mostly we don’t.

We must not lose the opportunity to see something that is beautiful or to feel a moment of splendour…..for do we know the day when we will leave here too?

And beauty abounds all around us.

I awoke this morning, very early when it was still dark.  The birds were just starting to welcome the dawn.  I draped my gorgeous white blanket across my shoulders, lit a candle and sat listening to the beauty around me.  A cacophony of sweet sounds wrapped in stillness.

My breakfast looked beautiful and tasted as such.

I made sure that I rang a friend just to say ‘hello’.

I asked my negative thoughts if they would consider going elsewhere today?

I noticed the beauty in my students as I taught them yoga this morning and realized how blessed I am to do what I love.

I actually stopped to admire some of the gorgeous photography I have on my walls.

I plucked a small flower and it is now sitting in front of me.

I absorbed the sunshine and bought myself a gift.

I smiled.

I felt the vibrations of beauty flow through me and realized that my awareness of beauty surpasses my mind and aims directly at my heart.

Don’t be too busy to finish this piece…..take a deep breath and read the tale that found me today too.

It’s amazing how your heart-felt intentions come back to you dressed in words.

One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space.  Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages.  Otherwise there was no reminder of human life.  My companion and I were alone with the stars:  the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon.  It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators.  But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will.  ~Rachel Carson