The beauty of where you are.
It’s no secret that I love to get away to the mountains. There’s something majestic in the quiet eternal solitude of pine trees, rivers, valleys and rock that will go on forever.
In the mountains I find my soul resonates differently. I find peace, perspective and power as I climb away from the lower grounds, and commune with nature in her glory.
Yet as I stand on mountains and look down, I see the beauty of the forest, with its verdant waves and fields full of fragrance, foods and flocks. The forest and the fields provide me a chance to walk, rest, and partake of the glory of nature as it interacts in immeasurable diversity.
Both are beautiful, and yet when I am in one, I often find myself dreaming of the other. Somehow, I forget to indulge in the beauty of where I am now.
I have found that I also make that mistake within the environment of time. It’s too easy to lose track of today, in a never ending hunger for the greater potentials of tomorrow. In doing so, I find myself missing all that now has to offer, and the beauty and majesty that surrounds me in the everyday.
For too long have I wasted now for some time that may never be.
Being present in the present is a skill that I am slowly learning. Both in the where and the when; there are moments of wonder and enlightenment that I can easily miss, if I am always looking for the next, instead of the now.
But the greatest cost in being elsewhere than now may be the loss of the potential to change time as we know it. The future is infinitely malleable, and the past is not so given as we are led to believe.
Finding our intention and focus in today, here, now, we can create our own futures, and even change the meanings that we ascribed to the past.
Life is happening now, and will continue to happen because of now.
Today, I invite you to try staying present in the present, focusing on now rather than what may never be or never was.
I promise you that as you learn to be here and be now, you will find a greater joy, a deeper peace and a more purposeful awareness of the gifts you have been given.
May you find today, and every day, together entwined.
And may you find joy.
-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings