”If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment. If a shower drives us for shelter to the maple grove or the trailing branches of the pine, yet in their recesses with microscopic eye we discover some new wonder in the bark, or the leaves, or the fungi at our feet.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
(Journal, September 23, 1838)
“The Earth offers gift after gift — life and the living of it, light and the return of it, the growing things, the roaring things, fire and nightmares, falling water and the wisdom of friends, forgiveness. My god, the gift of forgiveness, time, and the scouring tides. How does one accept gifts as great as these and hold them in mind?
Failing to notice a gift dishonors it, and deflects the love of the giver. That’s what’s wrong with living a careless life, storing up sorrow, waking up regretful, walking unaware. But to turn the gift in your hands, to say, this is wonderful and beautiful, this is a great gift — this honors the gift and the giver of it. . . . Notice the gift. Be astonished at it. Be glad for it, care about it. Keep it in mind. This is the greatest gift a person can give in return.”
— Kathleen Dean Moore, Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature
Elisa's Spot 
The earth is beautiful and so are people, animals, things and I don’t know what to do about it. I got no gift for them, no purpose. Someone please tell me I’m beautiful too….it’s been a while….
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The snow is falling again Arjun. Is it beautiful because it is? Does the beauty come from the individual’s ability to experience it and to express it. Who decides how much and what, is enough?
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It is beautiful even to a sinner and me. there ain’t no quest, no revelation, that’s the real beauty, nothing to quantify. Take it in and let it be and we be..
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I wonder if one already has to believe and to know that the self is beautiful, in order for any outside words or expressions to have any meaning–perhaps better yet, to remain only words floating past the knowledge of the self.
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Beauty seems to touch me on a primal level, where the only meaning required is existence…
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And what shall we do about it indeed? I am reading a wonderful book called “Braiding Sweetgrass” which talks about the gifts of love and gratitude we can bring to the world. And how so few of us (or how few times) we actually take the time to acknowledge this. And how many native cultures had/have rituals of gratitude. How very different from our culture of consumerism.
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