Simplicity is beautiful...

It's just a photograph of a flower cradling a single droplet of water against a field of soft green.
Yet its message to me is profound.
Stop, it says. Take a moment to appreciate what is simple.
Be aware. Be mindful. Give thanks. Be filled.

I am constantly awed by nature's perfection, and the lessons that I learn when I take time to 'listen.'

Simply sublime...

The colors this year are...well, beyond words, really.

I haven't seen reds this vibrant and rich for years now. But these words really aren't doing the photo justice, so I'll just let you enjoy...

Aspens, aspens, everywhere...

This is an older photo, but looking at it just makes me happy!
(And I always want to share happiness whenever I can.)

This photo was actually taken a year ago, in summer, on a hike at Mill Hollow, Utah.

There's something in the grandeur of the sleek, white bark of the towering aspens and the short evergreen 'standing' front-and-center before them. In my imagination, the trees look like the ranks of a pipe organ--the evergreen as the organist preparing to play.

Or, maybe it is a choir?

I wonder what sort of music an aspen grove would make if it could 'sing'....

The perfect day...

There's something about an endless, cloud-filled sky and a narrow trail graced by the vibrancy of wildflowers that makes everything right for that moment. Now, if there were just some way to transport myself back to that moment two, maybe three times a day....

in winter's spell

This year I took up snowshoeing. It was an exhilarating departure from the paved walking/biking trails of the lower canyon that I usually walk during the winter months.

There is a sort of supreme silence to winter that isn't matched in any other season. The hush and stillness seems to require calm reflection and welcomes meditation, even as the crunch of each footfall punctuates the slow journey.

The visual simplicity of winter is also profound. The uncluttered theme of grey and white could never be more beautifully arrayed as it is in nature.

Listen to "in winter's spell" HERE.

gold at my feet

I've always wished autumn would stretch beyond the short few weeks of colors changing from vibrant greens to golds, oranges, reds and browns.
There is a hike that I take every week in autumn, and the landscape changes so much from week to week that it is both breathtaking--and a bit sad. To see the leaves burst into gorgeous hues, only to drop to the ground and fade in so relatively brief a span...

The particular day this photograph was taken, most of the leaves had changed and fallen, except for the aspens. As they, too, succumbed to the inevitable loss of their golden crowns, I noticed that, instead of a burst of gold overhead, now the trail was paved with gold--and these beautiful golden leaves, once so loftily set in the skies, created another marvel of beauty to be appreciated and enjoyed....if I only stopped to look.
As gold at my feet....


Listen to the song I composed for this photo:
gold at my feet

contemplating....

I don't have much to say to accompany this photo. To me, it says all it needs to say:

serenity
contemplation
beauty
peace
joy
color
contrast
life
change
seasons...

What does it 'say' to you?

another look

The same view as the previous post, a week later...
A change of colors....it's one of the things that makes autumn the best season of the year (for me, anyway!).

rivers of gold

Autumn is my favorite time of year. And this photo illustrates one of the reasons. I saw this distant view across the meadow on my hike a few weeks ago.
The colors had just started turning, and it appeared as if the mountain ran with rivers of gold. They were the first heralds of autumn, these golden leaves. And, as you'll see in the next post, the next week the colors had totally changed....

simplicity...

Breaking it all down to the simplest things sometimes helps me to focus on what's most important.

Looking at this photo reminds me that the leaf covered in water droplets would be all but lost to my eye 'in the big picture.' But, for some reason, that very small leaf did catch my eye, and by focusing in on it, the 'world' surrounding it suddenly becomes a simpler place, and the detail of it, exquisite.

In a way...a respite from the other, larger distractions that keep me from enjoying the singular beauty of water droplets, of the veins on the leaf, of the calming reflections upon the glassy surface of the water. An unexpected moment of shifted perspective, of meditative appreciation in a mass of competing 'visual information.'

And maybe something well worth trying in my own life, when I feel distracted and even overwhelmed by the obvious and 'more urgent' day to day tasks that keep me from noticing the simple, yet truly beautiful, details of what is around me.