Nature: #Mindful52 Week 17

The Eden Project - April 2011

"Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain."

~Henry David Thoreau

Clematis Leaf in Evening Sunlight April 2011

Week 17 of Mindful52 and Heather's prompt asks us to contemplate nature:

This week as you contemplate nature, think of all it has to teach us. Think of how it provides for us. But move beyond that to realize you are a beautiful creation of nature as well. Move beyond the thought of nature only being ouside of us. What is the nature of your Self? How can you be more in tune with your inherent nature? How can you allow your beautiful self to just be? How can you be in a state of allowing? How can you inherently shine?

Are there places in life where you are forcing? In what areas should you stand firm, tall, strong and grounded like the trees? Or be a flower and blossom? What about shining like the vibrant leaves of Autumn as you age year after year? Is it possible to look into a dreary situation, to weather the storm and still stand tall? You are beautiful, AWEsome and magical just as you are!

You are nature, whole and perfect exactly as you were created!

This takes some work to believe sometimes.
Luckily there are some very wise beings out there writing books and helping us find our way to self-acceptance, joy and peace. 

Enjoying the Moment - In the garden April 2011

"They(flowers) provided inspiration to countless artists, poets and mystics. Jesus tells us to contemplate the flowers and learn from them how to live. The Buddha is said to have given a "silent sermon" once during which he held up a flower and gazed at it......Seeing beautiy in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own innermost being, their true nature....Once there is a certain degree of Presence, of still and alert attention in human beings' perceptions, they can sense the divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life-form, recognize it as one with their own essence and so love it as themselves. Until this happens, however, most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of their inner essence, just as they are unaware of their own essence and identify only with their pwn physical and psychological form. "

- Eckhart Tolle

The Eden Project - April 2011

"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
call to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

- Mary Oliver

Leaf with Tiny Buds and Shadow April Evening 2011

"The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell."

- Ben Okri 

April Evening Sunshine on the leaves 

"Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are."

~Osho

Grizedale Forest August 2010

"How do we cultivate the conditions for joy to expand? We train in staying present. In sitting meditation, we train in mindfulness and maitri: in being steadfast with our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts. We stay with our own little plot of earth and trust that it can be cultivated, that cultivation will bring it to it's full potential. Even though it's full of rocks and the soil is dry, we begin to plow this plot with patience. We let the process evolve naturally......At the beginning joy is just a feeling that our own situation is workable. We stop looking for a more suitable place to be. We've discovered that the continual search for something better does not work out. This doesn't mean that there are suddenly flowers growing where before there were only rocks. it means we have the confidence that something will grow here."

- Pema Chodron