Early Friday morning I headed out to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum with my camera. It was a perfect morning, cool but not too cool. The early morning raindrops that fell before I arrived had not yet had time to evaporate, so everything was decorated with pristine droplets of rain. All I could think as I went from plant to plant and scene to scene was

Love Everything

without reserve! So that’s what I did as I wandered and wondered at the beauty of life. The prairie flowers were in bloom and I loved their careless scattering of blossoms here and there along the path. As I drove the circle drive I stopped beneath the tall maple trees to take in the wild woodland feel of the towering trees.

Love every leaf… Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love.

   — Dostoyevsky

The dahlia test garden which is always one of my favorite places to visit in August was filled with a myriad of shapes and colors of dahlias.

Even the petals that had fallen to the ground were beautiful to my eyes.

Life is a gift

I love how easy it is to be fully present in each moment when I go out in nature with my camera in my hands. I see beauty and grace everywhere I look.

We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.
Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

Being alive on such a day reminded me that life is a great gift. And each moment is a gift.

When I look back at the past and think how much time was spent in vain, how much of it was lost in delusions, in errors, in idleness, in the inability to live; how I failed to value it, how many times I sinned against my heart and spirit — then my heart contracts in pain. Life is a gift, life is happiness, each moment could have been an eternity of happiness. Si jeunesse savait! [If youth knew!]

    — Dostoyevsky

Wishing you a week of beauty, encouraging you to love everything, and to live in the moment. This moment and this and now this are all we truly have.

May you walk in beauty.


Marilyn

Photographer sharing beauty, grace & joy in photographs and blog posts. I live in the Twin Cites in Minnesota, the land of lakes, trees, and wonderful nature.

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