Impressions and Expression

This morning as I was looking out at the pond behind our house I saw the most beautiful abstract reflections in the pond. The light was just right for making photographs of the pond playing with

of all the beauty I saw.

Movement, softness, blur, and color moving and mixing before my eyes. Sometimes the surface of the pond looked like a Monet painting in the soft morning light. It was another reminder that I can find beauty here, at home, as well as out in the woods. (Though I know that we are so lucky to have this lovely pond and park area behind our home.)

I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

— Claude Monet.

It was a gift to be able to pick up my camera and make photos without having to do a lot of hiking today. Yesterday I did a bit more physical activity than my body liked and today I’m paying the price for it. Still, I wouldn’t change anything.

This morning I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s weekly letter from love and I felt as if her letter was speaking directly to me. Here’s an excerpt from her letter…

My child, my little one. Please do not try to achieve your way to serenity: I assure you that it cannot be done. Look around for evidence of this truth — nobody has ever, ever accomplished inner peace through the act of “killing it” yet, despite all their most heroic efforts.

Accomplishments do not bring a lasting sense of ease; they only bring a need for further accomplishments — and the list of things you need to get done will never end. Unless, just for a moment, you stop doing them. Unless you stop trying.

So where are serenity, peace, ease to be discovered?

My striving child: serenity, peace, and ease can only be remembered, not discovered.

— Elizabeth Gilbert, 8-11-24 Letter from Love

I spent so much of my life trying — trying to be a better mom, a better person, a healthier fitter person, a smarter software engineer, even a better photographer. Now my lesson is to notice when I am trying and to stop. Simply stop. And then to allow myself to remember ease, peace, and serenity. Last week my yoga teacher led a meditation at the end of our yoga class repeating four qualities — order, balance, harmony, flow. If you need to stop trying and start being try this. Simply breathe in and breathe out and say to yourself, “Order, balance, harmony, and flow.” Repeat as many times as needed. Imagine white light surrounding and filling you — order, balance, harmony, and flow.

Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—
that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.

― Mary Oliver, House of Light

May your coming week be filled with serenity, peace, and ease. And may you see light in everything, filling you with order, balance, harmony and flow.

May you walk in beauty.