The other day, as I looked out the kitchen window, I realized that the leaves on the trees were gone. I was looking at the bare bones of the trees that share this small space with me.
For the first time in many months I could see beyond the trees. I could see the blue sky. I could see each branch as it reached for the sky.
Some trees had tangled their branches with another -- as if reaching out to each other. Others stood proud showing just how very, very tall they are. And I viewed them in silence and with awe that I should have this beautiful, magical forest outside my back door. "When one sees the tree in leaf, one thinks the beauty of the tree is in its leaves, and then one sees the bare tree." - Sarah Brana Barak
Somewhere in the forest, or along the tideline or in what looks like an empty desert expanse there is treasure.
Many of the treasures are overlooked and some are so well camouflaged they might never be seen.
One of my upcoming new year resolutions is to 'pay attention' and to 'look'. Its so easy to walk on by, or to ignore something right in front of me and then one day, the light hits it or my eyes and mind are really and truly open and there it is. Life is beautiful! "Look carefully, record what you see. Find a way to make beauty necessary, find a way to make necessity beautiful." - Anne Michaels
The paths I follow these chilly winter mornings are filled with fallen leaves and compost and I must walk slowly to see the hidden treasures that await me.
Leaves that are hidden beneath the oh-so-brown 'leftover' leaves.
What else might I miss if I walk too fast, if I keep my eyes ahead and don't pause long enough to look around and up and down? "Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." - Vincent Van Gogh
Its darker earlier these days. Looking out the window I see softening shades of blue and mauve and grey.
I see stones along th3 path and must be careful so that I don't stumble in the early evening hours.
I see a button that looks as if it has been created out of clay, perhaps from the bank of a slowly moving winter stream.
"The pale stars were sliding into their places. The whispering of the leaves was almost hushed. All about them it was still and shadowy and sweet. It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater -- a moment when anything can happen, anything believed in." - Olivia Howard Dunbar
