Oops! Time's Flying and Beauty Abounds

I just looked at the time and realized that I've been taking on the day at a pretty leisurely pace. It's raining outside, so I think that might be affecting the slowdown.  Anyway, blog deadline time is coming, so the fingers will have to do some racing this morning.

The rain is welcome as long as it doesn't get to feeling too comfortable.  Cold-weather veggie starts in my garden could us a little shower or two. It's not quite time to start dragging hoses around, so I'm glad Mother Nature is easing the load a bit this morning. 

I read in another blog "The Daily Prep," this week about the power of beauty and realized, for sure, why this time of year gets me so much more excited to jump out of bed each morning and leap into the day.

Of course, early-morning daylight helps, but knowing that the adventure outdoors will, on almost every morning, feature some newly arrived, tangible sample of beauty always gives me an extra boost.  

This morning, for example, I couldn't wait to get outside and admire the new flowers I planted in a bed by the driveway last night. 

Here's an excerpt of what the the blog writer posted, and it's an excerpt from a new book called Beautiful Practice:  A Whole Life Approach to Life, Health and the Human Predicament by Frank Forencich, available at www.amazon.com. 

...Beauty guides us and integrates our efforts into a single coherent whole.

For some, this focus on beauty might seem to be an afterthought or a luxury that we add to our art once the work of skill development is complete. But in fact, this orientation forms a central organizing principle for everything we do. Not only does it nourish our spirits, it’s also inherently practical....

If beauty was a substance, it would be powerfully therapeutic; the effects would be both broad and deep. The simple, but often overlooked fact is that beauty is good for the entire human organism. Beauty stimulates the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, which directs tissue healing and the essential “feed and breed” response. In this way, beauty can serve as an antidote to stress, depression and anxiety. Beauty also offers the promise of depth, meaning and sustainability in the learning process. It promotes positive emotion and helps to solidify our attention and concentration.

Beauty captures our attention and pulls us deeper into experience. It stimulates our curiosity and engagement; it brings life to the process and gives us the enthusiasm for long hours of repetitive practice. Without a sense of beauty, we become mired in endless repetition; our performance may improve to some degree, but the whole person is left wanting.

I read those paragraphs the other day and thought about how true they are. And, when the spring comes to North Idaho, it seems we're getting an extra dose of a very important essential in life.  

And, that's why it's easier to get out of bed in the morning, even on rainy days. We can go outside and embrace the elixir of blooming pansies and growing gardens and lovely spring songs of birds who probably are feeling the effects of beauty pretty much the same as we humans. 

And, so my fingers have raced through this morning's blog post. When the rain stops, I'll head back outside, admire all my posies and feel oh so healthy. 

Happy Sunday! Hope you enjoy a big helping of beauty today.