Take a Break for a Blissful Moment of Beauty

This week I’d like to offer a moment of beauty. This is often a very hectic time of year for many, and taking a break for a moment of beauty can enliven and refresh us more than you might think.

A moment of beauty is like a mini-retreat – a time when we can get out of our overworked minds and into the state of pure appreciation.

Sometimes you can find a moment of beauty in an image, a song, a quote or a poem. I’d like to offer some things that I find beautiful – and hope you do too.

GREEN MOUN­TAIN
By Li Bai

You ask me why I dwell in the green moun­tain;
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care.
As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men.

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

~Henry David Thoreau

Winter-Time
Robert Louis Stevenson (from A Child’s Garden of Verses, 1885)

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake

The Happy Virus
by Hafiz

I caught the happy virus last night
When I was out singing beneath the stars.
It is remarkably contagious
So kiss me.

Pass on the moment of beauty by providing one for someone else – point out a gorgeous icicle, give someone a genuine smile, drop a very small amount of money (if you can afford it) with happy note somewhere so someone can find it. Here’s to many moments of beauty today!