What Takes Your Breath Away?

Early one morning, I went out for a walk. The day was dimly lit, cirrus clouds just barely visible, frost covered leaf piles. This is a surreptitious time of the day-homes dark, animals had not yet taken cover-the winter’s morning chorus sparse yet soulful.

Suddenly overhead a million starlings sweep the sky and take my breath away. I shudder with the instant and momentary beauty I may have missed. That moment helps to define my day.

Walking past Otter Pond, a layer of skim ice creates a path for the lone swan as she dips her beak and grooms her feathers, unaware of her own beauty.

Down to Long Wharf, jutting out into the bay, the sky so wide and visible from horizon to horizon, as open as a wheat field in the Midwest. Clouds telling a story of their own. This view that I have gazed upon all of my life, offers some new advice each day.

We learn, maybe a bit late in life, to take the time to watch the flock of geese fly out of sight-to listen to their call-to let the sights and sounds reach to a place deep within us. I think that place is called soul. That quiet beauty restores our being and joins us to this wild world that we are each an integral part of.

This is what is available to us each day-each moment-the healing power of creation.