The mama moose walked to the side of the road carefully looking both ways. Her ears twitched back and forth as she listened for the possibility of an encroaching vehicle. Deeming it safe, she went back into the bush and emerged one again with two toddlers behind her. Reaching the road side again, she ran quickly across the road giving the young ones the signal to hurry across. Once there she escorted them somewhere into the bush and reappeared momentarily to have a little lunch at the lush green grass along the ditch line. 
We share this wonderful world with many kinds of the Creators creatures. We get caught up in listening to the news of the day and concern ourselves with the plight of other human beings and seldom  stop to ponder the lives of our co inhabitants of earth and what they face each and every day.  We tailor the world for our convenience- spray for insects, uproot ecological habitats for our own convenience to build roads, houses and communities and we mostly ignore the millions who share this space with us.

Mama moose is an intelligent being, capable of forethought and planning and communication. She arranges for the safety of her offspring much as a human mama would, provides for them, rears them with discipline so they respond to her when she calls, and keeps them safe from harm.  Mama moose lives her life without infringing on ours, doing the best she can with what we leave for her in our manic obsession to take over the earth. Have you considered your own footstep on the earth? Can you  live so lightly that no one will know you have been there?

While narrating a video with pictures of beautiful scenery and beautiful people taken for National Geographic, the photographer invites us to ask ourselves what is right with the world. He paints a picture of beauty hidden from our view by a difference of a few steps. Where we might look and see weeds, he invites us to look for the beauty hidden there.  In a photograph of the seeds of a dandelion, he exposes beauty through his lens, capturing the seeds reaching up to the sun, bathed in light..

Where one might see a wrinkled face, he invites us to look at the story behind the face for the beauty hidden there. He says to look for meaning in a life and recognize how that one life is connected around the world.

It is easy to deny, easy to ignore and easy  to miss the beauty  that exists all around us,  to realize that in the experience of each moment lies an incredible vista willing to open itself to our eyes, if we are willing to open our heart to see it.

In tragedy, there are hands reaching out to help, someone willing to cry with us and share our sorrow. In laughter, there are other voices willing to join in and echo our happiness. We are swimming in a pool of acceptance and love, support and caring. Everything is right with the world. Have you looked around you lately? What is there waiting for you to notice?

Wordless

Have you spent any time watching the activity of your mind even for just one day? Are you compelled to be busy- talking, watching television, listening to music, reading, engaging in meaningless conversations– all of your waking hours consumed for the sole purpose of keeping your mind occupied and busy?  Have you studied the interior conversations that flit through your mind second by second?  Or analyzed your interior conversations and how they contribute to the outward experience that you are having?  Do you have words playing in your mind –endlessly repetitions of the same story which reiterate:  would have, could have, should have, he said, I said, I should have said, if only I had…..

 What is it that you are telling yourself? How do you react to the stories you have made? Have you noticed how your emotions are influenced by the thoughts you choose to think?

Are you a victim in your mind or a hero stamping out injustice? What is your role in your internal drama? Have you asked yourself whether what you are telling yourself is real? Is it true?

 If you imagine that the story in your head is only your story and that you are the creator, author and experiencer of that story, would you be willing to create a different story? Write a different version with different scripts?  Change the villains into heroes? Change the outcomes to happy ones?  Live another life? When you change your inner story, other actors in your story change their lines to match what you have written.

What if you could you change the story whenever you want?? Or simply abandon the need to have a story at all. Can you simply observe without the need to form thoughts and judgments? Can you live for a day without words? Can you live for a day in the silence? Live in the garden without rewriting it.

After a seemingly endless winter, the heat has encouraged the leaves to push their way into being. A dark and lifeless looking landscape is transforming into healthy shades of green and the world itself seems to be coming alive. Gardeners are anticipating the feel of the dirt in their fingers as they wait eagerly for the soil to warm up enough to plant.  Green houses are waiting for a steady stream of customers intent on finding the right plants for their gardening pleasures. In the garden, the clok clok clok of frogs can be heard, the mosquitos have descended in droves, the robin red breasts are marking the return of spring and the ducks have staked out every sizable puddle as home for the next few months.

Winter weary people are feeling new spring in their steps. Eagerly watching for the greening, sensing that a similar greening is occurring in their soul. Hope is born again that whatever has been wearing and  grinding on the spirit is being washed away by the retreat of the snow and that new life is on the verge of appearing.  A realization that even the darkest of seasons come to pass and that healing will come as surely as the spring.

Believe

Believe in that which you cannot see.

Believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

Believe that everything that is happening is happening with purpose.

Believe that if you ask you will receive.

Believe that answers will come if you listen for them.

Believe that you are loved even if you cannot feel it.

Believe that there is more to living than that which is physically present to you.

Believe that life is supporting you.

Believe that the Creator of the Garden has a plan.

Believe that you are an important part of the plan.

Believe that if you open yourself, the next step will become apparent to you.

Believe.