5 most beautiful things in front of you right now!!

Reading from Tuesday and Wednesday, February 11 and 12, 2014 yoga classes

I am still here.  Weather has caused havoc with yoga classes.  Think Spring!!!  The following is from the OM newsletter from Erin Smith of Winchester, Kentucky.  I loved it so much that I used it for my readings for both classes.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

"As I write this,
      1.  the glow of the fire in the stove
      2.  a bright red cardinal in a bush outside the studio
      3.  the smell of my yogi tea
      4.  my wedding ring catching the light as I type
      5.  the dancing ganesha statue on the hearth

What are the 5 most beautiful things in front of you right now?

The other day I wanted to read a poem by Mary Oliver to my yoga class, as I am prone to do being a poetry addict and all, and I couldn't find it.  Wild Geese was the one.  One of my favorites.  So I said the first line:
You do not have to be good.  You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting... and then, much to my delight, I kept going.  I knew the whole thing by heart.  I guess I knew that I knew it. (Don't we always know?)

That's what we do with beautiful things.  We tuck them away.  We use them when we need them, in our bearlike way.  We use them as fuel.  We breathe them.  We give them away.  We remember them as long as we can.  Sometimes we miss them completely.

Our lives need beauty.  Relentless, unremitting beauty.  I was driving this morning to a client to teach him yoga and I started to think about the five most beautiful things I saw at that very moment.  I am not sure why because I was at a traffic light and it was grey and cold outside.  I saw a dirty purple sign for Donuts! and a beautiful blonde teenager with a sign that said: Hungry. Please help.  These things struck me as beautiful right then in that moment.  So I kept going, kept looking.  What else could I find?

This the challenge: Every hour stop what you are doing and write down the 5 most beautiful things to you right in that moment.  Every hour or as often as you can!  You can also post pics in addition to writing them down.  Just connect in some way and find the beauty.

I can hear you already: But I am on the freeway.  I am at work.  There is nothing beautiful.  I am watching TV.  I am in a bad mood, I can't see anything beautiful.  I don't have my glasses on.  It's there!  Look!  It's right there.  It's here.  Close your eyes and see it even if it is not right in front of you, even if you have to dig into the well of your imagination which might feel has run dry of beauty a long time ago.  Even then.

Make your list and keep filling it up and when there is no room get a new paper and keep going and going and going.  You will amaze yourself.  You will find that you are actively looking for beauty wherever you are.  No matter what.  And what else is the point?  What is beauty for if not to lighten us up from the inside out and sometimes, from the outside in?"