Welcome.
Welcome,
Dear friend.
Welcome to this meditation on sensing beauty and the ordinary.
I want to invite you to saddle in to this moment.
Let your shoulders melt down away from the ears,
Lengthen the neck,
Creating space in the spine,
And let your jaw begin to soften.
Feel your body settling as your mind begins to become quiet.
In order to sense beauty,
You need to be present,
Just being exactly where you are.
Let's begin by breathing in and breathing out.
Take your time,
Breathing in and breathing out,
Gathering all of yourself into presence,
Into this moment.
And right now,
My friend,
Wherever you are,
You are surrounded by the ordinary,
The everyday,
The things you've seen a thousand times before.
Perhaps the way the sunlight falls across your kitchen table or the texture of the socks.
Perhaps the soft cotton against your skin.
Maybe it's a particular creak of a floorboard,
The hum of the refrigerator,
Or the weight of your body as you're sitting here.
We spend so much time looking for extraordinary moments,
Waiting for the big things,
Special occasions,
The moments worth photographing.
And what if,
What if the extraordinary has been here all along?
Hidden in plain sight,
Inside the ordinary,
Just waiting for us to notice.
Now,
I invite you to let your eyes be softly open so that you have a soft focus in the room where you are,
Taking a breath and looking around,
Seeing with fresh eyes as if you're seeing this room,
This space,
For the very first time.
Maybe the way the steam rises from a cup of tea,
Small ghosts dancing upward and disappearing.
Perhaps you hear the sound of water running,
Ordinary,
Yes,
And also a small miracle.
Clean water whenever you need it.
Maybe the next time you're washing your hands,
You can really notice the feeling of the soap on your hands,
Or maybe it's the rhythm of washing dishes in warm water.
Maybe it's the quiet ritual of making your bed,
Straightening what was tangled,
Creating beauty by simply making your bed.
And these moments don't announce themselves with grandeur.
They don't demand any attention.
They simply exist,
Faithful and constant,
Like old friends who know they don't need to impress you.
Softening and breathing.
If your eyes are still open,
You can let them close.
And in this breath,
Notice this breath,
This heartbeat.
There is everything.
You have a body that carries you.
A mind that notices.
A moment that will never come again.
Not one exactly like this.
Breathing,
Becoming even more present.
And the sun will set tonight,
The way it always does.
Perhaps tomorrow,
Someone will make coffee.
Doors will open and close.
Showers will happen.
Meals will be made.
Ordinary things happening again and again.
And embedded in each one,
In each one,
My friend,
If you slow down enough to see,
Is a quiet beauty,
An understated beauty.
Not showy or fancy.
Just here,
Offering itself.
The beauty of continuity,
Of all things that remain,
Of the small kindnesses of everyday life.
The truth is,
You don't have to go anywhere to find wonder.
And you don't have to wait for permission to notice the beauty in your own life.
The beauty that is your own life,
My friend.
It's here,
In the mundane,
In the ordinary,
In the simple fact of this moment,
And this breath,
And this imperfect ordinary.
Beautiful now.
The beauty of now.
Now,
Let us take a moment and breathe it in.
Let yourself be amazed by what has always been here,
By the simple inherent beauty of your life.
Thank you for being with me.
Thank you so much.
