Oh the Things We Miss Because We Aren't Looking

Some days I hit "Publish" on a blog post and I wish I had taken longer to work on it. There are some that explored topics I will likely explore more fully in the future because they didn't get the time or the quality that they deserved. Thursday's post was one of those.

Here is the poem that provided some of the inspiration for that post:

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

The beauty of the world does not go away while we are experiencing some kind of issue in our life. We cry, we hurt, we share our pain, and "meanwhile, the world goes on". It's a gentle reminder. We don't have to feel a certain way or behave in a certain way. Feel what you feel. Share it. But don't ignore the beauty that never stops and surrounds you constantly.

I discovered Mr Louie Schwartzberg this week and I am a huge fan. He has been doing timelapse photography of nature for years and his work is awe-inspiring. Please watch this video. Prepare to be amazed and, possibly, shed a tear or two as you witness the dance of nature that we fail to notice although it surrounds us every day.

Did you want to stand up right where you are and join the audience in their standing ovation? I did. (I wanted to that is. I didn't actually do it).

Here's what I love about Mary Oliver's poem. She isn't saying "the nerve of you to feel anything but wonderful! Look at all the beauty around you!" What she is saying is this: Feel what you feel. Don't let anyone shame you into being anything other than you. Feel it. Share it. But please do not let yourself forget the miracles that go on around us every day. Yes, you hurt but the world in all its beauty goes on. If you need a reminder then bookmark Mr Schwartzberg's video and watch it when you're getting tunnel vision on life's problems. Keep some perspective. The world is a beautiful place if you just take the time to look.

Before we go, two examples of beauty in humanity.



Kindness goes on everywhere every day. We just have to open our eyes. Look out and up. Get our focus off ourselves and onto something external. We are all part of a larger world and we miss so much of what it has to offer.