This morning as I admired my neighbors “store” I realized Earth is a jewelry store. We are surrounded by gems and treasures freely given by Mother Nature. Do we actually receive these gems? Do we really stop to accept and take in the beauty offered us on a myriad of levels?
I appreciate the flowers and the birds and most all nature especially when everything’s going my way ie. the squirrels aren’t eating all the bird seed and the weeds aren’t taking over the flower beds. (The squirrel just outside the window to my right must have heard me because literally the second I wrote the prior sentence, I heard a swooshing noise and looked out to see a mound of expensive seed on the ground and the bottom of the feeder open with a squirrel atop the mound.) I knew that feeder needed repair when I hung it this morning, but I had more “important” things to do.
I think of myself as appreciating nature, yet when I hurriedly eat I miss an opportunity to receive, to savor the crunch, the texture, the taste of vegetables newly grown from Earth. I say I appreciate nature, but if I get mired in despair over our mistreatment of animals and the environment I miss out on an opportunity to complete a cycle sitting at my heart’s door. I miss an opportunity to feel gratitude to the animals for continuing to come here. (Last night while watching coverage of the continuing Gulf oil spill. I wept tears of gratitude and sorrow as I looked at brown dying marsh land and a beautiful dead bird. I said aloud, "Thank you, thank you for coming here. I have been negligent in appreciating you. I am grateful, so very grateful for you.") Every time I drive by a dead animal on the roadside and go straight to sadness I miss an opportunity to feel joy toward this animal and its kin for continuing to show up here on Earth as a participant in the web of life. Every time I angrily sign a petition to stop insensitive corporate farming practices, I am not only energetically generating an opposite response from someone else but I am forgetting to feel grateful that the cows, chickens, sheep, pigs, wolves, panthers, bears and lions are here to begin with. (I will sign the next petition in gratitude.)
The animals keep arriving here to wake us up to the beautiful web of life in this jewelry store filled with clover and so much more. We are stewards of gem-filled Earth, surrounded by gems of joy reminding us of the greatest gem within us all, the gem of the heart.*
-Imagine the Shift!, Dawn, 3 June 2010
*The heart truly is a powerful gem of untapped resource and energy. The electromagnetic field around the heart is approx 5,000 times greater in strength than the field produced by the brain according to HeartMath Institute researchers. Using a magnetometer, they found the heart’s field radiates 8 -10 feet outside the body. To learn more go to www.heartmath.org
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