The work day is over, and I just looked up from my computer and found myself strangely startled by how beautiful it is out.  It’s amazing how detached I can feel from nature while I’m “plugged in”, clicking away at my computer keyboard.  But all it takes is two minutes of observation to bring me back to feeling more centered and connected with reality.  Here’s what I just noticed:

• The magical, golden evening sunlight streaming through the trees
• A Daddy Long Legs striding confidently across the patio
• An inch worm slowly making its way across a stone wall
• A bumble bee hovering over the miniature forest of creeping thyme
• The first red tinges of autumn on the maples, glowing fiercely in the sun
• The warm golds and auburns of the garden mums
• The soft greens of the ferns
• The sweet song of evening crickets and one very vocal chipmunk

I especially love observing the small, the overlooked, and what some would consider to be the “commonplace.”  They are all miracles of nature, after all.

What can you observe in two minutes?

The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. – Albert Schweitzer