Beauty: The Blur of Morning Becomes Meaning

The blur of morning is ground fog steaming from the fields

—

With my first cup of coffee or my first step outside, the sun bursts like a bloom through the mist into the rising of the day. And there in my front yard my path is before me. My own path, with all its shadows and its gleaming, to be reckoned with.

The outside world usually becomes a metaphor for my inner world, and vice a versa. When I make such connections of meaning in moments like these, I feel alive. Meaning is everywhere. You just have to take the time to see it.

So I do. Because what's more important than feeling alive? Feeling alive is having an experience of meaning, whether emotional, spiritual, physical, or intellectual. I can have that feeling of being alive if I watch for it. And the more I do, like any practice, the more my life becomes a series of such moments of feeling alive.

This is similar to the practice of mindfulness, of being aware of the moment. But for me, it’s more like finding a way to experience aliveness in any moment by watching for meaning. If I do—all the moments of my life—whether waiting in line at Costco, or walking the river trail—all moments of my life have value. Because all of them make me ring, resonate, and feel alive.