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I believe there is beauty to be found in every season, if we look deeply and patiently. I make a practice of looking for beauty and wonder wherever I find myself. Sometimes it is the dramatic colors of sunset, or a glowing moon rising behind the hills, but sometimes it is more subtle -- a bit of green lichen on a dead branch, the wildflowers poking up in a roadside ditch. When I get a chance for some time away on vacation or retreat, this practice brings me special joy as I learn the unique beauty of a new place, and let that beauty nourish my spirit.
One winter I was traveling in the grey and brown season of the year. I was dispirited by the grey skies, the dry brown leaf litter everywhere, the empty trees, the dirty remnants of old ice and snow. I gazed out, that first morning of my visit, over the parking lot at the grey and the mud and I was discouraged. Perhaps it was the fractal patterns of a thin layer of ice over a mud puddle that emerged overnight -- each puddle frosted with fragile geometric patterns -- that first gave my eyes something to enjoy. Perhaps when the weak winter sun finally emerged, so did the birds and chipmunks enjoying the feeder across the parking lot. The moss also responded to the melted snow and the sun’s rays by bursting to life and shining a bit of emerald green contrast to the relentless brown of the landscape. Perhaps it was all these together that helped me tune into the particular beauty of the season of brown and grey. I became curious about the different shapes of the bare branches against the sky- some smooth and round, others twisting in sharp complex angles. Both were beautiful in their own way; each told a different story of many seasons of growth and life. Even the relentlessly brown acorns and oak-leaves, pine-cones and seed pods caught my eye with their abundance and the patterns they made laying in drifts on the ground. It had taken several days of earnest looking for the beauty of that time and place for it to show itself, but in the end, I was moved by its beauty.
In another place and another season, as I walked across the sparkling shells in the tide-pools by the ocean, I knew objectively that what I was looking at could be called beautiful. I felt so unappreciative that I was not able to enjoy that beauty. But my heart was heavy and joy was not available that day. I could only be present with what was real for me. I learned that day that sometimes before I can see the beauty of the season where I am, sometimes I have to grieve the seasons that have passed. I walked, and pondered, and finally wept – the storm outside felt like the storm in my heart and spirit. When the storm passed it was like my eyes had been cleaned, and now I could take in the wonders that had been there all along.
I believe there is beauty everywhere, if we look deeply enough, but it is sometimes hard to see. Here where I live in the Northeast, the green of summer fills the sense. The tulips, crocuses and forsythia of spring offer hopeful bursts of color in the gradually renewing landscape. But winter, after the first frozen storms have made a brown mess and the skies are grey more often than not, can be an ugly season. Even so, there is beauty there if we look patiently and with a loving eye. If you find yourself in such a time, I invite this practice- it’s okay to grieve the loss of summer, to miss the bright colors of May, but have faith that wherever you are there is beauty which can nourish your soul, if only we have the patience to let it reveal itself to us.
