The Sand Box
My favorite game to play with our six-month old daughter allows her to teach me about beauty. It’s pretty simple. We go on a walk together, sometimes inside the house, sometimes outside, and we keep visiting different places until she lights up with the splendor of things. The first time we played was by chance. We were walking past the garden and something captured her gaze over my shoulder. When I looked back to see what it was, it seemed like it might be the coneflowers. So I retraced my steps and slowly approached the purple and orange flowers growing behind the stone wall. I held her so she would have her head level with the blossoms. Sure enough her delight beamed in a smile across her face, expressing silently “wow! look at that!”
About a week ago I took her to visit the small brook that runs along our property. A huge pipe runs the stream under the county road and the water spills down a three foot falls into a pool, before heading on its journey to the Delaware River. Again, huge smiles. The next time we visited Judith’s studio. I brought her eye to eye with a recent cloud painting, so that the image would fill her visual field. Again, “wow.”
This morning it happened while passing a stained glass window. The dappled effect of the outdoor scene filtered through pebbled glass held her interest for over ten minutes. I’ve walked past this window every day for three years. I never saw it till today.
Lifestream Digest for November 10th
...along the Devil's Path
Heads or Hearts 
Lifestream Digest for December 6th