Today I was reminded of the delight and surprise I experience when nature reveals her beauty.  Surprise, because she shows up at unexpected times and places in a myriad of disguises.  Hiking up the steep dirt trail that I walk almost every day with my black Labrador retriever I was taken aback by sparkling light that seemed to dance in the air, reflections from a thicket of branches dusted in a frosty snow.  It was as if the whole hillside had been sprinkled with glitter – and I was grateful that I actually noticed instead of being distracted by the world inside my head.  In The Color Purple, Alice Walker describes awakening to beauty in the following dialogue between Shug and Celie:

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” 

“What do it do when it pissed off?”  Celie asks.

“Oh, it make something else.  People think pleasing God is all God care about.  But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.”

“Yeah?”  I say.

“Yeah,” she say.  “It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.”

Beauty speaks the language of the soul disregarding the limitations of our thoughts, our schedules, or our particular circumstance in life.  I find I need beauty near by, especially in my home as a reminder to enter into this soul dialogue.  Sometimes it can feel like a luxury to purchase a piece of art but I’m beginning to believe it’s a necessity of the heart, just as having a furnace is necessary to keep my body warm during the chill of winter.  A painting on the wall with vivid colors, a vase of flowers from a neighbor’s garden, or listening to Mozart being played on the piano warms a place deep within my being.  And sometimes when I look our my window I resonate with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s words:  Earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God, or in my case, every bush aglitter with God.

I have read that color has the power to stimulate our emotions and cause a variety of physiological responses in our bodies.  Green is known to have a soothing and balancing quality while strong yellows, like the sun, are warming and stimulate the brain.  Blue suppresses the appetite and red activates it which makes it a great color for a dining room.  One thing is sure; color evokes a response in all people at some level.  I become particularly aware of this during the fall as I expectantly await the turning of aspen trees like a child waiting to open presents on Christmas morning.  Interestingly enough, the colors I chose for my family’s mountain cabin include golden logs and red cabinets – I suppose subconsciously I was trying to capture the essence of fall which is a feast for my eyes.  Though nature will soon offer a backdrop of grays, blues and silver, I will savor the warm colors of fall until the last leaf has fallen from the trees.

It is morning.  Well past sunrise but early enough that the day still feels fresh.  The pump from the hot tub that stands tucked into the corner of the porch gurgles as if gulping down the water it holds – white noise that fades into the background.  The sky is pale blue with patches of gray and white clouds that stretch into long, flat ovals.  A few billowing clouds cling to the ridge of the mountains in the distance and like a refreshing glass of water, the air is clear and clean.  In this moment I am content and I am reminded of why I come away to the cabin.  Ah, to start every day like today.  Though I’d like to linger at the cabin for days, my life back home beckons me.  Perhaps I’ll try getting up a little bit earlier each morning to remember the magic of the cabin; taking time to watch the day begin.