 Hey there beautiful souls, this is Ono with Art of Awakening and I am just coming to you with a little taste of beauty for this I'm recording this on a Sunday morning outside of Municing, Michigan, and I'm I Don't even know where I am. I'm somewhere near the pictured rocks Whatever it's called pictured rocks national Wildlife, whatever refuge Anyway, I'm in the sort of middle in the freaking woods and it's beautiful and I just wanted to share with you a little bit You know kind of what I'm experiencing. I've never been on this trail before. It's just sort of a Logging road through the woods. I don't know where we're going. We're just gonna find out so Join me if you want So here we are and I thought maybe we'd just start with a little bit of silence listen to the birds And I'm just gonna start down the path here. We'll see See where it takes us It's been kind of a long Long haul long cold winter this winter up here and we're finally getting spring. It's June 2nd Sometimes that's the way it goes and I think for some of us. It's been a long haul Yeah, this awakening process isn't always easy, but there's a lot of beauty along the way and Kind of thinking about beauty I think a lot of us have Just denied ourselves beauty in a lot of ways Beauty in our lives When you think about it Beauty is important thing. Oh There's a lake. I didn't even know there was gonna be a lake. This is great Beauty is food for the soul and if you look at Even just the the everyday objects That we use if you look at like the the old-fashioned things They're all like decorated Wow look at that see the sun sparkling on the lake look at old buildings and they've got all those little details Sometimes even the doorknobs are Beautifully decorated look at this. It's just gorgeous Just the light on the water So there's there's a lot of you know our culture likes functionality and efficiency and you know, that's good I mean, I think if you look at nature nature is very Functional and efficient and I love to pattern everything after nature because I think nature is the ultimate template for how to live nature just teaches us How to live how to live in a beautiful way and nature is so extremely functional and efficient But everything in nature is beautiful, too They're not mutually exclusive. In fact, I would I Almost think that beauty beauty and efficiency go hand-in-hand because beauty allows you to Kind of relax into it There's no tension and you know, it's not that everything. It's beautiful is I guess it's not Pollyanna, right? I mean Sad things can be beautiful. Sometimes the most beautiful things are Sad, I mean look at those flowers Take you and show you these are forget-me-nots and yellow violets and They're only here. They're only here with us for a few days Right, and it's kind of sad right to this beauty and it's it's not gonna be here alone, but that's hi-jazz It's part of the beauty of it, right is that It's transitory We know that so we appreciate it all the more Each moment is such a transitory thing. I think you know each moment if we really live it can be beautiful And I think sometimes we just rushed through our days. I Know I do Even if I don't feel rushed sometimes it's the other way around sometimes it's like is this day if we're gonna end You know or is this project of we're gonna end or whatever it is And it's like we're not thinking about the beauty in it or we're so caught up in Whatever it is that we think we ought to do That we forget to look for the beauty and I think that's That's the tragic part we forget to look for the beauty we forget to Realize that there is beauty in life And we're so focused on whatever it is that we're supposed to do Or we think we're supposed to do That we forget how important it is to have beauty in our lives and we we sacrifice the beauty for For whatever whatever it is illusion maybe But if it's not beautiful What's the point You know here we go Something jumped in the water. I don't know if you heard that big plop Anyway, I'm just gonna leave you here with just a little bit of a little bit more beauty. Let me pull you in here and Little critter. There's the lovely green of the the reeds and the blue and Just an encouragement today to take a little time and Invite invite beauty into your life. Okay, so hope you've enjoyed love you all and catch you again later