The Art of Exercise

Artist Simon Beck must really love the cold weather! Along the frozen lakes of Savoie, France, he spends days plodding through the snow in raquettes (snowshoes), creating these sensational patterns of snow art. Working for 5-9 hours a day, each final piece is typically the size of three soccer fields! The geometric forms range in mathematical patterns and shapes that create stunning, sometimes 3D, designs when viewed from higher levels. How long these magnificent geometric forms survive is completely dependent on the weather. Beck designs and redesigns the patterns as new snow falls, sometimes unable to finish a piece due to significant overnight accumulations. Interestingly enough, he said, 'The main reason for making them was because I can no longer run properly due to problems with my feet, so plodding about on level snow is the least painful way of getting exercise. Gradually, the reason has become photographing them, and I am considering buying a better camera.” Spectacular art for the sake of exercise!
 Simon Beck- Snow Art

"Art is both the taking and giving of beauty; the turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit. It is the recreation on another plane of the realities of the world; the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men, and of all the inter-relations of these."

~Ansel Adams

LOVE

DO ALL THINGS

WITH  LOVE

Love yourself
Love others
Love without reservation
Love each moment


May you always remember that every moment presents an opportunity to love.

Journey for growth

"The journey between what you once were and who you are now becoming is where the dance of life really takes place."

 ~Barbara Deangelis

May you always remember that the opportunity for growth is now.

Appreciation

You Have Arrived

"For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin. Real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one. Happiness is a journey, not a destination."

~John Phillip Souza

Some people travel around the world looking for where they want to be...searching for happiness and fulfillment. It's not until they return, unfulfilled, that they realize they were there before they even left.

May you always be aware that you have already arrived.

"Caribbean Pink"

 "Well, I don't know. Some things in life, like the color of a house, don't really matter. But lifting someone's heart? Now, that matters."

-August Boatwright: from the novel - The Secret Life of Bees

 

In the book The Secret Life of Bee's August explains to Lily the reason their house is painted "Caribbean Pink" is that it made her sister May feel like dancing a Spanish Flamenco. And while August personally thought it was the tackiest color she had ever seen, if it could lift May's heart, it was good enough to live in.


When we come to any situation from a place of love, where kindness is Queen and lifting the heart of another is King. It is there that we can live strengthened by each other through simple acts of kindness and focus on what truly matters.

May lifting someone's heart, always matter more than what others think.

The Gift of Prayer

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. 

It is daily admission of one's weakness...

And so, it is better in prayer to have a heart

without words than words without a heart.

                                                         -Gandhi

This great spiritual teacher reminds us that prayer of the deepest kind is more a pledge of gratitude for what has already been received than a request or plea for something not yet experienced. Such an effort refreshes the soul.

Implicit in Gandhi's instruction is the need to surrender to our lives here on Earth. By admitting our weaknesses, we lay down all the masks we show the world and as we do so, what is holy floods in.

I once saw a blind man rocking endlessly in the sun, an unstoppable smile on his face. Not a word was uttered. To me, he was a priest, a shaman, and his whole being was praying and shouting in silence that the day, beyond his blindness, was happily enough.

This is what the heart knows beyond all words, if we can find a way to listen: that beyond our small sense of things a magnificent light surrounds us, more than anyone could ask for. This is what prayer as gratitude can open us to.

-Mark Nepo/The Book of Awakening