Tag Archives: beauty

Appreciate the Beauty of Life

“Take time to smell the flowers” is such a well-known phrase, I suppose it may be almost cliche. However, how many of us actually live it? Intentionally taking notice of life’s beauty is a regular habit we would all benefit from cultivating.

The beauty of life is all around us, all the time, but we are often too overwhelmed with our daily work and personal problems, or the ugliness in the news, to notice it.

Life is a precious gift. When we see the beauty and feel gratitude for it, we are essentially saying thank you for that gift. Gratitude is a great amplifier. That which we focus on expands and ripples outward.

Not only do we give ourselves a much needed healing elixir, but we raise our vibration and people around us feel it. Just one more seemingly small way (but it’s huge!) that we can heal the world around us.

The featured photo is one I took in Thailand. This little spirit house was tucked into the corner of a property near the road. I noticed it as I walked home one day, and luckily I had my camera with me. 🙂 It was a little bit of unexpected beauty…

“Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.” ~ Saul Bellow

More Inspirational Quotes:

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.” ~ T.S. Eliot

“At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.” ~ Toni Morrison

“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” ~ Rumi

“You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination.” ~ Roman Payne

© Susan L Hart 2023

This post is an excerpt from my ebook Becoming Bigger: Realizations of Self & Humanity. Get it free when you subscribe for my monthly newsletter.

Susan L Hart 2023 / HartInspirations.com

Your Love

Beauty

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Physical beauty. It’s still often one of the most highly valued attributes in our society, and particularly in women. Of course, beauty is a wonderful thing to behold and enjoy. But are you aware of positive deeper attributes we automatically apply to an attractive face?

Here’s a great Psychology Today article on beauty and its effect on our psyche: The Surprising Power of a Beautiful Face. A short quote: “[what psychologists call] the halo effect causes one trait (e.g., beauty) to drastically color your perception of all other traits. If you think someone is beautiful, you are also likely to assume they’re smart, ambitious, interesting, etc. We’ve all made these assumptions before, for good or ill.”

We are hard-wired to judge based on appearances

The assumptions we make are evidently hard-wired labels in our brains. So we can be forgiven – at least a little bit. As an interesting exercise, the next time you see a beautiful or handsome face, observe your thought process. Do you quickly assume the person is also intelligent, educated, polite, nice, etc?

Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of beauty and love, is laughing in her heaven. She knows, beauty has exerted power for eons.

Beautiful Life Quotes:

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
~ Maya Angelou

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
~ Helen Keller

“Life becomes easier and more beautiful when we can see the good in other people.”
~ Roy T. Bennett

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
~ Marcus Aurelius

Laughing Flowers

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“The Earth laughs in flowers.” Wildflowers in a field, what a wonderful symbol of the joy of nature and the Earth! When I read Emerson’s words, I cannot help but smile inside. They lift my heart, for flowers are a precious gift. Their heady fragrances and gorgeous colors soothe our aching souls.

We need the healing power of nature now more than ever. The Earth is devoted and steadfast with her gifts. In a world that feels increasingly troubled, flowers help us reconnect to our inherent joyful soul center.

More Inspirational Quotes:

“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.” ~ A.A. Milne

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
~ William Blake

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
~ Pablo Neruda

“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”
~ Rumi

“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up.
Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love.
So if you love a flower, let it be.
Love is not about possession.
Love is about appreciation.”
~ Osho

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.”
~ Vincent van Gogh

“If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers…”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Laughing Flowers © Susan L Hart 2020 | Friendly comments welcome | Photo courtesy David Bartus, Pexels, Free-Photos, Pixabay

Pinnacle of Spirit

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Mighty Chimborazo! If you have never heard of it, Chimborazo is a dormant volcano, the highest mountain in Ecuador, and the highest peak near the equator. At 20,548 ft., its summit is the farthest point on the Earth’s surface from the Earth’s center. The indigenous in Ecuador have dubbed Chimborazo “Taita”, meaning father.

Chimborazo takes my breath away

Two years ago I was fortunate to visit Chimborazo National Park. A guide drove our little group about three-quarters of the way up the mountain to a rest station, at about 16,000 ft. We got out of the van to walk around, and we all experienced dizziness and shortness of breath with very little exertion.

I was quite frankly in awe of the power and majesty of this mountain, and also the fact that one of my friends had (on a whim!) climbed from base to summit some years ago. What an accomplishment! Our guide told us that this is one of the most dangerous mountains in the world and other climbers have perished attempting to conquer it.

The feeling of freedom

As I stood at our rest point and gazed upward to the summit, my spirit soared. I have experienced this at other spectacular nature spots in my travels. I was lost in the magnitude and grandeur of the space. In that moment, I was simply a human being connected to the Earth, unencumbered by what I am required to be in our civilization.

It was just the sky, Chimborazo, and me.

And my spirit felt free.

More in Chimborazo here: Mount Chimborazo is Actually the Highest Point on Earth

Feeling a sudden urge to climb Chimborazo? A few tips for you: Chimborazo