Stopping to smell the flowers - this has been a metaphor for as long as I can remember, and it seems particularly important, and also particularly rare, with the entire world being so connected and all-accessible.
Living in Canada, I get to experience every single season (though not necessarily evenly distributed). Have you ever really sat down just to simply reflect on how absolutely wondrous our world is?
Let's start with Winter.
My favorite moments include snowfalls - but when it is that light, slow snowfall, with no wind and massive collections of snowflakes clumped together. Another favorite moment is waking up in the morning to see all of the trees covered in frost. The sky is blue and the sunshine feels warm, and yet every single tree is perfectly frosted.
Spring
We get to see every possible colour that our limited eyesight can perceive. We see every shade of grey in this season - with thunderstorms and rainclouds, followed by rainbows and skies with fluffy white clouds remaining. We get to see magnificent lightning displays and hear the thunderous roars of light splitting through the sky. Flowers start to bloom and produce every color imaginable. And the scent - you know the one - when the sky has cleared and is a bright blue, that sun is beating down a glorious warmth, and you can literally smell the raindrops on grass needles and flower petals. That untainted, untouched smell of pure, fresh, rain.
Summer
Where the sky seems to be in a consistent glow. The competing senses of warmth from the air itself followed by a coolness in a light breeze that comes at unpredictable moments. The feel of warm sand and cool waters. The flowers that were blooming in the Spring seem to intensify, and you can personify them into seeming as though they are actually joyous colors.
Autumn
From the pastels and dew-touched softness, followed by the intensely exuberant palette of summer, to the deeper colors of autumn leaves. That summer air - still warm, but more comfortable. There is a calmness about the fall. The surroundings seem a little less intense and yet more deeply experienced. Perhaps seeming as though Summer is that exciting, adrenaline-pinching, intense elation, and Autumn being the deeper meaning of it all. The feeling of being truly content and the warm glow that comes from authentic inner happiness.
On my worst days - there is something about being in nature that is so calming. Maybe it's because it is consistent. It has nothing to do with the existence of human beings. It is always there. It is always wondrously beautiful.
From the vastness of starlight - so far beyond our understanding - to the collection of snowflakes, the infinite cycles of what we perceive as seasons, the sound and smell and feel of raindrops, flowers capable of blooming, dying, and regrowing, leaves that become more stunningly beautiful as they die, and that glowing radiance as we absorb the heat from nothing that is in our control.
No matter how things may get, I hope that I never lose the ability to 'stop and smell the roses.'
Mother Nature is something that I do not have control over. It is also the most marvelous wonders of our world. Some things that we cannot control can be a saving grace.