In Springtime, the air is full of earth’s fecundity. Robins dance as they build nests to fill with vulnerability. Blue jays hop along the bare branches full of last night’s rain dropping diamonds of light with every landing. Blooms begin to emerge in surprising places. Everything begins with beauty.

Beauty is sometimes easiest to find in a square inch; one raindrop, one robin’s egg, a newborn’s hands, and her mother’s smile. Sometimes beauty is found in large brushstrokes like the patterns clouds make in the sky at sunset, the steady stream of traffic that brings loved ones home after work, or fresh row of strawberries ripening in the sunshine. Beauty captures our attention in large masterpieces, too. A mountaintop view or a breezy balcony on the edge of the salty sea; an instrumental symphony, a choral harmony or the  sound of rushing waters over swollen rivers. Sooner or later the raindrop we encountered becomes the masterpiece. And, the fleeting beauty of choral voices bring us to notice one single Voice. The words of John Keats in an Ode on a Grecian Urn remind us, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty and that is all you need to know.”

It takes all our senses to receive beauty. It requires an open awareness to all that is. The more beauty we take in, the more beauty is reflected back for others. Practice fecundity.