After the daily ski with Lucy, I like to spend the rest my mornings doing some reading. Usually the morning reading is on something instructional that will teach me something or enhance my life in some way; evening reading is usually a novel, a memoir or a book of poetry.

At the moment, I am reading The Tao of Abundance: Eight Ancient Principles For Abundant Living by Laurence G. Boldt. This morning I read his chapter on “The Beauty of Abundance” and wanted to share a few quotes as they relate so beautifully to yesterday’s post on moments of wonder:

…all nature is rhythm, and manifestly so for those who live in it. Whether it is on the beating of the human heart, the inflow and out-go of breath, the patterns of a leaf, the sound sof a stream, the migrations of animals, or the cycles of days or seasons, the pulse of life is rhythmic. ~ Boldt

Like the Taoists before them, eighteenth century American European Pantheists like Goethe and nineteenth century American transcendentalists like Thoreau advocated the contemplation of nature as a path to transcendence. Their writings exhort us to take the natural world as our temple and find in it the revelation and Beauty of trancendent Mystery. ~Boldt

Wisdom is inherent in nature and reveals iself to people of any nation, race, or time if they will open themselves up to it. We too can avail ourselves of this wisdom by making time to spend in nature. ~Boldt

Spending time in nature allows our bodies to slow down to the rhythms of nature, and to begin to feel at one with them. Our senses become more acute and our attention spans elongate. …In this state of grace, we can begin to more fully appreciate the transcendent wisdom that abounds in nature. ~Boldt

Resource:

Boldt, L. (1999). The Tao of Abundance: Eight Ancient Principles for Abundant Living. New York: Arcana.