Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams. Ahsley Smith

It rained last night. And then it snowed. This morning, when I opened the front door to get the newspaper from the mail box, diamond like drops hung suspended from the needles of the snow-dusted pine tree by our front door. They glistened in the porch light, tiny irridescent moments of magic suspended in the air.

It was beautiful.

Yesterday, I sat in a room with two other staff members, a facilitator and six clients of the shelter where I work. We were participating in an 'expressive writing' workshop. Margot Van Sluytman, the facilitator, read a poem from her book Dance With Your Healing~tears let me begin to speak~ and invited us to spend ten minutes writing out what feelings arose within each of us from the piece she read. When we were finished, she invited each of us to read something we wrote. There were words of sorrow, of passion, of joy. Words that drifted in the air, momentarily suspended on a breath of hope. Words that darted out and stung like tiny bees busily buzzing in a honey cone. Words that sailed effortlessly into the heart. Beautiful, glistening feelings expressed in words that hung like tiny pearls of light in the air.

It was beautiful.

Later, my eldest daughter Alexis, came by on her way home from work to visit. She stopped in at the art studio to say hello to the artists, many of whom she's worked with in her volunteering at the shelter. As we drove home, she told me how much she enjoyed being in the studio. The vibrancy. The joy. The pure passion that filled the air was inspiring. The contentment of the artists at work, the sense of hope, of possibility hanging suspended in the air, surrounding everyone and everything.

It was beautiful, she said.

Beauty.

It is all around us. Filling out each moment with possibility. With hope. With joy. Amidst the sorrow and the sadness. The joy and the passion, there is beauty overflowing.

We just need to open our eyes and breathe it in through all our senses. Become conscious of all that is around us to the sights and sounds and beauty filling each moment. If beauty is in the beholder, then we must each become the beholder of beauty in our lives.

The question is: Are you opening your eyes to beauty this morning? Are you opening your heart to see the wonder all around you?