When Peace Like A Wave..

It is ‘swell.

I’m not sure how any of you have been feeling lately, but I feel just a bit overwhelmed by life. I have recently made the decision that I’m over this anxiety and I am determined to create a place for peace in my life.

I am crazy lucky to have the opportunity to experience peace from beauty. Do you know what I mean by that? It’s that feeling you get when you look up at a sky full of stars, or when you hike for 2 hours up a mountain only to stop and take in the rolling hills. Or if you journey to Cascade River or Tettegouche High Falls and have that one moment without anyone else around you. Perhaps you catch a wave bubbling over the lake. However you find this moment, you know when you’re there. The overwhelming sense of your size, the insignificance of your problems. Nestled within the beauty that nature brings us, we find peace.

Beauty can heal us. Our entire bodies/ hearts/ minds/ souls crave beauty. Think about it.. If a loved one dies, we send flowers. Where I worked at a nursing home, the coveted beds were near the window. We’re constantly told having fresh flowers in the home lifts depression. We’re told to get outside and plant a garden. There is some evidence out there of walking barefoot on the ground and standing near large bodies of water actually alleviating physical pain (I’ll let you google that one..).

We spend so much of our time, perhaps a little more lately, staring at a computer or TV screen. We get so wrapped up in our head (ok.. maybe it’s just me) obsessing, churning over so many little things. But if we take a moment – breathe – and look at that lovely little Hyacinth plant..smell all the lovely smells.. everything feels just a little bit better.

The goal of artists throughout history has been to capture our attention with beauty. They want to make us feel something when we look at their art. Van Gogh has got to be my all time favorite painter (I know, he’s popular so that’s a cheap and easy choice). If you look at his paintings, you feel them. Your world fades away into the world that the artist created.

It’s even reassuring to know it’s always there. No matter where we are, there is some kind of beauty to find. We look out that window. We step into the back yard. We look up at the art we’ve collected on our walls. Beauty is there. It is a constant. If we take just one moment, a breath away from the stress of every day life, we can find it.

Maybe that should be our goal. I’m so blessed to have this really groovy Photographer’s art all over my walls… I get to see beauty even inside our house. If you have any of Christian’s images, you know what I mean. They can draw you right in. We can continuously make the choice to use these tools right now. Look at that wave picture. Feel that moment. I’m constantly using the term “immersive” because that is what his art does for me, it draws me in and I’m suddenly a part of the image, a part of that moment.

There is a phrase I have always loved that comes from particle physics (sorry, I won’t go too crazy here….) that says, The simple act of observing an object changes the object observed. Because I’m looking at that wave picture, it changes. Suddenly I’m a part of the whole experience. I get to be beautiful, because I’m observing beauty.

It could lead you through a meditation if that’s your jam.. or just provide a moment outside your head. Take the time today to look at the art hanging on your wall, or if you have yet to become a collector, just browse through the images on the Photographer’s website -I’m not telling you to go shopping, just take advantage of the view. 😉 www.christiandalbecphotography.com . Find your favorite image and spend even one minute, soaking it in.

I promise. You won’t regret it.

I hope you can all experience the peace and healing in a captured moment of beauty. Take care. And please, continue to watch out for deer. <3

FYI… The pictures above are images no one has seen yet. I asked Christian to let me have some of his most recent favorites without telling him what I was writing about. 🙂 We’re special.