The Wonderful World

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful World,

With the wonderful water round you curled,

And the wonderful grass upon your breast,

World, you are beautifully dressed.

The wonderful air is over me,

And the wonderful wind is shaking the tree -

It walks on the water, and whirls the mills,

And talks to itself on the tops of the hills.

You friendly Earth, how far do you go,

With the wheat-fields that nod and the rivers that flow,

With cities and gardens, and cliffs and isles,

And people upon you for thousands of miles?

Ah! you are so great, and I am so small,

I tremble to think of you, World, at all;

And yet, when I said my prayers today,

A whisper inside me seemed to say,

"You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot:

You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!"

William Brighty Rands 

How often do we take time to appreciate all the great gifts our Mother Earth has provided us with?  How beautiful is life? It's such a special honor to walk this Earth.  Soon a new season will be upon us.  Summer will pass as if it never were here, and Autumn with all of its spectacular colors will arrive.  It is a season of change as we begin to prepare for the cold winter months.

Autumn days are shorter and cooler, and the leaves turn orange, yellow, and brown as they begin to fall from the trees.  It has always been a special time of the year for me, but this year it will be all the more special.  For this year I have learned how fragile life can be, how one can walk about oblivious to what is going on around them, oblivious to what is going on within them.  I have learned that our time here is, indeed, short, and if we blink we will miss it.

"Only if one loves this earth with unbending passion can one relieve

one's sadness," don Juan said. "Warriors are always joyful because

their love is unalterable and their beloved, the earth, embraces them

and bestows upon them inconceivable gifts. The sadness belongs only

to those who hate the very thing that gives shelter to their beings."

Don Juan again caressed the ground with tenderness.

"This lovely being, which is alive to its last recesses and understands

every feeling, soothed me, it cured me of my pains, and finally when

I had fully understood my love for it, it taught me freedom."

Carlos Castaneda