Paulo Coelho said,
“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”
Welcome to The Soul Podcast. I’m Stacey Wheeler.
One morning, while sleeping in a little hut on the beach in Mexico, I pushed open the door to watch the sunrise over the Sea of Cortez. It was still a half an hour before the sun would hit the horizon, but the clouds hanging over the sea we’re back lit from the coming dawn and a pink glow was cast across the sky. It was the kind of sunrise that defied my desire to find adequate words to describe it. My view was spectacular. I lay there in bed, taking in all of its beauty. It occurred to me that no matter where a person was in the world, even on the same beach, even just inches from me, their view would not be entirely the same as mine. because the angle I watched the sunrise from would be slightly different. And my eyes would be slightly different. And the specific way, the beauty touched me would be unique from the way it touched another person.
I paused in my philosophical thought, and I reached over to check my phone for messages. There were none, but I got distracted for a minute or two doing something on the device. When I looked out again at the sky, it had changed.
There was less pink now. There was more gray.
I felt an immediate sensation of regret that I had missed the transition between the old sky and the new one. I had become distracted, and I missed the beauty.
There are tens of thousands of moments in our day when we get distracted, and we miss the beauty. Our lives are filled with many things. They call for our attention throughout the day and we must attend to them. And there are also an endless number of moments, punctuated by things of beauty in each day, when we can allow ourselves to pause to see them. Yet we only see them when we do it willingly. The laughter of a child. The shades of leaves on a tree in autumn. A grazing horse in a field of long grass. A flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk. The wind slowly blowing across a field of wheat. The simple kindness of a stranger. Though we may occasionally recognize some of these things throughout our day, these are all moments we mostly ignore. We are too busy trying to accomplish the things we believe are so-very important. The beauty is always there. But we take it for granted. Afterall -it’s always there, right?
We’ve been conditioned to believe that adulting activities should be the most vital part of our day.; making the money to pay the bills, buying the food to put on the table, buying pretty things that may be impressive to others… In our world, these things are important. And these things are not where we find beauty most often. We find most beauty in the moment.
There are tens of thousands of beautiful things we encounter each day. And like the sunrise, we often look away. When we look back, the beauty may be gone.
And then there are other times. Times when we can’t see the beauty because we’re too focused on the things that aren’t just right. And perhaps that’s why we love a sunset or sunrise so much. There’s a certain perfection to them. A spacious vast beauty. But they, too, are flawed.
Paulo Coelho reminds us…
“Don't forget: Beautiful sunsets need cloudy Skies.”
When I realized I missed part of the pre-sunrise, beauty, I became distracted in my little hut. Organizing things, tidying up… Getting ready for my day of doing things.
When I looked up, the sky was a glow. Far off in the distance behind a massive bank of ugly gray clouds, streaks of yellow and gold shot up, making the cloud look like a crown floating in the sky. As far as I could see, light fringed the edges of the cloud, and offering a one time view of magnificence that I knew could only be seen this way from the place in my hut. From this place in my heart.
I witnessed the beauty until the sun broke through the cloud, and I had to turn away to protect my eyes from the sudden glare.
It was daybreak.
And so, I paused to write. To remind myself of the beauty that surrounds me each day. To remind myself to watch for it. To remind myself to pause and appreciate it.
And Paulo Coelho said,
“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”
Today I hope to be wise enough to see the simple and most extraordinary things.