*BEAUTY MATTERS*

You are surrounded by beauty. If you will but allow yourself, you will see beauty everywhere. Instead of problems, instead of personal dramas, see beauty. This week, bring beauty to your consciousness; let it lie in your mind. Each moment that you can think of it, bring your conscious awareness to the beauty which surrounds you.

Much of this beauty is already there and simply unnoticed. The beauty of the bird's song at dawn. The beauty of the sky, of each leaf, of each flower, no matter how small, no matter how common. The beauty of each animal. The beauty of hands and eyes. The beauty of music. The beauty of a voice. Let your eyes and ears feast on beauty all week.

And if there are areas of your life that seem too plain and bereft of interest and beauty, then make it jour job to change this. Hang a picture. Paint a wall. Put a fresh flower in a vase. Carry around a tiny object which is beautiful to you and put it on the surface in front of you to remind you of the great beauty of life.

And of course, begin every morning with a contemplation of beauty. This may be an open-eye contemplation, a meditation which consists of simply clearing your mind and looking at something beautiful for a few minutes, perhaps while listening to music which you find particularly moving. Or it can be a closed-eye meditation in which you visualize something of great beauty, perhaps a time when you were in awe of something which dazzled the eye and the heart.

But either way, begin your day with at least a few minutes of beauty, something deeply beautiful enough to touch your heart, to open your heart, and to let you approach your day with both gratitude and vulnerability.

Yes, vulnerability, for sometimes you can harden yourself too much in your attempts to get through the day, the week. And you need to open yourself enough to receive the new, the lovely, the beautiful.

And as you go through the week, opening yourself to beauty each morning and then remembering to be consciously aware of it through the day, feel your heart soften, feel your edges blur a bit, feel how you can again touch gratitude and feel less burdened.

You are beautiful. No matter what anyone else says, no matter how you might compare with the current style standards of society, you are beautiful. Do not disbelieve it. Embrace it. As you contemplate what is beautiful and learn to
appreciate it through the week, appreciate also yourself and all that you are. Spend a moment looking deep into your own eyes and see the depth and the beauty there, the way your soul shines out in love and gratitude.

Stand before the mirror. Close your eyes and breathe in deeply. Then fill yourself with love, opening yourself up to the love of the universe which is there for you, always. Fill your heart with love and caring, for others, for yourself, for life itself. Get yourself as full of love as you possibly can. And then, open your eyes. Now look deeply into your own eyes until you can embrace the beauty of your soul which is shining out in love. Embrace this beauty, know this beauty and then ask that it may shine out all day long, sharing with others the deep love of life which is within you and is shining in the deep beauty of your eyes.

Let that soft and open feeling go out into the day with you. Know that you do not need to be hard to deal with what life brings. Let yourself appreciate beauty and let yourself find loving solutions to what happens, solutions which respect you, yes, but which also respect and encompass others in their beauty and truth.


				*BEAUTY MATTERS*