Our imaginations are at work as I recollect and you picture my memory and associate onwards with your own. One resource that continues to reveal itself to me is my vivid remembrance of times up in the High Sierras with my family.
The air, so bright and clear, making everything around me so sharp and vivid. Cooking with fire, drinking the delicious water from the mountain streams, going for long walks called "hikes," seeing my Dad's beard grow each day, jumping in and out of a clear-as-glass freezing cold lake all naked, watching the stars appear as bright as could be, the night sky overwhelming in its majesty and beauty.
It was my one and only fishing or hunting experience when I caught a rainbow trout in the freshet tumbling down the mountainside next to our camping spot. Holding its sparkling body in my hands, then being persuaded to donate it to our dinner, and then deciding I wasn't going to do that again. Everything became so clear up in the mountains.
All of the above and so much more is always here with me, not only in crystal clear memories, but also in my living spirit that animates my fingers right now as I write to you.
You. You have special places, treasured moments, whether you be sixteen or forty-six or sixty-four. As your imagination opens and stretches out, that you may recall or create images of those special places and treasured moments, you experience a subtle or perhaps even marked change in how you're feeling inside. I ask you now to let the images that have just arisen and the feelings you are feeling lift up and move with you when you next stand up and go about your day.
Awareness of the strength and resourcefulness and beauty that is yours and is ever at your beck and call, from sleeping to waking to stretching to moving and living your day always is right here, though we often forget to look up.
Here we are, on earth, at this very moment.