I've been thinking about inspiration lately ... probably because I need a dose! So this week, I'm going to focus on this unique need within the human spirit.
Long ago I realized that color energizes me (see my earlier post, "The nature of color"). Quotes and personal stories can also lift up my spirits. And nature ... but not today. My mind has already turned to spring and the monochromatic hues of winter seem lifeless by comparison.
I see the deer traversing through my backyard and wonder if the season has become as dreary for them as it has for me. Do animals see beauty? Can they marvel in the elaborate patterns seen nature? Like the intricate designs on a butterfly's wing --functional as well as beautiful. Or the delicate petals of the smallest blossom. I wonder. Perhaps they are so involved with day-to-day survival that aesthetic indulgence is a luxury they cannot afford. But I'll never know.
What I do know is this: ultimately I decide what, for me, is inspirational and what is drudgery. Sometimes it is only a matter of taking a closer look at what is before me that makes all the difference as I implied in the post "Small wonder." Other times, I need to take wider look to take in the big picture. As Dr. Paul G. Ellis has noted, "Any place can be inspirational when you recognise that our Earth is itself a 'heaven' of sorts ..."
That having been said, I'd like to repost his thought-provoking YouTube video (originally featured in July 2007). On this gray day, I need the reminder that I'm living within a miracle. And maybe that reminder is all that inspiration really is. [length 1:34]
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