Summer’s Dawn in the Meadow, Spring’s Dawn in the Meadow and The Watch over Fox Farm are the latest in the series titled “Be Here, Now”.

My recent work all relates to one common theme: we don’t have to travel, to acquire, to seek the new, in order to experience the reverence that comes with witnessing great beauty.  All we must do is really see what’s around us in our everyday.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

— Marcel Proust

I always thought I would see the beautiful wonders of the world, but priorities have changed over time, as real life has settled around me.  Reserving our resources for raising our family, we haven’t traveled much.  Now living in pandemic times, I’m grateful to have made peace with staying put, and to have learned to look for magic and wonder in the small things around me, where I am now.

This Great Pause, as a wonderful friend has called it, has helped to slow the pace, to encourage looking for the world’s beauty around me, in the little things, in the big things.  The view outside our kitchen window as the seasons change, for instance.  The morning sun on the meadow beyond the row of cedars, as I wash the dishes.  The community of birds hanging out on the power lines over Fox Farm Road as I return home from running errands.

My wish for us all as we live in this new normal, is that we all may slow down, and notice the gifts in our everyday.