Just Be

i'm so not what you would call a fad follower or a trend tender. remember when your parents taught you (and maybe you have tried to teach your own kids) that just because everybody is doing it is not a good enough reason to do something? i didn't get that at all at the time, but as i got older, my latent rebel nature started to blossom and i took that idea and ran with it. in other words, whatever everybody else is doing is suspect and should be avoided if at all possible.  ( i realize there is a happy medium in there somewhere.)

 so back to the point of this post - everybody is talking about their "word of the year". so naturally, my first reaction is to run away from the idea - except that, truth be told, i do have one - scratch that, actually it's 2 words (so i'm not really following the crowd, right?)

i started reading this book and realized that i want my focus to be "just be". i'm convinced that many of life's problems can be solved with this simple phrase and keeping it in my consciousness
has already made a difference in my life.




here are some of my favorite "just be" type photos from the last year or so, along with some eckhart tolle quotes from the book:

"the preciousness of being is your true specialness. what the egoic self had been looking for on the level of the story - i want to be special - obscured the fact that you could not be more special than you already are now. not special because you are better or more wretched than someone else, but because you can sense a beauty, a preciousness, an aliveness deep within."

"if you truly look at an oak tree, or a sunset, then what you're looking at goes far beyond being interesting. just be with it, contemplate it, and it is awe inspiring. there is a depth there that defies analysis by the mind".

"see if you can look at these photos with little or no thinking. but don't try not to think. instead, give your complete attention to the act of looking, that is to say, to the perception itself...when you perceive without thought, you are open to the nameless, the deep mystery that pervades all that exists, the presence of the divine."         Eckhart Tolle 

i certainly couldn't have said it better myself!!