treats & treasures

As my birthday month reaches its last day, I glow with a gladness that warms me from head to toe, back to front, inside and out. Though I did not travel abroad this year, I did visit several places that I'd never been before and I've taken you along posting photographs from Nantucket, the Berkshires, San Antonio and most recently Hollywood, FL (more photos to come from the latter on Sunday). I remember sitting at the Kripalu Center questioning why I kept being drawn to serenity, to places so still that I began to relish being still (and was allowed to hear just beyond the whisper). I have come to understand that travel this year was not about hopping on a plane to leave the country for an exotic adventure across the ocean, though I stood at its edge on two trips marveling at the horizon without a thought of being anywhere but just where I was standing.

Each location where I have been fortunate enough to plant my feet has aroused every one of my senses, brought me closer to ground and alerted my sixth sense. The unexpected gifts from nature that I captured through my lens and/or picked up to bring home, each deliberately placed within view for me to treasure, trained my senses to stay heightened. During the months since May when I sat reading on the veranda in Nantucket and July as I breathed in the mountain air that is the Berkshires, I have come to understand that the path to October was about contemplation, awareness and growth. About letting go with grace anything or body, all obstructions that serve no purpose or no longer matter in order to be open to the lessons needed for me to blossom into the fullness of me as I transformed with each venture.

Along the way books, music, movement, true and new friends and family, and a renewed commitment to meditation have sprinkled the journey with joy, gladness and some shaking that shifted both body and mind. My eclectic eye, a blessing that I don't take for granted, has recorded many things I truly have enjoyed sharing in words and pictures; it has also imprinted images on my memory for only my recall. So on this Halloween day, the last in my birthday month, my morning meditation focuses on a different single image for each breath in (this) and out (moment) with gratitude for the many treats and treasures that have come my way.

And there are more to come, so...

keep your peepers open!®