Living in the Moment
Susan L. Taylor

  

Feeling connected to the natural world connects us to the rhythms of life.  Get away!  Any way you can.  Walk, drive, take a train or hop on a bus to a peaceful place where you can enjoy the beauty of nature.  In the winter, I go skiing with my husband, and while I'm not that anxious to navigate my way down some steep and winding slopes, I love taking the ski lift up to the majestic mountaintop.  I am awed when I behold the magnificence that God has created all around us.  God's glory is everywhere:  in a field of weeds and wildflowers; in the stillness of the woods with the trees arching over us; in a crystal lake lapping softly at the shore; in the rustling of leaves, the scamper of little animals.

If you can't escape to the country, you can still sit at your window and watch the sky.  You can watch the rain and the snow.  You can visit a nearby park and watch the foliage change with each season.  You can turn your face toward the warmth of the sun or feel a gentle breeze whisper against your skin.  You can wonder at the changing patterns of light in a summer sky, and feel the brisk tingle of snowflakes in a winter storm.  Revel in the knowledge that your senses are finely attuned to these sensations of the natural world.  By staying in tune with nature, you nourish the eternal spirit within, you come back to the center of life and to the awareness that God is everywhere present at each moment in time.

Our beloved poet and sage Maya Angelou believes that every few weeks we should take a day off to do absolutely nothing.  "What we really have to do is take a day and sit down and think," she shared in a recent interview.  "The world is not going to end or fall apart.  Jobs won't be lost.  Kids will not run crazy in one day.  Lovers won't stop speaking to you.  Husbands and wives are not going to disappear.  Just take that one day and think.  Don't read.  Don't write.  No television, no radio, no distractions.  Sit down and think. . . . Go sit in a church, or in the park, or take a long walk and think.  Call it a healing day."

How wise Maya Angelou is.  A healing day, a day just to sit and think, a day in which you become still and experience each precious moment of time.  By learning to stay centered in the moment, we put ourselves in charge.  We experience the joy of living, the wonder in each breath.  If we take control of the world within ourselves, no circumstance outside us will have its way with us.  When we live moment to moment, we place ourselves at the center of life, where infinite wisdom abides, rather than on the periphery, where things are forever changing and we are susceptible to the vagaries of the world.  It is in our awareness each moment of our oneness with God that our inner peace and greatest strength lie.

Read more on nature here.  Read more on rest here.

  

A soul who is not close to nature is far away from what is called
spirituality.  In order to be spiritual one must communicate, and
especially one must communicate with nature; one must feel nature.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

  


 
quotations - contents - welcome page - obstacles
our current e-zine - the people behind the words - articles and excerpts
Daily Meditations, Year One - Year Two - Year Three - Year Four
     

Sign up for your free daily spiritual or general quotation
~ ~ Sign up for your free daily meditation

  

  
®

All contents © Living Life Fully®, all rights reserved.

   

We have some inspiring and motivational books that may interest you.  Our main way of supporting this site is through the sale of books, either physical copies or digital copies for your Amazon Kindle (including the online reader).  All of the money that we earn through them comes back to the site in one way or another.  Just click on the picture to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and non-fiction!

   

        

Quotations for Living Life Fully
If you want to have many of the quotations that you find here on our pages to take with you wherever you go, whenever you go there, our collection of quotations--over 3800 of them--is available for the Kindle for just 99 cents!  (It's available only on the Kindle because the price would end up being far too high for a print copy.)  Some of the wisest words that you will ever read, all organized by topic and ready to provide you with encouragement, motivation, and reinforcement.  This may be the best dollar you ever spend!

     

Explore all of our quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on the same topic.

HOME - contents - Daily Meditations - abundance - acceptance - achievement - action - adversity
advertising - aging - ambition- anger - anticipation - anxiety - apathy - appreciation - arrogance
art - attitude - authenticity - awakening - awareness - awe - balance - beauty - being yourself
beliefs - body - brooding - busyness - caring - celebration - challenges -
change - character
charity - children - choices - Christianity - coincidence - commitment - common sense - community
comparison
- compassion - competition - complaining - compliments - compromise - confidence
conformity - conscience - contentment - control - cooperation - courage -
covetousness
creativity - crisis - criticism - cruelty -  death - decisions - desire - determination - disappointment
discipline - discouragement - diversity - doubt - dreams - earth - education - ego - emotions
encouragement - enlightenment - enthusiasm - envy - eternity - ethics - example - exercise
experience - failure - faith - fame - family - fate - fathers - fault-finding - fear - feelings - finances
flowers - forgiveness - freedom - friendship - frustration - fun - the future - garden of life - gardening
generosity - gentleness - giving - goals - God - goodness - grace - gratitude - greatness - greed - grief
growing up - guilt - habit - happiness - hatred - healing - health - heart - helpfulness - home
honesty - hope - hospitality - humility - hurry - ideals - identity - idleness  - idolatry - ignorance
illusion - imagination - impatience - individuality - the inner child - inspiration - integrity - intimacy
introspection - intuition - jealousy - journey of life - joy - judgment - karma - kindness - knowledge
language - laughter - laziness - leadership - learning - letting go - life - listening - loneliness
love - lying - magic - marriage - materialism - meanness - meditation - mindfulness - miracles
mistakes - mistrust - moderation - money - mothers - motivation - music - mystery - nature
negative attitude - now - oneness - open-mindedness - opportunity - optimism - pain - parenting
passion - the past - patience - peace - perfectionism - perseverance - perspective - pessimism
play - poetry - positive thoughts - possessions - potential - poverty - power - praise - prayer
prejudice - pride - principle - problems - progress - prosperity - purpose - racism - reading -recreation
reflection - relationships - religion - reputation - resentment - respect - responsibility - rest
revenge - risk - role models - running - ruts - sadness - safety - seasons of life - self - self-love
self-pity - self-reliance - self-respect selfishness - serving others - shame - silence - simplicity
slowing down - smiles -solitude - sorrow - spirit - stories - strength - stress - stupidity - success
suffering - talent - the tapestry of life - teachers - thoughts - time - today - tolerance - traditions
trees - trust - truth - unfulfilled dreams - values - vanity - virtue - vulnerability - walking - war
wealth - weight issues - wisdom - women - wonder - work - worry - worship - youth - Zen sayings

spring
- summer - fall - winter
Christmas - Thanksgiving - New Year - America
Native American wisdom - The Law of Attraction
obstacles to living life fully - e-zine archives - quotations contents
our most recent e-zine - Great Thinkers - the people behind the words - articles & excerpts