This is the beautiful living Universe in which you live ...
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Today's beauty is divided into three components:
Moonset - watching the moon set into the Gulf of Mexico from Bayview Park in St. Petersburg
Sunrise - watching the sun rise from Bayview Park and then an exploration of Maximo Park
Baby Dolphins - Ft. DeSoto's baby ospreys and baby dolphins along with a tremendous abundance of other birds
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Watching the moon set and the sun rise demands calmess and patience. Nature taken her own time and you have no choice except to wait. Fortunately the entire Universe was on display this morning ... Scorpio, Sagittarius and the other constellations of the winter sky, Venus and Jupiter.
Observing animals demands calmness and patience. Animals aren't seeking humankind's attention (except for the dogs, humankind's best friend) so you have to wait until they make themselves available to you. But it is no burden to wait when immersed in Nature and surrounded by beauty.
Today's moonset and sunrise has resurrected my religious spirit, so I will quote the Scriptures:
HYMN CXXIX. Creation.
- THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
2 Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
3 Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
4 Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.
5 Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder
6 Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
7 He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.
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In particular I especially appreciate the seventh verse. Thank God for India, thank God for the Hindus, and Thank God for Hinduism.
Thank God for the sunshine, thank God for the blue sky, thank God for the darkness, thank God for the stars providing light in the darkness.
Thank God for yesterday, Thank God for tomorrow, and Thank God for the present.
Thank God for existence and, especially, thank God for nonexistence.
The entire Universe is my home. How big is your home?
David Mathews
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