If you look closely at the image you see so many gifts. Like the game of looking up at clouds. There is the turbulent image of rushing white waters careening over the waterfall. A view from above of snow capped mountains. Perhaps even an undiscovered land or city. Even closer you can see diamonds glistening in the sun. So many images to delight your mind. A game of imagination.

John O’Donohue wrote:”If you could imagine the most incredible story ever, it would be less incredible than the story of being here. And the ironic thing is that story is not a story, it is true. It takes us so long to see where we are. It takes us even longer to see who we are. This is why the greatest gift you could ever dream is a gift that you can only receive from one person. And that person is you yourself. Therefore, the most subversive invitation you could ever accept is the invitation to awaken to who you are and where you have landed. … We avoid it or quell it by filtering it through our protective barriers of domestication and control. The normal way never leads home.” *

On this night of winter’s center stage monologue of powerful beauty, I ponder what could transform within me if I but imagined diamonds, undiscovered cities, rushing waters, and mountains in the heaps of shoveled snow within me. Then, ahhhhh, then to ponder, what would transform within our nation, our world if all did likewise.

*John O’Donohue “The Question Holds the Lantern” http://www.johnodonohue.com/words/question