Cultivating Lover’s Eyes…

Here comes Valentine’s Day, filled with roses, chocolates and the praise of romantic relationship. I don’t know about you, but I want to be in a romantic relationship with every bit of my life. I want to kiss the nape of its neck and write poetry about its most mundane moments. I want to look at the circumstances of my life with lover’s eyes-- and behold even the most familiar detail as this startling gift that I’ve been given.

Seeing beauty gives us special powers. Seeing beauty awakens the beautiful within us, the desire to proclaim goodness and wonder and joy. The painter Claude Monet said, “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”

But seeing beauty is a choice. Years ago, there was a woman in my writing group that wrote about this trail in the mountains. She was hypnotized and electrified by the rock formations and the secret stream that ran nearby. I had to find out the name of the trail. A few weekends later, I hiked that same area and found myself looking and looking for the scene that she described. I was hot and tired and to be honest, I’d taken my entire office with me in my head. I was answering emails in my mind while butterflies brushed by. I never found those rocks.

Later, I realized, I had walked the same trail…but I did not have the same eyes.

She had lover’s eyes, clear eyes that not only saw the scenery but felt its love. Her eyes dismissed nothing, and unveiled everything. She had lover’s eyes, naked eyes, eyes that did not accuse and ask for more, but eyes that discovered her present moment. And the present is always astonishing and abundant…if we decide to be present.

Let’s see the lush beauty in our current lives. There is no better life--without better appreciation for all of life. Join with me, if you will, this month and always, in cultivating Lover’s Eyes!!

Copyright 2008 Tama J. Kieves, All rights reserved.