Life as Kaleidoscope

Life as Kaleidoscope: Beauty in Motion

Remember those magical tubes filled with beads and bits of glass with mirrors that multiplied the images?  As a kid, you probably looked through a cardboard tube with plastic bits, but there are high-end kaleidoscopes with brass tubes and gems.  It doesn’t matter really what the outer materials are, because the magic is in the constantly shifting array of patterns and beauty.  It’s all ephemeral. No view through the eyepiece is ever quite the same. No patterns repeat.

Isn’t life a lot like the kaleidoscope?  Some days it feels like the patterns are changing so fast, it’s as if a giant is shaking the whole thing and no pattern  is allowed to coalesce.  Certainly some people repeat nightmare images and patterns.  But to  get really present and conscious, it is possible to see the beauty.  Sometimes it’s just one small beautiful thing: sunlight glinting on the water, the dappled pattern of leaves in sun and shadow, sand under the toes, the perfume of a perfect rose.  Even among all the confusion and constant change, can’t you find some beauty too?  Close your eyes; breathe in deeply and exhale. Repeat for several breaths, then open your eyes.  See with these new eyes, renewed by your breath.

For one day, for one hour of one day, for one minute of one hour, focus your lens and your vision on all the beauty that is in your world: The pooch or kitty, the plant, the song, the lasagna, the mountain.  Try focusing on the shifting beautiful gifts within your sights.  Part of the beauty is in the constantly shifting patterns, just like the kaleidoscope.  But when you pull back and see your whole life’s patterns, you’ll see the synergies that grow from considering all that is beautiful in the shifting bits of precious images that are your life.  Acknowledge the beauty of your kaleidoscopic life.

For extra credit, look inside yourself to see the beauty there too.