Life is good.  I mean that.  Life is amazing. 

Why do we suffer? What is is that truly causes us anger, sadness, discomfort, fear? Why did we believe it when someone told us, "life is hard?"  That is the biggest fallacy of humankind. Life is work. Life is messy. Life is not always easy, or kind, of fair.  But life is good. 

Really none of this is any secret.  The big "secret" to life, the key to happiness?  Sitting right under our nose.  Or, under our feet really.  Despite our constant haggling about who is right about God (the unnecessary bloodshed, catastrophic loss of human life), there is no denying the absolutely amazing, perfect and Divine work of Mother Nature.  Whatever house in which you worship, whatever party you register as, witnessing the cycle of a garden is a Miracle. Sitting near a river watching the vast, silent and complex eco-systems is a Miracle.  I was blown away when I learned that forest fires actually help support the health of a forest.  What needs to go, Mother Nature takes care of.  Nature is a miracle.  She's bountiful, resilient, and generous. We're part of that insurance policy by being here on this earth. How luck we are! 

And somehow we certainly do a good job at making life hard.  We even seem to enjoy giving ourselves things to worry about. We've created schedules that are too full for a walk in the park, a swim in the ocean, an afternoon under a tree with no one to talk to but the birds.  We've come up with every excuse in the book to keep us from stillness.  Silence. A chance to deeply connect with our Selves and to deeply connect with the living world around us.  In fact, despite our technological advances in science, industry and medicine, it seems to me that the world is a far more dangerous place today than possibly ever.  And that came from us.  That is man-made. We are sick, unhappy, and most unfortunate unfulfilled. 

Alas, each day we have countless opportunities to change that. Each and every moment there is a chance to wake up. Shift our perspective, shift our awareness, shift our experience with life. I have found that connecting to Earth, has helped me to make this shift; to connect with myself, my inner visions and a depth of Spirit I could never convey in words.  This shift has transformed me in a way I hope for all the people I know and love to experience for themselves.  To find love in each person, moment, place. To have complete, unconditional, undeniable faith.  To truly treat the other beings around us as we wish to be treated. To share. To learn. To shed and harbored judgment, patterns or habits that are destructive to our soul. To be patient with each other and with ourselves. For that's when life gets good.