"My New Girlfriend"

We met on-line, and had our first date last weekend. It only lasted a little over 32 hours, but it was the most incredible 32 hours of my life.

Here's an example of what kind of person she is: She told me a story about when she was in Coeur d'Alene, ID in the early 80's and she and some of her friends were out on The Lake. It was a beautiful and clear day, but all of a sudden they all noticed a dark, ominous cloud approaching. The cloud spanned the entire horizon, and it didn't look like a normal storm cloud. She said she and her friends fell silent for several moments, and then all together agreed that they needed to proceed directly to shore and head for home.

By the time they were in their car and driving back to town, the cloud had moved over-head, and they noticed big gray flakes of dust, and then... birds started falling out of the sky! One of them said it was a sign from God, like Armageddon or something, and someone esle said something else, and Sharon thought it might be a nuclear winter from an atomic bomb explosion. Before too long, they heard an emergency news broadcast on the radio, that explained the phenomenon. It was the ash cloud from the Mt. Saint Helens volcanic eruption.

So... she ended her story by telling me that for her... it was actually more interesting to her, to see the expressions on the faces of her friends, and the 'probable scenarios' that each of them came up with, to explain what might be happening, than what was actually happening!

She's a voluptuous, silly, spiritual, empathetic, deep thinking, highly expressive, and very intelligent woman, which The Universe has brought into my life. Plus, she's sexy and... SHE LIKES ME!

I'm reading a book right now called "Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer," by Gregg Braden, and while I was waiting for the mechanic to do the smog check on my truck earlier today, I was reading from it. Here are a few of the passages when I opened the book to pick up where I had stopped reading the last time:

Side Note: I had already decided on my 'nickname' for Sharon... "Beautiful."

In addition to the beauty that's inspired by a sunset, a snowcapped mountain peak, or the work of a favorite artist, there are sources of beauty that come purely from the meaning that we give to our experience. In these instances, it's the way we see life that creates the feeling of beauty within us.

... Until the spectators watching the lift off of the Challenger space shuttle realized what they were seeing that day, they saw the billowing white clouds over Cape Canaveral contrasting against the deep blue backdrop of the south Florida sky as a beautiful spectacle of awe-inspiring technology. Once they realized that something had gone horribly wrong, the puffy white clouds lost their beauty and became the lasting symbol of a nation's pain and loss. The point is this: Although we may not have the power to determine what happens in every moment, we do have the power to determine our feelings about what happens.

Beauty holds different meanings for different people. To a scientist, beauty may come in the form of an elegant solution to a mathematical equation. A photographer, on the other hand, may see beauty in the striking contrast between sunlight and shadows in a composition. Albert Einstein saw beauty as an expression of a greater order in creation, stating, for example, "Mozart's music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe."

It is clear that every person's experience of beauty is unique. For this reason, there may be as many definitions for the experience of beauty as there are people who experience it!

Regardless of how it's defined in our lives... whether it's viewed as a force, an experience, a quality, a judgment, or a perception... the power of beauty is real. In its presence, we are changed.

Beauty is an experience of the heart, mind, and soul. Beauty comes from our willingness to see the perfection in what we often call the 'imperfections' of life. To find beauty, perhaps it is more about recognizing that it's already there.

The ability to see beauty is a choice. The choice before us in each moment of every day is to consider only what we're shown in the moment, on its own merits, without comparing one experience to another. This is how we plant the seeds in our awareness that become the attractors inviting greater beauty into our lives.

Beauty may be one of the least understood, yet most powerful, of human experiences. The beauty that we experience in our lives is the blueprint for what is reflected in our world. In our high-tech era of miniaturized circuits and computerized devices, it may be easy to overlook the power that beauty offers in our lives. Within the quantum understanding of a world, where our inner beliefs become our outer world, what technology could be simpler, or more powerful?

I don't feel I have any choice about this... Sharon is beautiful.