Stopping and Smelling the Flowers is more significant today than ever. When I was walking the other day this came to me to write here. I was walking in the river wash by my house. I was noticing all the natural beauty, the sounds and the wonderful smells. It made me feel alive and full of freshness and newness. I also noticed how my mind was still racing with all the things that I had to do that day and I had to almost fight to just stay in that place and enjoy the splendor of the moment.

This is what I mean when I say, Stop and Smell the Flowers. Stop as often as you can and enjoy who you are and the wonder of your life. How at any given moment you have an imagination that can take you miles and years away from where you are and what you are doing. And you have the ability to truly stop and take time for your Self. Reconnect with nature and with the simpler things in life.

I work with the Internet and know how demanding it and the whole new media technical information age can seem to dwarf everything around us. It is very important, however, to realize that it is all made up and has only as much meaning as you place on it, just like anything else. Yes, the Internet and all the other things in the world have importance and they give us comfort and make our lives easier, safer and more convenient, AND we need to balance those things with our personal lives, with Who We Are.

We need to reconnect to our Roots, beyond the heritage level, to the ultimate level that we are all the same and have come from the same place and were put here on the earth and in this universe as one with each other and with the earth, the animals and with nature. All to often we forget that our ancestors and still some professions like farmers, naturalist and environmentalist were and are very connected to the land. They cherish it and know that it is where everything comes from. We tend to forget that everything that we touch and see and use comes from the land and the earth. Your dishwasher, your car, your house, and even your cell phone was nothing but a bunch of metals, ores, trees and chemicals that came ultimately from somewhere in or on the earth. They did not just appear from out of thin air or in a replicator machine.

We need to honor the earth that gives to us and to use it to remember who we are and to use what we know and what we build to bring us closer together and not to push us further apart and destroy our world and each other. So the next time you are at wit's end and are feeling a little stressed, take a walk as far away form the big hurried world and look at all the beauty, listen to the sounds of nature (and sometimes that is just quiet) and smell the fragrance of the wild. Even if that walk is in the park down the street, enjoy it and know that there is much more of it in great and wonderful places and make an effort to preserve as much of it as possible in your life time to pass on to those that will walk there after you.

Remember Who You Are and know that you are a part of a much larger One that is the Power of the Universe, the ONE of ALL things. So take some time right now to Stop and Smell the Flowers and rediscover your Self and all of what nature has to offer.