Friday Flickr Photo of the Week-Autumn Leaves

On Monday I was driving the 250 miles across Southern Idaho and to pass the time, I decided to listen to some of the CD's from a training I recently attended on Crucial Conversations. On the 3rd CD, there is an excerpt from the The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, in which the author of that book, Annie Dillard, describe her zeal for the hidden natural universe and the various beauties that one might discover if one can truly "see." Upon returning home, I researched "It is still the first week in January and I've got great plans. I've been thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But -- and this is the point -- who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded with the site of a muskrat kit paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get. "

This photo from ladybug's flight is my choice for photo of the week because it so beautifully captures the feeling I have about autumn leaves and the lesson from Annie Dillard.

How often do we fail to "see" and pick up the pennies that life gives us? Can you get excited about the simple beauty of an autumn leaf?

Ladybug also has a blog, Living in the Light I Find, has many wonderful photographs and musings, I encourage you to take a look.