This is it! Congratulations, you’ve made it to day 40! Give yourself a hug, or a pat on the back. After today, I will review the Journey and write an assessment sometime in the next 10-day rest period. Then, we begin Journey of Creation on June 9. I’ll also have some cool content during the rest-period, as I have been recruiting guest-bloggers to write while I am taking a break. Enjoy!

A final day for thinking about beauty. After 40 days, I think I will never see beauty the same way again. That’s the point, right?

Here is what I think have gained from the past 40 days.

1. Recognition.  I will notice and recognize beauty more. I will look for beauty more. When I see it, I will acknowledge it with joy and gratitude, instead of passing it over. There is so much beauty in everyday life. It’s time to see it.
2. Action. Grace and graciousness are beauty-in-action. Respect, politeness, fair-treatment, helpfulness, are as well. I will increase being conscientious of acting with these qualities.
3. Cultivation. I will think about how I can cultivate inner beauty. I can turn my attitude and emotions toward things like peace, harmony, or stillness. These qualities may not be actions in themselves, but they influence the actions that I do take.
4. Acknowledgement. If I am going to maintain an awareness of beauty to the degree that I think I will, then I better be prepared to acknowledge beauty in myself and  in my life. I am beautiful, as you are, as we all are!
5. Questioning. I am not going to take beauty for granted (as in #1 above)…but I am not going to take ugliness for granted either. If I see something and think it’s ugly, I will wonder why, wonder what I can learn from it, wonder if it is teaching me of beauty by virtue of it not being so (as it may be one half of the theory of opposites).
6. Feeling. I might have learned something about how beauty feels. I’m not quite sure about this one yet, but I am optimistic that I can now sense beauty in ways that I could not prior to day one.
7. Perception. I am still learning this (as I am all of this). I believe that outer perception is influence by inner perception: that what I see is conditioned first by how I am predisposed to see it…that I have pre-judgements about what I expect to see. And what I expect to see is conditioned by the thoughts I have about it. It’s up to me to make sure my thoughts are open, accepting, loving, kind, so that is mental-state is how I approach the world. In this mind-frame, there is more likelyhood to see, and thus experience, beauty.

Thank you so much for being here, on this Journey with me. It was an absolute pleasure. I hope that your personal journey was enlightening, eye-opening, and happy. See you on June 9 for Journey of Creation! Love to you.