This Pause For Beauty is written, above all else, as a message to myself. It helps me keep on track, focused on what’s important.

I share it with you in case it is relevant to your life, your struggles, your efforts to manifest the beauty within.

. . .

The text in the poster above:

Some paths give you energy,
Some take it away. 
Some people, some relationships add to your energy. . .

Energy seeks out Channels
For Its Growth.
Participate in that
Seek PAths, And people
Where Energy Grows.

Unique energy. Focused Energy
 Is Growing energy.
Focused energy is powerful.
Dispersed energy is weak.
Your Uniqueness
Is What We Need From You.
We'll All Grow.

A current underlies Your Life
Respect it. Listen to it.
Nurture It,
Move in harmony With it.
It's Your Source Of Power.

Love generates positive energy.
Love is positive energy.
Love of creative work, love of others.
Help Make the energy of the whole
Bigger than the sum of its parts.

Nature creates energy From Energy.
The way of nature is to seek growth, to blossom.

. . .

Below, quotes and journal notes that inspired the message on the poster.

There are many pathways in this life and it doesn't matter which one you take, for they all have a common destination, and that is the grave.  But some paths give you energy and some take it away.
- Cervantes

The point of relationship is the added power that life gets in working with it as a channel.  If two people are strong together, then life has a more powerful channel than it has with two single people.  Life doesn’t care about your relationship.  It is looking for channels for its power so it can function maximally.
- Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen

Some paths give you energy, some take it away. Some people give you energy, some take it away. Recognizing which is which is one of the key challenges of life. It’s not easy.

As living entities, we are conduits of energy. Much of the key to living a quality life on your own terms lies in finding ways to channel your unique energy in ways that it grows and multiplies.

Where can your energy breakthrough and gather momentum?

The normal, predictable state of matter throughout the universe is randomness, a relaxed sort of equilibrium, with atoms and their particles scattered around in an amorphous muddle. We, in brilliant contrast, are completely organized structures, squirming with information at every covalent bond. We make our living by catching electrons at the moment of their excitement by solar photons, swiping the energy released at the instant of each jump and storing it up in intricate loops for ourselves. We violate probability, by our nature. To be able to do this systemically, and in such wild varieties of form, from viruses to whales, is extremely unlikely; to have sustained the effort successfully for the several billion years of our existence, without drifting back into randomness, was nearly a mathematical impossibility.
      - Lewis Thomas, The Lives Of A Cell.

It is difficult to focus energy. The tendency is randomness, the dispersion of energy. Focused energy is powerful; dispersed energy is weak.

Our energy depends on our ability to nurture the relationship with the current that underlies our lives, to respect it and listen to it.

All that matters is what you love
and what you love is who you are . . .
- John Squadra, This Ecstasy