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It’s incredible what beauty you can find in objects and scenes that you pass by every day. Sometimes these magical places remain unnoticed. Yet often they reveal themselves when the setting sun’s golden rays hit it just right.

The above image was taken during a bright and beautiful afternoon in January. As I drove home from work, enjoying the warm sun streaming through my windows, I decided to look for a place to stop to take a picture as the sun started to set. It turned out that I had to stop at a friend’s house to drop something off. As I turned around in the little cul de sac at the end of the street, I saw the sun shining through the tall grasses in the field beyond. With camera in hand, I jumped out of the car and walked over to a spot in the field. Patches of snow still lay on the ground, the icy crystals sparkling in the sun. To me, the scene was altogether magical. I knelt in the snow, disregarding my cold wet knees and a curious passerby, and took a few shots.

To me, that movement in my heart was a movement towards a state of wonder, a state of mind, an awareness, that at any given time, there are opportunities for us to discover beauty. Beauty in the routine. Beauty in the familiar. Beauty in the ordinary. Beauty right in front of us. Magical, wondrous, extraordinary, and miraculous beauty.

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting — a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson