Music Monday – Bountiful, Blissful, Beautiful

Every Monday, I post a song or piece of music that I like. I ask you to close your eyes for three minutes and simply listen to the music that I have posted. Listen to it for the sake of listening to music, for the sake of being moved by music and for the sake of experiencing the world through your ears, not through your eyes.

You may like or hate the songs that I post, but one thing is sure: in closing your eyes and listening to music, a new world will unfold in your mind. It is the world of the imagination. 

Happy listening.

(Don’t forget to close your eyes…)

 

If there are songs or pieces of music you love, please share them with me and other bloggers by posting their title in the comments section. That way, we can all open up our musical horizons together!

Liebster Blog Award

Dear Friends,

There is a wonderful piece of news that Iwould like to share with you.

I have been nominated for the Liebster Blog Award by StrawberryIndigo, whose blog My Life in Color always reminds us of the important things in life. The Liebster Blog Award is given to a blog with less than 200 followers who deserve a little more recognition.

This is my first blog award and you cannot imagine my joy! StrawberryIndigo accompanied her nomination with the following words: “I have been reading your blog and I think highly of it. You send such a beautiful message. I enjoy your writing and your positiveness”. It is these words that make this nomination so special.

I started Love Out Loud with the wish to share positive messages and ideas with others. I made one rule for the blog: to only share positive things. This is because I wanted to create something that would always remind me that no matter how many negative or frustrating elements there are in our day, we can always find something positive to express.

In Love Out Loud I speak from the heart. I do not have any ‘goal’ for my blog, apart from writing about things that inspire or help me in everyday life. The Liebster Blog Award nomination means a lot to me, because it makes me see that the beauty and wonders that I find in life are also appreciated by the people with whom I share them. It makes me see that we can share and give so much by simply being ourselves.

My blog has taught me a lot, but it is also my fellow bloggers who have been a huge source of joy and inspiration for the past eleven months. Books and newspapers couldn’t teach me half of the things that I have learnt from you. By reading about your values, dreams and fears, I have learnt more about life than by reading any philosophy manual.

I am extremely grateful to have discovered many wonderful people through the blogosphere. I may not know your name, your nationality, your hair colour or the sound of your voice, but I can assure you that your blog has brought HUGE changes into my life.

The rules of the Liebster Blog Award state that I in turn must nominate 5 blogs with less than 200 hundred followers for the award. Here are my nominations:

http://expressyouareself.wordpress.com/

Reflections on life and how to bring honesty, fulfilment and joy into our own.

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http://fearasacompass.wordpress.com/

Every post makes me stop and sigh. Wow, what wisdom!

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http://rewritinglife.net/

A sophisticated writer with a unique and captivating voice.

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http://jeangreyphoenix.wordpress.com/

A beautiful mix of photos, videos, quotes and thought-provoking reflections.

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http://cinquefoille.blogspot.com/

Each post fills me with hope, comfort and love.

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Thank you to all fellow bloggers for your eternal inspiration!

Photo Friday – Skies at Home

Skies at Home

Our Life’s Scenery

If we could take a photo of our life’s scenery, how quickly would it change?

I was away from home for four days, and when I came back I uttered a “wow” of disbelief. During this time, the buds on the trees turned into leaves and the view from my balcony changed to almost beyond recognition. Most of the changes in the photos below took place over these four days…

March 2011

April 2011

Realising how quickly change can come around in nature makes me appreciate its current state. I take in the beauty of the spring flora, knowing that it is only here for a limited time. I do not think about how beautiful the trees outside my house will look in the autumn, because I will have the opportunity to experience this in the future.  Spring is here, spring is now – I must make the most of it before nature takes its course and changes the scenery.

In the same way, let’s save our thoughts of the future until it arrives. Today, we must appreciate the beautiful scenery of our present, because it is only here for a limited time.

Life’s Beautiful Surprises

We often hear that the greatest opportunities and our life’s most important moments come from being “in the right place at the right time”. This can also be called ‘sheer accident’ or, as I like to call it, ‘destined coincidence’. With no prior planning or intention, we meet someone, see something or participate in an event that overthrows our life. This comes as an unexpected coincidence, yet it is so perfect for us at that precise moment, that it puts us into a sort of ecstasy. We are overwhelmed with happiness at the beautiful surprise that life threw our way. We cannot believe that none of this was planned; as if we were getting the present we most wanted from an absolute stranger.

Yesterday, I happened to be “in the right place at the right time”. Through a series of coincidences and intuition hints, I found myself meeting one of the bestselling British writers of current times. Not something I was expecting on a quiet afternoon in a foreign country! I was part of a small group to attend the writer’s talk at a literary festival in town. The writer, down-to-earth and honest, talked about his new novel, and, at the end of the event, was more than happy to chat in his mother tongue to the only Brit out of the group (me!). Our brief exchange created the possibility of this author hosting an event at the London bookshop in which I used to work (and to which I am still greatly attached). And all I had planned that day was a walk in town!

This meeting with the talented modern writer completely disoriented me. I was ecstatic not only from having had the opportunity to meet this author, but to have met him so unexpectedly, in such a perfect coincidence. And this got me thinking: are perfect moments like this only possible as coincidences? Or are they perfect precisely because they are coincidences? I doubt that I would have been ecstatic had I planned my meeting with the author months in advance; in the same way as knowing what you will be given for your birthday takes away the joy and surprise of receiving the present. It is precisely the surprise of such a perfectly destined coincidence that made the moment so special.

I wanted to say thank you for this wonderful gift. But who was I to thank? Who do we thank for a destined coincidence? Who do we thank for a perfect moment? Who do we thank for life’s beautiful surprises? And how is it that we should show our gratitude?