If we choose to look on Beauty with awe, wonder, and delight, Beauty graciously gives of herself.

* This article was submitted as part of IrishCentral’s “Love letter to Ireland” St. Patrick’s Day competition to win an Irish Heritage Tree. For more information on how to share your stories with the global Irish community visit IrishCentral Storytellers.

The native Americans lived by the concept of the Beauty Way.  Given the precariousness of their existence, the survival issue theirs as much as it is for the wild and wilderness today, we might ask how native Americans came to the place of gratitude that's the essence of the Beauty Way?

Irish people are free to see their land as the second free gift of their lives;  the first being the birthday suit.

Even the most hardened learn what's seeded in a person's heart, grows, and comes into fullness throughout life.  Hand-on-heart, I can trace the idea of EcoSanta becoming the next generation's ecological champion and forwarding that project today to my days spent in Donegal.  When previous barriers on my narrow intellectual thinking melted away.  And I found myself living from the place of gratitude.  

Found myself wanting to say a forever thank-you to Ireland for that inspiration to celebrate, rejoice and come alive as never before.  It's akin to being permanently in love.

For love to reach its potential, there has to be mutuality.  Life on Earth is based on interconnection, symbiosis, relationships.  Einstein said:  'We still do not know one-thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.'  If you believe Einstein, you'll know he's talking about a depth here far far beyond our everyday consciousness.

To fall in love with a country takes love to the next level - into relationship with the Earth itself.  There's an inbuilt permanence to it, a lifelong feed of wholeness and healing.  

This article was submitted to the IrishCentral contributors network by a member of the global Irish community. To become an IrishCentral contributor click here.