A cup of coffee, a cigarette, the New York Times, while enjoying an ocean/mountain/leafy view. Sadly, my office moved so I don't get the view anymore when I go to work.

I agree! I have a screened-in back porch that faces northeast, and sometimes when I'm out there sipping a beer and watching nice sunset afterglows or lightning bugs out back on summer nights, I figure this is as close to spirituality as I get. BTW, lovely picture, Duke!

Nice... I'm a coffee person too. Wake up between 8 and 10. Look out my back door and smoke and see a cultasac of 4 lots that will never sell 50 thousand lot...lol. Sit in my kitchen and play on this forum for a few hours while my wife watches TV. Easy going unless we travel. Very simple life...
We play with some of our toys when it's not so cool outside.

I've long felt more open outdoors than in any church. I've toured cathedrals in Europe, and yet have seen nature's cathedrals: in a rewood forest of the Pacific northwest, or beneath the interlocking overhead mossy braches of kneed cypress in the Okeefenokee... Such can also be present in the faces of my kids as they interact over some new discovery, or in the easy breathing rhythm of my cats as they sleep...

Heartily agreed !

The head of my bed is against a wall with three large windows - so as I awake in the morning, or on bright moonlit nights, I can be comfortably settled on my back, and look up overhead to view the woods that surround the house.

The trees - all different kinds, and some very tall, seeking to reach the sky, and filled with my furry and feathered friends, are magnificent. I am humbled by their presence ...

Looks gorgeous. Always wanted to visit Colorado. I have a huge picture window in my living room. It's 2 degrees outside and too cold to go out on my snow-covered deck, but I can watch the birds,squirrels and chipmmunks scamper on the tree branches.

That is beautiful.

nature is as cruel as are humans... . it seems like i am the only person who feels the pain of a mouse or a fish and i don't understand how anyone can smile about a cat 'playing' with a mouse... or a live fish hanging on a hook - even being scaled and filleted alive..

i would just like to connect with some like minded people ...i have atheist friends (very few) ... but yet i don't really care to be with them ... i guess animal cruelty is my main cause.... i see so much suffering and misery with animals and it seems like i'm the only one who cares... being doesn't hurt but how you get there can be excruciating...

That's a beauty ("heavenly" )! Thank you!

One of my most pleasant memories is of being on a lake fishing at the crack of dawn, seeing the mist rising from the water, and the colors of the sunrise -- along with the silence. Then as the sun rose, I would fish away while listening to classical music on my boat's FM radio. That was living!!

Those images of coffee on my deck in the country at sunrise, listening and watching the environment and it's inhabitants waking up for the day, bring back so many feelings of peace and calm. So many feelings of love for nature, awe for mother nature and an overwhelming feeling of security and peace! There's not a lot of better feelings then that. I wish I were still there!

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving through some rural hills and the sunset was the brightest and deepest pink I'd ever seen. As I crested a hill, I saw a little pond just off the side of the road with a tiny little dock. The water was reflecting the bright pink sunset. I had to pull over and try to get a picture of it. The camera phone just couldn't do it justice.

Why is it that humans can only really appreciate the truly important things in life after we've lived mostly shallow lives in our youth??