The Only New Year’s Resolution You Need Amazing tips

The only New Year's resolution you really need is effortless and costs nothing: Find beauty. In her newly released Sacred Elements Guidebook, author/photographer Karina Aldredge shows how momentary joys add up, creating a happier, more grounded you. What better way to start a new decade?

The Nature Diet

Karina explains that finding beauty in easily-overlooked aspects of nature benefits mind, spirit and body. "Soon it becomes a craving, and everywhere you look, you'll see more," she says. "It feeds you. It's the Nature Diet!"

Karina Aldredge's book is a guide to noticing and finding joy in simple, everyday things.

Karina draws us into delight by making the mundane transcendent, and she does it step-by-step. As in the excerpt below, she tells how to use all your senses to internalize natural beauty. This is more than "taking time to smell the roses." Finding beauty makes you so immediately in-the-moment that all you know is joy. Yes, you've already experienced this, but I suspect it hasn't been often or nearly enough.

This photo of frozen drops (on Euphorbia rigida in Karina's Zone 8b garden) is from her Instagram feed.

I first met Karina via Instagram, admired her photos, and when she was in the San Diego area---she lives in Portland, OR---she visited my garden (top photo).

Karina shot me showing the beauty of a backlit Gasteria bicolor. 

Sacred Elements Guidebook, Excerpt

"You wake to a gray winter morning

"The weight of the season makes it difficult to escape your warm bed. Turn and look out the window and observe air blanketed in a grayish white mist. Now glance up to notice a dense fog clinging to the inky treetops. They are pillars of strength, majestic giants. Let their energy pull you up and out of bed. Go to your window or door and open it for just a moment to allow the mist to float inside. Open your mouth and slowly inhale the thick, wet air. Let it linger on your tongue. Taste the mist. The flavor it holds inside those microscopic droplets carries a distinct essence. Feel the way it dissolves and enters your body, empowering you. You are one with the air and water elements. Let them energize your next few steps as you welcome the day ahead." 

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This sample merely hints at what Karina offers. Like its lovely author, the book is slender but powerful. It's joy distilled: a healing balm for the overwhelmed mind.

Accompanying the book's "gray winter morning" exercise is a photo that I liked so much, when Karina initially posted it on Instagram, I asked if I could paint it. It became the December page of my 2019 Succulent Watercolor Calendar.

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FYI, Karina's soul-nourishing practice is not a religion, but I can attest it has enriched and deepened my own faith. 

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