Last night, I stood at the garden fence and watched the fireflies hopscotch across the grass for a moment. A couple of nights before, I was lucky enough to see the last sliver of a bright moon yield to Earth’s shadow in the lunar eclipse.
Brief moments of stillness and magic. No special status, money, land, education, or prestige required. Just eyes, and the willingness to stop for a second or two and notice.
I agree wholeheartedly with the late John O’Donahue and those he quotes and learns from (below).
Beauty isn’t necessarily grandeur, though it could be, and it isn’t always glamor, though it could be. When we recognize it and take it in, it’s simply a deeply integrative moment of conversation with the world, where no other thought can be permitted.
Many of us are too busy for regular beauty. We might even dismiss those who submit, slack-jawed, to wonder as ‘needing more to do’, or even naive, but smart productivity is not the opposite of allowing beauty. Meaningful action arises through the recognition of what is beautiful, and therefore necessary, to our present and future.
To my mind, it is essential, if we are to create a next chapter worth reading and living, that we start from a place of beauty, not of desolation. We need to be able to see the world as a source of delight, even amid real horrors and manufactured chaos.
As John O’Donahue says in his book, ‘Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. Rediscovering the true sources of serenity, and hope’,
"Though we have become more helpless and hopeless, we have grown keenly aware of the urgency and necessity of real and positive change. We grow increasingly deaf to the worn platitudes of staid authority. Their forced didactic tones no longer reach our need. ....Beauty is not just a call to growth, it is a transforming presence wherein we unfold towards growth almost before we realize it. Our deepest self-knowledge unfolds as we are embraced by beauty."
Beauty is ..."a threshold which holds the real and the ideal in connection and conversation with each other"
He goes on to quote Frederick Turner:
"Beauty....is the highest integrative level of understanding and the most comprehensive capacity for effective action. It enables us to go with, rather than against, the deepest tendency or theme of the universe."
More O'Donahue:
"When we awaken to the call of beauty, we become aware of new ways of being in the world. We were created to be creators. At its deepest heart, creativity is meant to serve and evoke beauty. When this desire and capacity come alive, new wells spring up in parched ground; difficulty becomes invitation and rather than striving against the grain of our nature, we fall into rhythm with its deepest urgency and passion. The time is now ripe for beauty to surprise and liberate us."
And a final bit of O'Donahue's introduction to beauty:
"A world without beauty would be unbearable. Indeed the subtle touches of beauty are what enable most people to survive. Yet beauty is so quietly woven through our ordinary days that we hardly notice it. Everywhere there is tenderness, care and kindness, there is beauty. ...Even, and perhaps especially, in the bleakest times, we can still discover and awaken beauty; these are precisely the times when we need it the most."
Well said.
Have a great weekend everyone.