May 14, 2022
"Truth is beauty, Beauty truth. That is all there is on earth and all you need to know." John Keats
Beauty is everywhere. Without beauty we would wither up and die. Beauty is essential to the soul. Beauty is at the heart of things. There is beauty even in things some might call ugly. The world is beautiful because it is unique and miraculous and unendingly interesting.
Appreciating beauty is important. It feeds your soul. It gives you energy. It refuels and refreshes you.
Where do you see beauty?? In the innocence of children? the expansiveness of the night sky? the magnificence of a beautiful mansion? the skill and power of a football tackle? in the grace of a ballet dancer? the speed of a downhill skier? the precision and deftness of a surgeon? in the majestic and enduring architecture of an old castle?
Beauty opens your soul to a quality that is in you. You could not see that quality if it were not inside you, though perhaps that quality remains unexpressed or dormant.
Beauty can reveal qualities you may want to experience or express. The elegance of velvet may inspire a desire to experience greater abundance and wealth. An artful arrangement of food on a plate may inspire aspirations to creativity and refinement. Surfers riding the waves may inspire a yearning for greater freedom, strength and agility. A woven hammock strung beneath shady trees may inspire a need to experience greater relaxation and ease. Images of beauty evoke deep reservoirs of comfort, relief, power, strength and more. They open the heart. Beauty is a door to the heaven world all around us.
When something irritates you, try to see the beauty in it. I once had a demanding and imperious friend. His aggressive behavior often pushed my buttons. One day, traveling on a large commercial airliner, I'd been erroneously packed into a long row of passengers. Cramped in my seat, I remember wishing I could muster the demanding traits of my friend. Likely, I'd have acquired a better seat! That experience taught me the beauty at the essence of a demanding attitude. The squeaky wheel gets oiled. What was often ugly had a beautiful side!!
Is there beauty in what you espouse or are you simply trying to appear virtuous? Virtuous sounding slogans and campaigns do not create a better world unless there is beauty and heart behind them. The underlying motivations of a creation are palpable and present no matter how pretty the creation is packaged. Clarify your intentions when you create. Create beauty.
Where do you see beauty? Define it. Feel it. Stop following the crowd. Be honest with yourself. Not all supposedly noble causes are born of noble seeds. Some causes have political agendas that have nothing to do with making the world a better place and may actually harm the world and its people in the long run. Humanity never advances by causes that manipulate, deceive and brainwash. We advance by expressing our beauty whatever it is. Find your beauty. Stand behind it
It's not the scale of what you do that matters, it's the love with which you infuse your activities that matters. The world is beautiful, but suffering. Whatever you do, however big or small...create beauty!
"Let your credo be this: let the lie come into the world. Let it even triumph. But not through me." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
