What about beauty?
Beauty has been mistaken for perfection…
It is definitely sacred, but it also has a simplified meaning for humans in the modern Western world. Beauty has been mistaken for perfection, expecting to keep its ideal permanently fixed, but like everything else in this multiverse, it shape-shifts and changes. It has also been collapsed within a lonely only human sphere, for measure and reference for everything else.
Can you smell the flowers?
Beauty has nothing to do with neat Instagram posts, voluptuous poses, or highly constructed photos. It is not constrained to our human cultural norm of what is beautiful, nor does it have to do with an outside gaze. Beauty is a much more diverse and vital thread in our stories and experiences. It reminds us of the poetic territories we’ve travelled through; it connects us to our context. It is a divine vibration of the relation between the myriad of things.
Can you hear the birds?
When closing our gaze on all the beautiful things, we disconnect from the power of the creation. Beauty is wild immanence, overflowing with life and dynamic possibility. When imprisoning our relationship with all the beautiful things, we sever ourselves from connecting to them in their multiple forms, shapes, sizes, and phases. Expectations can kill all beauty.
Do you feel the water?
Beautiful wild things are not just to be seen. They are to be touched but not overpowered or controlled. They are to be felt but not conquered. Beautiful wild things spill over everything, immersing and awakening us in divine cosmic-chthonic essence. Some follow the norm of what beauty should look like, like a blossoming flower with vibrant colours and lyrical fragrances. But there are also beautiful ones in odd ways, like a rotten pomegranate decaying on the ground or ancient ruins filled with memories and living wisdom.
Do you see the mountains?
When you gaze at the beauty of things, you are part of it. It’s not an objective outside experience. It’s an inside connection and resonance, full of poetic mystery and subjectivity. There is no such thing as “outside beauty,” for every beautiful sentient being is in relation to everything else. Beauty is a communal affair.
Let’s open ourselves to a beautiful reality, even in harsh and violent contexts. Finding the thread to sacred beauty is a guardianship job of connecting to life itself.
