This morning when I first looked out the windows, I thought, “What a gray day, gray on white, white on gray.” The sky was cloudy and everything outside looked liked shades of gray to me. But I decided to go
Looking for Beauty
The first thing I did was look closely at the pond behind our house. Our neighbor has cleared off snow for an ice skating rink and soon I’ll see his kids and other neighborhood kids skating on the pond. In the meantime, I see some browns and golds and a bit of green grass peeking through the snow on our neighbor’s yard across the pond. The evergreen trees are a deep dark green. Yes, there is lots of white and the uncovered ice on the pond looks gray but the world is not just shades of gray.
“Only the blindness of habit convinces us that we continue to live in the same place, that we see the same landscape. In truth, no place ever remains the same because light has no mind for repetition; it adores difference. Through its illuminations, it strives to suggest the silent depths that hide in the dark.”
― Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
Then I noticed all of the animal tracks in our backyard as well as a few tips of green grass peeking through the snow. Blessings to all creatures, great and small.
Finding Beauty Right Here, Right Now
I walked out on our deck with my camera and I could see the beautiful shape of the basswood tree beside our deck. Shaded for much of its life by a larger basswood that went down in a storm many years ago, its main trunk twisted and turned to find the light in its early years. Now the twists and turns remain. We all search for the light in our own ways and we are all shaped by that search even if you cannot see the twists and turns in the shape of our bodies.
The light near the horizon to the east glowed a little brighter through the clouds and I thought I could even see some gold color in the light. “Perhaps the sun will emerge soon,” I thought.
“We have often heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is usually taken to mean that the sense of beauty is utterly subjective; there is no accounting for taste because each person’s taste is different. The statement has another, more subtle meaning: if our style of looking become beautiful, then beauty will become visible and shine forth for us. We will be surprised to discover beauty in unexpected places where the ungraceful eye would never linger. The graced eye can glimpse beauty anywhere, for beauty does not reserve itself for special elite moments or instances; it does not wait for perfection but is present already secretly in everything. When we beautify our gaze, the grace of hidden beauty becomes our joy and our sanctuary.”
― Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
Whether we are searching for the light, looking for beauty, or living unconsciously without thinking much about anything but getting through the next few minutes, the light is there, beauty also, and all we need to do is look for it.
“How can we ever know the difference we make to the soul of the earth? Where the infinite stillness of the earth meets the passion of the human eye, invisible depths strain towards the mirror of the name. In the word, the earth breaks silence.”
― Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
Even in the darkest times, light, love, and beauty shine through. And joy, joy dances through the cracks that let the light in.
Happy Winter Solstice tomorrow my friends. Hoping that you can see beauty, light and joy peeking through the darkness.
May you walk in beauty.
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