June 2010: Beauty
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. ~Confucius
While there are usually thousands (okay, maybe hundreds) of thoughts swirling around in my head in various degrees of fomentation, I have decided to share a few more thoughts on mindfulness—mainly because I keep bumping into that concept most frequently in my own life. The areas of application seem endless, and I would next like to explore being mindful of beauty.
“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Much like we have opportunity to be conscious of our happy moments (see previous post), we can also pay attention to beautiful ones. There is beauty all around—and part of finding our connection to the Cosmos, the Big Picture (see March entry), can be found in being attentive to that Beauty.
However, most of us become absorbed in the significant, and necessary, comings and goings of our day that we fail to notice beauty. We miss so much, it seems, of real life—the stuff that adds purpose, and meaning, and fullness, and joy. So how do we participate in the everyday stuff of our lives while at the same time appreciating those elements that make the comings and goings worthwhile? Like happiness and beauty.
And is beauty limited to what we see? Maybe beauty isn’t limited to the eye of the beholder, but can also be found in the ear of the auditor (Look it up. The world also quite aptly means listener. My dictionary says so. Interesting, huh?). Helen Keller adds that,
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
I haven’t got it all figured out yet myself. That is, after all, what life is about—figuring it out. So I’d love to hear how you incorporate ‘everyday Beauty’ into the daily grind. Some would call it ‘adding soul.’ But that’s another blog for another day.
For this entry, I welcome your comments on how you either add beauty to your day or take note of the beauty that’s already in it. This morning when I walked the dog, it struck me as a beautiful morning—even though it was overcast with rain residue in the air from the early morning shower with hints of more to come. It seemed to me such a quiet morning, and yet full of action for the clouds were visibly moving and the wind was making its presence known—all to the soundtrack of lively birds. Yet somehow in all that activity, I felt a stillness. And I was thankful. Grateful for the moment and hopeful for more to come.
May you experience Beauty in your day in all its varied forms and in unexpected ways.