Beauty is the name we give our response to the perfection we sense around us

Composers know how to use harmony and melody like a net to catch beauty's colors and radiance. And when we like what we hear, we open our pores to take in more – just as we close them against what seems ugly or offensive. Isn't that why we remember so vividly the hours or days spent in places we love, perhaps in the mountains or by the sea, where all our senses were awake?

Where is beauty located? Everywhere we recognize it: the pattern is in us. Beauty is the name we give our response to the perfection we sense around us, and within us.

July-August 2003 (Vol. XVI, No. 7)

Warm summer blessings, dear frinds. May you BEHOLD BEAUTY, her many faces, whever you may be. Pauses in silence an stillness with a gentle openness are invitations to heart and soul to recognize Her graces -- especially in unexpected places. Beauty: another name for the Divine.

The garden was a splendid sight, rich with life and glowing with color and greenery in the desert heat. I heard bluejays squawking and sparrows chirping near our rooftop, gazed at the white butterflies dancing amid the tomato plants pregnant with fruit, and I took a deep breath, longing to capture forever the magical moment in my mind's eye. Such beauty, such peace, I thought, right here in my own backyard.

~ from PEARL'S SECRET by Neil Henry
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The beauty of the world is the co-operation of divine wisdom in creation. All love of universal beauty proceeds from God dwelling in our souls and goes out to God present in the universe.

~ from WAITING FOR GOD by Simon Weil
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Spirit cuts like water though it all
Carving out this emptiness
So inner eye can see
The soaring height of canyon walls within
Walls whose very color, texture, form
Redeem in beauty all my life has been
The darkness and the light, the false, the true
While deep below through my parts
To resurrect my gravebound heart
Making, always making, all things new.

~ from "Grand Canyon" by Parker Palmer
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I wonder what beauty is. I have been seeing lovely things all my life, but they never moved me, never presented themselves so poignantly as they have done since I entered into adversity. Now beauty appears as something more than itself. It seems to me a gateway into God. the thrilling, moving, tremendous thing about it is not the especial aspect under which it appears, not the tree, the flower the bird note at dusk, but the occasional sense of otherwhereness, of something more, a marvelous Something — complete ecstasy — that beauty half reveals... It is this overpowering Something, hidden in the midst of beauty, that moves one so exquisitely, tears the heart out, almost terrifies at times by its nearness — "Oh Ecstasy behind the grass, come softly when Thou comest nigh!"

~ from A SECRET JOURNAL by Jane Steger
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Love the beautiful in everything; it is a ray of light divine. It is love's beauty. The beautiful thrills us into a kind of ecstasy, suspending the din of our inward activity in the silence of admiration; and admiration gives our nature a kind of fulfillment, a restful satiety asking for nothing more. It is the very essence of contemplative adoration.

~ from THE HERMITAGE WITHIN by an anonymous Monk
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An individual must hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a beautiful picture everyday in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of Beauty which God has implanted in the human soul.
~ Goethe - 1795
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The night is beautiful
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

~ by Langston Hughes
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The beauty consists of purity of heart.

~ Gandhi
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Be not afraid to seek the Treasure within,
To discover the beauty hidden in the heart's garden.
For as you root out the weeds of fear,
peace, love, truth and joy begin to flower;
Light radiates out from your
inner garden to all the world.

~ from MEDITATIONS AND MANDALAS by Nan C. Merrill
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The journey toward our beauty is a magnificent struggle. Achieving an integrity between what we believe and how we live is a challenge worthy of the gift of life. A thousand obstacles stand between ourselves and the honoring of our truth. A thousand distractions. (A thousand ego-generated delusions). To dive down, find the beauty, nurture it and offer it to the world is magnificent. Staying with your beauty, your truth, your integrity is difficult, but out of these things comes meaning, and meaning is all-transcendent.
~ from JOURNAL NOTES by Rod McIver ... "Heron Dance" #19
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My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's beauty.
~ by Michelangelo
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Beauty is luminous radiance. Beauty is lucent, mystical essence, he face that is unforgettably lovely, the dance with the exquisite movements that our minds cannot erase, the music whose notes repeat themselves endlessly in our hearts. Beauty infuses; beauty enthralls; beauty inspires and illumines; beauty lifts up and enlivens our souls.

~ from HEART AND SOUL by Daphne Rose Kingma
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Life is a spiral, slowly moving through the seasons and cycles o four lives. If we are balanced in our actions, creating beauty and harmony within our spiral, we are following the path of right action, the path we strive to follow... To balance the spiral we must participate in our becoming well.We must learn not to be judgmental, not to be dragged down by grief, anger and negativity, forgetting the joy, passion, generosity and kindness of life. Beauty is no threat to the wary. You can walk in beauty and still sack groceries or change diapers...

~ from SWEETWATER WISDOM by Wendy Crockett
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Let us rejoice, Beloved,
Let us go forth
To behold ourselves
In Your Beauty.

~ from THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS by St. John of the Cross
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Beyond finite beauty — the beauty that we see — is a depth of infinite beauty from which all created beauty comes, and to which it must return to find its fulfillment. This is the light in which all works of art must be immersed, if they are to touch the depths of all being and of all hearts.

God is at the deep center of all things; there we find eternal life. Every creature gifted with reason has received light to see in all created things both their own individual beauty and that of the Supreme Being, from whom they have received their being, and who sustains them in it. With the light given us we can see God in all things and come into harmony.

~ by Augustin Guillerand
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Such beauty in my own backyard

The garden was a splendid sight, rich with life and glowing with color and greenery in the desert heat. I heard bluejays squawking and sparrows chirping near our rooftop, gazed at the white butterflies dancing amid the tomato plants pregnant with fruit, and I took a deep breath, longing to capture forever the magical moment in my mind's eye. Such beauty, such peace, I thought, right here in my own backyard.

The beauty of the world

The beauty of the world is the co-operation of divine wisdom in creation. All love of universal beauty proceeds from God dwelling in our souls and goes out to God present in the universe.

Redeem in beauty all my life has been

Spirit cuts like water though it all
Carving out this emptiness
So inner eye can see
The soaring height of canyon walls within
Walls whose very color, texture, form
Redeem in beauty all my life has been
The darkness and the light, the false, the true
While deep below through my parts
To resurrect my gravebound heart
Making, always making, all things new.

I wonder what beauty is

I wonder what beauty is. I have been seeing lovely things all my life, but they never moved me, never presented themselves so poignantly as they have done since I entered into adversity. Now beauty appears as something more than itself. It seems to me a gateway into God. the thrilling, moving, tremendous thing about it is not the especial aspect under which it appears, not the tree, the flower the bird note at dusk, but the occasional sense of otherwhereness, of something more, a marvelous Something — complete ecstasy — that beauty half reveals... It is this overpowering Something, hidden in the midst of beauty, that moves one so exquisitely, tears the heart out, almost terrifies at times by its nearness — "Oh Ecstasy behind the grass, come softly when Thou comest nigh!"

Love the beautiful in everything

Love the beautiful in everything; it is a ray of light divine. It is love's beauty. The beautiful thrills us into a kind of ecstasy, suspending the din of our inward activity in the silence of admiration; and admiration gives our nature a kind of fulfillment, a restful satiety asking for nothing more. It is the very essence of contemplative adoration.

See a beautiful picture everyday

An individual must hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a beautiful picture everyday in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of Beauty which God has implanted in the human soul.

The night is beautiful

The night is beautiful
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

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