Beauty is a consciousness of the heart

All of the sense organs are both organs and capacity. The synthesizing acting of the heart continuously creates a unity of the inner world and outer world. Moments in which we perceive this unity are moments of the experience of beauty. Beauty is thus a consciousness of the heart. The heart has always been connected with love due to this relation between bringing what seems to be separated into conjoining as profound beauty.

The heart is always attracted to some sign of beauty

The heart always has an object of love; it is always attracted to some sign of beauty. Whatever the heart holds its attention on, it will acquire its qualities. Rumi said, "If your thought is a rose, you are rose garden. If your thought is a thorn, you are kindling for the stove." Being between the attraction of the physical world and the ego, on the one hand, and spirit and its qualities on the other, the heart is pulled from different sides. But ultimately behind all these various attractions lies one great Attractor.

Only in your solitude will you come upon your own beauty

Only in solitude can you discover a sense of your own beauty. The Divine Artist sent no one here without the depth and light of divine beauty. This beauty is frequently concealed behind the dull facade of routine. Only in your solitude will you come upon your own beauty.

Beauty is composed of many things

BEAUTY is composed of many things and never stands alone. It is part of horizons, blue in the distance, great primeval silences, knowledge of all things of earth.  It is so fragile it can be destroyed by a sound or a thought. It may be infinitesimally small or encompass the universe itself. It comes in a swift conception wherever nature has not been disturbed.

July-August 1998 (Vol. XI, No. 7)

EVERY BLESSING, friends! May the love you are and share with others ever increase that beauty might flourish. For is it not Beauty that has the potential to break through fears that separate us -- one from another, nation from nation? Like love, beauty is universal. Bask in beauty! Radiate beauty! Live in beauty! Support Beauty!

A favorite Lily Tomlin character is Trudy, the bag lady. Trudy suggests that we practice "awe-robics", by taking time each day to appreciate something such as the beauty of the stars. Trudy says we're closest to understanding when we are in awe of what we don't understand. May our hearts open to a love that is awesome.

~ from OPEN MIND by Diane Mariechild
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There are paintings and sculptures that tug at the heart because they catch a simple moment and make beauty conscious. There is music that "brims the eyes with bliss". Such works of art are shock waves that travel between the ego and the Divine Guest, reminding us of a nobler purpose to life. They create moments in which we know that we can lead a symbolic life, when the Self, like Michelangelo's God, reaches out to touch the outstretched hand of our inner Adam and our ego.

~ from "Reflections on the Ego/Self Axis by Alice O. Howell
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We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose bedecked with dew... Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful ... and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.

~ Desmond Tutu
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With that from the earth,
beauty I will create --
With that beauty,
my soul I will give.

~ Amado Peno
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Music is like a human echo of the beauty of the world or nature or flowers somewhere out there sounding the beauty of a Creator... As I listen to this beauty, I can rest, let down the guard I consciously or unconsciously maintain against the next minor or major difficulty or crisis.

~ from DIARY OF A CITY PRIEST by John P. McNamee
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What do I have to give You, God? A flock of gulls flies overhead. They are so beautiful, their black wings against the morning's blue sky. Last night I watched the same sky, covered with stars. I feel the ocean water which laps at my toe. I walk among the rocks, picking up quartz and crystal. What do I have to give You?

I close my eyes and listen. You say to me, "Love the beauty of my creation." I wait. There must be more. But there is no more. And I am left hearing the words again. Love the beauty of my creation.

~ from GIFT OF THE RED BIRD by Paula D'Arcy
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Appreciation of beauty is access to the soul. With beauty in our lives, we walk and carry ourselves more lightly and with a different look in our eyes. To look into the eyes of someone beholding beauty is to look through the windows of the soul. Anytime we catch a glimpse of soul, beauty is there; anytime we catch our breath and feel "How beautiful!" the soul is present.

~ Jean Shinoda Bolen in HANDBOOK FOR THE SOUL
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Beauty itself bears witness to God.

Only in space are events and objects and people unique and significant -- and therefore beautiful. A tree has significance if one sees it against the empty face of the sky. A note in music gains significance from silence on either side. A candle flowers in the space of night.

~ from GIFT FROM THE SEA by A. M. Lindbergh
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I have been lost and drowned
In beauty's deeps
Forgetting,
Beauty is but the garment
Thou dost wear;
And when the eventide has come
Thou has departed,
Leaving Thy garment,
But I seek Thyself.

~ from FRAGMENTS OF EXPERIENCE by Viola Petitt Neal
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Beauty and love are as body and soul.
Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond.
~ Jami
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Aesthetics is concerned with form, shape, composition, expression, and seeing forms AS THEY ARE. Just as the artist is "inspired" and filled with enthusiasm, so too those who SEE are seized with the divine spirit. What is seen is the doxa (glory) of the form, but this glory is the glory of being. Balthasar argues that the mystery in such beauty is the interruption of the eternal into the material in such a way that one can speak of the event of beauty, the entrance of the numinous into this world. To see beauty is to be overcome by the glory that breaks out of this person, this poem, this picture, this flower... We are confronted by the sense of its Otherness.

~ from THE THEOLOGICAL AESTHETICS OF HANS UR VON BALTHASAR by Louis Roberts
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Looking for and enjoying beauty is a way to nourish the soul. The universe is in the habit of making beauty. There are flowers and songs, snowflakes and smiles, acts of great courage, laughter between friends, a job well done, the smell of fresh baked bread. Beauty is everywhere, ready to nourish the soul. It must only be seen to begin helping us.

~ from "Soul Creation" by Matthew Fox
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In beauty, the soul recognizes its higher self and seeks to become one with it.

~ Christopher Banford
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What is essential is to keep the heart always open to beauty.

~ Bede Griffiths
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How can I search for beauty and truth unless that beauty and truth are already known to me in the depth of my heart? It seems that all us human beings have deep inner memories of the paradise that we have lost. We were innocent before we started feeling guilty; we were in the light before we entered into the darkness; we were at home before we started to search for a home. Deep in the recesses of our minds and hearts there lies hidden the treasure we seek. We know its preciousness and we know that it holds the gift we most desire: a life stronger than death.

~ from LIFE OF THE BELOVED by Henri J.M. Nouwen
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Insomuch as love grows in you, so in you beauty grows.
~ Augustine
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Awe-robics

A favorite Lily Tomlin character is Trudy, the bag lady. Trudy suggests that we practice "awe-robics", by taking time each day to appreciate something such as the beauty of the stars. Trudy says we're closest to understanding when we are in awe of what we don't understand. May our hearts open to a love that is awesome.

Making beauty conscious

There are paintings and sculptures that tug at the heart because they catch a simple moment and make beauty conscious. There is music that "brims the eyes with bliss". Such works of art are shock waves that travel between the ego and the Divine Guest, reminding us of a nobler purpose to life. They create moments in which we know that we can lead a symbolic life, when the Self, like Michelangelo's God, reaches out to touch the outstretched hand of our inner Adam and our ego.

We were made to enjoy

We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose bedecked with dew... Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful ... and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.

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