• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Kim Hermanson PhD

Facilitating Creative Breakthroughs

  • Home
  • Events
  • Readings
    • Request a Reading
    • Testimonials
  • Products
    • Books
    • Self-Study Audio Courses
    • Courses to License
  • Blog
  • About
    • Official Bio
    • Lectures and Interviews
    • Personal Story
  • Doorway Sessions
    • Book a Session
    • What Clients Say
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Giving Birth to Beauty

September 6, 2008

To create is always to learn,
to begin over,
to begin at zero. — Matthew Fox

In John O’Donohue’s book The Invisible Embrace of Beauty, O’Donohue mentions St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed that beauty was the perfection of a thing. “To know a thing is to awaken to its depth, complexity and presence.” According to Aquinas, each thing secretly and profoundly desires to be known.


O’Donohue’s discussion links learning, creativity, and beauty together. My Ph.D. is solidly in the area of “learning,” yet beauty and creativity seem so central to the learning process. I can’t think of one term without the other. Being in nurturing, beautiful environments opens our hearts, and having an open heart is necessary for true learning. And when we learn, we move a step closer to wholeness, which gives birth to more beauty. (Now if we could just do something about ugly schools and corporations and city buildings and…)


Previous Post
Next Post

Books, Learning & Creative Process, Social Change beauty, creativity, John O'Donohue, kim hermanson, learning, matthew fox, ph.d., St. Thomas Aquinas

Primary Sidebar

Blog Categories

  • Art
  • Books
  • Doorway Sessions
  • Earth/Nature
  • Imaginal
  • Inspiration
  • Learning & Creative Process
  • Metaphor
  • Social Change
  • Teaching, Coaching & Facilitating
  • Uncategorized

Blog Archives

Blog Tags

aesthetics albert einstein art artist beauty Betty Edwards Book Passage carl jung coaching consciousness creative process creative writing creativity depth psychology depth psychology alliance doorway sessions drawing on the right side of the brain eckhart tolle esalen institute george lakoff getting messy goethe heart learning herbert marcuse image imaginal imagination inspiration james hillman John O'Donohue kim hermanson learning marshall mcluhan martin foss metaphor nature picasso poetry Robert Henri social change Sophia Center stanley kunitz teaching The Art Spirit third space
Give your creativity a kick in the pants.
Get Kim's Guide: "15 Tips for Creative Breakthroughs"
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2021 Kim Hermanson, PhD

Website by Digital PDX

Header Image by California Artist Logan Payne.