The thing about art is that it brings us into the exact present moment of our life…and captures that moment.
Attached is a little watercolor I did recently.
Facilitating Creative Breakthroughs
The thing about art is that it brings us into the exact present moment of our life…and captures that moment.
Attached is a little watercolor I did recently.
“Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously. Other happenings give us joy and afterwards a peace, but in beauty these are the same experience. Beauty is serene and at the same time exhilarating; it increases one’s sense of being alive…Beauty is the mystery which enchants us. Like all higher experiences of being human, beauty is dynamic; its sense of repose, paradoxically, is never dead, and it it seems to be dead, it is no longer beauty.” (excerpted from My Quest for Beauty by Rollo May)
I have the sense that beauty is the direction of “True North.” In other words, whatever it is that our culture is searching for in this time of chaos and change, the place we need to be looking, is toward beauty. It’s easy to feel this when you spend time in nature–the cares of the world dissolve and peace settles over us. But beauty can be found in other arenas as well, such as meaningful connections with people and the arts. In my view, Beauty is the direction of True North.
Thomas Aquinas once wrote that “To know a thing is to awaken to its depth, complexity and presence.” According to Aquinas, each thing (and each of us as well) secretly and profoundly “desires to be known.” My passion has always been teaching and learning, and in Aquinas’ remarks we see how central beauty is when we teach and learn. Beauty is the depth at which we see something, meaning that we aren’t seeing the person/student/client through an old, cloudy “image” of who we think they are. As the philosopher Simone Weil said, paying attention to another is an act of love.
Sort of like watching a flower blossom.
When we perceive beauty, an “integration of self” takes place. ~ Arleen Hynes
I wrote this poem ten years ago, and just recently rediscovered it. It’s a poem about beauty (and my Great Aunt Thelma). I visited her in Wisconsin and was enraptured for the entire visit. It was the only time I spent with her as an adult, and it was also the last. Shortly after that I moved to Montana and she died soon after.
Addendum on September 29th: So I felt kind of goofy posting this a couple weeks ago. I don’t usually post my own poetry. But it turns out that Goodreads.com selected this poem as a finalist in its October poetry contest…. and I feel a little less goofy now. 🙂
If you’re a member of Goodreads, click on this link to vote for my poem:
http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/24001?si=true&utm_medium=email&utm_source=poll
One commentator wrote this: “all the poems seemed to be sad or filled with some kind of anger. An American Beauty was full of joy and memories. i loved it.”
OK. That’s enough tooting my own horn. Here’s the poem.
AN AMERICAN BEAUTY
What you notice first is how small and hunched over she is.
A big hump rises up between her shoulders, and
her head parallels the ground.
Yet her neck and carriage are strong as she peers up,
not missing a thing.
Her mouth forms a natural grin,
a grin she has generously shared with
the world for 93 years.
The grin subsides when she’s focused on you.
That’s when her twinkling eyes stare intently
and her lips purse together,
listening, remembering.
Her hair is what you notice next
long red hair that’s now mostly white.
A deep, rich color that’s not ephemeral
and can’t be dismissed.
I gaze enraptured as she braids it every morning
using 2 long hair pins to keep it in place.
When she’s done braiding
she casually flips it over her shoulder
like a young school girl,
immune to her own beauty.
When she walks, she scurries,
quick, solid, and strong on her feet.
She has a walker she scarcely uses.
She holds it up in front of her as she firmly moves
forward, all 93 years of her, moving out.
Her legs are strong, determined.
I long to touch them.
I spend the first day wanting to explain her—
create my own story on why she never married.
“She’s secretly gay.”
“She was unattractive and gawky.”
“She loved and was burned.”
None seem to fit.
I give up explaining and enjoy her.
If there’s a story it’s this one:
She was so open-hearted and bursting with pure joy
that no man could contain her in 1924.
People like her.
They say, “You’re doing all right, Thelma”
and ask her how she stays so pleasant.
Everyone knows her, or perhaps I should say
she knows everyone.
All day long I’m introduced to all within range,
as we gallivant around this small Wisconsin town
where she’s lived her whole life.
She talks, not noticing when people
are rude or too busy.
She continues on, asking questions, conversing.
“Can you imagine that?” she’ll say to me.
Or she’ll tell me to look at the birds…
for the fifth time.
“I wonder why that one has a red beak?”
I soak in her light-hearted wonder, and
feel the joy of being alive and happy with the world.
I want more of her.
“Wonderful you,” she says, ending every encounter
with, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
I want to touch her, hold her.
I want to breathe her in.
I want to swallow her.
When we watched the Grammy awards
I sat 3 hours at her feet.
I couldn’t sit in my own chair.
I couldn’t sit close enough.
She was jump-center on her high school
basketball team, 1920 to 1924
Maybe basketball is the key
to open-hearted joy and powerful beauty
at the age of 93.