Finding Beauty

Greetings all,

The travels continue as I set forth once more, this time to Camp Chesterfield for their psychic fair.  I've been teaching quite a bit the past few weeks, and I've been putting the finishing touches on my first book.  I'm just really a cover and a book jacket description away from publication.  It has been very overwhelming.  Hopefully the next time I finish a book, I won't have everything happening at the same time.  I won't lie some weeks it has been quite a strain to pull something out of my head to share here. Not to worry, I'll soon be devoting all my author energy back to the blog…until my next book.  Don't ask me when that will be or what it will be about, because I don't know yet.

In the mad dash to get everything done this week I had a moment of clarity in between my classes today.  I was looking out a window and noticing the dew on the ornamental grasses of the corporate campus. (I've been teaching tai chi as part of a corporate wellness program this month).  The mid morning light was glinting off the dew like jewels as the grass slowly swayed in the breeze.  White cotton ball clouds floated by on bright blue sky overhead.  It was beautiful.  I was moved by the simplicity of that scene and privileged to acknowledge the beauty that nature provides us.

I hear a lot about how mankind is ruining the planet.  Hell, I'm often one of the voices raising that point. People do go a bit far in suggesting the planet would be better off without us.  We are a part of nature, even if we have forgotten it.  Like all the plants and animals, we have a sacred purpose in the web of life. No one really agrees as to what that purpose is, but many of us do agree that most of our species has forsaken it.

Today looking at the perfect way the sunlight kissed the dew, it seemed clear to me what our purpose is. In that moment, I had a strong knowing that our purpose was to behold the beauty and splendor in the world, and when we have rejoiced in it till we are full then we expand it out into the universe.  We are the beholders of beauty.  By acknowledging and honoring the beauty in the universe we help make it sacred. We can even in a small way partner with it, and create even greater beauty.

Now some of you may think this purpose is shallow and all about looks.  It isn't.  In our culture, we often confuse beauty with sexy.  Not that there is anything wrong with sexy, but it isn't the same thing as beauty.  You can be beautiful but not necessarily sexy. You can also be sexy but far from beautiful. Beauty can be in an act, a gesture, or a word.  Beauty can be the way you care for your loved ones.  It can be perseverance in the face of impossible odds. It can be the lines of wisdom in the face of a beloved grandparent.  It can be the way you greet the day.

We daily broadcast images of the grotesque and ugly acts that our kind perpetuate upon the planet and each other. I think it is coercive in a way, to shutdown our basic capacity for beauty.  If we stop looking for beauty, we stop finding it.  We live in a gray world of blood and ash without it.  This makes it easy to market to us.  Sex, blood, and death sell like ice cream on a hot day in a world robbed of beauty. The heart is what perceives beauty, and ad men have been really dodgy about marketing to the heart.  It is tricky, much easier to cut it out and either make us afraid or horny. Hard-wired biological drives will increase profits, the heart in comparison is a risky venture.

You may be thinking, "Sheesh Mooneagle stop preaching about pretty sunsets and dew drops and give me something practical." If you are thinking that you haven't been reading my blog very long have you? There is some very practical applications and implications of my idea.  If we accept it as one possible purpose for humanity it has the capacity to transform ourselves and our civilization.  How would we treat the world and each other if we were imbued with the sacredness of our purpose in nature?

This is where I leave you….ok just kidding.  Ask yourself if beauty has a place in your heart and life? Do you notice the thousands of acts of beauty around you each day?  Do you notice the sun and the moon?  Do you delight in how the wind moves through the trees? Do you devote time in your life to creating beauty?  Do you bring it into your work and your relationships? If not, it may be time for you to hand your heart some markers and let it recolor the world for you.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle