Beauty

Beauty I

This early morning

as sensible people were sleeping,

as the sun’s rays tried to find their way

through the cold early morning mist,

I walked to the shores of a pond shrouded in mist

For two hours I was lifted to heaven

and if you don’t believe in heaven that’s all right, perhaps

it just means you have not yet let yourself

be transported heaven-ward by the power of beauty.

Today I simply bathed in beauty and let

its power overwhelm me

As this bit of wild forest by the pond came alive in my soul

I realized that all around me was beauty, that mysterious life force

that, by simply allowing it to quietly enter my being, allowed

the potpourri of light and mist and

falling leaves and cold and quiet and solitude in the dark brooding forest

to make me one with all.

For what beauty did within me was transform

what at first glance was just some dead and dying trees, along

with the last of the Autumn leaves on the ground –

still resplendent in their reds and oranges and yellows –

to be a speck of heaven, of power, of life – all brought to me

by beauty that entered me, for

if I felt that if I could see with the eyes of my soul

that beauty was wrapped around every leaf, every dead tree, every droplet of mist

I would have a moment of Heaven here on Earth.

And so it was beauty wrapped around me like a cloak

entered by soul, astonished at the magnificent power of the beauty that resides

even in the silent, dark, cold mist as the sun’s rays created diamonds of the water droplets that covered every magical surface.

 

 

Beauty II

I could not make myself leave that mist shrouded pond and forest

For although the loons have long gone south taking summer’s warmth with them

Beauty called out to me: “You cannot just look at what I have made, you must be a participant in this symphony of light and darkness.”

And so it was that Beauty called me back home to the lake upon which our cottage sits

There in the bright sunshine there was no more shadow, no more mystery.

Simply Joy as I plunged into the freezing cold water, screaming in delight,

bathed in brilliant sunlight, bathed in beauty and now one with it.

What has remained with me from that moment is this:

the mystery of beauty, its power

its awesome ability to inspire awe and wondour

and bring me to be one with the infinite

all around me every day, but usually not noticing its gift.

Until that cold October day I did not recognize the sheer overwhelming power of beauty

it’s life giving breath

Yes, I had thought, beauty is lovely but is weak

the frail flowers use beauty to entice the bees

the proud and vain male peacock struts his beauty to impress

how wrong I was

beauty is not weakness, it is not frailty or vanity

it is power and might and grandeur and life life itself

seen in elegant math solution

seen in Raphael’s art and Bach’s music

but also in powerful, chaotic, random and wild Creation

The more I see beauty

the more I inhabit beauty

the less I understand it

the more I feel it

the more I know deep in my soul

that beauty is life’s powerful love made visible

and that you are beautiful.