The Way of True Beauty – Page 3

November 15, 2015

It’s Everywhere!

The Ubiquitous Presence and (Yay!) Appreciation of True Beauty

I have stayed in the homes of people living in Russia, Sri Lanka, England, New Zealand, France, Italy, Turkey, and Peru. I have also traveled in Ecuador, Tahiti, China, Canada, Hong Kong, Thailand, Wales, Germany, Puerto Rico, various islands in the Caribbean, several amazing ancient sites in Mexico (as well as a couple of rather modern fun ones hecho en Mexico). And, of course, the United States. While what constitutes “common beauty” varies from place to place I have yet to encounter a people who weren’t in some essential way aware of and concerned with True Beauty.

Here is a simple for instance: flowers and gardens are to be found everywhere. I like them, so I look for them, and I haven’t been in a town anywhere that I haven’t seen pots planted with a flower on doorstoops, windowsills – even in the surreal cave homes of Turkey and slums in Puerto Rico. Flowerpots in windows might be serving more than one purpose (edible plants, herbs), but the satisfaction of the need for everyday natural, visual beauty is definitely a purpose, often a primary one.

There are some constants in Beauty that transcend every culture, that persevere through every version of man’s suppression of himself – culturally or personally — to his own inner resonance with true beauty: the light as it strikes the earth; a body of water, especially when sparkling; fresh vegetables on the table; a loved one’s laugh; bird song; and the comforting sense of “safe haven.”

Like laughter, or a smile, natural beauty is the recognized and universally experienced expression of True Beauty — happily familiar all over the globe.

November 8, 2015

Other Perceptions of the Truly Beautiful – II, Hozho

Hozho of the Navajo:

A definitively beauty-centric culture is that of the Navajo, or the Diné (meaning “the people” as they refer to themselves). It is guided by a fundamental principle of “hozho,” which embodies a pervasive philosophy of integrated balance, order, harmony and well-being.

Difficult to fully translate into English, hozho is at the core of the Navajo essence. It is a sense of elemental rightness that is central to their way of living. Hozho is a multilayered concept; meaning a state of harmony and beauty, truth and balance. I believe that the state of being Hozho is to be at one with all in the universe.

Soni Pitts puts it well in her ezine:

“To be in hozho is to be at one with and a part of your environment and the world around you in such a way that the notes of your life complement and resonate with the symphony of life all around you. You neither pitch above nor below the thrumming chords of the Universe, but yet at the same time your melody stands on its own merits and is heard with utter clarity – pure in tone and pitch and strength, singular yet subsumed in the whole. (Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3603)

Then, in his book, Six Names of Beauty, Crispin Sartwell names “hozho” the most comprehensive concept of Beauty:

“It [hozho] refers above all to the world when it is flourishing; it refers to the community, flourishing in the world; it refers to things we make, which flourish and play a role in the flourishing of other things; and it refers to ourselves, flourishing as makers, as people inhabiting a community that inhabits a world. It is a word for the oneness of all things when they are joined together in a wholesome state.”

OK, one more quote — as this is my most favorite…In this culture of hozho a person’s wealth was measured by what he or she created, specifically the number of songs created, according to one source. The arts, their practice and sharing are integral to every aspect of Navajo culture. So Sartwell goes on — and here is my favorite:

“…this integration of values and activities is simply an expression of the universal fact that human beings are connected to environments and to each other: it makes explicit an integrated system no one can evade. That is, hozho is a Navajo concept, but a cross-cultural truth…. Hozho has many things to teach, but it teaches first that beauty is one thing: everything.”

Now that is exactly so: True Beauty is “one thing: everything.” And with an ethos like that… sounds like a civilization I would be most happy to live in!

I do not know if the Diné acknowledge a specific consciousness state of Hozho, but when I was a small child, maybe four?, I had an intense experience of what I now imagine achieving such a state might feel like; it is a consciousness of being one with and of the universe. I was standing outside on a second-story balcony looking at tree leaves moving in the breeze. A blue jay was calling. A plane droned above. The morning sun was shining. All at once I felt no “I”. For clarity’s sake I will say: “I” was all and all was me. I was at one with the universe around me. The moment I became aware of this phenomenon it began to end.

And it occurred again, around the same age. This time I was standing outside on the ground and holding my father’s hand. We were in a field, perhaps a cemetary, or something that had scattered monuments. There were no other people around. Again it was sunny and the sky was very blue. On a distant pole a flag whipped in a strong breeze. It was quiet. I think another plane might have gone by overhead. The universe and “I” melded together.

These were two of the most powerful and influential life experiences I’ve had so far…

And truly, this concept of Hozho is the kernel of The Way of Beauty. It is the seed from the heritage plant for the new cultural paradigm I am touting, one that we must plant in the compost of our decaying culture in order to reap the sustainable true beauty of justice, harmony and balance of continual creation.

Joseph Campbell, a great voice for the mythic in humankind, reminds us repeatedly in his various lectures that our Judeo-Christian culture is one of the few that has separated itself so thoroughly from Nature, its beauty, and its wisdom. We would do well, as our culture moves forward, to take a page (or twenty) from the ancient Tea Masters of Japan and the Diné of North America.

Here is the ending portion of the Diné’s “Night Prayer”:

Happily may I walk.
Happily, with abundant dark clouds, may I walk.
Happily, with abundant showers, may I walk.
Happily, with abundant plants, may I walk.
Happily, on a trail of pollen, may I walk.
Happily may I walk.

Being as it used to be long ago, may I walk.
May it be beautiful before me.
May it be beautiful behind me.
May it be beautiful below me.
May it be beautiful above me.
May it be beautiful all around me.

In beauty it is finished.

November 1, 2015

Other Perceptions of The Truly Beautiful – I

Wabi Sabi:

photo by Lisa Z Lindahl — old plastered wall in 1800s jailhouse

Evolving out of the ancient Japanese Tea Ceremony traditions and still thriving in today’s world, Wabi-Sabi is a decidedly non-Western and non-Pop Culture method of perceiving beauty. Some, on “automatic pilot” might even perceive a “wabi sabi” object as ugly, or perhaps just ready to be thrown out, for Wabi-Sabi is the beauty to be found in those objects and things that are not perfect, but imperfect, and usually impermanent or even incomplete.

I hope it is clear by now that True Beauty is not a component or version of the shallow notion of beauty that is all-pervasive in Western culture today. “Destruction” is as vital to creation as “construction” and so is an integral part of True Beauty, its manifestation. Wabi Sabi is an expression of this.

The Japanese honor and codify this knowingness with their celebration of “Wabi-Sabi.” This centuries-old concept is an aesthetic of imperfection and austerity, an affirmation of melancholy. It is the beauty of peeling paint on an old board; it is the beauty of the withered, weathered and scarred. Further, it insinuates simplicity and quietude. This idea of Beauty also celebrates the changes that come with aging, and the cycles of change. The word “patina” is often found in descriptions and definitions of Wabi-Sabi. This validates and celebrates aging and entropy as an attractive and pleasing point in what The Way of Beauty identifies as “the Beauty Continuum.”

The origin of the term “wabi sabi” is embedded in ancient Japanese history. Originally these words had quite different meanings. Sabi may have originally inferred something like ‘desiccated’, or ‘withered.’ Wabi meant the misery of living alone in nature, far from society. Sometime around the 14th century, the meanings of both words began to evolve into a statement of agreeable aesthetic values, a term to describe the pleasing visuals and details to be found in common objects of everyday life, even as — especially as — the marks of their usage showed. The definition of Wabi-Sabi is blurry, still today. Plenty of writers and their pages dwell on its many fascinating nuances.

Think old fishing dory with its paint rubbed off, sitting on a misty shore. Or a tired tractor rusting in place in a fallow field. Moss growing on a rotten fence post…. It is an ephemeral and mystical kind of beauty.

I find it unique and refreshing that Wabi-Sabi embraces the man-made as easily as the natural world. This is an important aspect of this concept of Beauty. It blurs the distinction and/or evaluation regarding natural Beauty, man-made art vs. art of nature.

I think that if “rustic” and “elegant” were to marry, they would produce the beauty of Wabi-Sabi.

October 25, 2015

True Quotes re True Beauty

In my travels on the Way of True Beauty I have, of course, come across some wise and pithy statements about beauty, true eternal beauty. Here are some I’d like to share with you:

All contemporary crises can be reduced to a crisis about the nature of beauty.

~ John O’Donohue

…the perfection of Beauty is defined as being the perfection of Harmony…

~ Alfred North Whitehead

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
~John Muir

Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart
~ Kahlil Gibran

The individual human’s aesthetic response would alter the very course of history and the shape of things we live among. ~ James Hillman

We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul…. we come to glimpse behind the shutter of appearances the sure form of things…. Beauty brings a sense of completion and sureness. Without any of the usual calculation, we can slip into the Beautiful with the same ease as we slip into the seamless embrace of water; something ancient within us already trusts that this embrace will hold us. ~ John O’Donohue

Luminous matter is the most rare stuff in our universe. At only 4{d26b639eb74f8edb8884074db06109d949b84d3d1d14796b516693be64172811} it is precious. It is what we and our world are made up of. Everything is sacred. Every thing. Every one. ~ Lisa Lindahl

And finally, another person that believes as I do, that True Beauty is the raison d’être of our Universe:

For the world is not painted or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you have started to integrate the Way of True Beauty into your life, you might take one or some of these — whichever resonates strongly with you — write them out in your own handwriting and pin them up where you will see them each day. As I am known to say, “can’t hurt, might help!”

October 18, 2015

Flashback II

Another essay from my archives, this was written in 1992… So precocious! I was only 3 years old then…

Vestigal Senses?

Kirlian photography has shown that we have electrical current running out the kirlianfingers-1 tips of our fingers and toes. On the market now there are even little toys that can be made to make noise by placing your fingertips on tiny little terminals placed there for that purpose.

This got me to thinking. What if, once, we humans had far greater power and greater control over it? What if the mysteries of how the pyramids were built, or the Mayan and Incan temples were built could be explained by saying that man was simply capable of moving great objects by pointing his hand, directing his inner energies and moving the object?

We know that ancient civilizations had knowledge and wisdom that we, in our narrow-minded obstinant adherence to “scientific reasoning” cannot account for or give credence to. How did the Mayans and Incans have such a sophisticated understanding of astronomy? we ask in wonder. How did the ancient Egyptians know enough of engineering to build the pyramids?

What if, what if ancient mankind had a superior understanding and control of NATURAL energies? We, who are so dependent on the clumsy MECHANICAL way of doing things…what if flying through the air was not dependent upon a huge metal and fire machine, but instead on one’s inner, disciplined energies?

I think of the old tales of wizards and gods who could hurl a bolt of lighteneing from their hands, or see great distances, or know of impending events before they occured. And I wonder. I wonder if these were the last of humankind to lose their full powers. I wonder if we have evolved away and out of the knowledge of that power and are left only with its vestiges… a little trickle of electricity dribbling from our once-great and magical fingertips.

And then I get to thinking about the human brain. With all our science and reasoning it remains mysterious and unknown. The researchers tell us that we are only using about a tenth of our brains, as far as they can tell. And I think of all those neural pathways conducting electricity through our gray matter…and I wonder some more. Because I have epilepsy, I know–or have been told–that seizures are simply too much electricity coursing through the brain, making the current jump track out of the containing and directing pathway and short-circuiting the entire brain functions. Oh, really?

What if. What if people who experience convulsions are simply throw-backs to a time when we had more power, and the only deficiency of these modern day, unwitting wizards is that they have no idea how to channel that energy, use it, discipline it, direct it…and so it goes through a cycle of build-up/release, build-up/release, and so on.

The oracles of Delphi in ancient Greece were considered holy, wise and able to communicate with the gods because they had convulsions. It was in the convulsive state that they were supposedly communicating with the gods. Later, in medeval times convulsing people were thought to be possessed by the devil. Either way, the taint of the supernatural and/or paranormal was on the individual who experienced the altered state of consciousness that we call a “seizure disorder.” And today, modern man’s response to this is to apply drugs to suppress the experience. It is what I call the “if you can’t understand or use it, make it go away. Suppress it with drugs” method of coping. How much ancient knowledge or ability has been lost in this way?

Intuition, ESP, psychokinesis, prophecy, astral projection…the list is very long of things our modern science cannot explain and so belittles.

What if we were once a race of wizards, left now with only the faint dregs of our original powers and knowing? We now have only our vestigial senses…

October 11, 2015

A Practice or a Habit?

So here I have been outlining how to engage in the Practice of True Beauty. And why. But have you ever wondered what the differences are between a “practice” and a “habit”?

A habit is a routine. While it may have begun with intention, it no longer needs thought behind it — it is part of one’s Automatic Pilot dashboard. It achieves some task: teeth get brushed.

A practice is just that – practice. It implies “rehearsal” for something more real?, permanent?, or better done that will occur at another time/place/space. A practice also implies it has been taken on with an intention attached to it. Part of that intention is to improve over time. I don’t think of my habits as necessarily having an element of improving.

A Caution about Practices

However, engaging in a practice may sometimes get in one’s way. In his book The Exquisite Risk, Daring to Live an Authentic Life, poet and philosopher Mark Nepo puts it well:

All the practice in the world can’t instigate enlightenment or revelation. It can only make us ready vessels for when these moments occur. … practice implies practice for something, usually a readying of the self…for the unexpected moment of life…

“vessels for…the unexpected moment of life…” Why do we practice meditation? Why do we introduce the practice of going to the gym each day? We must not forget the purpose behind the practice.

“Like Uncle Sam!” Lou says. “Remember all those times we had to eat cold Thanksgiving dinner because of waiting for him? He was always having to get his run in after he meditated for an hour, and meanwhile the whole family had to wait for him before sitting down — and Aunt Grace seemed always to time the turkey to be ready just as he went out the door, remember? When I was little it confused me like mad! When I got older I was really annoyed. Hungry! I mean really — one day outta the year you can’t change your schedule dude?”

I commiserated with Lou, having privately thought the same thing, and wondering why his sweet wife hadn’t thought to time her meal differently — or let us go ahead without him. Sam’s rigid meditation-cum-run devotion had not seemed to deepen his well of compassion or cooperation. Ah, well. Things change. We’ve moved away and now have our own hot Thanksgiving dinner, sans Sam and Grace. Still, I miss them, actually.

Lou is still thinking out loud about habits and practices…

“But habits — hey, we have to do something when we close down the screen, right? Before your Big Mr. Universe comes knocking at our door, beckoning us out into the cosmos! I can just see Mr. Universe! Big Hairy – oh, oh! Okay, MS. Universe. Hairy Ms. Uni — Oh! Oh! OKAY. The Universe has no gender? What?”

By this time I am hitting Lou over the head with a pillow from my chair. He squeals and runs out laughing and yelling something about pacificism and beauty and practicing what I preach.

But Lou, as usual, has a point. With the TV, computer, phone off and our automatic pilot off — that Captain of Habitual Activity — we might as well choose to intentionally practice something. So let’s practice True Beauty. It really does include a great deal of variety: Being funny, being quiet, walking or swimming or some such, any kind of art or production, looking at everything, hanging out with friends, giving and getting some loving – not too difficult, eminently satisfactory.

For once, Lou might agree with me.

Meanwhile though, make sure that in the name of your “practice”, you are not avoiding life. Life, with all its glory, it’s messiness, and oh yes — it’s unexpected sprouts and spouts.

September 20, 2015

Flashback…

One of the advantages of being a writer is that one tends to chronicle events, eras, moods, relationships. Well, so maybe it’s not always an advantage…

Anyway, I came across this essay I wrote back in the mid 1990’s. I meant to submit it for publication, but got cold feet — an oft-experienced issue for me. Now with blogging and all, I don’t have that age old excuse of “oh, the New Yorker/New York Times/Poet & Writer/You Name It Publication will never accept it anyway so why bother submitting it.” Now I just have to push a button.

So here goes.

Catch 22, Nineties Style

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I had an idea for a useful consumer product. I made a prototype, created a business to sell the product, was successful beyond expectation and subsequently sold it to a major corporation for big bucks. All this occurred within a 13 year time span. At age 41 I could retire if I chose.

I chose.

What!? Some of my acquaintances were aghast: give up the power, fame, industry recognition, wheeling, dealing and money? For what, they wanted to know.

For a life. Maybe.

Just as I was starting the business back in 1977, my first marriage was ending. In grief and confusion and fear I segued from trying to make a marriage work to trying to make a business work. However, it was not only the business itself that had to work and be successful, but a business partnership as well. I excelled at the former and failed at the latter. While the business did very well and caused some stir, the partnership that was driving it was, over the course of those thirteen plus years, acutely adversarial at its worst and politely civil at its best. So while financially rewarding, my business was hardly a source of friendship, spiritual sustenance or joy. Teamwork was not the operative dynamic.

I had not remarried, being in fact married to the business. The men who did pass through my life during this time were eventually unable to cope with the reality of the schedule, pressures, and passion of an entrepreneur. The major problem — the relationship ‘deal-breaker,’ so to speak — would vary from man to man. The demands on my time, the extent of my “preoccupation with your occupation” (as one exiting suitor would say), or– frequently in the latter years — the size of my paycheck in relation to his. I, of course, was perfect…

I was not at rest. Something was missing from the mix, big time. At first I thought it was just this unfulfilled relationship thing. But then I realized that it was more complicated than that; more subtle. I first got a clue about this when my niece came to live with me for a time. I came to realize that it was not just a man I lacked, but rather a daily experience of family. And this realization came on top of others, ones relating to the business as it continued to grow and mature.

I was bored. Creating a product and a business had been fun, invigorating. But maintaining it was not. Having the point of this entrepreneurial game be too much about profit for profit’s sake, rather than profit as a scorecard for the game, was not turning out to be my cup o’ tea. And then after selling my business, things changed even more. Now don’t get me wrong; I was ecstatic (and smug) that I had achieved my goal of being financially secure. I was continuing to learn a great deal, and there were plenty of challenges to be overcome. Things were far from static. But I did not like the new rules of the game as it became larger and larger with more and more players. There was this voice in me that kept saying “there are more important things I need to be doing.” It was lent credence by my sense of having won this game; my idea had turned into an accepted reality and a readily available product in the marketplace. That was the primary point of the game for me; not money or job security – though those were great by-products.

Art. Painting, writing. Having the luxury of time, with no specific deadline, in which to just be. Be creative again. Be available. Be aware. Be appreciative. Be serene. Be open to the “is-ness.” These aspirations were being suppressed, too divergent from the demands of busi-ness.

It has been six years, now, since I made the choice to stop. It was really a choice to start — or more accurately, to regain the sense of connection and wonderment that comes when we allow ourselves to be aware of the flow of life and light around us.

I have been pursuing my post-commerce aspirations. I am not wholly successful, yet. The score card is way different; the needed skills only partially developed. In the form of currency, there is little remuneration involved. I have had opportunities to go be a highly-paid executive elsewhere. In moments of insecurity and fear I have pursued some of these — but to no end.

In our culture it can be difficult not to cave in to societal expectations of continued “success.” (“So, Lisa, what are you doing now?”). It can be hard to ignore the often more readily available and easily understood pursuit of success in business. To do so takes a certain form of courage, I find.

***

September 13, 2015

Bye Beautiful Summer… A Gallery

Dear Summer,

Until we meet again…

Love, Lisa

ps: I haven’t forgotten the images from Mother Emmanuel AME Church, or Baltimore, or Ferguson… they live in my soul, and inform my voice (as my friend Jess points out). But Summer, I choose to celebrate your beauty here.

August 30, 2015

Disassociating from Beauty

Losing touch…

How is it that we get separated from our engagement with True Beauty? How does it happen and what replaces it?

One example might be as simple as our eating mode. These days we are so separated from our food sources that children think chickens come from plastic boxes or buckets and spinach from a cellophane bag. What a shocking experience for a city kid to cut a wad of spinach from a plant or pull a carrot out of the earth, with dirt hanging from its orange self – and call each fresh and healthy! A quick wash and ready to eat! What is dirt? What is dirt-y? What is all that cement and blacktop? What is it covering up? What is ugly? What is beautiful? What is potential? Who cares and why?

The role of Natural Beauty

The natural world is often a human being’s first introduction to and relationship with external beauty – beauty without. And in our current urban-centric, agri-business culture, most people are on a “nodding basis” only with our natural world. It is something driven by during the commute, a lawn to be mown, the subject of an ETV documentary about an exotic place, a tree in a park. While gardening is a giant industry, and ranked a top hobby of American households, still too many souls receive and participate in too little of nature’s beauty, let alone pay attention to and participate in the magic of its cycles.

Aside from the obvious simple Beauty that a garden creates, the relationships one forms while creating and tending it – with the soil, the plant, the animals, birds, bees and insects, the weather and cycles – are enriching and enhancing. And sometimes annoying and frustrating. Can I put that bit under “character development?”

Some small but powerful practices that help re-introduce us to the rhythms of Beauty might be: turning off the TV (or getting rid of it), ceasing to get your daily “news” from the fear-mongering mass media, or making dinner for a friend once a week or so. Sitting quietly each day (preferably outside) also ranks right up there. The 18 Practices of Beauty review all of these possibilities.

I believe we must help ourselves and others re-learn to consciously connect with the harmonies in our lives. With True Beauty. It is all around us, all the time. Look up. Feel out. Enjoy.

August 23, 2015

True Beauty and Epilepsy

One of the oldest chronicled disorders, Epilepsy has been steeped in stigma and myth. Those who have it are described as “afflicted” and often face very real forces and forms of discrimination and ridicule. I believe this is due in great part to three basic characteristics of Epilepsy:

The first characteristic is its episodic nature; it remains hidden, “invisible” to others for what can be long periods of time. When a seizure occurs, then, it can feel like a betrayal to both the person having it as well as anyone viewing it. This can erode confidence.

The second is its lack of uniformity: with seizures taking so many forms it is hard to categorize and simplify. To know “for sure” what it looks like, feels like or how it will “present” to use medical parlance. Even in one person’s life his or her seizure type can evolve and change over time. This undercuts predictability.

The third characteristic is its resistance to being known: there is no cure, in 80{d26b639eb74f8edb8884074db06109d949b84d3d1d14796b516693be64172811} of cases there is no known cause (called ‘idiopathic’ epilepsy) and too often medication is only partially effective. Epilepsy refuses to be controlled; it is very mysterious. This can create fear.

Betrayal, unreliablity, unpredictable, mysterious…

These characteristics are, I believe, the primary contributors to epilepsy’s stigma. People distrust what they cannot understand. They don’t like to be fooled (“She was fine just a minute ago!”) or surprised (“It all happened so quickly”) or frightened (“That convulsion was the scariest thing I ever saw; my friend looked positively possessed!”). Further, doctors and parents don’t like to be defeated when they try, repeatedly, to help. As a culture we are uncomfortable with the mysterious. And no one likes to be afraid.

What has all this to do with Beauty or a possible practice of True Beauty in everyday living? Bear with me while I try to share the connection as it occurred for me.

After selling my entrepreneurial business to big biz of corporate America, I had a bit of time on my hands.

It transpired that I came to volunteer with the Epilepsy Foundation of America, serving on their National Board of Directors. Prior to this I’d lived quietly, privately with epilepsy all my life. It was a surprise, therefore, to discover that there was a whole community of people active, interested and educated about epilepsy. A patient advocacy group, even! They actually talked about it! And I had so much to learn about epilepsy, which felt odd; a condition that had so circumscribed my life, my being so out of the loop — not even knowing there was a loop!

It also came as a surprise that I had so much to contribute to this community. Back then the Foundation’s Board was made up mostly of medical practitioners, businessmen and some lawyers. It turned out that I was the first “consumer” — person with epilepsy — to be elected to the board.

I loved my work there. As a representative of the Foundation I traveled around the country as a public speaker, sort of Epilepsy’s “poster girl of success,” to educate others and raise money for various local Foundation affiliates. Unemployment and underemployment are major issues for people with epilepsy. My story of starting a business, working long hard hours, work-related travel, managing and inspiring employees both in-house and across the country — it was a story that flew in the face of the idea that it was difficult to employ a person with epilepsy or work around their issues.

This proved to be an important puzzle piece for me — my public participation in what had been a very private circumstance; public revelation of a private struggle.

Action, not abstraction. Being visible, not invisible. Vocal, not silent.

It was not easy, at first, to find and publicly tell my “real” truth. I came to be able to articulate what I had inherently known: while not pretty, or convenient, and sometimes brutal and deadly, epilepsy nonetheless transfers its own gifts. It can confer a kind of wisdom through its particular perspective. As an alternate way into knowingness, epilepsy can be pretty efficient. To acknowledge this was a significant milestone in my spiritual perspective and development. And I was saying out loud what many others with epilepsy inherently knew. In facing epilepsy we become strong. We are capable. We are not perfect, but who is? We are often sophisticated problem-solvers…we have to be.

In my universe, it revealed the connections as well as the distinctions between Truth and Appearances. And this distinction is a key component of True Beauty. It was through the topic of epilepsy that I was able to make the leap from inner truth to outer connection, between revelation and the dispelling of despair. Around the topic of this ancient and misunderstood disorder I was able to articulate — first for myself, then for others – the integral uselessness of “appearances” in the face of strong self-knowledge.

It may seem obvious, but to the person struggling with the stigma attached to a seizure disorder, it is not at all obvious. Nor does self-knowledge come easily; especially when the doctors don’t have many of the answers for the physical or emotional side of the equation. Do you know that certain types of epilepsy are believed to effect personality? Try that confusing discussion/possibility on for size when you are a hormone-ridden, answer-seeking teen-age girl.

I hope many get it: their assumptions about epilepsy, the appearance of epilepsy need not be its truth, their truth. The eventual truth/outcome. When delivering speeches I would see eyes light up; hope enter in; parents laugh. The dismantling of that assumption, that “automatic pilot” sort of thinking helped create the connection for others, I believe, between Truth, Appearance, and yes — Beauty.

It was humbling to realize that it was in part my story, my experience that held power for others. That to hear me — one of “them” – gave hope and inspired courage. Further, my marketing and communications expertise, garnered over the years in the business world, now allowed me to help the Foundation re-frame and re-tell the story of Epilepsy; undo some of the preconceived notions that have been handed down generation after generation.

Through the experience of having seizures I have been exposed to and learned so much. To name a few: altered states of consciousness that led to deeper understandings; the ephemeral nature of my own existence; confrontation of one’s own fears – real, imagined and a combination of two; the poignant beauty of existence; the hierarchy of importances – personal and otherwise.

The expression of my truth and being as a person with epilepsy helped to dispel stigma, brought new hope and created realizations for others. It brought light, a truth, into a dark and ignored corner. This was, to me, a form of the beautiful. How? It was contributing to harmony, where before there had been discord.

Then, this sharing my life story with others and having it be meaningful to them – what a gift! It got me thinking about how to “universalize” the lessons, about my conviction about Beauty, and how it was present elsewhere in everyday life. Had others thought about this? Written about it?

Circuitous though it may seem, it was my first inkling that Beauty could, indeed, be a practice, like meditation, or running, or…

The nine years at the Epilepsy Foundation gave me back so much more than I gave. Not to be hyperbolic, it transformed my “profane” success in the consumer-goods world into a tool for a more sacred work. I experienced a non-visual expression of Beauty on another sort of canvas. And it was powerful. It was a deeper understanding — and it has led me into what I am now calling The Way of Beauty.

Yahoooooooo!