Inventor, Writer, Human
True, deep Beauty is reflected in the life force that is present all around us – it’s a joyous, sometimes riotous party given by the entire Universe. We’re always invited, though too often we don’t attend. “Attend,” pay attention to… .. Look up, look around! Look out your window – there’s a gorgeous party going on!
The natural world is often a human being’s first introduction to and relationship with external beauty – the True Beauty without. In our current urban-central, agri-business world, unfortunately too many people develop only a “nodding basis” with the natural world. Sadly, it is no longer a central reference point for the culture.
Yet our instinctual need for relationship with the natural world and its beauty will out…we create gardens. We plant pots. “Gardening” has become a giant industry. Last I looked it was ranked the #2 hobby of American households. And everywhere I have traveled around the globe I’ve noticed the ubiquitous window boxes, flower pots, community plots.
True Beauty is all around us. The first, basic Practice of Beauty is to actually see. To practice turning off what I call our sensory “auto-pilot” and really see/perceive what is around us. We take short-cuts. That intersection we pass by everyday — when was the last time you really looked at it? Or the tree in the front yard?
Try it! How many colors of green do you see outside? Any pink in that grass? And purple in that tarmac? Practice seeing. You’ll find the habit eventually goes far beyond the merely visual.
Natural beauty is True Beauty. Eternal. We yearn for it, and create it as we able.
What is meant by “The Way…”
So, here I am going on about The Way of Beauty. Lou asked me what the heck that was about… so here goes:
The ancient Chinese developed Taoism from “Tao” meaning “path” or “way,” specifically in reference to their ancient studies of the Universe and its ways, or paths — meaning its processes and methods. Taoism is considered to be the Religion of Heaven and Earth, of the Cosmos, the World, and Nature in the broadest sense.
So, Lou — and anyone else who was wondering — it is with that thought tradition in mind that I put forth this Way of Beauty.
The Way of Beauty is about cultivating a daily-living practice of beauty awareness. The reason to do so is rooted in the belief that Beauty — its creation, cultivation and discovery — is an important and centralizing principle of our universe.
The Way of Beauty is simple. It requires no esoteric tools or objects. To practice it requires only an attitude and awareness shift. It is something that is done every day, a practice, a habit. And it will effect one’s choices on every level.
We can make Beauty a verb, as well as a noun and an adjective. The time is now to Practice Beauty. The Practices of Beauty are outlined in my book, “The Way of Beauty.” Of course, sometimes they get articulated here, on the blog…
There are some time-honored practices that speak to and support the Way of Beauty. Meditation is one. Being still and present in the midst of our busybusybusy environment is another. Maintaining a healthy physical body (exercise) is yet another. None of these “practices” are new. But their connection with Beauty has been diminished, even forgotten. I am here to remind us. As we go on here, I will tie Beauty theory back into specific Beauty practices. Stay tuned!
A caution: At the same time that we return to Beauty we must avoid the temptation to idolize it in those ways that stultify and narrow our understanding and practice of it. This is the very trap that the ancient Greeks fell into, and is echoing in our Hellenistic cultural roots. It is the tendency that has, in great part, gotten us into our current dismaying blind and paralytic relationship with Beauty today. The nature of true Beauty is its surprising, refreshing, and elastic daily discovery…kinda like a good blog!
How did we get to the point we are at today in our modern western civilization? How did greed, corruption and selfishness become so prevalent? How did our lives get so busy, our frustrations so many, and our sense of contentment and achievement so hard won?
We live in an atmosphere charged with the expectancy of change. We are in a time period which some purport to be the end of the earth’s geological Cenozoic era. Some culture-watchers, cosmologists and theologians believe the era in which we are living needs to be the period for forging a whole new paradigm; that the old operational ideas have outlived their usefulness, en masse, and are now just causing harm. The evidence of this is becoming increasingly apparent.
The shifting consciousness around humanity’s place on the planet and our use of its resources is a prime example of this perceptual shift. Certainly, there have been recent events that support this hypothesis.
When people talk about “shifting the paradigm” I take this to mean changing the “standard operating procedure” as it relates to those cultural norms that have evolved, particularly since the advent of the industrial revolution.
This work can be contributed to by anyone, I believe, through independent, personal action. Creating cultural change through personal responsibility that manifests in ones actions. It is the old “pebble in the water creating ripples” motif. Moving Beauty out of the abstract and back into the realm of the concrete, where it actually resides, is key to a successful cultural and values shift.
To this end I propose evolving a 21st century applied philosophy of Beauty: “The Way of Beauty.” This Way introduces “The 18 Practices of Beauty.” These are primarily guidelines on what to explore and what to do (practice) to evoke, nurture and support beauty-full choices in the everyday living arts to better heal ourselves and our spiritual and physical environments — and through these individual actions and choices — eventually our very culture.
It has become critical now at this juncture that the term “Beauty” be reclaimed, and its concept be understood at a far deeper, truer level to be embraced and revered by humankind.
We must move from giving only lip-service born of abstract philosophical theory (“Truth, Beauty, and Goodness”) into behavioral practices born of value shifts based in a new, emergent paradigm.
Once upon a time, somewhere in the winter of 1980, maybe, my business partner and I were driving north up a gray Interstate 89 on our return home from Montpelier, Vermont from yet another all-important business meeting. A few years earlier I had invented the sports bra, the then-named “Jogbra,” and was creating what would become a multi-million dollar business. The day was gray. The road was black and icy.
My business partner was at the wheel of my cranky old Volkswagen beetle. She was going on and on about the meeting, our fledgling business, her concerns and expectations. Her intense energy filled the small space. I was getting claustrophobic. Suddenly, light from the early setting sun erupted from beneath the dark clouds heavy with the coming nights snow. Spectacular beams shot to earth, made the dingy road sparkle. Crimson and gold rays caught tree tops, transforming them into a glowing latticework of color and light, and reached across the snow-covered land to touch our gas-powered capsule of human intensity.
“Beauty break! Beauty break!” I cried, interrupting her tirade. “Look at the gorgeous light on those trees! Look at that sunset!” My partner glanced at it and smiled. Her shoulders visibly dropped. Her brow softened. In a few moments we were laughing together.
Beauty lifts us up.
Ten years later we sold that business, and I devoted some time to thinking deeply about what really mattered to me. Really.
What kept coming up was BEAUTY. True beauty.
What the hell did that mean?
I decided to focus on this question; how I could create, support, and be surrounded by beauty in my life. Before the sports bra entered my imagination and took over my life I had been a visual artist, and I felt as if one painting –– the business –– was finished and another was waiting to be born.
Why was the subject of beauty haunting me?
In our culture today aesthetics are trivialized. Glamour has replaced true beauty. We revere the illusory and, too often, ignore that which is truly beautiful. Think Hollywood vs. the Atlantic ocean; television vs. sunset. What do we pay more attention to?
I am not immune, not “above it all”. Not at all. Television is often my drug of choice. But in a proverbial “dark night of the soul” — mine — I asked myself, what really matters in this life? My answer: true, eternal Beauty. Not those things that are a matter of trend, taste, or style. But eternal Beauty.
And that is what this blog is about: the exploration of the aesthetic, and how it effects our lives.
Well, and on occasion other not clearly related observations. I do tend to go off on tangents sometimes…
Cosmology is the order of things…
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While Cosmetology is about cosmetics, appearances,
creating an illusion, perhaps
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True Beauty is eternal.
It is the compass that directs one to harmony.
