Summer Visions
Tomato Grace
From a near-by correspondent:
This week I have my first ripe heirloom tomato. In march, the unlikely plants emerged from a weed filled box in my greenhouse. They must have grown from seeds I saved last season and in an obviously foolhardy act, like someone buying a lottery ticket, I cast them into the dirt. I may as well have planted redwoods. I knew better. All those years of pouring hope and fertilizer onto Lowe’s bought plants with visions of that perfect mid summer BLT, only to experience another failed harvest. Growing tomatoes in South Carolina is a valuable primer on life.
But for the grace of mother nature and that leak in my ceiling, I am rewarded with one meager tomato and one great lesson. This is a thing of wonder and beauty.
Ah. Fabulous!
I must rush to say, however, that the accompanying photo here is not my correspondent’s excellent and rare single heirloom. No, these two are simple market-boughts from last summer. But beautiful enough to have caught my camera’s eye. A bit more, uh, Tomato Grace?
A Gallery of Seeing, Musing…
It’s camellia time in the Low country!
Even the cat enjoys the camellias…
I still bring other flowers into the house. A habitual indulgence:
Hmm…Fire and Air…any wonder they imitate one another?
And now my other cat reminds me it’s time to read the important part of the Sunday paper…
Have a lovely day!
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.
Bye Beautiful Summer… A Gallery
Sweet Solstice Greetings with a bit o’ Summer Beauty
I love the cycle of summer..
… in the kitchen and the art studio
Spectacular summer skies
Oh
the
light!
Teachers
Teachers are everywhere.
I’m not talking about the kind found in academic institutions here. Though upon reflection I’ll not rule them out, either. But teachers, really they are everywhere in our lives — whether we like to admit it (or recognize them) or not.
Just the other day there was a human interest sort of story in the news about these kids and their “mentors.” It was a feel-good story of how the adult mentors had made significant differences in the children’s lives. As I read I noticed a deep yearning inside me; it was laced with…
OMG! Jealousy!
This made me sit there and look at myself; I reviewed an old story I’ve been telling myself, and others, for years:
When asked who my mentors and teachers have been I have always shrugged my shoulders and said, “I’ve had none. No one,” thinking of course of the supportive, enthusiastic role-models in formative years who encourage one on. Who say “Good job!”, who bring you roses after your 6th grade play, or arrive on your doorstep with kleenex and chocolate when that first serious relationship ends. I could think of none in my past. No coach, teacher…
But actually there were plenty of role-models and teachers around in my formative years… In my case I was influenced greatly by what not to do. How not to act, or be, or behave. I endeavored to be the opposite of what was being modeled around me. Often, the loudest lessons available to me were cautionary tales. And as an adult, lo those many (these many) years later, I was not thinking that these qualified as the sort of mentors and teachers that I was being asked about.
I was wrong, I realized sitting there. Teachers are everywhere when one is willing to be a student, willing to observe and extract information, integrating it and transforming it into knowledge and, hopefully eventually wisdom. I had been being that student. And, too, in retrospect I must admit I was being overly dramatic. There had been those who gave me encouragement along the way — professors, siblings…
So, I now know/admit/recognize and declare (should anyone ask):
I have had the privilege of being “mentored” by harsh teachers who would rarely give me an inch. By the Great Teachers of Circumstance and Illness that helped me question, helped me discover my limits and the strength of my character. I have been blessed with sweet friendships of long-standing, where we support and learn from one another as the cycles of this life evolve. And I have the joy of being influenced and guided by the presence of natural beauty that is there for me always, every day. So grateful.
I am changing my story. I have changed my story — for myself and for others who may inquire. I have and have had powerful mentors. Thank you to all my teachers…and I look forward to those I have yet to encounter.
Beauty saved me. ~ Mary Oliver, from an interview on PBS
An Experience of The One-ness?
There is no time, nor space. These are our illusions to help keep a sense of order.
That’s what science is telling us this week. (I say “this week” because who knows what will be touted as The Truth next week, month, year…. Remember when the earth was flat, and was the center of the Universe?) Anyway, I try to imagine the chaos I would perceive if left without those ordering concepts of space and time. It is a fun game…
…the tree is over there, and I am here. Noooo…the tree and I occupy the same space — oops! There is no space! So what am I left with? How do I wrap my head around that?
Here’s what saves me: experience. When I was a child — I can’t remember what age, but I recall being about eye level with the railing of the balcony — I had an odd and wonderful experience. The balcony was off my mother’s bedroom, on the second story of our house. I was standing there in clear morning sunshine looking into the branches and green leaves of trees. A slight breeze riffed through the leaves; a bird’s vibrant call rang out — and all at once I was one with it all. In every way. There are no words, really, to describe what occurred. I have never forgotten the experience. Interestingly what ended it was my noticing what was happening.
Throughout my life I have come across other experiences and terms to describe them: “out of body”, “trance”, “journeying” (in the Shamanic tradition), but none — neither experience or terminology — have adequately caught what I experienced that long-ago morning. Subsequently, still while quite young, I had two other similar experiences but not as complete and intense as that first one, as all too soon I would notice it was happening and that would slip “me” back into regular/normal perception.
Science vs. Beauty – 2
There is a prevailing and ubiquitous disregard of Beauty and the sacredness of nature. Nature, the “natural world” is the primary manifestation of our universe’s luminous matter in this time/space/place we know as the planet Earth. Rare, precious, matter.
I find it of further interest to consider that currently a popular scientific theory posits that all matter “pops” into existence out of dark energy. And back out of existence again. It is what remains around that becomes our ‘visible and tangible’ world. One must wonder: since there is so much dark energy – 73{d26b639eb74f8edb8884074db06109d949b84d3d1d14796b516693be64172811} — why is matter so rare? Why doesn’t it manifest more and more often? Or does it, and it is just outside the realm of our current levels of understanding and perception? Hmmm.
While matter is an important form in which Beauty can manifest, indeed the form in which we are most familiar recognizing Beauty, it is not the only form. I suggest that Beauty is a field (as in electromagnetic field) and therefore a resonance. Sometimes we experience Beauty almost outside our sense perceptions, I think. We are uplifted for no apparent “good reason.” This all speaks to Beauty’s link to harmony, and how it (harmony, harmonic relationships) pops in and out of our experience and awareness.
Some propose that the Universe began with a sound. A single musical note. More than one, and you might have a harmony; wavelengths that flow together, in synchronicity, harmonious. Wavelengths exist in a field. We get into the physics here that lead to the metaphysics:
So I propose a further definition of Beauty:
True Beauty is the synergistic, flowing field that holds all in dynamic, resonating harmony as the next movement unfurls.
If you are a physics geek, at this point you might, most appropriately, find the moving computer illustration of the equation called the Mandelbrot Set. It is waaaay cool!
Party Hearty!
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!