Geraniums Coming Inside
In order to become attentive to beauty, we need to rediscover the art of reverence. Our world seems to have lost all sense of reverence. We seldom even use the word any more. The notion of reverence is full of riches that we now need desperately. Put simply, it is appropriate that a human being should dwell on this earth with reverence. John O’Donohue (Beauty: The Invisible Embrace)
With winter weather on the horizon yesterday as I was preparing my abundant collection of geraniums to be moved indoors, I was filled with gratitude for their beauty and for that beauty’s contributions to me, to this home, the land I occupy, and to my community.
I realized that beauty is why I nurture and care for them year-round. They invite me to attend to beauty in a world where much seems to have turned to ugliness. Choosing beauty is a healing form of countering the many ills I witness in the world.
I choose beauty not to turn away from or deny or as distraction to these ills, but rather they remind me of my energetic choices. Where do I choose to focus my energy? Do I focus on what might feel like the drudgery of daily chores or on the beauty that my labor is nurturing? I aim to choose beauty.
Perhaps beauty as a counter to ugliness is akin to non-violent response to acts of violence. Not to equate creating and nurturing beauty with holding non-violence on the front lines of tense, volatile protests, yet each represents an energetic choice, an intention, a purpose. For the sake of what am I engaging in this?
Perhaps this is a question we might each ask more frequently to bring deeper awareness to our choices. For it is through these choices that we are contributing to the world, indeed, to co-creating that very world as part of the collective energy of ‘we’. How might our world change if we add more beauty to our thoughts, our words, and all that we contribute by our energetic choices?
Muse and Ink flowed slowly this morning – a chilly one by the fire as temperature dropped and the possibility of snow visits this blustery day. Still musing after writing about yesterday’s experience, I turned to John O’Donohue for a quote about beauty. What I found wasn’t what I expected, indeed, it far exceeded whatever unconscious expectation I held.
O’Donohue in his artful way showed me that I’d come to this place of gratitude and holding beauty as protest and contribution through engaging with reverence. Through how I be when I am at my best with self, with others, with these woods where I dwell, and with Life itself. At my best I am reverent and in that reverence I both witness and experience the beauty of Life.
I wasn’t present to reverence as I was working with the plant beings yesterday, yet O’Donohue helped me recognize that sitting quietly to honor a recently fallen pine in the woods one day last week was a reverent act and that the more I dwell in reverence for Life, the more I open to recognize beauty and feel the depth of gratitude for Life that Life deserves and that we so desperately need.
The fallen pinon? Well, that’s a story for another day. Until then I invite you to join me in rediscovering reverence and to experience the beauty that it holds.
Fallen Pinon and Altar at First Light