“Beauty saves. Beauty heals. Beauty motivates. Beauty unites. Beauty returns us to our origins, and here lies the ultimate act of saving, of healing, of overcoming dualism. Beauty allows us to forget the pain and dwell on the joy. “(Matthew Fox, Writer)
Beauty has the qualities of a pleasing shape, form, colour, and harmony. It evokes aesthetic pleasure. It is experienced with our senses, especially sight and hearing. It is tasteful and not vulgar or offensive to the senses. It is the antithesis of what is abject or ugly. A black-eyed Susan blooming in the garden, stars in the night sky, stylish architecture, city at dusk are examples of beauty.
Beauty is everywhere in our daily
travels. To experience it, we must notice it, instead of being blind to
our surroundings. I see beauty of a sunset in winter, shadow of a person
passing on the street, reflection in a window. I hear beauty in the
rustling of the maples, the rain drumming on the roof, the call of a
loon on a pristine lake, the meditative sound of a flowing river. I
smell a beautiful scent of a woman’s perfume, a blooming flower in the
garden, the delicious aroma of spaghetti and meat sauce. I have felt
beauty in the sublime. It evokes the emotion of “awe” and “wonder.” I
recall the sound of crashing ocean waves and the sight of the vastness
open highway, the majestic mountains in the background. I observe the
beauty in women who pass my line of sight, how they walk, how they carry
themselves, how they dress in stylish clothes, how they share facial
expressions. I see beauty in art, such as Rothko’s colour field
paintings or the impressionist works by Monet. I feel beauty in music,
such as the trumpet sounds of Miles Davis or the haunting music of Peter
Gabriel. I’m witness to the beauty in the urban landscape, such as
public sculpture and architecture, or the contrast of nature, such as a
tree, with the extraordinary design of a building.
You can learn to appreciate beauty in the
ordinary or common place by first developing an aesthetic attitude.
Begin to observe and contemplate things for no other reason than to
appreciate them. To observe the details of your life requires that you
become aware. It requires that we pay attention. Next, develop the art
of seeing. Focus on what artists call the visual “visual elements of
art”—lines, shape, form, colour, pattern, and texture—in our
surroundings. Study the images of photographs by William Eggleston, who
is well known for his urban landscapes of the 1960s. He embraced the art
of “eccentric vision” and “visual poetry” of the mundane.” His personal
surroundings became his art studio. He captured artistic photographs of
a light bulb, television, bathroom sink, gas station, puddle of water,
impromptu portraits of people on the street, and much more.
Appreciating the beauty enables us to
become more spiritual. Spirituality means different things to each of
us. I consider it a “the search for the sacred,” the desire to
experience awe or wonder, anything deserving of reverence or respect.
Beauty is also anything artistic that evokes pleasure, and so observing
art, whether in a gallery in or daily life can be a spiritual practise.
It is a spiritual practise of awareness using our senses. Buddhists
refer to being aware of one’s surroundings instead of being lost in
thought as the spiritual practise of “mindfulness.”