The Grace of Hidden Beauty, Episode 216
What if beauty isn't something we add to the world, but an already-existing quality of everyone and everything that we can uncover through the way we learn to look, feel, sense and hear?
What world would present itself to us if we practiced skilfully looking for beauty everywhere, including in those places (ourselves, others, our collective endeavours, the situation we find ourselves in) where we've already concluded that beauty, and all its attendant possibilities, is absent?
This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about how we might look anew, and in doing so breathe life back into places where we've allowed it to wither. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
Here’s our source for this week:
We have often heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is usually taken to mean that the sense of beauty is utterly subjective; there is no accounting for taste because each person's taste is different. The statement has another, more subtle meaning: if our style of looking becomes beautiful, then beauty will become visible and shine forth for us. We will be surprised to discover beauty in unexpected places where the ungraceful eye would never linger. The graced eye can glimpse beauty anywhere, for beauty does not reserve itself for special elite moments or instances; it does not wait for perfection but is present already secretly in everything. When we beautify our gaze, the grace of hidden beauty becomes our joy and our sanctuary.
John O'Donohue
Excerpt from the books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)
Photo by Harry Quan on Unsplash