On beauty

On Beauty

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?

And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?

….

It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,

But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.

It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,

But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.

People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.

But you are life and you are the veil.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

--Kahlil Gibran

In personal trying times, I notice how more attuned I am to beauty around me: a spangled sunset, or being under the umbrella of a gingko tree, or the crashing of waves on the rocky shore, or the spray of stars at night, or the pull of jasmine on a summer night, or the thunder of a waterfall, or the delicate architecture of a flower. I am stuck by these transient moments if only briefly—which mirror our fleeting life.  Nothing gold can stay. It is as if the beauty assuages my soul and brings me respite and solace and strength when there is none; and I live on this bread for temporary periods.

But perhaps I am arrested by beauty because the beauty within recognizes the beauty without. There is the philosophical tenet sicut videt sicut, like sees like, which means I see the beauty in you because I see the beauty in me. And being so, I should be awe of the beauty that resides in me and allows me to see what a wonderful world.