“Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things.” — Thomas Merton
Why do we notice big things but never the tiny things? If the world, this bundle of time and space are infinite - why the focus on the larger things, immensity, the forever more? Shouldn’t the tiny world be of equal importance and focus?
Just asking.
I am taking solace lately in the experience and enjoyment and soul-nourishing effect of noticing the small, minutiae of existence.
A bee lives just 30 days. It produces just a teaspoon of honey. Yet its impact is immense. As much and as great as any shipyard worker or berry picker.
Remember - there is no start and end line to time and space (life). There is no measuring stick when the numbers stretch out forever on both sides. And that’s beauty to me. Beyond measurement, beyond necessity. Just there, to be enjoyed, sustained by, sucked upon like a sweet, divine, refreshing candy.
Today I saw some trees with flowers, covered in snow. It nearly destroyed me, the feeling I got. I was seeing Blake’s eternity in a grain of sand. Like beauty itself, I can’t describe what that feeling was. Awe, otherness, metanoia, peace …
I think that one goal in a life should be to arrive at a point where beauty is recognized as the force it is - in everything. There for your sustenance and worship and recognition. Beauty unshackled from “form”, that jail we put it in. Beauty unhinged from “culture” those rose-colored glasses we wear. Beauty is unleashed from the large immensity of things and recognized as too, a part of everything, even small things, even an electron has elegance.
People don’t see the beauty in everything, all things not because they are so busy surviving, so busy with pleasure, so busy consuming and doing …. no. I think the ability to see the everything of beauty around you is a reflection of your own struggle with your own self-worth. A reflectiveness that ushers in compassion, gratitude, and kindness. When we question why there is something, not nothing, we turn our face towards beauty. Ultimately, it is this which turns on this superpower.
And ultimately too, the ability to see beauty in the ordinary is the realm and true tattoo and mark of “the artist”. It is a worshipping of the beauty of everything that brings forth art through the artist.
I could recommend many artists who truly have reveled and swam in the soft waters of everywhere beauty. However, I’ll suggest just one for now - try out and explore the films of Agnes Varda. You’ll find beauty everywhere in them.
[One of my oldest poems. Written 40 years ago while reading Blake and questioning so much]
From where comes the essence of anything?
What beauty in the brilliant sun!
Or is that beauty in my eye?
Or perhaps somewhere between,
Drifting with indifferent sky.
How sweet the sound of Orpheus’ lyre!
Or is that sweetness in my ear?
Or perhaps somewhere between,
Hidden by the wind unseen.
What evil oozes from the witch!
Or is that evil in my mind?
Or perhaps somewhere between,
Where witch and I are of the same kind.
From where comes the essence of anything?
Does it come from the self as the doctors say?
Does it come from the thing as the natives pray?
From where comes the essence of anything?
The Beauty Out There