In difficult times, carry something beautiful in your heart!
~ Blaise Pascal

Awakening to the Call of Beauty

Dear Subscriber First Name,

As I attempt like most of us to find a way to navigate the difficult times we are in, keeping a sense of groundedness while developing clarity of actions, and compassion for all who are suffering, I find myself in need for daily encounters with beauty.
As I reflect on my awareness of this need, I am reminded of a book by Irish poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue, that I read many years ago. The stunning title of the book is Beauty: The Invisible Embrace- Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope.

Isn’t it exactly what we need right now?

I could quote many excerpts from the book, but I will select just a few that have particularly resonated with me. The book was first published in 2004 so some of these writings sound quite prophetic today.

The Cry of Our Times:
To Awaken Beauty

The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere - in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardeing, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves… When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming. Some of our most wonderful memories are of beautiful places where we felt immediately at home. We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs or our soul… In the experience of beauty we awaken and surrender in the same act. Beauty brings a sense of completion and sureness. Without any of the usual calculations, we can slip into the Beautiful with the same ease as we slip into the seamless embrace of water; something ancient within us already trusts that this embrace will hold us.
These times are riven with anxiety and uncertainty, given the current global crisis. In the hearts of people some natural ease has been broken. It is astounding how this has reached deep into the heart. Our trust in the future has lost its innocence. We know now that anything can happen, from one minute to the next. The traditional structures of shelter are shaking, their foundations revealed to be no longer stone but sand. We are suddenly thrown back on ourselves. Politics, religion, economics and the institutions of family and community, all have become abruptly unsure. At first, it sounds completely naïve to suggest that now might be the time to invoke and awaken beauty. Yet this is exactly what this book explores. Why? Because there is nowhere else to turn and we are desperate; furthermore, it is because we have so disastrously neglected the Beautiful that we now find ourselves in such terrible crisis.

The Global Crisis
and the Violation of Beauty

In a sense, all contemporary crises can be reduced to a crisis about the nature of beauty. This perspective offers us new possibilities. In parched terrains new wells are to be discovered. When we address difficulty in terms of the call to beauty, new invitations come alive. Perhaps, for the first time, we gain a clear view of how much ugliness we endure and allow. The media generate endless images of mediocrity and ugliness in talk-shows, tapestries of smothered language and frenetic gratification. The media are becoming the global mirror and these shows tend to enshrine the ugly as the normal standard. Beauty is mostly forgotten and made to seem naïve and romantic. The blindness of property development created rooms, buildings and suburbs which lack grace and mystery. Socially, this influences the atmosphere in the workplace, the schoolroom, the boardroom and the community. It also results in such degradation of the environment that we are turning more and more of this beautiful earth into a wasteland. Much of the stress and emptiness that haunts us can be traced back to our lack of attention to beauty. Internally, the mind becomes coarse and dull if it remains unvisited by images and thoughts which hold the radiance of beauty.

Let Beauty Surprise You

When we awaken to the call of beauty, we become aware of new ways of being in the world. We were created to be creators. At its deepest heart, creativity is meant to serve and evoke beauty. When this desire and capacity come alive, new wells spring up in parched ground; difficulty becomes invitation and rather than striving against the grain of our nature, we fall into rhythm with its deepest urgency and passion. This time is now ripe for beauty to surprise and liberate us. Beauty is a free spirit and will not be trapped within the grid of intentionality. In the light of beauty, the strategies of the ego melt like a web against a candle…

The wonder of the Beautiful is its ability to surprise us. With swift, sheer grace, it is like a divine breath that blows the heart open. Immune to our strategies, it can take us when we least expect it. Because our present habit of mind is governed by the calculus of consumerism and busyness, we are less and less frequently available to the exuberance of beauty…

Beauty is not just a call to growth, it is a transforming presence wherein we unfold towards growth almost before we realize it. Our deepest self-knowledge unfolds as we are embraced by Beauty.

Complement the book with this amazing interview of O’Donohue, shortly before his death: The Inner Landscape of Beauty with Krista Tippett of The On Being Project.

Or with the Walking in Beauty Navajo prayer,

Or the practice of Meditating on Beauty and Nature by Mark Coleman, my teacher and founder of Awake In the Wild,

Or an upcoming Climate Coaching Alliance event with Professor Peter Hawkins on “Beauty in Leadership and Coaching: and its role in Transforming Human Consciousness” - also the title of his latest book.

I would love to hear where you find beauty in your life. Please write back to share your practices.

Warmly,

Anne-Marie
February 12, 2025
(Yesterday, from co2.earth, 426.62 ppm of atmospheric CO2, last year 424.82, safe level 350)

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of way to kneel and kiss the ground.
~ Rumi

Walking in Beauty

Some Upcoming Events of Interest

The Climate Coaching Alliance Community Festival is starting early next month with two fabulous events both held on March 5.

For more info and registration, simply click on the event banners below.

For all Community Festival events, visit this page of the Climate Coaching Alliance website.