InnerVentures

Tag: Beauty

  • The Glory

    The Glory

    The Glory
    Edward Thomas

    The glory of the beauty of the morning, 
    -The cuckoo crying over the untouched dew;
    The blackbird that has found it, and the dove 
    That tempts me on to something sweeter than love; 
    White clouds ranged even and fair as new-mown hay;
    The heat, the stir, the sublime vacancy 
    Of sky and meadow and forest and my own heart: 
    -The glory invites me, yet it leaves me S
    Scorning all I can ever do, all I can be,
    Beside the lovely of motion, shape, and hue.
    The happiness I fancy fit to dwell
    In beauty's presence. Shall I now this day
    Begin to seek as far as heaven, as hell,
    Wisdom or strength to match this beauty, start
    And tread the pale dust pitted with small dark drops,
    In hope to find whatever it is I seek,
    Hearkening to short-lived happy-seeming things
    That we know naught of, in the hazel copse?
    Or must I be content with discontent
    As larks and swallows are perhaps with wings?
    And shall I ask at the day's end once more
    What beauty is, and what I can have meant
    By happiness? And shall I let all go,Glad, weary, or both? Or shall I perhaps know
    That I was happy oft and oft before,
    Awhile forgetting how I am fast pent,
    How dreary-swift, with naught to travel to,
    Is Time? 
    I cannot bite the day to the core.

  • Beauty, Light and Truth

    ‘We can’t be reminded enough of how much beauty there is all around us—we who are so often too rushed or numbed or worried to see it and to feel the ease that it brings, in beauty, the Invisible Embrace.’ –  John O’Donohue 

    “Beauty is made to seem naïve and romantic (but) much of the stress and emptiness that haunts us can be traced back to our lack of attention to beauty. The Beautiful offers us an invitation to order, coherence and unity… we feel most alive in it’s presence for it meets the needs of our soul.” – Susan Enrich

    Lyrics by INDIA ARIE  – “I Am Light”
    I am light, I am light [x4]
    I am not the things my family did
I am not the voices in my head
. I am not the pieces of the brokenness inside
    I am light, I am light [x4]
    I’m not the mistakes that I have made or any of the things that caused me pain. 
I am not the pieces of the dream I left behind
    I am light, I am light [x4]
    I am not the color of my eyes. 
I am not the skin on the outside
. I am not my age, I am not my race, my soul inside is all light
    All light, all light [x2]
I am light, I am light [x2]
    I am divinity defined
, I am the God on the inside
, I am a star, a piece of it all
, I am light

    “The vastness that is seen by the mind is not true,
    But the vastness of the mind that is seen, that is true…………..

    “Behind the field of efforts is a space of effortless silence. Any effort to be silent becomes merely a cloud passing. The silence is already inherent as the Self and a natural space of ‘Isness’ or pure Being – undisturbed and undisturbable as the True Self. You are here, it is our true place. Sometimes in front is the effort to become, but this is watched and watchable. When this is observed, don’t go with the pull towards thoughts, this is the habit of the mind. Stay as you are – silent and empty.

    There is no tension in the Self because there is no effort . If the feeling of effort is coming, that is OK. What is making effort? See if effort can be found. Don’t identify.

    There is a space within us where nothing changes, Because it is always present the changeful can be observed. You are the undisturbed Self.

    But the habit is to doubt this. Watch both the doubt and the habit without becoming involved. Remain in the natural state” [Silent, Still and Unchanging].

    Sri Mooji.

  • The Peace of Wild Things

    When despair for the world grows in me
    and I wake in the night at the least sound
    in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
    I go and lie down where the wood drake
    rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
    I come into the peace of wild things
    who do not tax their lives with forethought
    of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
    And I feel above me the day-blind stars
    waiting with their light. For a time
    I rest in the grace of the world, and am free

    – Wendell Berry

  • This Flower Alone by Lyla June Johnson

    This flower alone,
    which at once
    is beauty
    is rooted in beauty
    and whose petals
    reach out to beauty

    This flower alone,
    whose quiet song is drowned
    by the blasts and by
    the evening news
    of the modern world

    (but is heard
    by the lucky few
    who bend to listen)

    This flower alone,
    and the ambrosia
    it plants in every cell
    of my being

    This flower standing here alone,
    living proof of wonder;
    living proof of hope;
    living proof of beauty;
    living proof that God’s love for humanity
    has not lost its devotion.

    This flower alone,
    who sits patiently like
    a prophecy waiting
    to be known

    This flower alone,
    like a messenger in the dark of night
    telling me
    that everything
    is going to be
    alright

    This flower alone,
    is enough to change my life forever.

    The glittering distractions of the information age vanish
    and there is only me, the lover,
    and you, the wonder.

    And if the only beauty alive in the world was this flower
    and if all the rest was chaos,
    this flower alone,
    would still instruct me by sensation
    that I am held in the arms
    of something greater.

    And if my whole life was colored by darkness and destruction
    to one day be so blessed as to just behold this flower,
    that alone
    would be worth
    my birth
    and my dying.

    This flower alone

    has
    in a moment
    deprogrammed my mind

    to eat faith and not fear
    to wait on joy and not sorrow
    to expect communion and not solitude
    to face the fires of the world with this unwavering knowing
    of beauty and all the fruit it brings.

    This flower alone,
    in its unassuming tenderness and grace
    has in a moment
    incinerated my grief
    like sweetgrass in the flames
    and left behind only the
    scent of what is real.

    These eyes can see
    finally
    the beautiful song sung
    all around.

    And if I could rest
    in this place
    for just a moment
    I would remember who you are
    and who I am
    and where we are
    and how it is supposed to be
    for everyone.

    See more of Lyla’s writings at http://www.sodizin.net