Beauty Heals

After a bad couple of weeks, it can be hard to get out of the turbulence of worry and obligation that continue to afflict the mind when it seems like the troubles will just keep coming. So when my brother suggested a trip to Longwood Gardens, even though most of me wanted to hide at home to avoid any more possible mishaps, I agreed, knowing it would be good for me. And it was. So many tulips in differently shaped and organized beds, kinds I’d never seen before and some so strange you wondered what was evolution thinking. Every part of the garden was perfectly kept, the arrangements of different flowers and plants flowing in harmony. Never throughout the day did I think about my troubles. Time in nature is known to be healing, and the careful cultivation of these gardens was inspiring. Beauty takes a person out of themselves, diminishing self-consciousness and cleansing the mind for a time. Tulips have always been special to me because of my memories of my grandfather being with the family when we would go to Sherwood Gardens in tulip season after church. That was when he was minister at St John’s Methodist Church nearby and he was the magnetic north of my heart, how I wanted to be. He had what I know now know is equanimity and a sense of humor, beautiful in temperament and behavior, a demonstration of the connection between beauty and goodness. So often discussion of beauty is confined to physical appearance, an arrangement of features, what Ram Dass would call the package, not the essence. Krishnamurti said a lovely face without love is ugly. I’ve seen people with perfect symmetrical features twist them out of shape with a snide expression and people animated by joy to glow. Perhaps it is the lack of love in the hearts of so many that allows people to thoughtlessly destroy beauty, of the earth, of relations between neighbors, of justice. Justice depends on correct proportions which is also true of beauty. Beauty my underlie our moral judgments, determining the unjust, unfair and destructive, ugly. Vanity blinds individuals to their ugly actions and choices. Beauty stimulates the beauty within because that is what recognizes it. Art builds sensitivity to beauty. We connect to the feelings expressed in an image and grow in our responsiveness. AI can make amazing images but can’t replicate human feeling. Only artists can keep the depths alive to educate our feeling nature, sense of appreciation and awareness of the feelings of others to move in harmony with our world.