High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘beauty’

In the great spiral of time where the holographic now flows in its quantum mystery, a white tree branch with red buds curves into a blue spring sky forever.  Nothing of beauty is ever lost.

Worlds exist beyond our tiny dish where all the lessons we are learning are already known and love shines more steadily than moonlight and knows no waning.

And they live, these worlds, within the stardust from which our cells are made.  And we blink into awareness on their shores, off and on, off and on.  And spring sings itself forever.

.
Perched on a leafless branch beneath a sky that still wears winter wool, the robin sings.

How can I tell what you these few, clear notes awaken in me?

They’re like a promise fulfilled, an assurance that my long plodding through the frozen nights and colorless days was not in vain.

They flow into the hollows of me and fill me with rainbows.  They quench my longing with their liquid song.

They sink into the earth of me, and apple blossoms rise where they fall.

They pull me into the windy Now of this mid-March day and drench me in its beauty.

On a leafless branch, a robin sings, and I am alive again and overflowing with joy.

As we ascend through the dimensions, I once read, rising from heaven to heaven, our bodies acquire new capabilities so that we can perceive the multitudinous wonders of our ever-expanding experience.   Instead of merely five senses, for example, we would one day have seventeen.

Imagine!  I think I’d need a different body  – much larger, much stronger – to hold that much joy.

The beauty that is here before us now is almost too much to withstand.

Look, right here, in a couple square feet of creek bed: sky spread across smooth waters, the papery layers on a fallen branch of birch and the deep shadows it casts, strewn pebbles, wet leaves, the glints of sunlight on the dancing wavelets, the colors meant for an artist’s eye.

And oh, the music of it all, the clicking of the rolling pebbles, the roar of the rushing, snow-fed creek, the wind in the branches of the trees, the sharp cawing of crows.

The cold air brushing against my cheeks and my skin soaking in the sun’s warmth despite it.  The wind whipping my hair and carrying the fragrance of the leaves and the water and the soil.   The give of the earth beneath my boots, the smooth slipperiness of the mud.

All this, in the lowest of all heavens, the one where the light barely shines through the thickness of our darkly clouded minds at all, except in rare moments.

I walk along the creek bed and practice.

Not all universe creatures can detect the wondrous music of the spheres.  Some worlds are too dense, you see, for the delicate mechanisms that receive its sounds.

And so, long, long ago, the Celestial Artisans created a way to downstep the melodies for the benefit of the spirits who were embodied on the heavier worlds.  No one, after all, should be deprived of their inspiration and beauty.

Thus, the School of Sound Designers came to be, and they carried semblances of music to the outer worlds.

But then the Artisans discovered that on some worlds, and even within any given species, some creatures were more attuned to sight than to sound.

“What if,” one of them asked, “we could translate the music into some kind of pattern they could see?”  It was a brilliant idea and the master Artisans immediately set about developing it.

When a method was perfected (And that is a whole story in itself!), they took it to the Ministry of Planetary Graces for approval and adoption.  The Ministers marveled at the possibility of entire worlds swept with visual rhythms and harmonies.  They delighted at the prospect of multi-colored birds and fishes and flowers in the fields.  And they were moved to awe by the grandeur of sunrises and sunsets, by the hues the sea could display and the sands of the deserts.

Not only did the Ministers approve the idea for immediate adoption, they awarded top honors to the Celestial Artisans for inventing color and bringing it to the outer worlds.

One day, if you so choose, you can view the entire story in the archives of the cosmic library.

But for now, I thought you might like to know that when you are invigorated by a dashing flash of red, or comforted by a blanket of blue, when your spirit is moved by the magnificence of a painted desert, or sea, or sky, the colors were put there just for you, for your inspiration and joy.

When I look through my lens at this beauty, whose eyes are peering through mine?

What leads me to this very vantage point, with the skim ice just so and the hills falling brown into the still water?  Why now, in this light, with its blue snow and the faint glow on the horizon?

I didn’t intend to come here.  My thoughts were on supper, on curling with the cat in the warm glow of the fire.

But something irresistible said, “Turn here.”  And now I stand in pristine snow, breathing air that makes little clouds as it leaves my mouth, gazing at February in the Pennsylvania hills.  It feels like a privilege, an honor, a gift somehow.

Despite the cold, I sense the turning of the season toward spring.  The maples, lean and bare, even now begin to pull their sweet sap upward.  Beneath the icy waters, tadpoles wait to be born.

But right now, the beauty of this winter scene stretches before my eyes and I feel a hunger pour through them devouring it.  Our eyes, I think, are not for us alone.  Something larger seeks to gaze through them, borrowing them, and in return, lending us some of its joy.

.

.

For the winds at play, sweeping gossamer clouds across the vast sky, and for frozen drops of water that catch the light;

For the sky’s breadth and limitless depth, for the motion of it all, the endless dance;

For eyes that see it and a spirit that is moved by its beauty, lifted up, and freed;

For the way it stills our prattling thoughts, and sweeps gossamer waves of wonder across the vastness of our quieted minds;

For the way its breadth encircles us and sings our names, and bids us soar,

Let us echo its Yes and give thanks.

The trees looked as if I’d caught them in the middle of a ballet, the little pine pirouetting center stage.

If I turned away, or closed my eyes, I was almost sure the dance would resume, strains of Tchaikovsky wafting up from the snow.

How delicate the etched branches!   How gracefully outstretched!  And, oh, the sparkle and glisten there in the morning light, the incredible depth of the silence.

It took every thought from my mind. All I could do was stare, the tiny flecks of dancing snow melting on my eyes, as if I were seeing for the very first time.

Why this beauty?  What is it for?  I didn’t even want to know.  It was enough just to behold it, to stand in the morning’s first light, seeing the woods with new fallen snow.

May the season wrap you in comfort and joy.  May laughter fill your halls and music fill your dreams.  May those you love be near, if only in spirit, and may you feel their warm embrace.

May the child in you revel in wonder and delight.  May you see beauty everywhere.

May kindness flow from your hands.  May your lips speak the love of your heart.

May generosity pour from you in sweet measure.  May you offer peace and good will to all.

May you sense the connection of your soul with all living beings and see nothing that is not alive.

May you rejoice in the grand unfolding drama and overflow with thanks for the part that you play and for the wisdom it brings you.

May you walk beneath a star-filled sky and marvel at the mysteries.  May your heart open to embrace the flowing moments, whatever they may hold.

May you hear the infinite Yes speaking your name and calling you its own.  May you know that all is well, and that you are loved.

Just for the joy of it, the Celestial Artisans took the winds in hand and, infusing them with harmony, wove the fallen pine needles into an intricate design.

While they were at it, they swept the nearby snow into a great, smooth swirl, and lay a sprig of spent seed pods atop it as an accent.

It didn’t matter to them whether any mere human would notice these particular creations.  But if one did, by chance, perhaps her spirit would dance to their rhythms and see in them a reflection of the invisible joy that brought them into being.  That was their secret hope.

Yet it was enough for the Artisans simply to create their designs.  It’s what they exist to do—to translate divine love into kaleidoscopic patterns and form, to instill material existence with harmony and beauty.  That is their mission, their worship, and their play.  And in it they find great fulfillment and joy.

When beauty rains down, showering you in its reality, bathing you in its grace, washing you in its freshness, give thanks, that it may come to you again.

When beauty rains down, carrying starlight and all the cosmic colors, pouring out its symphonies, flooding you with its oceanic joy, give thanks, that beauty may visit you again.

When beauty drenches you in wonder and dissolves all your walls, when it steeps you in its tenderness and sets your heart free, give thanks.  Give thanks.  Give thanks.