Notes on the Need for Beauty

I am feeling fragile at the moment, drawn and quartered by impossible demands, and find myself in need of beauty.  I am inspired by this book, which I would love to tuck myself under the shabby chic coverlet to read, to draw up my own notes on that compelling, urgent need, as real as thirst or vitamin-deficiency.

And I find others' thoughts on beauty, on how it's won, often as not hard-won, from despair, clouds, windstorms—exactly those things I'm fighting.

“ . . . you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched
by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.”

 (Mary Oliver, “The Poet with His Face in His Hands”)

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”  (Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds)

“Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.”  (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross)



 

image:  Coeur de Lavande en Provence