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Beauty and Truth
Feb. 27th, 2011 05:30 pmFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
This is "all you need to know." Beauty, wherever we find it, is the salve that keeps us vital and fresh. Bur Truth, in its uncompromised and naked story, no matter how harsh, has a Beauty all its own that is cleansing.
This is why we must remember the Holocaust and other atrocities exactly as they were. This is why it is essential to bear honest witness to our own naked stories.
Still, as wise as the message he came upon is, there is an equal lesson in how young Keats came upon it. For only by voicing our tender pains can we find our way to the deeper Beauties and Truths that like ropes and wheels can carry us.
It's kind of ironic this should come up as today's thought and meditation.
As I was flying away from North Carolina I couldn't help but reflect on the inner beauty of the time I'd spent there the last couple of weeks. Don't mistake me, NC is a beautiful place as well, but there's a good deal more outward beauty when the inner beauty goes along with it.
I have... I have a ritual of sorts - it wasn't something that I deliberately set out to create, it just started happening. When I fly to NC, when the plane starts to decend toward the airport I look out of the window and invariably take a deep breath to control the rush of emotion I feel at coming him. It's such a beautiful sight as the trees of North Carolina come into view. Whether or not they have leaves doesn't matter. It's the tops of those trees that are the signal that beauty is beginning, because - as cliche as it is - home really is where the heart is, and my heart is wherever Mir is.
As an inverse of that, this morning, as the plane was coming into land, and again as the coach passed the green fields, and the undenyaby beautiful sights of England, I couldn't help but sit there thinking, for all beauty of this place, I feel empty. I could appreciate the beauty, sure, but I didn't feel it... and that's the truth.
The truth is, I don't want to be here... because the better part of me is still in Chapel Hill, North Carolina - and that's just the way it is.
Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty-
that is all you know on earth
and all you need to know
-John Keats
This is "all you need to know." Beauty, wherever we find it, is the salve that keeps us vital and fresh. Bur Truth, in its uncompromised and naked story, no matter how harsh, has a Beauty all its own that is cleansing.
This is why we must remember the Holocaust and other atrocities exactly as they were. This is why it is essential to bear honest witness to our own naked stories.
Still, as wise as the message he came upon is, there is an equal lesson in how young Keats came upon it. For only by voicing our tender pains can we find our way to the deeper Beauties and Truths that like ropes and wheels can carry us.
It's kind of ironic this should come up as today's thought and meditation.
As I was flying away from North Carolina I couldn't help but reflect on the inner beauty of the time I'd spent there the last couple of weeks. Don't mistake me, NC is a beautiful place as well, but there's a good deal more outward beauty when the inner beauty goes along with it.
I have... I have a ritual of sorts - it wasn't something that I deliberately set out to create, it just started happening. When I fly to NC, when the plane starts to decend toward the airport I look out of the window and invariably take a deep breath to control the rush of emotion I feel at coming him. It's such a beautiful sight as the trees of North Carolina come into view. Whether or not they have leaves doesn't matter. It's the tops of those trees that are the signal that beauty is beginning, because - as cliche as it is - home really is where the heart is, and my heart is wherever Mir is.
As an inverse of that, this morning, as the plane was coming into land, and again as the coach passed the green fields, and the undenyaby beautiful sights of England, I couldn't help but sit there thinking, for all beauty of this place, I feel empty. I could appreciate the beauty, sure, but I didn't feel it... and that's the truth.
The truth is, I don't want to be here... because the better part of me is still in Chapel Hill, North Carolina - and that's just the way it is.
