Welcome to DAY 5 of our practice. Let’s begin…
Please close your eyes while you take three slow, deep breaths. Then open your eyes and consider the invitation to: “Notice Beauty.”
We sense that beauty is so much more than simply an aesthetic that evokes pleasure. Living gratefully opens our eyes to beauty. In pointing to the depth and significance of beauty, it can be helpful to look to the poets. In “Beauty: The Invisible Embrace,” poet John O’Donohue writes: “The human soul is hungry for beauty… When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming. Some of our most wonderful memories are beautiful places where we felt immediately at home. We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul…Without any of the usual calculation, we can slip into the Beautiful with the same ease as we slip into the seamless embrace of water; something ancient within us already trusts that this embrace will hold us.”
And so let us be curious about beauty. Let us, as “the beholder,” look for and find beauty “where others have not dared to look.”
Today, we invite you to:
- Set an intention to notice beauty. Notice how simply setting this intention impacts you.
- Note some of the many forms beauty takes: a graceful gesture; a rugged worn face; a play of light on the sidewalk; music; a poem; the intricate veins of a leaf…
- Where is beauty in YOU? This may be uncomfortable to consider, but please do. How might you express beauty in the world?
- Reflect on the role of beauty in the lives of humans throughout history. John O’Donohue speaks of beauty meeting “the needs of soul.” What is your sense of the significance of beauty?
- At day’s end, reflect upon what you noticed, how it feels and what might have changed as a result of following your intention to notice beauty.
- Write about your experiences in a journal and/or share below.
Deepening Resources
If you would like to explore this topic further, you might appreciate:
- Light – a poem by Bernadette Miller
- Art and the Sacred – a talk by Br. David Steindl-Rast from the 1977 Lindisfarne Conference
- How Do I Love Trees? Let Me Count The Ways… – reflections from our community.
Enjoy the full eight-day A Grateful Day | A Grateful Year practice.
I saw the Broadway production of The Lion King last night with my wife and step-son. Wow! It was a great way to end the day and intent of noticing beauty. Such a beautiful, creative, fun, and meaningful production. A thing of beauty.
I see beauty particularly when I am in nature. I am constantly awed and feel incredibly connected and inspired by what I see around me. When I live in the moment, it is easy to see the beauty that lies around me. It inspires and brings me joy to tap into the beauty that surrounds me.
I want to discover where beauty is in me. I have the recipe: be still, open myself to reality and let go of preconceived notions, say the yes of blessing, the essence of worship. I have the method: live in the now with courage and perseverance, then the splendour will break forth without limit. What am I waiting for? I’m serious about this because this is what I was given my life for, moment by moment.
Another wonderful reflection. Beholding beauty allows us to “feel” the beauty we let in. We pause, we feel, we begin to see the essence of things. Wonderful. Slow down and listen and really pay attention.
This is a great meditation as I need to be reminded to stop running around without focus. Life passes by fast enough, this meditation allows me to slow down a bit and expand into this world, slow down and breathe, feel and appreciate.
Thank you for this wonderful post.
I think the beauty is what I can feel with my heart. It’s a daily practice; see and find the beauty is like to search a treasures.
For example, last Sunday my dad was drunk, he is alcoholic. In first moment, when I looked his face and I saw he “walking crooked” I really felt sadness. But, I tried to find the love.
I looked again and it happened! I could see my dad, his soul, a man marked by the struggles of life.
Despite the pain and everything involved, a story of life, my dad, a life, beauty.