When I was in the Sinai desert a few weeks ago there was plenty of time for reflection.  Here are some of my thoughts written as part poem, part prose.

Beauty

Why is there beauty in the world?

What is beauty and what is beauty for?

How to describe what beauty is

except in poems and prose that evoke

an appreciation of beauty.

Beauty is in flowers, coloured rocks,

Smiling faces, loving eyes.

Beauty exists for us when fear falls away,

Because fear blocks by opening our minds

And shutting our hearts.

We feel beauty in our hearts, our eyes, our ears,

Our bodies, it comes in the impulse to hug someone

Or to caress a smooth wooden bowl,

Or the sound of someone singing,

Or a meadow of wild flowers.

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder

But beauty is always present in the world.

Appreciating beauty depends on the receiver. 

Once we let go of fear, beauty is everywhere.

And when we see beauty we are more connected to spirit/god.

Seeing beauty lets spirit into our hearts

And hearing beauty and feeling beauty,

And touching beauty and tasting beauty…

I love the caresses of the sun and breeze on my skin.

I love the feel of smooth rock beneath my feet

I love the blue azure sky, especially when it dances with sparkly stars.

I love the cool soft, silky and sensuous early morning desert sand

As I pour it over my naked body.

I love the empty silence, full of energy and expectation

That reflects back to me my every sound tenfold.

I love all this beauty.

When I see a peony flower,

it is full of radiant colour,

a cerise nest of crimson leaves,

Stunning in its beauty.

And what of rainbow coloured topical birds

And lizards with bright turquoise heads.

Why, if nature is practical, functional and self-interested (if it is),

Does it make such monumentally beautiful, bountiful, statements?

Nature bursts with life, exuberance, blousy extravagance – with beauty.

Surely this beauty cannot be explained as the result of a process of evolution and natural selection.

It feels above all that.

Is it spirit’s/god/dess’s present to the world?

When we live in the world, in the present,

We feels god’s present of beauty in our hearts.