Saying For Today: And sometimes we have a moment when the Beauty beyond inner and outer, more than physical, awakens this inward sense, and silence becomes the worship of the heart overflowing with reverence, a reverence neither religious nor not religious, neither spiritual nor not spiritual.
*Brian Wilcox. 'Night Settles on the Androscoggin'.
When we awaken to the Mystery of it all, a shift begins from looking for answers to relaxing in wonder. Life is no longer a struggle, a burden, but a celebration. This move is from the head to the heart, from thought to love. I have said before, this is the greatest distance we will ever travel. And what is this wonder, essentially the inarticulate response to the miracle that surrounds us and that we are, too. Beauty becomes so much more than what something appears to be, Beauty becomes that which evokes within us a profound response to the immensity in which we are so very small and, yet, we find, at the same time, that we are not separate from that immensity. We may feel drawn to it, afraid of it, may move toward it and away from it; yet, we discover we cannot and do not want to escape it. We have been found, and cannot be unfound. We are glad captives to a quiet astonishment underlying the appearances and evoked by them.
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I had not heard the song, James Blunt's She's Beautiful, in years. I came upon it, listened again. I heard it differently. I had read, back then, that the song is silly. I agreed. Not now.
Now, I write, "Used to think this was just a silly song, later realized how true that many of us have likely had these moments, and think it's too illogical to admit it." The reply, "Have you had a moment like this?" I muse on this query, at first not knowing how to put this into words. Then, the reply, the best I could give...
Yes, the sense of the pure aesthetic beauty of someone. I see it also as a response, or better primal recognition, or intuition, of Beauty itself. It awakens like a memory, leaving an inarticulate ache of what seems so near but unreachable. In Jungian terms, like an archetype of Love or Beauty. The key is to see this as it is, not as merely the person that is the means of awakening this sense within us: she or he is only a means, even as something of nature, like a landscape, can awaken this inner sense.
Days later, my mind returns to that one moment. I stand, alone on the hiking path. It is cold. The landscape is white with snow. I bow. Tears begin flowing, while I bow my head again and again, alternating between bowing and viewing the astonishing landscape. The landscape awakens awe, the veil that awakens wonder, and out pours gratitude for the unspeakable that lives inside and outside. And sometimes we have a moment when the Beauty beyond inner and outer, more than physical, awakens this inward sense, and silence becomes the worship of the heart overflowing with reverence, a reverence neither religious nor not religious, neither spiritual nor not spiritual. And we may, for a time, become the silence itself that swaddled us in its tender, yet powerful, embrace.
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*The theme of "Lotus of the Heart" is 'Living in Love beyond Beliefs.' This work is presented by Brian K. Wilcox, of Maine, USA. You can order Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, through major online booksellers.
