BeautyDialogues

The Discipline of Peace

Every Monday night a group of us have been gathering in the Medicine Wheel in Third Life where we are guided through a process by the amazing FireHawk Hulin. Each month we focus on one of the eight directions, following a pattern called the Discipline of Peace, articulated by RainbowHawk and WindEagle of Ehama Institute.

These two wise teachers have written a book on this pattern, a handbook for creating circles of what they call the First Peace, peace within ourselves. My copy arrived yesterday. The multi-talented FireHawk designed it and I am totally enchanted by its beauty.

Here's what WindEagle and RainbowHawk have to say about the NW, the direction of the wheel our group is exploring this month:

THE UNIVERSAL RELATIONSHIP OF
CO-CREATION EXISTS THROUGH
CAUSE AND EFFECT

Through cause and effect the spirit
consciousness co-creates the Universe.

CONSCIOUS DREAMING
From the diamond of the true self,
step on the high path of
higher consciousness,
open to all potential,
align all thoughts, words
and deeds to be life affirming.

Co-create with the spirit of the Universe.

Beauty as Cosmic Wholeness

Because I love it, I often use this quote from Matthew Fox as my email signature:

“... all experience of beauty is experience of cosmic wholeness, of harmony. Beauty is microcosmic intuition of macrocosmic reality.”

One day I got a wonderful note from my friend Sherrin Ann Bennett (who is so amazing I wish she had a blog or a website so I could link to it and you too could see her light shine), commenting on it ...

Fox says:

"All experience of beauty is experience of cosmic wholeness, of harmony."

Sherrin Ann responds:

"It touches that deep sense in which beauty opens the window of my own awareness connecting with whatever I give my attention to the Infinite."

Fox:

"Beauty is the microcosmic intuition of macrocosmic reality."

Sherrin:

"Yes, it is the wonder of irrevocable Oneness that brings me to my knees.

The strange thing is that beauty doesn’t seem to be inherent in the form I see.  She reveals herself anywhere, even the crack of the sidewalk beneath my feet.

Beauty’s presence flows from heartfelt gratitude for life, just as it is, in the moment that I find myself.

She is the presence of the Infinite in ordinary things, the indescribable presence that makes the familiar extraordinary.  

The music of my heart's gratitude invites Beauty to dance in the arms of whatever I behold.

I used to think that Beauty was only for the wealthy. Now, She dances with love in the simplest of moments whenever I offer my attention in appreciation of Her grace.

Calling forth Beauty, or simply noticing where she reveals Herself, is an awareness of heaven on earth that nourishes and sustains me."

Thank you, Sharon!

 

Social Networks

E-Learning guru Jay Cross has written a fascinating post about an Aboriginal painting (note: not the one above) that he saw during a recent trip to Australia, and his reading of the imagery - comparing it with social networks and the politics of change.

But the fun doesn't stop there! Jay's readers continued to analyze the image in their comments and some valuable insights emerged. The whole post was an excellent example of both the power of art to convey meaning and the way we evolve meaning through the power of networks.

Co-Creation

The always delightful Barbara Marx Hubbard has an intriguing theory about why we sometimes "click" with each other in such profoundly generative ways ...

I've often experienced the thrill of creative communion she talks about, and I love the provocative twinkle in her eyes when she names it as she sees it. Of course we'd all be feeling pretty good too, if we'd stimulated as much vocational arousal in the world as she has. :-) What a Beauty!

John O'Donohue

I've just heard that John O'Donohue, the great Irish poet/philosopher that I have quoted here so often from his fabulous book on Beauty, The Invisible Embrace, died unexpectedly on January 3rd.

His friend David Whyte has written a beautiful memorial, including a poem he wrote for John.

My sorrow at this loss is beyond words.

Theory of Everything

Whether or not this intricate pattern of reality ('e8') from new scientist Garrett Lisi is indeed a theory of everything, it is certainly beautiful.

Beauty-Full in Seattle

After the intensity of the last few days, it was a wonderful pleasure to relax a bit and spend time connecting with friends in beautiful Seattle.

Morning Dew

I’ve started walking again … I’d stopped for a week or so, feeling I was too busy to take the time. ☺ Another one of my life’s little ironies - being too busy to do the thing that helps me handle being busy without spinning out. ☺

It’s almost time for daylight savings time and I’m enjoying the 7am morning light … soon I’ll have to be up an hour earlier to get this lovely fresh nascence. For some reason the world was full of dew-touched spider webs this morning. I must have seen 30 of them! All glistening like the crown jewels …

Change

The weatherman says it's going to rain soon; my guy is making sure our garden is prepared and on my walk this morning I saw people busy re-tarring their roofs and cutting those branches precariously situated above power lines. The energy of change is loose in my world and summer's heat has been chased into memory by the last few days' crisp breeze.

What's most fascinating to me about all this, though, is the light, and what is happening to it now that we're moving into autumn.

If a year were to be superimposed on one day, this season would be the first dawning of sunset, the beginning of twilight; my favorite time of the day. The colors are intensified, and the light soft, almost swollen.

Earlier this year, during the Winter Solstice Dreaming ceremony I did with my dear friends Pele Rouge and FireHawk in the Santa Cruz mountains, I wrote this love poem to Light, which I found the other day and thought I would share with you here.

Einstein's Dreams

I’d heard of Einstein’s Dreams long before I found my own copy at Moe’s (God, I love Moe’s! What a fabulous bookstore!). A quirky little ‘literary’ piece by scientist Alan Lightman, this hauntingly delicate first novel explores the nature of time and how our conceptualizations of it rule the way we experience life.

It’s a quick read – I devoured it whole on the flight between SFO and Denver - 30 short dated prose-poems threaded with ‘interludes” of real-time interaction between the 26-year-old Einstein and his best friend Besso, and framed by a prologue and an epilogue.

30 dreams, recorded between 14 April and 28 June 1905 illustrate the same world, or versions of it, through 30 different views of time. Time stands still, runs backward, is mirrored back and forth, stays frozen in the past and is different in every city and for every person: every possible conceptualization is played out in Einstein’s dreams…

My favorite is the dream of 15 May, 1905:

Imagine a world in which there is no time. Only images.