Beauty

The arts, whose task once was considered to be that of manifesting the beautiful, will discuss the idea only to dismiss it, regarding beauty only as the pretty, the simple, the pleasing, the mindless and the easy. Because beauty is conceived so naively, it appears as merely naive, and can be tolerated only if complicated by discord, shock, violence, and harsh terrestrial realities. I therefore feel justified in speaking of the repression of beauty. -James Hillman

And from John O'Donohue's Beauty: The Invisible Embrace:
"When we awaken to the call of beauty, we become aware of new ways of being in the world. We were created to be creators. At its deepest heart, creativity is meant to serve and evoke beauty. When this desire and capacity come alive, new wells spring up in parched ground; difficulty becomes invitation and rather than striving against the grain of our nature, we fall into rhythm with its deepest urgency and passion. The time is now ripe for beauty to surprise and liberate us. (7) And "In order to become attentive to beauty, we need to rediscover the art of reverence. . . . A sense of reverence includes the recognition that one is always in the presence of the sacred. To live with reverence is to live without judgment, prejudice and the saturation of consumerism." (11)

"Beauty will save the world." —Dostoevsky

Some things to think about on these rainy and blustery Autumnal days. Slowing down, honoring the rhythm of the Earth, the cycles of the seasons, while creating Beauty.

Within the circle of our lives
we dance the circle of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon
within the circles of the season,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.
–Wendell Berry

Above is my Harvest Moon: Autumn Mandala
The harvest moon is the moon at and about the period of fullness that is nearest to the autumnal equinox. The Fall is the time for going inward. Here, the bears represent the hibernation or inwardness of the spirit as they march to the west which is the cardinal direction associated with the Fall. The dream catcher in the center adds to this theme where the jeweled net of Indra (from the Buddhist tradition) invites us to remember that all phenomena are intimately connected.