Questions

What is inner Beauty? How do I recognize it in others? How do I recognize it in myself? How does one cultivate inner beauty, especially when there are questions about what it is and how to recognize it?

Reflection

Here we are on the last round. Journey of Beauty ends before the end of the month. Then, Journey of Creation begins June 9. This is pertinent to today’s questions about beauty, and about this Journey overall.

Each Journey is relevant to all the other Journeys, and each Journey acts as a transition, or a connector, between the Journey before it and the Journey after it. Journey of Beauty acts as a connector between Journey of Courage and Journey of Creation; it also sets the stage for Journey of Creation.

We started the year with Journey of Gratitude: this sets up the feeling, attitude, and intention for the entire year. Overflowing thankfulness opens the door for overflowing good in your life.

Gratitude segued into Courage. Gratitude opens the heart; Courage strengthens the heart. With an open, courageous heart we can then begin to consider the questions about Beauty. The heart accepts, and can help us see beauty anywhere, courage helps us to be honest, and also to be willing to see beauty in places/people where we might not otherwise be so inclined to see it.

These 40 days of contemplating Beauty will then help us to understand Journey of Creation as a means to creating Beauty: creating external beauty that resonates with and reflects our internal beauty.

All of this is to say: today for Journey of Beauty, I am wondering about creating Beauty. I am (perhaps a bit prematurely) anticipating the next Journey, and wondering what I need yet to learn in the next 8 days to complete this part of the work, so that I can proceed with Journey of Creation in the highest/deepest way possible.

Here are some thoughts on that:

Inner Beauty really has to do with the relationship I have with myself, and with God. The more connected I am–the more aware, accepting, and open to–the Love I am, and the Love which created me, the more I embody the beauty of that Love. If there is, in a word, a definition of Beauty, it is Peace. Peace comes through Knowing Love. That is what I feel at this moment, and comes from the feeling I have had the past two days doing this Journey.

When I Know this Love, when I Know myself as this Love, when I know Love as me, and through me, then anything I do is already given to that Love. I simply want to be in that Love, and do everything in that Love. However, this “want” expresses simply as the acceptance of what is, because when I exist in Love, there is nothing more.

This is the point at which creation occurs as an extension of Love, not as thought, not as desire, not as will. Just Love.

This is the point at which creation is perfect, and Peace permeates every thought, every action, every moment.

This is the point at which everything is beautiful, and I can look and see what I have created and Know it is good, having co-created with the Love I am, which also created me.

Beauty in this sense is a litmus test. It’s a way of sensing if what you are creating is created with Love. No one else can tell you this; this is the importance of beauty as a subjective experience: only you know your relationship with yourself, with God, and with Love. Only you know how you feel when these align and express themselves through you.

Only you can feel the Peace that this co-creation brings.