Guiding Thought

What do I perceive? What do I perceive as beautiful? What is beauty to me? How do I perceive beauty? How do people’s perceptions differ? How are they similar? What do perceptions say about people as individuals, as human beings, or as spiritual beings? Can I change how I perceive beauty?

Reflection / Contemplation

Ring the bells
that can still ring
Forget your
perfect offering
There is a crack
in everything
that’s how
the light
gets in
~Leonard Cohen

My point of reference with perception and Beauty today is family. You would think that an intact and cohesive unit, so to speak, results in similar outlook and perceptions of reality. Gender, order of birth, socio-economic status, physical and mental health, landscape, etc., all have a play into who we are and how we perceive.  Given all the exponential permutations that factor into families, communities, towns, states, governments, etc., it is a wonder that I am even here attempting to have cogent and cohesive thoughts with today’s guiding thoughts.

Tara Westover, in interviews related to her book, “Educated” (published in 2018) says that her memoir is less about the Mormon cult in which she was raised in southeastern Idaho, than it is a statement that all families are cults of a sort. Getting educated, I suppose helps us break free of the cult of family.

My family has one last ritual to complete with the passing of our mom. She is the last of our parents to go, and soon we will have her ashes buried alongside our dad. We will have a good party to boot, celebrating the legacy of their Beauty. As part of our individual and collective grief process each of us is reviewing the legacy and memories of what our parents gave us.  We are now bearers of their collective Beauty.

There is a mix of similarities in our stories, but let me tell you, the lenses of our experiences are mighty different. On some level, this gives a good challenge to the definition of family as cult. My siblings and I are now reworking our relationships, moving beyond the identities imposed on us as the result of our raising and the lenses we used looking at each other. Maybe we are breaking out of the cult with an opportunity to explore new ways to create Beauty.

I am reading that vision is the most dominant of our senses that we use to perceive the world around us. That said, I am told that the brain cannot discriminate between external and internal stimuli when it comes to processing experience. Thus, our imaginations are just as potent as what is out there in the world.

I wasn’t quite expecting to go here today in response to the guiding thoughts, but here it is.  And where Beauty is concerned, I know with that little crack where the light gets in, everything changes, inside and out.

Guest Contributor Lita Artis

Journey of Beauty is now available as a free book.
You no longer need to wait for the Guiding Thoughts to be posted here daily–you may move at your own pace. This link will take you to the document in Dropbox; you may download it from there.

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Here is the schedule:

Apr 18 Preliminary day Introduction: Why A Journey of Beauty (02.10.0)
Apr 19 Preliminary day Commitment and Dedication (02.10.00)
Apr 20 – 29 Days 01-10 Round One (02.10.01-10)
Apr 30 – May 9 Days 11-20 Round Two (02.10.11-20)
May 10 – 19 Days 21-30 Round Three (02.10.21-30)
May 20 – 29 Days 31-40 Round Four (02.10.31-40)
May 30 – June 8 Reflection days Gently care, de-fuse, and write one day of reflection on the Journey (02.10.41)