{"id":717,"date":"2012-11-26T23:46:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T23:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/?p=717"},"modified":"2012-11-26T23:46:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T23:46:00","slug":"awakening-to-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/blog\/2012\/11\/26\/awakening-to-beauty\/","title":{"rendered":"Awakening to Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I see these things with an intense joy, and while I observe, there is no observer, only a beauty that is almost like love.\u00a0 For an instant, I am absent, my self and my problems, my anxieties, my troubles; nothing but this wonder exists.<\/em><\/p>\n

-Krishnamurti<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

During the Italian Renaissance, when that exquisite art and architecture was being produced (think:\u00a0 Michelangelo\u2019s David,<\/em> Botticelli\u2019s Birth of Venus<\/em>, Brunelleschi\u2019s Dome of the<\/em> Florence Cathedral, <\/em>Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Last Supper<\/em>\u2014and thousands of other great works), writers and philosophers believed that artists could contact unseen forces and bring the beauty of higher realms into their earthly creations. \u00a0Through the contemplation of art and beauty, viewers too could touch its divine essence and achieve higher states of consciousness and well-being. \u00a0Down through the ages, others have echoed this way of thinking.<\/p>\n

In his book, Beauty<\/em>, The Invisible Embrace<\/em>, the late Irish theologian and writer John Donahue said that when we awaken to beauty, we awaken to new ways of being in the world. \u00a0We all know that when we are surrounded by beauty we feel stronger, happier, and more peaceful.\u00a0 But beauty isn\u2019t always easy to find in big cities and the other places where we often find ourselves, such as airports, shopping malls, or office buildings. We have to look for it.\u00a0 How do <\/em>we awaken to this call, deepen our familiarity with beauty, and expand our ability to experience beauty in our everyday lives–even when we\u2019re not standing in front of a great work of art, wandering around Rome or Florence, or watching a sunset at the beach?<\/p>\n

First, it seems to me that when we come across something beautiful, we need to give it our full attention.\u00a0 So often we move through our days in a state of distraction\u2014walking down the street while pondering all the things on our \u201cto-do\u201d list; checking email on our smart phones; or thinking about the bad news story we just read in the paper. \u00a0\u00a0But if we keep an eye out, we may surprise ourselves and find more beauty around us than we realize. \u00a0I\u2019ve often been nourished by the touch of a cool breeze on a hot day; the sound of piano music pouring out of a window; the sight of sunshine hitting an ordinary concrete building, making it come alive.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found that by paying attention to beauty when it crosses my path, I\u2019ve gained <\/strong>the capacity to find beauty more often in more places and situations.<\/p>\n

Of course we can also bring more beauty into the spaces we inhabit.\u00a0 The clothes we choose to wear, the way we arrange things in our home, or the objects we place on our desks in the office, all have an effect on our mental states.\u00a0 And once we start finding and creating more beauty, we awaken to greater creativity. \u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s not necessary to create any particular thing: Living itself is a creative act.\u00a0 And living consciously and with awareness can be an act of even deeper creativity.<\/p>\n

Renaissance artists and writers looked deeply into beauty, and found meaning in what they saw.\u00a0 They felt that beauty is a living energy force, and that through noticing beauty, we actually nourish it, just as it nourishes us.\u00a0 When we take a walk in the woods or in a park, perhaps the trees we are admiring are admiring us back!\u00a0 While noticing beauty gives us energy, gives us life, when we notice something, we also give it<\/span> more life and we participate in its expansion and in the enduring creation of the world.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I see these things with an intense joy, and while I observe, there is no observer, only a beauty that is almost like love.\u00a0 For an instant, I am absent, my self and my problems, my anxieties, my troubles; nothing but this wonder exists. -Krishnamurti   During the Italian Renaissance, when that exquisite art and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[31,213,214,215,216,185],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativity","tag-attention","tag-awaken","tag-beauty","tag-call","tag-divine","tag-italian-renaissance","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliannedavidow.com\/demonew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}