Meditations on Beauty
BEHOLD THE BEAUTY
TO SOME A CONTEMPLATION, TO SOME A MEDITATION
When nature beckons our eyes with a field of sunlit poppies, or the stained glass colors of a butterfly’s wings, or an awe-inspiring sunset, and we really see it—not just look at it, but “behold its beauty”—there is often a cessation of thought as we transcend ourselves and experience a timeless presence which is entered through a circular door wherein going outside ourselves we go within our true Self, and often unknowingly we surrender our individual egos and become part of the universe, hence we lose ourselves to find our Self. This experience happens naturally and simultaneously, not unlike the long, serpentine sentence above.
Nature meditation is not so complicated. Sit, be still, let go of your thoughts (often achieved by focusing on the deep inhalation and exhalation of each breath) and behold the beauty, and this transcendence will happen to you; or, as the monks and mystics would rightly say, to the “true You.”
The Beauty of a sunset at Seawood Cape Preserve. Photo by Tim Haywood.