Notes on the Need for Beauty
An Intimate Look at an Essential Quality
By J. Ruth Gendler
Reviewed by Angela Hutchinson
Spirit-Works.net
Author Ruth Gendler is encouraging her readers to find beauty, to become aware of it in its own environment, and to receive it into the soul. In years past, Gendler found such a challenge to be superficial and unimportant. She now realizes the gift that beauty contains and the nourishment it provides. “I have come to believe that by attending to beauty and enlarging our sense of beauty, we are able to live with greater appreciation, engagement, wonder, and reverence.”
When we attend to our world how do we see it? What do we allow our eyes to receive? According to the author, we are given our eyes by those important to us, by life experience, by what is in the mind. “There is much to learn about the discipline of feeding the eyes, about celebrating the beauty of the world. I yearn to see through what I know into a truer seeing, not idealizing or diminishing or trying to fit what I see into what I know.” Authentic sight is about looking at the world in truth and in its entirety for the beauty that is present. Moving with courage, we begin to notice the ordinary and extraordinary in our lives.
Beauty resides in the light. We need light to see what is around us. We also learn to see our own light and beauty. Opening our vision, we see color and the sacred and how they intertwine, celebrating history, culture and spirituality. The light is what resides within. “Sometimes we hide our light, pretending to be less than we are, hiding our inner knowing behind comfortable stories we haven’t taken the time to question. It’s not our light to hide; it’s not our light to hoard. Our light does not belong to us, even though we are responsible for it.” Notes on the Need for Beauty is about a new vision, an invitation to view the world through a new perspective. Opening and letting the light envelope you so that you can see anew.
In our society, we are shown what beauty is and what it isn’t. We learn from a young age whether we are accepted, or not. It is a powerful message that we must overcome. The outer world can become an agent of transformation to reject ourselves or to accept self and become whole again. Our culture is full of mixed messages about beauty; our task is to receive ourselves and the beauty that is ours. I appreciate how the author addresses and embraces body, instead of rejecting it in order to reconcile with our spirit. We are whole with the body, not in spite of it. It is indeed our vessel to experience this life and it is to be cherished and appreciated. “The love story between the body and soul is expressed though acts of grooming and embellishment.” Life is a journey to health and wholeness. We are multifaceted beings and hold such beauty within and without. Are we healed enough to see it?
Gendler offers wise words and perspectives in Notes on the Need for Beauty. She attempts to open our tightly shut eyes so that we may begin to live in wonder. “When we begin to see with acceptance, without the habitual filters of fear and judgment, many things we call ugly start to look different. When we begin to see past our images of beauty, there is more beauty around us that we ever imagined.” Beauty becomes an act of willingness to see beyond our minds and our experiences, to see the truth that is always there. We break down the boundaries of limited vision and renew our sight to see the world in its natural splendor. “Beauty connects us to what is holy.” We realize our own holiness and begin to see it outside of ourselves.
“We are travelers passing through. We belong to this place, to this time. Growing into ourselves, we meet each other. The angel falling in love, falls into life. We find beauty in the garden and the forest. Let us begin to celebrate the beauty of the world.”
Notes on the Need for Beauty is a spectacular invitation to remove the shield of protection from our eyes and invite Beauty in through our own transformed perception. Gendler introduces a new vision of beauty and it is breathtaking.