The natural world is often a human being’s first introduction to and relationship with external beauty – the True Beauty without. In our current urban-central, agri-business world, unfortunately too many people develop only a “nodding basis” with the natural world. Sadly, it is no longer a central reference point for the culture.
Yet our instinctual need for relationship with the natural world and its beauty will out…we create gardens. We plant pots. “Gardening” has become a giant industry. Last I looked it was ranked the #2 hobby of American households. And everywhere I have traveled around the globe I’ve noticed the ubiquitous window boxes, flower pots, community plots.
True Beauty is all around us. The first, basic Practice of Beauty is to actually see. To practice turning off what I call our sensory “auto-pilot” and really see/perceive what is around us. We take short-cuts. That intersection we pass by everyday — when was the last time you really looked at it? Or the tree in the front yard?
Try it! How many colors of green do you see outside? Any pink in that grass? And purple in that tarmac? Practice seeing. You’ll find the habit eventually goes far beyond the merely visual.
Natural beauty is True Beauty. Eternal. We yearn for it, and create it as we able.
