“Awe is what moves us forward.”–Joseph Campbell
There are some moments
when you feel as
well as see it:
honest-to-goodness
awe and natural beauty.
So different from
a lousy day or the other
sad myriad limits
that flesh is heir to.
Only then arriveth
distance, peace,
rest and solitude.
And a brilliant revisioning
of freedom and unity
of soul and spirit.
A simple brilliance
that was there
all the time
but previously unknown.
……………………………………………..
Although there is a lot to be said for what Kenneth Clark described in Civilisation or Matthew Arnold’s description of culture (and art) as “the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit”, for me, it is beauty that is most truly special and valued. For instance, much as I love the architecture of Wright, the music of Beethoven, and the water lillies of Monet, it is natural beauty, especially in its wildest and most sublime, that moves my soul or spirit in ways words could only vaguely begin to express. In some large, symbolic, yet palpable way, they are in me and embody what I have often needed and desired whenever, as Wordsworth writes–”The world is too much with us” and/or the limited/limiting human world comes up ‘short’, sometimes ‘way short’…
Again, over and over, nothing significant happens or grows without consciousness and epiphany. Personal internalizations of external information, best experienced through the senses, as Keats often pointed out.