(no subject)

[arethinn]

rialian posted in a comment in metaphorge's journal that someone asked him what is the thing he most loves, his "thing of passion" (wrt his path, magic, etc). I don't think it took him long to think of his answer (relation, spaces between) since he touches on it in almost everything he says. My answer for this is quite ready as well: mine is beauty. It's painful being without this, being trapped in the body I'm in and without any creative skills with which to make any, and on top of that being in a living situation that pretty well snuffs whatever is left over. Rialian said "The longer I do things, the more dificult it is to say the exact path I am working" and this is true for me too, although I suppose I would not say that I am comfortable with it as he seems to be. I need to know what I am trying to do and it seems that I am doing essentially nothing. I want "my path" to express beauty, to add more beauty to the world, for me to be beauty. This includes a sense of "power", "balance" or "rightness" (both for person and for place) as well as aesthetic.

*trails off pointlessly*

Comments

[raki.livejournal.com]

Soo... what would your definition of beauty be?

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

Umm.. it's right at the end there... "This includes a sense of 'power', 'balance' or 'rightness' (both for person and for place) as well as aesthetic."

Can you be more specific about what you wanted me to explain?

[raki.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought you meant those things were in addition to beauty, more like qualifiers than a definition...

I guess I'm interested in how you link beauty (which, to my mind, is an aesthetic quality) with spirituality (which, to me, is expansive and transcendent).

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

Well, to me beauty is also expansive and transcendent. To me it is as essential to life as glamour and breathing. In a way glamour is beauty is life, actually. ("glamour" here as "essence of wondermajik", as opposed to "illusion") Aesthetic is part of beauty but as I said it also includes things being "in the right" for whatever they are. Parts working together properly. Things being as they are supposed to, in flow with Tao ("des'tai"), or something.

Beauty as equal and only equal to aesthetic is limited, i think.

[ahril.livejournal.com]

Mine is to Awaken, Remember and Regain that which has been lost and to cause such in others as well. This is in order to create What Is Yet To Be.

[son-of-art.livejournal.com]

I want "my path" to express beauty, to add more beauty to the world, for me to be beauty. This includes a sense of "power", "balance" or "rightness" (both for person and for place) as well as aesthetic.



If I can humbly suggest something:

Stop making distinctions that are going to thwart your goals. You draw a line between yourself and "beauty", and between "beauty" and the world. You must defeat the tendency to seperate yourself from Beauty and from all these other ideas, and then quest after them, endlessly. The world IS Beauty; you ARE beauty; you sense these things in terms of differentiation, but there is no ultimate seperation. You simply have your own particular definitions in your own head- your own opinions, esesntially, about what must be before something is "beautiful" or before you are "beauty" or before you are "powerful", "balanced", etc.

Don't do that. You are making mental distinctions and then fighting a distinction war. It never ends, as aeons of history has proven. Stop the division game and see what Beauty really is- the Totality. The Greeks saw beauty in love, joy, nature, drama, tragedy, and death. They excluded nothing; anything- ANYTHING- that made a person FEEL was AESTHETIC- "aesthetic" means "feeling-inducing". Fear is an aesthetic experience, just as joy or beauty might be. Thus, anaesthesia is a drug that make you NOT feel.

Lady Tass, you are sunk in a sea of feeling and beauty right now, and only your own arbitrarily-drawn distinctions and opinionated lines stop you from experiencing it fully. You are not different in this respect from other human beings; Fate has seen to it that all humans entertain many distinctions, and even that humans become addicted to them, and addicted to the pursuit of outcome.

To fall into that category IS TO BE Mortal. That is what it means to be mortal. The world is one, whole, undivided thing; it is beautiful. To be aware of that wholeness, to celebrate that wholeness, is to have "Metis", or the Perfect Circle of Whole Wisdom, that which the Gods enjoy. A person who dwells in the conscious experience of the wholeness also has True Peace, a peace that does not fail. Metis is what makes the Gods "Gods", and our "broken up" experience of that same wholeness is what makes us mortals.

You are a mystic. Stop letting yourself get beaten by a wholeness that only appears as many parts. Take it all in, and don't get taken in by it. That's the road to Beauty's totality.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

Between myself and beauty, yes (I have only to look in the mirror, or at my own life, to verify that). Between the world and beauty, no; although it is hard to talk about "making more beauty" without sounding like I am (it's a lanugage limitation, not a concept one). You've missed what I was lamenting here. Unless you are saying that what I sense to be my path is not worthwhile, but you can say that til you're blue and I won't listen.

[son-of-art.livejournal.com]

I never made any comments about your path. Beauty is a great and powerful, all-pervasive force; it is not made or destroyed; it is the way of things. Nature and Beauty exist in a divine simultaneity. You just have to look and see with eyes unburdened by the absolute notion of division. The beauty doesn't come through the eye, it comes in through the soul, it is an Aesthetic experience.

And... by the way... no path is worthwhile that does not bring us to awareness, beauty, and wisdom. Don't be so defensive to think that I'm talking about yours, because I know little to nothing about your "path". I'm speaking in general. Paths cannot all be trusted to "do" this; a "path" is not enough. The Path has to communicate the Truth, or it will lead nowhere. The Truth is that we are not apart from the world we seem to inhabit. The longer an absolute "line" is drawn there between a person and the world they seem to inhabit, the longer a person will stay on the other side of the wall, forever away from the goal of the path.

So don't seek beauty; to have a goal is to seek; to find the Mystery that brings true peace is to have no goal, to be full, whole, satisfied, omni-jective, not looking and dis-satisfied, but seeing and satisfied with all.

Don't seek beauty and truth, that pre-assumes a division between you and it. Just exist in truth and in beauty, see it, be aware.

[saizai.livejournal.com]

Between myself and beauty, yes (I have only to look in the mirror, or at my own life, to verify that)

I would say that a) you are not qualified to make that statement, (on general principle) and b) I for one disagree.

I would agree on the path thing though, and I think you're farther on it than you normally let yourself believe.