I've been thinking a lot about Beauty recently, and have just remembered something I hadn't thought about for years . . . my first experience of being emotionally and physically impacted by Beauty . . .
I was 10 years old and saw a picture of Pamela Anderson in some magazine somewhere, and my heart just burst open. As silly as it was, I adored Pammy, and even felt quite protective over her. I want to look after her, to run my fingers through her hair . . . there was a light that I felt from those pictures, and really, what I wanted was to experience communion with that light. I wanted that light against my skin.
I still want that light against my skin, it's just that my relationship to light has changed . . . which inevitably brings me onto Plato . . .
Plato's allegory of the Cave can be read in many ways, but for me it's a metaphor of the inner-journey, and one's relationship to what Plato called the Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.
The short version of Plato's allegory is that there are many people living in an underground cave, chained to the walls, and the only sources of light are dims fires. People pass the time talking to each other about the fires, the changing shapes they cast on the wall, and trying to read signs into these fickle illusions.
Then one day someone breaks free, leaves the cave, and is blinded by the brilliant light of the sun. It takes this person's eyes time to adjust to real light, real illumination, and they start to live a life outside the cave, enjoying their freedom.
Time passes and the free person starts to feel bad for the people left behind in the cave. They return, speak about the world outside the cave, and of course are ridiculed and ignored.
Going back to my 10 year-old experience with Pamela Anderson . . . it wasn't really Pamela that spoke to me, but instead a revelatory experience of Beauty, of Light, of something else coming through this picture that I hadn't recognized before . . . and I've been thinking about this.
At it's best Beauty has always been linked to religion, or, more exactly, to spiritual experience of something bigger than the individual self, and all it's passing concerns. This means the beauty of women was also viewed in a spiritual context, as the light that shone through someone. The light of a good heart. The light of a brilliant mind. The light of love, and courage.
. . . . I could ramble on further about this, but really all I want to say is that beauty is a deep subject, and a subject worthy of reverence, not to be taken lightly, and something worthy of deep respect, praise, and a protective and nurturing environment, so that beauty may grow strong, and shine fully for the world.
I hope in my own little way to contribute to this, and I wish you all the best of luck in manifesting that light in your own lives, for the people around you, and yourself.
Lots of love
Rich
The beauty that is awe inspiring ( or lust and hormone raising) is perhaps different and more entwined with our subconscious ( whatever that may be) but is surely still inextricable linked to our person history, experience, and, perhaps more interestingly, social context.Beauty. the feeling that I feel when I perceive a stimulus from the world outside ( or perhaps, just an internal chemical stimuli but perhaps that is a totally different story! !) that gives me a sensation that I associate with pleasure and . nice things. Perhaps just as far away from the fight or flight stimulus that I have ever experienced? ( although, that again, opens up the dichotomy of the pleasure of pain) but I guess its safe to stick with beauty being something I perceive as being nice.
Through the ages and across cultures this changes wildly in some ways, possibly most wildly in the appreciation of the female form in the physical manifestation of the conceptual importance of fertility and reproduction the beauty of pagan fertility symbols and child bearing hips with full breasts in contrast to the size zero and the 60s Twiggy image. These would both be considered as beauty but the one has the social and cultural baggage of a society where inheritance, reproduction and family are paramount while the other is surrounded by a society with cultural imperatives of freedom of the individual and personal expression.
So, in my fuzzy mind, I have a perception of what I appreciate as beauty and I can either get drawn into where it draws its reference points or I can appreciate it internally for what it is to me, as something I find pleasant and positive.
I think for me I have always considered myself an aesthete and I like to appreciate beauty and nice things, be that beautiful clouds, night skies, glossy advertising. a ferrari dino or a cute bum and nipple here on sg but I tend to think of these as internal to me and my thoughts, specific to the way I am wired and what I like.. but with none the less impact for it.
I can still use the inspiration and positive energy I get from the enjoyment to lift spirits or focus my thoughts but I would not necessarily expect to be able to show someone else the same images and have them appreciate the same experience, this I think is the important difference between religion and spirituality. A religion may define a shape for this beauty and badge it under that religions banner. If you want to belong to that religion you know what you should perceive as beauty ( and conversely feel guilt if you dont. or if you perceive beauty elsewhere) while I always think of spirituality as being open to possibly sharing an appreciation of someone elses aesthetic taste but still within your own personal context, open to other ideas and beliefs. .. and then we have the beauty of ideas and concepts. Now there really is a totally different joy and well religion when it comes to science and origin of species type shenanigans. Even though I feel so much of this is internal to me, I still feel its somehow bigger than me and indeed something to be nurtured and appreciated, in all its forms.