“Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.” This quote is frequently used as a come-back of sorts, usually as the last word in a discussion of aesthetics. If one person comments that an object is unattractive, then the opposing last word is often this retort, in which lies the inherent argument that we each can have our own definition of what is beautiful, and we do not have to agree… But what if we take a slightly different interpretation of this quote, and put forth the thought that there may be beauty everywhere and anywhere, and that to see it, we just have to look?
One of the definitions of a “beholder” is someone who gains awareness through the senses, especially sight, and to “behold” is to see or observe something impressive or remarkable, to view, watch, witness, contemplate. We all have had days where we moved through our space, zombie-like, without really seeing. How many times have you arrived home, and realized that you were on auto-pilot, and paid no attention whatsoever to how you got there, and what you may have passed by while en route? What if we really tuned in to our surroundings, and actively sought out beauty and interest. What if we were to commit to becoming a “beholder”…would beauty lie within our eyesight?
Last week was long and stressful, and one night near the end of the week, I left the office feeling like I had been released from prison. Too many hours staring at my computer screen, trying to keep a laser-like focus on the tasks at hand, because there wasn’t a second to spare. There hadn’t been enough hours in the day to do everything I thought I needed to do, and if, by some miracle, more hours had been added to each day, I would have probably spent them at work. It had also been stormy and relentlessly rainy, even by Seattle standards, so the brief interlude between squalls was a welcome relief. It was one of those evenings when there is that certain ethereal quality of light, when a crack in the clouds allows to escape a deep golden-yellow haze against grey sky; that tension-filled moment just before the deluge hits. One of my favorite things is the look of dark evergreens, highlighted by that intense yellow light, against the backdrop of stormy slate grey. Sometimes an added bonus of a rainbow completes the scene. As I was driving home, on the same road I have driven thousands of times, suddenly every tree seemed miraculously alive in the setting sun. The graceful drape of cedars, the architectural genius of the monkey-tail trees, the lacy pines, the canopies of leaves of the giant maples and alders, the impossibly lush green of the lawns. As I drove and looked around in wonder, it occurred to me that I may have had one too many energy drinks, because I felt a little buzzed and hyper alert, but in a good way.
I thought about the summer after I was through with college, and all of my friends were out-of-town, planning weddings, or preoccupied in various ways, and I was at loose ends and looking for things to fill my time. I spent a lot of time wandering the aisles of the library, looking for obscure categories of topics that might jump out and catch my attention. I read a few books that summer about hypnotism and past lives, and decided it would be interesting to sign up for a few hypnosis sessions. Nowadays, you can find a hypnotist just about anywhere, to help you lose weight or stop smoking or what have you, but 30 years ago, hypnotists were a little harder to find. I signed up with one on Capital Hill, which was, and still is, an area of Seattle that is somewhat avant-garde and full of interesting people. I can still remember driving home from that first session. According to the hypnotist, I am able to go deep enough into a state of hypnosis that I could have surgery without anesthesia (not a theory I am willing to test anytime soon). Driving home that afternoon, I felt like I was in a dream state. It was as if I could look at a tree, and see every leaf and branch in full three-dimensional vision. The different shades of green seemed endless, and more intense, and I felt an awareness and a sense of peace that I had never experienced before. Every now and then, I am pulled back to that place, and I see things through that dream-like awareness. This was one of those nights. Driving across the bridge over the canyon of Saltwater State Park, I looked over the edge at the cascading hills covered with trees, evergreens mixed with deciduous trees still fully draped in fall color, and I wanted to weep with gratitude. I decided to turn around and retrace my path so I could get some pictures, but by the time I had gone back the mile or so, the light had changed, and the magic was gone from view. I am not sure my phone camera could have captured it, anyway, since part of the allure is the incredible height of the evergreen trees, the expanse of sky behind, and the feeling that the light surrounds, infuses, and glorifies everything around you. An impossible sensation to capture in one frame.
What I do like to capture, when I can, is the close up view of small miracles in unexpected places. The intense green of thick moss in the crack of a sidewalk, the miniature garden sprouting from the top of a decaying post, a lichen world on a branch, the stream along the highway that you may not notice as you drive by, but if you are walking, and take isolated sections, are as beautiful as a tropical jungle. When I lived for a few years in California, I used to say I was “thirsty for green”. My California friends would point to manicured green lawns and beds of Birds of Paradise and palm trees, and tell me there was green right there, but I missed the lush road edges of weeds and grass. In Washington, there is more biomass in a roadside ditch than some places have in a planned botanical garden. When you look closely at ferns, horsetails, grasses, moss, blackberry brambles, weeds, you can see so much beauty.
My six-mile drive home that night was like a vacation. It was a good reminder that I don’t have to travel far to find interesting and beautiful things. That I can walk the two blocks to a client’s office down the back alley, and I can choose to see an overgrown parking lot and the back of a commercial building, or I can really “behold”, and see a miniature cascading world on top of a rusty pipe. The choice is mine. I choose to behold, and in my eyes, there is beauty to be found, everywhere and anywhere.
Do you see this:
Or do you look closer, and see this:
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