Beauty – Are your dreams so beautiful you regret waking up? Do you dream of possessing great beauty yourself, caressing gorgeous flesh, or having a gorgeous lover turn diamond eyes upon you? Do you dream of beautiful places, caverns, waterfalls, chapels – that are spectacular in their glamor? We are all visual learners, attracted to beauty, hypnotized by color. Our relationship to the universe is naturally worshipful.

You Don’t Know How Beautiful You Are – We never do. People who think they are beautiful are trapped into fetishizing the ephemeral, which everyone knows is mysterious and evanescent, just like wildflowers. But there is a beauty that lasts forever and training oneself to recognize it fills our lives to overflowing with constant pleasure. Puppies doing anything, kittens doing everything, a dance class of toddlers (all doing the wrong thing), flowers coming up through cement, a piece of brilliant stained glass on a utility truck, a book of cave paintings, the swirl in our coffee, old photographs, our beloved’s sleepy morning face – once you start collecting a list you realize beauty is all around you. Open your Dream Journal and lose yourself in the pleasures of making a list.

Challenge – Take joy in your surroundings. Cultivate your own pleasure in the beautiful. Marie Kondo became famous for having few possessions and arranging them like jewels. Clutter is frustrating for the brain. We love sharing beautiful pictures, but momentarily “beautiful” people have taken to hogging the space. The more difficult it is to take a seemingly “perfect” picture with filters and Photoshop, the more they treasure it. Be discriminating. Think of the wildflower. Is all this fakery the path of joy or depression?

Danger – We soon find ourselves in a frenzy of “likes”. A “like” button can have a plethora of meanings, but we don’t care, we need likes the way a drunk needs booze. Otherwise we’re nothing. Possible approval from strangers – or at least momentary attention – how needy can you get? The quiet joy of certain pleasure inside your own head as you follow your bliss – “I restore old cars” and share them with loved ones – “This is what I’m working on” – is lasting pleasure.

Opportunity – Artists teach us to appreciate new beauty. Incredible as it may seem, the magical paintings of the Impressionists were first seen as offensively ugly. Lady Gaga, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, all are educators of our eye. We can become appreciative not just “ahead of the wave” but of the past – African masks, Egyptian art, illuminated manuscripts all possess a special beauty. Not only are we learning to love our past and hope for our future, we are beginning to see the natural beauty in ourselves – learning to appreciate the splendid gifts we have each been given.

Models & Mentors – “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it” – Confucius

“Beauty is a light in the heart” – Khalil Gibran

“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself” – Coco Chanel

“Don’t think of all the misery but the beauty that remains” – Anne Frank

“Beauty is reality seen with the eyes of love” – Rabindranath Tagore

Mantra – “I revel”

Meditation –

#Haiku: “Flawsome”

Individuality is
Beauty; be
Irre-
Placeably
You.