I am a God of Beauty By John O'Neill ...the greatest beauty is Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe...*1 Imagine a late August afternoon in high granite mountains, the sky is clear blue with a few white clouds drifting lazily in the distance, the sun bright and pleasantly warm on the skin. You hike for several miles up from the valley along the bank of a rock-strewn stream tumbling downhill over huge boulders or catching in deep hollowed out rock grottos before spilling out in swirling flows and dancing white spray. You follow the stream to its source in a deep mountain lake, the transparent blue snow melt caught in the chalice formed by the surrounding hills. After circumambulating the lake you stop to rest for a moment in the shade of a stand of hardy pines at the edge of the tree line. After resting a while something calls and you continue up the side of the chalice toward the sheer rock face that pushes almost straight up, too steep and solid for even the hardiest plants to take root. As the trees disappear you walk through a landscape of delicate white, red, and yellow flowers springing from the green and brown carpet of the alpine meadow all around. You reach the base of the sheer cliff at the boundary line where mineral and life meet, where the wandering fingers of yellow and green reach up into gray granite. You find a comfortable spot to lie down among the rocks and look out over the sky and mountain peaks in the distance. You rest a moment in peace, suspended; open to the vast sky and the majestic power of the stillness. In this moment there is no effort, no seeking, no thought, no care -- there is simply the awareness of being present, in this moment, in this place. Nothing moves. An all-pervading presence fills the space and radiates through the sky, the rocks, and the living earth all around. The feeling deepens as you relax into quiet, unbroken awareness. You are there, in the landscape, part of the scene, nothing more, nothing less. Then in an instant, unexpected but entirely natural, a revelation comes. A voice deep in the sky -- or is it deep in the heart? -- proclaims: "I am a God of beauty, and this is how we pray." An ecstatic thrill courses through the body -- pure affirmation and joy. Yes, yes! "I am a God of beauty and this is how we pray." The open sky, the towering white cloud above the peak in the distance, the dark blue lake below, the green life all around bear witness to the revelation. Yes, it is absolutely clear, true beyond any doubt, obvious, self-evident. This is it! This is what I have been searching for! In this I can rest! Yes, life is beautiful and, in this moment, perfect. Nothing lacking, nothing sought. I am part of this vast universe of beauty, not something foreign, outside; but no, I am not just a part, I am this vast universe of beauty. "Thank you" wells up from the core. Thank you for all this beauty, thank you for the body and its senses that make this experience possible, thank you for the whole mysterious flow of life I am blessed to share in, thank you for this saving gift. I have seen the "answer" and I will not forget. I will seek to proclaim this truth through my life, in word and deed. *1. (Robinson Jeffers, quoted in Robinson Jeffers: Poet of California, by James Karman, p. 146) © John O'Neill 2004

The Lover of Nature "Your real lover of Nature does not love merely the beautiful things which he culls here and there; he loves the earth itself, the faces of the hills and mountains, the rocks, the streams, the naked trees no less than the leafy trees, -- a plowed field no less than a meadow. He does not know what draws him. It is not beauty, any more than it is beauty in his mother and father that makes him love them. It is something much more deeply interfused--something native and kindred that calls to him. A great many people admire Nature; they write admiring things about her; they apostrophize her beauties; they describe minutely pretty scenes here and there; they climb mountains to see the sun set, or the sun rise, or make long journeys to find waterfalls, but ... Nature is not to be praised or patronized. You can not go to her and describe her; she must speak through your heart. The woods and fields must melt into your mind, dissolved by your love for them." -- John Burroughs, Riverby, 1894