When we see beauty

What is that other-worldly feeling we experience when we see something beautiful? When a peacock unfurls its plume and displays the impossible magnificence of metallic green and blue and brown, and while we are still filling our eyes with the spectacle, it does a little shimmy and breaks into a shivering-shimmering dance that makes us gasp.

A star studded sky, a blood red rose, a perfectly symmetrical snow flake, the pink paw pads of a kitten, they fill me with double disbelief…that something so gorgeous can exist and that I was lucky enough to see it.

You thought me worthy of seeing this?

Night Sky from Shireesh’s brilliant collection <3

Walking home in the evening, I find myself in the fragrant embrace of a jasmine blossom. No warning, no fuss, just the full bodied aroma arising from tiny flowers, delivered straight to the soul. No diluting, no holding back, the entire thing, right here, right now, mine to take. Reminding me not to settle for less…from jobs that require me to make myself smaller to fit into their narrow, capitalistic margins, from friends that ask for less than hundred percent honesty, from relationships that offer less than whole-hearted love and expect gratitude in return. These flowers expand my senses, my mind and my heart. They seem to say, “You can do more, you can give more, you can receive more, you are more.” They remind me of my own largeness.

Jasmines by chandra sekhar on Unsplash

It’s the same with art…a thoughtful painting, a story well told, a poem from the heart. At one level, Gulzar’s lyrics make no sense, but at another level, Jinke sar ho ishq ki chhaon, paanv ke neeche jannat hogi is the deepest truth. Rahmans’ drums and Shah Rukh’s thumps beat to the metronome of my heart. Everytime I hear the song, I am transported to a higher, happier plane, from where I wonder, how could they know? I feel seen. In my full, uncontainable, expansive self. And I gasp.

When we see beauty, beauty sees us.