It is Friday today and it is my 52nd birthday. When I consider all that has come before, and all that is to come, I can only say that every moment, every choice was part of a Now. My fervent wish, whether on my birthday or not, is to stay in each moment and see it for its Beauty.
Now I would like to share some of my favorite quotes relating to Beauty.
First, as you would expect, there is Romeo's description of his Juliet: "Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear." ("Romeo and Juliet," William Shakespeare, I.iii. 54)
I admire also Keats's immortal lines from "Ode on a Grecian Urn": "Beauty is truth, Truth beauty/ That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know."
There is a portion of the midday Canticle in the Celtic Daily Prayer from the Northumbrian Community I find quite lovely: "Teach us, dear Lord, to number our days/ That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom./Oh, satisfy us early with Thy mercy/That we may rejoice and be glad all of our days./And let the Beauty of the Lord our God be upon us/And establish the work of our hands."
Finally, a quote from Brian Andreas at Storypeople.com : "She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short."
[[Photo: Lily in the Morning Light, Barbara Butler McCoy, August 2011.]]
