Our Spring issue is out now! The theme is Beauty. Our wonderful readers share what Beauty means to them— Dive on in!
Spirituality & The City
Our Readers on Beauty
Smaranda Mair
Did you ever ask yourself why we use, “A woman is beautiful” while “A man is handsome”? Is this because in our society beauty is more related to our feminine energy? Beauty is about purity and balance. When you reach that state of inner balance and alignment you definitely become a beautiful human being. But wait, we are all born beautiful human beings. That’s right. And then we start to be conditioned by our carers and by circumstances. And we learn that beauty is conditioned by gender, by age, by colour, by location, by… Nothing could be more false and more damaging for our beautiful pure souls. It takes a moment of realisation and perpetuum awareness to regain our inner pure beauty and to let it shine every day through our pores, through our words, through our vibes. And remember, beauty attracts beauty. We attract what we are. Find out more about Smaranda @Holistic_Health_Hub.
Ciara Ni Dhiomasaigh
If I really sit with beauty, for me it’s the sigh that emerges from the deep of someone when they are in the truth of their experience. It’s a moment of dropping, a softening into safety. I experience it often in my clinical practice as I listen in stillness to the essence of what the person is experiencing or in the subtle contact of my hands that allows and supports something to let go into rest. It’s like a relief, that says some truth has been deeply heard and acknowledged and now there is more space to be however I am. I am intrigued by this moment of transformation when the sigh emerges, it’s like a bodily expression of relief from deep inside, that communicates something all at once, in a way that words could not convey. It’s greater than the sum of its parts. The beauty of this moment is a recognition that safety and connection are built by deepening, settling and healing, one sigh at a time.
Find out more about Ciara @naduir.ciara
Meave Kinsella
Here stands an intriguing little house. Full of unseen, untold stories. It was the beauty of the unknown that started to tell a fascinating tale. Who lived there? What happened to them? Why was the house derelict? Why are there doors upstairs with no balcony? Why has it been gutted of all belongings? It looked like the house in Alice In Wonderland where her arms and legs crashed through the windows as she grew larger and larger. And I began to feel like Alice, “Curiouser and Curiouser.” The peninsula in which it stands, invaded by tourism and holiday homes, yet this house survives as is. Why? It reminds me how the essence of who we are is everlasting, while the tangible aspects can degenerate. Beauty is in the unseen. What isn’t told. What lies beneath.
Paul Mangan
I was delighted to recently perform on stage in front of a full crowd of people in a packed house for what seemed like the first time in aeons. The sense of profound togetherness and shared joy at being able to socialise in a cultural setting again was tangible and left me with the thought, “How did we ever manage without this?”. The show was a Valentine’s cabaret evening in which we sought to answer the question, “What is love?” through our performances. My conclusion was that it was this aforementioned sense of togetherness which at that moment best explained this eternal riddle. Beauty can come in many forms and on a night such as this it can take the form of everyone’s shared endeavours to create something special, something that touches the audience to create new and fabulous memories.
Find out more about Paul @travelling_freakshow
Cormac McCarthy
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this beholder sees beauty everywhere: Bare trees in winter, mushrooms fully grown, the aesthetic shape of women and all that jiggles. The eyes, which are windows to any soul, from cosmic visions to a gentle flowing, smooth river. The meditating monk, in complete serenity… But even unconventional places too. There is a beauty in pain, in a screaming mother giving birth, the last breaths of an aged being, marching toward their end. The lion,
as it eats the fallen gazelle. The truth is, beauty is in whatever you see beauty in, and… what cannot be seen. There is beauty in logic, beauty in words, beauty in thoughts, the wind that blows can be beautiful, not only to the skin, but the other senses too. Seeing a relationship form, of any kind, when you wake up to the truth… any truth.
Find out more about Cormac @kickasscorm
Wesley Finnegan
When it comes to me during a trip, it’s like it is shown or given. I just have to feel it, accept and let it in, relax, trust and let it heal. Let it integrate, let its tendrils of love and warmth reach and flow through every crevice of my mind and body. This mind and body brought into existence by the very love and warmth now permeating every fibre of its being. Resonating with every subatomic particle of my existence, I feel it, allow it and let it in. It’s there! It’s ok to take it and it’s ok to let it take and let it give, I hold no preference, let it sink in deep, feel that it’s part of me. It’s not separate, it’s not other, it is me and I am it, it was in every part of my body as I was being brought into existence and every part of me will die into its arms. Cherished and loved at every moment equally and with no capacity for judgement as its cup is overflowing with care. There is only love, the only reason it appears like something other, is to fragment into all kinds of things for the sake of beauty, beauty is created, to be enjoyed, another act of love.
Find out more about Wesley @wesleyfinneganstudio
