WEATHER REPORT: 'On Beauty'

Book #1 "On Beauty and Being Just" by Elaine Scarry

On this November afternoon here in south-east Ireland autumn is merging into winter, a time once of quieting down, of going inward, of darkness gathering. A time for reflection.

If you have a copy of my book, Weather Report: A 90-day journal for reflection and well-being, with the aid of the Beaufort Wind Scale, you might have noticed two things; that you are daily invited to write or draw, 'one thing you found beautiful today', and a list of reading resources at the back. These are not unconnected.

This is the first post of my planned project to write regularly, choosing one of the books from that list with a few wildcards too. I want to go deeper into the subject of beauty and, together with you who join me here, to deepen my own understanding of why it is important. Some of the books on the list are very recent; others are long-standing companions that I return to over and over. To me these are the kind of books that, having read them, I can gain solace simply from having them on my shelves.

The first book is Elaine Scarry's, On Beauty and Being Just. This might be a little book but it packed some mighty and fresh challenges to my thinking in its little over one hundred and twenty pages. I should state that it is not light reading, Scarry is a highly regarded academic and philosopher after all, but don't let that put you off. There are times I find when it is worth doing some slow reading and re-reading, not allowing more complex language to be a barrier to gaining new insights and understandings. Having said that I will simply attempt to lift from this book some of the gems which to me were important, and share them here with you to start our conversation. I know that I can't do it full justice.

In the opening pages Scarry says that 'beauty prompts a copy of itself'. Think about that; the urge to replicate, to share. What did you want to do the last time you saw a bronze leaf, a green shoot, experienced a warm hug? You might have taken a photo on your phone and shared it or were more open in the following hours to sharing love and affection. I doubt if my phone is the only one with many, many images of beauty that I happened on as I went about my days. We also want to replicate this beauty; draw it, write about it, grow it in some fashion. Noticing beauty can become a generative act.

As Scarry develops her ideas through the pages of this book she offers some deeper nuggets on the importance of beauty. That 'beauty is a call', that the concept is 'pacific' or peaceful, in contrast to injustice or injury. She writes of brushing down some garden brick and then a tiny triangle, a moth  unseen until now, rises and flutters in the air. She asks, 'Why does this tiny fragment of flying brick-color stop your heart?' Quoting Simone Weil, she writes that these noticings of beauty, ' act like small tears in the surface of the world that pull us through to some vaster space.'

Scarry develops this further by writing that when we notice beauty we are immediately de-centred, no longer even the centre of our own world (we never were the centre of the world, though we may believe and act as if so), and come into some right relationship with the cosmos in that moment; '..all the space formerly in the service of protecting, guarding, advancing the self (or its "prestige") is now free to be in the service of something else.' We can become more open to an active state of creating or enter the site of stewardship. It 'becomes clear that the absence of beauty is a profound form of deprivation.' We are then more likely moved to work towards its continuing availability to all.

“Do we wish there to be a beautiful sky for the generations to come?” Scarry asks.

Who wouldn't answer 'yes' to that! But following that answer of 'yes', is the call to action to do what is necessary to ensure that beauty 'be safely carried forward to people in the future.'

Watch Elaine Scarry’s wonderful elaboration of her ideas here.

Tell me, in the comments below, what was one thing you found beautiful today?