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Archive for awe – Page 2

Cactus Flower

Something remarkable occured on the corner of San Jose and Santa Clara Avenues a few days ago – a miraculous pairing of opposites in the blooming of the Trichocereus spachianus cactus…

Cactusflower_1 Something remarkable occured on the corner of San Jose and Santa Clara Avenues a few days ago…

A miraculous pairing of opposites! It
was a vision of the most delicate beauty, dancing lightly upon the most
vehemently protected and sturdy base imaginable… the flowering of the
Trichocereus spachianus, which I imagine from its name is connected
somehow to the utterly exquisite night-blooming cereus of Hawaii.

I take a walk through my neighborhood every morning, and watched as
the bizarre-looking buds began to appear on the sides of these prickly
fellows. It seemed at first as through an alien had landed, but as she
began to slowly open her robes, an altogether different vision took
shape before my eyes.

The first shy tentative newcomers were soon pressed back by the
sheer profusion of gorgeousness, and more and more of these blooms
unfurled each day. Even though they only lasted a day or so, it seemed
the parade would go on forever…

If the visual spectacle alone wasn’t enough to transform everything
within a three mile radius into pure bliss, the center of the flower
(which is a huge attractor to bees, another ‘plus’ in its favor) emanates a scent that seems as if it is the nectar of enlightenment,
it’s that sweet, that elusive, that ultimately complete and satisfying.

Everyone who came to visit me for the whole period of blooming, no
matter what time of the day or night, had to be dragged off to view
this Beauty, and no one complained once they got there.

About the Beauty Dialogues

We were noticing how absolutely beautiful we found a particular tree, or perhaps it was the pattern on the ground made by the sun shining through its leaves that we found so moving…

The Beauty Dialogues came out of a conversation between myself, Ashley Cooper & Beth Alexander during a walk we were taking together during a Spring 2006 Summit of ‘Girl Geeks’ in Seattle.

We were noticing how absolutely beautiful we found a particular tree, or perhaps it was the pattern on the ground made by the sun shining through its leaves that we found so moving…  we started to wonder aloud about what it is that makes some things beautiful in that aching, haunting kind of way… what it is in that particular moment or material that evokes the ‘beauty!’ response in one or another of us.

What is beauty, anyway? Is it different for each person? Or is there some ‘objective’ measurement, like Christopher Alexander’s calibration of the amount & quality of ‘life’ in each element, to what we collectively experience as Beauty? Is it a pleasing surface symmetry, or is it some deeper indication of wholeness and pattern that triggers the awareness of beauty in our midst? What is the ‘essence’ of beauty?

And thus started an inquiry that has already blossomed into a thousand forms, including this blog; a conversation that I hope will continue to meander like a healthy river through our curious minds for some time to come (here’s one of the tributaries).

Something truly remarkable to me about that summit of eight women in Seattle was the way we all see Beauty at the center of our lives and work … this and the passionate belief we share in using the power of technology to enhance the sense of community and connection between people. Beauty in action, if you will. This perspective seems to be a particularly feminine point of view, and feels like something deeply needed in the world right now. It’s a perspective that brings balance and begins to restore wholeness, not only to the way we see and utilize technology, but also to our ability to face and respond to the larger challenge for humanity in today’s world.

And so we wind around to another layer of the conversation… what is our work with Beauty in service to?