Perhaps I am unique in that this isolating year has made me more reflective of beauty. I read an essay on the aesthetic response in psychology and it suggested that humans naturally gravitate towards the beautiful and the sacred. More beautiful passages keep finding their way into my psyche.
There are moments in life when time seems to stand still—moments when we find ourselves transfixed, and eventually transformed. These moments can be cosmic in scale, as reflected in the awe that we feel when beholding a rare solar eclipse, or an approaching storm. These moments may also be quite intimate, but no less moving, such as when we witness an animal emerging from hiding or when we hear an exquisite song. We recognize, and always remember these moments because they are announced by bodily sensations; we gasp, our hearts beat faster, and tears often flow. Our bodies tell us that the ordinary has given way to the extraordinary. These experiences are best described as “aesthetic,” as we find ourselves living, at least for a few moments, as creatures that are gloriously and achingly alive.1
I wonder what it means to be achingly alive:
I liked then to go and sit on the shingle in some secluded spot by the edge of the lake; there the noise of the waves and the movement of the water, taking hold of my senses and driving all other agitation from my soul, would plunge it into a delicious reverie in which night often stole upon me unawares. The ebb and flow of the water, its continuous yet undulating noise, kept lapping against my ears and my eyes, taking the place of all the inward movements which my reverie had calmed with9in me, and it was enough to make me pleasurably aware of my existence, without troubling myself with thought.2
Yes. I feel these passages in my soul and I want to be achingly live.
- https://www.pacificapost.com/soul-stands-ajar-aesthetic-encounters-portals-wonder-meaning
- Griffin, John. On the Origin of Beauty: Ecophilosophy in the Light of Traditional Wisdom. World Wisdom Inc. 2011. pg 82
