Looking for Beauty

If you take the time to watch any news broadcast, you are entitled to shake your head in wonder of just what possesses people. We see the warring, the protesting, the drugs, the violence and all manner of illegal activity. We see the people with a point to prove or a point of view and we see the sick in desperate need of medical attention or resources.

We see mostly the dirty side of humanity and less often we see the good or heart warming.

Mankind has the need to scratch together whatever is possible to make life better or perceptionally better with the rich finding ways to make more money and the poor finding enough to eke out enough to last another day.

Justice does not necessarily prevail and rights are often trampled. Life is not the fair thing that most would hope for.

True happiness is fleeting and a target often missed.

Most people believe they are busy doing what they do; making money from the labour of others, firing AK47’s into the innocent, pushing a pen, clacking a keyboard, hoeing vegetables, doing the laundry or whatever anyone does at any given time – including politicians yakking.

But time can be made, even brief time to appreciate the things around us and to look for a glimmer of beauty, because it is beauty that inspires and soothes us! 

No time or money to travel to beautiful places or to look away from the importance of what you are doing? You are lying to yourself – kidding yourself as to what is important.

I recall my father telling me to look into a rose – not just the flower as a whole. Look how those petals are arranged, the colour and texture. Look closely at the structure of the petal, the little veins that pump energy that reflects light producing the colour you see and sniff the scent attracting insects.

Turn the flower over and see the dying scales that protected the forming bud. There is beauty there – flowers bear no ill will or malice – well most.

A sizable chunk of my time is spent controlling thistles and in fact the invasive weed is a huge cost to farmers, however, look at the plant – the ends of each leaf section has a needle. None are ever missed. Look down into the flower and admire the blue/purple colour and the pollen laden anthers – forage for bees and other insects. The round ovule where the seeds form are delicately protected by thorns.

Even the down is worth a second look. So light and able to carry the seed for great distances – not so good for the farming or gardening community, but beautiful none the less.

Another battle, more or less a health issue is the filth of blow flies. In nature it is conceded they do an important job, but they spoil food, attack lambs and are generally a nuisance.

Look though at those compound eyes, structures of beauty and the reason that when swatting the fly, the odds are far in favour of the fly.

The blue of their body in a certain light is similar to the sheen of starlings. The metallic sheen is a bit like the sheen of refracted light of oil in a puddle – environmentally degrading but amazing on the eye.

But starlings are arguably the least liked of birds because of their nesting habits their propensity to defecate over all and sundry! Actually they significantly assist in the lowering of porina and other grass grub numbers in pasture.

When murmuration (mass flying) occurs, it is a spectacle of beauty! How these birds manage to swoop and turn in unison and without crashing is something of beauty on its own.

There is the beauty to be found even in stones. Pick any stone up and feel its texture and look into it and marvel at its history. Maybe it is basalt and came from the bowels of the earth. Maybe it is a sedimentary type of sandstone that has morphed into a hard rock. Think of the millennia it took for it to form, and that it’s journey is ongoing and never over. Think of the precious metals or stones that sometimes can be trapped inside.

Problems can become insignificant compared.

There is plenty of beauty to be seen if you are prepared to look for it – the old saying, ‘if you look for trouble, you will find it’ is true, but the antithesis, ‘if you look for beauty, it is there’ is as true.