The World will be Saved by Beauty

The world will be saved by beauty (Dostoyevsky)

Open to the beauty around you.  Go to beautiful places.  Create beautiful things.  Make your home beautiful.  Adorn your body with beauty.  Look in the mirror and see your own beauty.  

See the beauty in each of your parents. See the beauty in your beloveds, in your ancestors, and in your descendants.  See the beauty in each encounter with another being, for seeing beauty calls forth the beauty, releasing sparks of primordial light.  If at first you can’t see the beauty, look and look again.  Trust in the presence of the God-spark.   

Listen to the mountains, listen to the oceans, listen to the forests, listen to the lakes.  Plant flowers and rejoice in the innocent beauty they unfurl.  Watch the clouds, each moment a new painting on God’s sky canvas.

Eat foods that bring the beauty of creation within.  Savor their smells and tastes and textures.

Make beautiful music. Dance a beautiful dance.  Be always on the lookout for beauty.  Live in a state of awe and wonder.  

See the beauty in what is yours and rejoice with others for the beauty that is theirs.  

“Beauty is My gift to you,” says the Holy One.  Drink it in!  

Adapted from a piece I wrote in August 2016, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at a retreat with Rabbi Shefa Gold. Our assignment was to write our own version of the 10 Commandments.