14/09/2020
Beauty in Isolation
Entering into my second week in isolation, I bring to mind my belief in the restorative power of beauty. Beauty bestowed wisdom and a place of escape for me a long time ago, growing up in a city at war. I was born in Belfast in the 1960s, the sounds, the sights, the smells of violence confronted a very timid child with its ugliness.
I was taught the healing power of beauty, not through the acquiring of great luxuries or accessing the images of world-renown artists. I was taught beauty by looking at the fragile petals of a rose blooming in my mother’s garden, the sunlight dancing on the waters of Belfast Lough, or the vibrant cloak of azure thrown on the forest floor by the bluebells blossoming in spring.
From the day these sights stored their bounties in my heart, I have called upon beauty to bring me through difficult times. Yesterday when my sister called to deliver me dinner, she brought six simple stems of freesias with her. I cut some greenery from the garden and placed them with the flowers in a vase I made from one of my water bottles. I put them on my bedside table. Their delicate triangled petals and purple aroma send smile after smile rippling across my face and heart.
Turning the eye and the heart to what is beautiful in life may not always be easy, but the grey presence of suffering seems all-pervading. But beauty is there, in all the smallest of places and most unexpected of moments; Waiting patiently to be found, ready to fulfill its healing purpose.
I wonder what the professionalization of counselling gave up when it chased the holy grail of efficacy and effectiveness. I wonder what price the therapy profession paid when it looked only to what could be measured. And I praise the noble ethics, theories, and practices that neve turned way from the healing power of the beautiful.
Today my invitation to all who read this, (not just the therapists,) give some beauty to someone, even if it involves a discarded plastic drinking bottle 😊
Le beannacht uaim,
Mary Jo
