Beauty and the Beholder

Beauty is good,
I think we can all agree. There is something powerful there, a fountain of peace that nourishes the soul. There's something in our hearts that longs for beauty. A moaning abyss at our centre.

Somewhere, deep in the depths, we all long for true beauty in our lives. There is a sad little aesthete sitting at the heart of all of us, with a head full of pictures and poetry and a mouth full of song, lamenting and serenading to a dead audience.

And today I make a stand for that little guy.
And I cry with him against it all that, quite simply:
"Beauty exists."

Aye. Tis true.

There is a wee little heresy tottering about the world these days that mutters in the shadows of dodgy alleyways on the darkest nights with sly confidence that ...
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

But that is quite a silly maxim indeed, that really has very little in it at all.
Which is ironically what it says about everything else.

Because if beauty is only in the eye, well what is it then?
just a shadow? a thought?
Slave to the whim of our moods.
There a moment and lost the next, but never actually there.
Just a thought. Just an illusion. The ethereal fruit of our dreams.
In short, not.
In short, just an flicker in your eye.

It is not so,
beauty is true, it is there, intrinsically, truly being seen and observed, not conjured with smoke and mirrors.
We look upon a sunset and see the light shining wonderfully in our eyes. We see the light, but it is no less real for it. We may grow old and blind, but the light has not changed.
So why should it be any different for beauty?
?

Because it is no different.
The world is not all a grey uninteresting clod of dull vagueness until someone looks upon it and decides some of it looks kinda nice.
No! Sunsets still paint the sky with the colours of the heart. Birdsong still tones the air with joy.
Our eyes ain't got nothing to do with them, they don't give a damn for who's looking at them.
They are beautiful.

And their beauty exists before it is labelled.

We only a leaf is green, because of the pigments therein reflect that colour, and we recognise that.
We only say that something is fast, because it has speed and we recognise that.
We only say someone is old, because they have many years under their belt and we recognise that.
We only say that someone is clever, because they have wit and we recognise that.
We only say something is beautiful, because it has beauty and we recognise it.
These are not labels that we place upon things to give them their speed, or wit, or beauty.
It is a recognition of what is already there.

And as such,
Beauty is more than a label. It remains in all things, to some extent, resting in the furthest star and nearer than the eye.
And that beauty is not dependent on us, and our ability to recognise it or not, because otherwise we are not seeing anything - no flower, no sunset, no star, no piece of art or music in the universe is actually beautiful, we've just labelled them.
But this is not so.
For centuries humanity has fallen to its knees beneath the beauty of the night sky, or bowed before the magnificent rage, the sublime calm of the ocean.
Not before a label, but before a true and awesome beauty.
Deep calls to deep, and our hearts reply,
not in lonely conversation with itself, but with the universe and our God who sustains it.

The eye really has very little to do with it, and neither do we.
We must remember that ourselves and our eyes are the receptors, not the creator.

They only help us see.
And we see only a portion, as though through a mirror dimly. But some see it better than others. Some see it here and not there, and others there but not here. Some people have their hearts open so wide they can see it everywhere. Some can't see it at all.

I daresay that if we saw the true beauty that always surrounds us, we would be blinded.
Just ask my boi Francis.