La Vita Bella — Life Is Beautiful: Wisdom of the Ages
Truth, Beauty, Dr. Wayne Dyer, John Keats, and the Eternal Life That Flows Through Us
This morning began with a remembrance.
I found myself thinking about my grandmother Fae and my grandfather. Wondering about who they were, beyond the roles they played in our family. What did they love? What brought them joy? What did it feel like to be alive in their bodies, looking out through their eyes, experiencing their own extraordinary moment in time?
And somehow these contemplations began to mingle with the ancient wisdom of yoga, particularly the lotus of the heart.
There is a beautiful invitation in the Yoga Sutras to contemplate the luminous presence within the heart. I have been enjoying this practice of softening, opening, breathing, and feeling the spaciousness of being alive.
And then, this morning, a shooting star!
A brief, magnificent streak of light across the sky. A little celestial punctuation mark in the midst of my contemplation.
WOW. Here we are.
Later, after writing down some treasures from the morning, I reached for a random book.
Today's selection was Wisdom of the Ages by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. The book opened to a chapter devoted to the English Romantic poet John Keats and his famous Ode on a Grecian Urn.
And there it was:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” — John Keats
The passage explores the mysterious life force that moves through all things, outlasting individual forms and continually expressing itself in new ones.
Dyer shares a delightful story about a dead-looking tree trunk outside his window. He and his son had intended to dig it out, but life intervened. When he returned from a trip, tiny green shoots had appeared. Eventually the old stump was covered in branches, leaves, and new growth.
Life flourishing where it had appeared to have ended.
Oh, how I love this!
And how beautifully it spoke to my earlier contemplations about my grandparents, the lotus of the heart, and the mysterious continuity of life.
Perhaps beauty is something we recognize most fully when we are present enough to feel it.
The breeze against our skin. The warmth of sunlight. A beloved face. The fragrance of the earth. A shooting star. A tiny green shoot emerging from an old stump.
These experiences ask so little of us.
We look. We listen. We feel. We receive.
And something in us recognizes something in the world.
There is a wonderful freedom in this. A way of participating in life that arises naturally through attention, appreciation, and love.
I keep returning to this understanding: the quality of our attention transforms the quality of our experience.
And sometimes that quality is beyond description or measurement. It is simply the felt experience of being alive.
A great, spontaneous, wholehearted WOW!
As I read this morning, I felt such tenderness for the generations that came before us, for the life unfolding around us now, and for all the generations still to come.
The same earth. The same sky. The same mysterious unfolding.
And here we are, for this precious moment, able to witness and participate in it.
Perhaps this is one of the loveliest ways to honor life: to notice its beauty, receive it wholeheartedly, and let our appreciation become an offering.
May all beings experience peace.
May all beings know love.
May all beings recognize the beauty of this miraculous life.
La vita è bella. Life is beautiful. 🌱🌳✨
Inspired by John Keats's “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and Dr. Wayne W. Dyer's reflections in Wisdom of the Ages, chapter “Truth/Beauty,” pages 83–86.
