STORIES FROM THE ARTS 69
Beauty as soul nourishment
In the expressive arts field beauty is seen as soul nourishment (Knill
et al. 2004). British artist, author and educator John Lane (2003)
also speaks of beauty as nourishment for the soul. Lane says the
origins of beauty are mysterious and often unexpected, an impulse,
an image, a phrase, and cannot be explained or even adequately
described. He suggests that beauty is an impulse of natural systems
toward self-organization as evidenced in the mathematical harmonies
of design seen in nature such as in snail shells and pine cones. This
concept of beauty echoes that of other writers. American psychologist
Rollo May (1985) says that beauty offers feelings both of serenity and
exhilaration at the same time. Beauty gives us a sense of mystery
and intensifies our experience of being alive.
In Beauty: The Invisible Embrace the Irish poet and philosopher
John O’Donohue (2005) says that we are hungry for beauty. He
believes that in some sense the crises we face in the world today
are crises about the nature of beauty. When we awaken our hearts
and minds to the call of beauty, we become aware of the mystery
of the world, and we see ourselves as creators. “At its deepest heart,
creativity is meant to serve and evoke beauty” (p.7). In the experience
of beauty we both awaken and surrender. The wonder of beauty is its
capacity to surprise us.
Beauty and sustainability
Philosopher and professor Sandra Lubarsky (2012) says that beauty
is essential to being fully alive and living well. There are parallels
between beauty and life and between ugliness and the diminishment
of life. When we look at the scars of a strip-mined mountain or the
grey sludge of a coal ash-polluted river we must admit that they are
not only unsustainable, they are ugly. Lubarsky and her colleagues
note that beauty is inadequately discussed in the discourses of ecology
and sustainability although it is integral to both (Kovacs et al. 2006).
They point out that conversations about sustainability often focus
on diversity of life and the wellbeing of social systems in relation