The utility of beauty and some more natural wisdom
Today, I understand more about how everything in nature serves multiple purposes and I was reminded how beauty serves a purpose.
I was also gifted an understanding of the nature of physical growth and how it relates to mental growth. I’m still wondering why they would be different in nature…
I saw the peeling red bark glinting in the sunshine whose beauty reminded me of the beauty of leaves falling in spirals from a few days ago. Spending time with permaculturists taught me about the concept of plants serving several functions (e.g. nettles are good for nitrogen capture and as a source of food).
(I tried to find a video of leaves falling in spirals — curious that I couldn’t find this)
I thought that the bark and the spiralling leaves could also have the ‘function’ of beauty. This seems counterintuitive but not when you consider the healing effects of beauty on the soul, but also, perhaps, when winter approaches which is a dark time which would have been, as a hunter gatherer surviving on the land, threatening as food sources became scarce.
I stopped on a bench and was joined by a young man who had been running up the hill, training.
We fell into conversation about motivation and physical training. Although English and from the area, he played professionally in Malaga and was in the UK waiting out covid as he was changing teams.
I took the opportunity to explore physical growth with mental growth and how I was troubled by the ‘trauma’ that I observed when watching trainers with their clients.
I talked about only having the need to be open-minded for mental growth which is (I believe) quite easy. Growing muscles requires them to be opened and pushed and the strength comes from the healing that follows.
Perhaps truly opening the mind can also be a painful process. And requires practice.
The footballer told me he had been running up that hill since he was 9. He had developed the habit. Perhaps he didn’t feel the pain or suffer the trauma.
Some more reflection to do on this perhaps…
