A Pause For Beauty:
An artist’s journal.
Below, the Art Journal posts for the month of June, 2023.
May posts can be found here.
Great stone walls shut out stars
to the east and west, loom and close
as night deepens. A breeze
stirs the willows. River.
- David Lee “Zion Narrows,”
from his collection "So Quietly the Earth"
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here: https://www.herondance.org/song-of-waterVisit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.
- Melody Beattie
i found god in myself
& I loved her
i loved her fiercely
- Ntozake Shange
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here: https://www.herondance.org/gratitude-visionVisit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes droop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
- Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit (1922)
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here: https://www.herondance.org/velveteen-rabbitVisit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
- Albert Schweitzer, Reverence For Life
When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back. . . Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will. . . Your path you must decide. . . You will find only what you bring in.
– Yoda, Star Wars: The Jedi Path
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here: https://www.herondance.org/yodaVisit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
If I knew all there is to know about a golden arctic poppy growing on a rocky ledge in the Far North, I would know the whole story of evolution and creation.
- Sigurd F. Olson, The Singing Wilderness
A tree retains a deep serenity.
It establishes in the earth not only its root system but also
those roots of its beauty and its unknown consciousness.
Sometimes one may sense a glisten of that consciousness, and with such perspective, feel that man is not necessarily the highest form of life.
- Cedric Wright, Words Of The Earth
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here: https://www.herondance.org/tree-serenityVisit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.. . .
Read more of our interview of Len Soucy visit here.
We live in a truly marvelous world. A really, really interesting, diverse, marvelous place to have visited for a short time. Some get more out of it than others. Some of us try to get more out of it than others . . . I think you should make a conscientious effort to try. To be nosy. To look and to marvel. And not only to look but to see. Not only listen but hear on all different levels. It is indeed a marvelous world. Part of what makes it marvelous is our own kind. Part of what makes it incredibly marvelous to me are other than our own kind. I think it is important biologically to have them, but it's also important for my quality of life. I would not want to live in a world that had only people in it. I like snakes and frogs and creepy, crawly things and marvelous birds that can fly two hundred miles an hour and free my spirit . . .
- Len Soucy, Birdman of the Great Swamp and Cofounder of The Raptor Trust
. . .
Read more of our interview of Len Soucy visit here.
Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
I just heard a loon-call on a TV ad
and my body gave itself
a quite voluntary shudder,
as in the night in East Africa
I heard the immense barking cough
of a lion, so foreign and indifferent.
- excerpted from the poem "The Idea Of Balance Is To Be Found In Herons and Loons," by Jim Harrison, in the book "The Shape Of The Journey"
And the latest chapter of my upcoming book:
How Good Was My Failure Today? Failure Is A Crucial Part Of The Journey
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here.
Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things –- trout as well as eternal salvation –- come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easily.
- Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
And two chapters of my upcoming book:
The Gentle Arts Of Living A Quality Life On Your Own Terms
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here.
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Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
- Helen Keller
I would like to believe that beauty is of deep import to our modern age. Without question, the intention of morality, philosophy, and religious belief is to bring hope, joy, peace, and freedom to mankind. But in our time religion has lost its grip. Intellectualism has undermined spiritual aspiration in most people. At this juncture I would put the question, might not beauty, and the love of the beautiful, perhaps bring peace and harmony? Could it not carry us forward to new concepts of life’s meaning? Would it not establish a fresh concept of nature? Would it not become a dove of peace between the various cultures of mankind?
- Soetsu Yanagi, The Unknown Craftsman, A Japanese Insight Into Beauty
And an excerpt from "ZEN and the Art of Making a Living" by Laurence G. Boldt.
And the latest on my upcoming book, “The Gentle Arts Of Living A Quality Life On Your Own Terms.”
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here.
Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.
- Albert Einstein
And an excerpt from The Findhorn Community Gardening book on the beauty of flowers.
And the latest on my upcoming book, “The Gentle Arts Of Living A Quality Life On Your Own Terms.”
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here.
Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
To fly we must dance
With our longest shadows in
The brightest sunlight.
- Years ago Louise Rader sent in this haiku, with a note saying it was inspired by the Heron Dance photograph.
And the latest chapter of my upcoming book"
Signs You Are On Your Path. Signs You Are Getting It Right
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here.
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The great sea stirs me.
The great sea sets me adrift,
it sways me like the weed
on a river‑stone.
The sky's height stirs me.
The strong wind blows through my mind.
It carries me with it,
and moves my inner parts with joy.
‑ Uvanuk, woman shaman of the Ingloolik Inuit, recorded by Knud Rasmussen in the early 1920s. From his book Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here.
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In every human situation, every conflict there is always this great responsibility, laid on us by life, that the person that is most aware, that is most highly, most widely, most completely conscious, must accept responsibility for the person who is less conscious, and that is the person who is possessed by anger.
- Sir Laurens van der Post, from the film "Hasten Slowly - The Journey of Sir Laurens van der Post."
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here.
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The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
- Goethe
I will tell you what I think -- my philosophy. When we were children the world was fresh; everything is new, we can do whatever we want. Yes! We think we maybe will be doctor, maybe climber, maybe sailor. . .we can be anything! Then we grow older, we get tired. People give up. Everyone settle down, no more see the beauty of the world. Maybe people lose their dreams. Always I have tried to live in the world with the heart of a child, to see the wonder, all of the beautiful things...
- Naomi Uemura. Naomi died on the side of Denali shortly after writing that letter to a friend. He had just turned 43. In addition to being the first person to solo Denali (and he did it in the winter which was particularly challenging), he was also the first person to dogsled alone to the North Pole. He went on many challenging solo adventures, including rafting down the Amazon.
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here: http://www.herondance.org/pfb-dreamsVisit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.
- Henry David Thoreau, Journal entry, 1841
And now another friendship is ended. I do not know what has made my friend doubt me, but I know that in love there is no mistake, and that every estrangement is well-founded.
- Journal entry, February 8, 1857
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here.
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What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time; it is the little shadow, which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
— Last words of Crowfoot, Blackfoot hunter
Then a great peace came over me. . . and I seemed to hear the pines and the wind and the rocky shores say to me, “You . . . lover of the wild, are part of us. . .”
- Sigurd F. Olson
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here:
https://www.herondance.org/what-is-life
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Years ago, when I was associate director of the pediatric clinics at the Stanford Medical School, one of my colleagues, Marshall Klaus, did a study which at the time was extremely innovative. He was chief of the intensive care nursery, where all the babies were these tiny little people you could hold in your hand. Each incubator was surrounded by shifts of people and millions of dollars worth of equipment. Everything was high-tech. Of course, we didn’t touch these infants because we’d get germs on them. But Klaus decided to do an experiment in which half the babies in the nursery would be treated as usual, and the other half would be touched for fifteen minutes every few hours. You’d take your pinky finger and rub it down the little baby’s back. And we discovered that the babies that were touched survived better. No one knows why. Maybe there’s something about touching that strengthens the will to live. Maybe isolation weakens us.
- Rachel Naomi Remen, Cofounder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program as, interviewed by Bill Moyers in Healing and the Mind
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In the south, the red mountains fall away and yellow mountains rise up, full of silver and turquoise rock. There are plenty of rabbits here, a little rain in the middle of the summer, fine clouds tethered on the highest peaks. If you are out in the middle of the desert, this is the way you always end up facing.
In the south, twelve buckskin horses are living along the edge of the yellow mountains. The creeks here are weak; the horses have to go off somewhere for water, but they always come back. There is a little grass, but the horses do not seem to eat it. They seem to be waiting, or finished. Ten miles away you can hear the clack of their hooves against the rocks. In the afternoon, they are motionless, with their heads staring down at the ground, at the little stones.
At night they go into the canyons to sleep standing up.
From the middle of the desert, even on a dark night, you can look out at the mountains and perceive the differences in direction. From the middle of the desert, you can see everything well, even in the black dark of a new moon. You know where everything is coming from.
- Barry Lopez, from Desert Notes
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I could be whatever I wanted to be if I trusted that music, that song, that vibration of God that was inside of me.
- Shirley MacLaine
One time Caruso, the great operatic tenor, was struck with stage fright. He said his throat was paralyzed due to spasm caused by intense fear which constricted the muscles of his throat. Perspiration poured copiously down his face. He was ashamed because in a few minutes he had to out on the stage, yet he was shaking with fear and trepidation. He said, “They will laugh at me. I can’t sing.” Then he shouted in the presence of those behind the stage, “The Little Me wants to strangle the Big Me within.” He said to the Little Me, “Get out of here. The Big Me wants to sing through me.” By the Big Me, he meant the limitless power and wisdom of his subconscious mind, and he began to shout, “Get out, get out, the Big Me is going to sing!” His subconscious mind responded releasing the vital forces within him. When the call came, he walked out on the stage and sang gloriously and majestically, enthralling the audience.
- James P. Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
And the latest draft of a new chapter from my upcoming book exploring anger and surrender.
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here. Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
Perhaps we’re never more aware of the beauty of Creation than in wild nature. Or perhaps we’re most aware of that beauty through the sensation, the experience, of Love:
What I learned from Art is that God, if there is a God, is not an object so much as a relationship — the reconciliation of all things to all things. When I feel reconciled to God, I feel awe for the gift of creation, I feel love for my fellow creatures, and I feel peace within myself. This is the gift Art shared with us.
Gratitude came first in the form of appreciation for small favors, small favors which we now understood to be not so small, the gift of rain, the gift of the sun, the gift of the life of a caribou which had died for us . . . . With the growing sense of gratitude came a growing sense of love: love for the creation, love for one another, and love for the grace of God which made us feel so peaceful.
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here. Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.
In every man's heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty.
- Christopher Morley
The more alive that secret nerve
The more sensitive that person is to beauty
The more alive, the happier, that person.
- Rod MacIver, Journal Note
Twenty or so years ago paddling in Northern Quebec
I came across a wild iris by the side of a wilderness lake
A few feet from a sandy beach
Huge and beautiful, swaying in the wind
And I wonder how it got there, all alone
The only one that size I’ve ever seen
At first I thought, “A lonely beauty.”
Next I thought, “No, beauty in solitude.”
- Rod MacIver, Journal Note
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here:
http://www.herondance.org/wild-iris
The latest chapter of my book, this one entitled "Death Gives Life Meaning", can be accessed here.
Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts. 
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.
- Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
All of Picasso’s great paintings came after he gave up on drawing well or painting realistically, and instead focused on his dream world and the emotions that came bubbling up. He offered us a portal into symbols of mysterious aspects of life. What Picasso had in abundant quantity, and what most of us lack, is a deep abiding belief that he had something to say that was important. We all have light and dark inside us; Picasso believed that even the darkest nooks and crannies of his inner world were beautiful, were worth exploring, had something important to reveal about the nature of existence.
Picasso’s paintings are great, in part, because he loved himself, he didn’t give up on himself. He was in love with his vision. He did 50,000 paintings in his life, I think. Not all great of course. But his greatest paintings changed art.
Our role as artists is communicate from our depths about where the juice hangs out.
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here. Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts. 
“Follow your bliss,” the phrase coined by Joseph Campbell, has come in for a certain amount of derision of late. Similarly, Marsha Sinetar’s “Do what you love, and the money will follow,” has been criticized as overly simplistic and optimistic. It probably is, but it isn’t without value.
"The point of relationship is the added power that life gets in working with it as a channel. If two people are strong together, then life has a more powerful channel than it has with two single people. Life doesn’t care about your relationship. It is looking for channels for its power so it can function maximally."
- Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck
In this context, consider the word “relationship” in terms of relationship with work, with business partners, with friends, with romantic partners. Go where one plus one equals three. You, me, we are bundles of energy. . . go where your energy is enhanced by adding to the lives of others, where one plus one equals three. Or more.
Those excerpts are taken from a long exploration of the subject of following your bliss.
Read the rest of this Pause For Beauty here. Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts. 
A balanced life is based on its own rhythm. If you don’t set your own rhythm, and have the discipline to follow it, your life will move at the speed of the culture around us, which moves too fast.
The space we make for quiet time affects our thought patterns and, in turn, the quality of our lives. It is important to bring thought to this most crucial area of our lives.
Journaling Questions:
- To what extent is the rhythm of your life a result of careful thought? Or is it one imposed by the flow around you?
- Does the rhythm of your life grow out of a still point, a place of quiet reflection?
And Vincent Van Gogh on the universal rhythm, Thoreau on the relationship between rhythm and wisdom, Thomas Merton on rhythm and happiness, Virginia Wolfe on rhythm and writing, PG Downs on the rhythm of wilderness and Tom Wisner on writing, singing and living the fundamental rhythms of the Chesapeake River.
. . . Visit here to read the rest of this Pause For Beauty. Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts. 
I had a friend, Herb Pohl, incredible long-distance wilderness paddler who did most of his long Labrador wilderness trips solo. He used to say to me, “A long life is vastly overrated.”
A quality life, a good life, is underrated perhaps because it has a price. It takes thought, effort. It’s not just go with the flow. It is dig down deep. Treat your life with the respect that a precious gift deserves.
The price you pay for a quality life, quality friendships, quality work is worth it.
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“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
- Jimi Hendrix
Three practices are particularly important in living a quality life on your own terms:
An openness to messages that bubble up from deeper levels of consciousness.
An openness to messages that descend from whatever Greater Powers may exist out there in the universe.
Act on the messages you receive. Work. Have self-discipline. Don’t procrastinate. Start now.
I’ve been reading Rick Rubin’s new book The Creative Act, and watching interviews of him about creativity. I’m hesitant to suggest any interview in particular because even the least informative include flashes of brilliant insight, but perhaps one that is particularly worthwhile is by Malcolm Gladwell on Broken Record.
. . . Visit here to read the rest of this Pause For Beauty. Visit here for May Pause For Beauty posts.