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Priscilla Stuckey

Reconnecting people with nature through writing and spirituality

Nature :: Spirit

the blog of Priscilla Stuckey

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Opening to beauty

September 29, 2017

Sunset view of Sandia Mountains glowing red under cloudy, pink-tinged skies of beauty.

The scene above interrupted our dinner one recent evening, the sunset glow too beautiful to do anything but stare. We stopped eating and simply looked. Long golden rays kissed the tips of chamisa and rose and wild hyssop and Russian sage in our garden while at the same moment lighting up the Sandia Mountains a few miles away.

Sandia is the Spanish word for “watermelon,” and a geologist will tell you the Sandias glow red at sunset because they contains feldspar. It is a perfectly good explanation. It speaks to the physical elements of the rock. But it doesn’t explain elemental experiences such as jaw-dropping awe, which burst our hearts wide open when we get treated to a scene like this.

Beauty such as this is fleeting—five minutes at most on lucky evenings. Yet we get lucky a lot around here. It’s why I live here—I need beauty.

Reserves of strength

We all do. We need beauty especially during challenging times. Beauty gives us juice for living. “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts,” wrote Rachel Carson.

Beauty is indispensable—especially when those tender places inside us are being hammered by stingy or heartless acts of others. Beauty reminds us that the world is generous, that we do nothing to deserve its gifts.

Choosing generosity

Opening to beauty means choosing generosity over heartlessness. Beauty disciplines our hearts to joy like riverbanks nudging the current ever closer to the sea. Opening to beauty, over and over again, means saying yes to a fierce and wild hope—a hope that has nothing to do with expecting better times in the future and everything to do with soaking up goodness available right now.

To receive beauty, again and again, is to be trained in love.

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Tagged With: attitudes toward nature, awe, beauty, garden, generosity, love, nature inspiration, nature spirituality, Sandia Mountains

 
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About Priscilla

I am a writer and spiritual counselor with a passion for changing the modern story of nature and reconnecting people with the Living Source inside themselves and all of nature. I received a PhD in religious studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and have taught graduate-level environmental humanities, feminist studies, critical thinking, and thesis writing at Prescott College in Prescott, AZ, and Naropa University in Boulder, CO.

Nature advocacy started for me years ago in Oakland, where I founded a small nonprofit land trust to preserve a nearby creek. In various places around the American West, I cleaned and restored urban creeks, fed baby birds in wildlife rehab, and cofounded a local rights-of-nature group.

My first book, Kissed by a Fox: And Other Stories of Friendship in Nature (Counterpoint, 2012), won the WILLA Award for Creative Nonfiction. Tamed by a Bear: Coming Home to Nature-Spirit-Self (Counterpoint Press, 2017) is a spiritual memoir of the first year of listening to Spirit’s voice through shamanic-style journeys.

My partner, Tim, and I live on Maui, where we are learning to know the life in the sea.

Reader Interactions

Responses to Opening to beauty

  1. Laura says:
    September 29, 2017 at 4:54 pm

    This post has helped me more than you can imagine. Thank you.

    • Priscilla Stuckey says:
      September 29, 2017 at 5:02 pm

      You’re welcome, Laura. Wishing you love and beauty in abundance throughout your life.

  2. Rivvy Neshama says:
    October 26, 2017 at 4:14 pm

    Beautiful photo. Beautiful words. Beautiful reminder of how to live.

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Happy equinox, and to those of us in the North, happy first day of spring! Poem alert from Maya C. Popa's newsletter. Thanks, Maya! A celebration poem from the Harlem Renaissance poet & playwright Angelina Weld Grimké. @MayaCPopa https://t.co/v7MZ65ljv4 https://t.co/2HC81cNShC

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Banner photo by Don Johnston. All photos by Priscilla Stuckey except as noted.