On Beauty
Podcast Interview with Drifting Cloud Press
In his Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke wrote, ‘Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror.’ And in his poem The First Elegy, he goes on to say, ‘For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so, because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible.’
To experience beauty, we have to sit with terror. And often that terror is rooted in the fear of our own brightness.
But beauty is transformative.
I’m not talking about beauty as a nice loveliness, or a superficial societal expectation based on impossible standards, but about a transformative force, one that John O’Donohue refers to as, ‘a more rounded, substantial becoming.’
Last Monday I had a chat with Gabriel Thomas Stevens from Drifting Cloud Press on the subject of beauty. From Persephone’s Beauty Box and the role of Aphrodite as the goddess of beauty in the story of Psyche and Eros, to what it means to live in a beautiless society that has lost its soul, and beauty being an altogether transformative force that holds a gentle but urgent call to wake up.
I hope you will enjoy this particularly - might I say, beautiful - chinwag!
This beautifully 'exquisite' podcast takes you on a journey from the ancient underworld to modern times and everywhere in between. From Greek Gods to plastic surgery!
Gabriela is a flowing fountain of poetry, quotes, anecdotes and thought provoking personal philosophies. I found myself taking notes and having my inner fire relit as i rekindled my love and awe for every being, plant, animal etc on this earth and found a renewed gratitude for merely existing. There is no space for depression or mundanity, just absolute beauty and tears of awe and abundance. I was deeply moved by the ideas presented in this podcast and my outlook on life refreshed with a deep crushing, aching appreciation for all that is beautiful.