I send out an e-newsletter at the beginning of each month. If you would like get on my mailing list, send me an email at suzmurr@yahoo.com with the word newsletter in the subject. Here’s a sample.

CREATIVE COACHING E-NEWSLETTER – JULY 2009

The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere — in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves. . . When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming. We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful, for it meets the needs of our soul. . . In the experience of beauty we awaken and surrender in the same act. We find that we slip into the Beautiful with the same ease as we slip into the seamless embrace of water; something ancient within us already trusts that this embrace will hold us. -John O’Donohue (Irish poet, mystic, philosopher 1956-2008)

Beauty arouses our imagination, teaching us to view life poetically: we can see what was previously invisible, the wholeness behind the fragmentation. When we perceive Beauty, our live take on a higher meaning and purpose, for we begin to see a divine order behind our little storylines and dramas; and we start making sense of our lives. – Jacquelyn Small

INSPIRED BY BEAUTY

One spring a few years ago, I was in the middle of reading John O’Donohue’s book Beauty: An Invisible Embrace when I went for a walk out along the bluffs overlooking the ocean south of Jenner. The irises were in bloom and O’Donohue’s words inspired me to really look very carefully at the flowers. I wrote the following poem from that experience having found that the question of beauty did indeed speak to my soul.

Beauty

On the bluffs in sight of the Pacific
the first flags of spring rise, startling
blue arching petals patched with white.

I bend down to feel the waxy flowers,
watch the finely etched black veins
spread across a surface dabbed yellow,

and a sigh sweeps through my body
like air exhaled after a deep dive,
opening a door I had forgotten was closed.

By really focusing our full attention on the beauty of a flower, a vista, a waterfall, a child’s face we lift ourselves to a higher level of knowing and open our imagination to expanded ways of being in the world and expressing what we experience. Our creativity becomes a celebration of the Beauty of the world and we intuit a sense of what it means to be in right relationship with the world.  It becomes easier to access the sacred powers of the imagination for the purpose of creative problem solving and co-creating new ways of being in the world. It’s also a great ways to practice mindfulness and being in the moment. Try looking for beauty in places you don’t ordinarily think you would find it.

MORE IRELAND STORIES (A number of you told me you really like hearing about Ireland so here’s my favorite story from the last trip.)

We were waiting to catch the ferry from Doolin out to the Aran Islands. When the boat came into sight I realized that I had left my boots back at the hostel. I checked the ferry schedule and saw that there was another boat in two hours. My companions agreed that it would be okay to wait while I retrieved my shoes. I set off on foot intending to hitchhike the mile back to the hostel if I could. I had walked just a bit beyond the parking lot when a little blue Toyota pulls up beside be and the man driving says, “Get in, we’re going to get your boots, a little birdie told me”. The others would later explain that the man who ran the little coffee stand we had been sitting in front of and his friend noticed me leave and asked, “where is she going”. When they heard, the man in the stand says to his friend, “you watch the stand” and his friend says to my companions, “you watch my dog” handing one of them the leash as he ran to his car. We raced along the narrow lane up through the village, I retrieved by boots and we made it back in time to catch the ferry. . .