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"If you find yourself in this dire dried up ghostly predicament, don't give up: Go on A Beauty Quest."
I will never forget our conversation...
It was just days before graduation.
I'm hanging paintings for my thesis exhibition.
My professor grimaced at my proposal.
His arms crossed and face screwed up in disgust.
"You can't expect to make good art that is just beautiful. That lacks depth. Art has to make people think about something,"
Caught off guard by his disdain I answered dumbly:
"Yeah, but, what if I want people to think about...Beauty?" (Fast forward to a decade to the present moment...) "Lacks depth."
Beauty lacks depth...
I've thought about that conversation again and again for years.
An institution (a temple essentially) dedicated to *teaching* the value and impact of the arts reports:
Beauty lacks depth.
No matter how UNTRUE the statement "beauty lacks depth" may be-
We are bombarded by this false message from all directions.
Is it any wonder that our hearts are starved for the crucial nutrient of Beauty?
Our culture puts Beauty through the ringer:
What is the usefulness of Beauty? How do we put it to work? What does it *do*? What is Beauty worth? How do we measure Beauty?
Is Beauty productive? How might we exploit Beauty?
Is Beauty necessary?
Beauty is petty.
Beauty is a reward.
Beauty is superficial.
What does it mean when communities, institutions and individuals relinquish their birth right to Beauty? What happens to us physically, mentally, spiritually and magically when we are Beauty deficient? A kind of Beauty scurvy? I think we become ghosts.
Except not a normal haunt, We become a different kind of ghost... Not a soul wandering around without a body, But bodies wandering without a Soul.
Dried up. Hopeless. Numb.
We become the living dead.
Beauty sustains us. Beauty is Deep.
As deep as the ecstatic heart,
As deep as the sea of the psyche, As deep as the quivering dream of the anima mundi.
Beauty belongs to You.
Beauty makes us happy.
Beauty gives us meaning.
We have the power to amend our hopeless ghostly situation when we recover our sense and proportion of Beauty
BUT UNLIKE a sad ghost story, in which the unhappy soul passes on to a different plane to find rest and disappear-
When we recover our our birthright to Beauty,
we come blooming back to Life.
If you find yourself in this dire ghost-ish predicament, don't give up:
Go on A Beauty Quest.
Find that which is not pretty, but Beautiful precisely because it is NOT pretty.
Notice something that gives you HOPE.
Visit, stumble upon or remember a place that inspires AWE.
Find an object -not plant, animal or person- that most certainly ALIVE.
Ponder something ancient that makes you feel eternal...
Notice something fleeting one is lucky to catch...
An object, place or being that arrests the eyes of your heart and makes you stop to wonder.
Discover a forgotten simple PLEASURE that brings you JOY.
Here is a handy dandy Beauty Quest Guide to assist you in reclaiming your right to Beauty and feeling ALIVE.
Use the Beauty Quest Guide as a treasure map, journal prompts, or print and paste in your grimoire as a Beauty reminder.
Give your soul the vibrant, deep, life affirming, mysterious, joyful Beauty nutrition you need and deserve.
Quest is so much sexier than "scavenger hunt", yeah?
We're not "scavenging" for Beauty, Moon Babies. We're not picking bones clean or searching for crumbs- The table is set. We're feasting.
Go forth and feed your soul with Beauty and FEEL ALIVE, my friends.
Want more Beauty Fortifying magick in your inbox, Moon Baby?
Molly is an artist, professional Beauty Cultivator and author of "Art Magick: How To Become an Art Witch & Unlock Your Creative Power".
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