Keren Dibbens-Wyatt's Blog, page 14
June 27, 2017
145. Not Knowing (Aesthetics 4)
[image error]
Sometimes we find something beautiful without really knowing why, and that is okay. Our inner seeing is often hard to articulate, and it is good to be lost for words. This is one photo I took which I love, but which I can’t (and don’t want to) analyse. It’s just beautiful. Something about it holds together right and pleases me. As with many other areas of our spirituality, often we need to accept that we don’t know, and that this is just a normal part of life.
text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017
June 25, 2017
144. Decay (Aesthetics 3)
[image error]
The Japanese have a helpful term, wabi sabi, which means the beauty possible within imperfect things, even difficult things, like death. There is a strange beauty that we can see if we train ourselves to do so, in the processes of dying and decay. Sometimes these things are just ugly, it’s true, and I don’t think there’s much point in denying that.
In mysticism we learn that everything belongs, but that doesn’t mean it’s always pleasant, either to go through or to watch. But just occasionally, there is a pattern or a juxtaposition that our inner eye can point to as lovely, even as the cross can somehow be when we gaze upon it.
text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017
June 23, 2017
143. Spiral (Aesthetics 2)
[image error]
Those of you who have been reading my work for a long time will know that if I have a spiritual connection with any animal, it is with the humble snail. They contain soft and hard, vulnerability teamed with resilience, patience and the ability to turn my patio into a shimmering ice rink of silver trails. The spirals they carry everywhere with them are symbols of infinity, and these shapes seem utterly perfect to me. DNA forms itself into spirals, and many astrophysicists now think the universe is shaped like one too. Imagine carrying a tiny universe on your back!
text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017
June 21, 2017
142. Weed (Aesthetics 1)
When we think of beauty, we are programmed to think of symmetry and perfection, to rate certain face shapes, body sizes, over others. There even seems to be a hierarchy of plants. Think for instance, what the first flower is that comes to mind when you want one that is aesthetically pleasing, and you are more than likely to come up with a rose, or an orchid. But there are a great number of beautiful weeds, too, like these lady’s slippers growing in my lawn, just as there are beautiful people who don’t fit the stereotypes. We need to develop wiser eyes, and challenge the automatic paths we think along.
text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017
June 18, 2017
141. Heavenly (Light conclusions)
[image error]
Everything is illuminated. This becomes more obvious to those with eyes to see, by the presence of the Light of the World. The light within creation and scripture rises up to greet with a kiss, his living presence within us. We can only witness this if we are truly paying attention. Light everywhere teaches us about the reflection of the divine nature contained within all created things and beings, and shows us that almost anything can be deemed beautiful.
The interplay of shadows and light, of dark and bright, of colour and shade, is a divine dance all around us. Delineation keeps us from wandering out of the cosmos of experience entirely, and holds all things in place. Sometimes the light dazzles, creates awe and splendour, other times it is subtle and soft. But always it enables a deeper seeing.
Next, we shall be looking at the way aesthetics enables our spiritual sight.
text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017
June 16, 2017
140. Indoor Rainbow (Light 13)
God’s promises hold fast indoors as well as in the heavens, and his spectrum of love is both clearly divisible into the named colours we are so familiar with, and yet so full of nuances and gradation, that all of the wavelengths are inseparably necessary in creating the whole.
text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017
June 14, 2017
139. Bands of Cloud (Light 12)
[image error]
Sometimes the delineation we spoke of the other day is very clear in the sky. A band of clouds like this can seem like a barrier, or a shoreline in the sky, or a rolling wave, a deep and sudden contrast to the clear, vast seeming emptiness of the rest of the heavens. This is our old friend juxtaposition at work again too, for this line makes the light airy space appear even more huge. It reminds us that light and dark are complimentary in the visual world, and that life, like the weather, can visit drastic change upon us in mere moments.
text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017
June 12, 2017
138. Flowers (Light 11)
These camellias were growing just outside the local church, in their tiny courtyard. The vibrancy of their colour stopped me in my wheelchair tracks, and the beauty of their shape too, but most of all, the way the sunlight reflected off their silken swirls, creating a haze of delicate light.
It often seems to me that the wonder of the world is not such beauty, but that people can pass by it without being astounded by such abundant grace. My astonishment is that some people barely see these out of the corner of their eye and think, “they’re just flowers.”
text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017
June 10, 2017
137. Windows (Light 10)
[image error]
Windows are where we let the light in to our buildings, and are the lenses through which we see the world. Our eyes are the “windows to our soul” and gazing into them can tell other people a lot about us, strange as that may seem. Likewise, how our soul has a lot of say in how our sight is configured. Our world view is more influenced by the beliefs of our heart and the workings of our inner world than by the images that form on our retinae.
text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017
June 8, 2017
136. Lines (Light 9)
[image error]
The lines that are created by the absence of light, by shadow, are crucial to our lives. Boundaries, like this fence, and each delineation of panel, keep us sane. We need to have things broken up, cordoned off, edged, else we would just be lost in a sea of vastness, as we are when we look at the sky or the ocean. It is not something we are built to comprehend, this eternity, even though it is the entirety we are created to grow into, serving as we do, an infinite God. In this earthly life, we have need of our caves and our borders, our separateness. Once we begin to understand that we are all one, then we can let go of them a little at a time, like easing out rope.
text and photo © Keren Dibbens-Wyatt 2017
