Guy Schmickle: stock 2567. Nov. 17,14 found on Google+.

BEAUTY LIGHTS UP THE HEART

” I am going to my own hearth-stone, Bosomed in yon green hills alone…Where vulgar feet have never trod, A spot that is sacred to thought and God…..And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools and the learned clan; For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet. ”                     GOODBYE-   Ralph Waldo Emerson 

BEAUTY INSPIRES THE SOUL

The greatest source of comfort and caring that I received as a little girl came from nature. She was both my mother and my friend for I came from a household where the adults were gone most of the time. I learned how to be self-reliant at the age of two.

If I needed warmth, I would go outside on the coldest of days in order to let the sun’s rays heat my body.  My house was cold and dark much of the time. Whenever I needed beauty to sustain me in the darkest moments of my soul, I would sit on the front porch after sundown, and I would gaze for hours at the stars that lit the night. I knew one day one of them would be named after me. He Who was Most Holy and All Loving would do that for me. I never doubted for a moment that He would come through for me. The moon’s glow would magically make beautiful all that fell in its path, even a child like myself. When I needed the touch of soft hands, I would seek the wind during the day. When I was sick, I would lay next to the open window at night in order for the wind to cool my hot cheeks.

I would run up and down the streets as a child searching for trees to hug, grass to tickle my feet, flowers to smell, and insects to study. I would lay in the grass and look up into the endless blue sky and watch clouds shape and chase each other like children playing tag. I would listen to birds by the hour and chase butterflies. This was the only beauty in my life, my only source of joy. There was freedom in the outdoors, and there was life rich for the taking, a well of endless knowledge to drink from. There was strength here as well as compassion. It was in this chapel of trees and flowers that I found evidence of a loving God and I came to know that He did love me.

When I was young and there were no human arms to comfort me, no tender words said to let me know that I was loved, it would have been easy to allow myself to become as cold as ice and as unfeeling as a block of stone. But I was a child and music caused my feet to dance. Beauty moved my heart to soar as eagles do when they fly over majestic mountains. Life flowed within my body. I chose to feel freedom and found a passion in the great outdoors when I danced amid spring flowers and held leaves and acorns in my tiny hands, holding tightly to that which would come to save me  in the end.

Yu/stan/kema

(She Who Stands In The Face Of the Wind)