Beauty Around Us, Part 7: Day 14 Recognizing and Embracing Small, Daily Changes

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

Because of recent changes I have done with my daily habits , I started to wonder about the redundancy of revisiting the same places every day. Usually, our everyday spaces are boring because of their familiarity. The same grocery stores, bedrooms and even window views lose their savor because they are always in our everyday lives.

I remembered the time I went on a European Music Tour while in college. Our first stop was Rome and on our second day we visited the Colosseum. All of us were in awe and were enthusiastically taking pictures. Well, others were while I stood staring at the structure a little ways from the group. Because I was disengaged from my fellow tourists, I noticed how many people passed by us on foot and in cars. One man was even running at a fast pace listening to music. None of them stopped to look. At the time I thought how sad it was they couldn’t take the time to look at such a magnificent architectural feat.

Now I have to wonder, are we all not the same? We pass by amazing, beautiful sights everyday without giving them much thought. I think it is because in our minds we have established we know everything we need to about the environment. We are comfortable and look elsewhere for insight or entertainment. Familiarity makes the mind hungry for something, anything more exciting.

The word which has popped into my head a lot is stimulation. In looking in the Cambridge dictionary, this word means, “an action or thing that causes someone or something to become more active or enthusiastic, or to develop or operate”. I believe, like anything, there are different daily sites, songs, books or moments which in turn stimulate parts of our brain, to encourage us towards our personal development.

The trick is, usually these daily simulations usually come in very small moments. Very rarely do we find ourselves engaged in the grandiose things we see on TV or read of in books. But the everyday things, and the decisions we make as we engage with them makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE in our life direction.

I found myself paying attention to small simple pleasures around me. I often thought, “How long has it been since I see this? . . . paid attention to this. . .? . . . stopped to study this?” I decided to take time to see those things.

More than the differences in our environment, think of the small changes within our bodies, minds and spirits which come every day as we a stimulated at different levels by our world? Sometimes we create our own world through music, books or TV. Other times we plunge into the world brought to us by God and others. Regardless, one of the most beautiful truths in the universe is there can never be a person exactly the same as us. We are our own glorious, ever changing creation.

Specifically, I wanted to show how our everyday environment does NOT stay in a sterile stay of regularity. Every moment is a gift which we can never experience again. The grass will never be the same shade, thickness or color. The trees won’t ever have the light shine the way it does again. And, most importantly, each of us will never be the same person as we are in this very moment.

Thinking about all these things, I took two pictures a day of the same shots near the park where I live in Provo, UT. Within in the one week I marveled at how much had changed both there in the photos and within myself. I rounded the pictures to give the illusion of seeing through a lens.

If you would like, take time to study each photo and see the changes which occurred. If not, simply enjoy the beauty of seeing these changes in fast motion.

Sunday, May 3 2020

Monday, May 4 2020

Tuesday, May 5 2020

Wednesday, May 6 2020

Thursday, May 7 2020

Friday, May 8 2020

Saturday, May 9 2020

Sunday, May 10 2020

Beauty Around Us: Part 6, Japanese Animated Backgrounds II

Though it took awhile, here is the second part of my Japanese film section. Most of these are from Hayao Miyazaki, but all these films have beautiful imagery.

I Satoshi Kon

1. Millennium Actress (2001)

2. Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

3. Paprika (2006)

He will take a LONG time. His films are visually gorgeous.

II. Hayao Miyazaki

1. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

2. Castle in the Sky (1986)

3. My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

4. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)

5. Porco Rosso (1992)

6. Princess Mononoke (1997)

7. Spirited Away (2001)

8. Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

9. Ponyo (2008)

10. The Wind Rises (2013)

III. Various Others

1. Metropolis (2001)

2. Hotarubi No Mori E (2011)

3. In This Corner of the World (2016)

4. Redline (2009)

Beauty Around Us: Part 5, Japanese Animated Backgrounds I

Because I admire so many animation directors from Japan, I made a specific section for film backgrounds for them. In fact I have TWO sections. I especially admire these film makers because of their use of colors, light and nature.

I. Isao Takahata

1. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

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2. Only Yesterday (1991)

3. My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999)

4. The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)

II. Makoto Shinkai

1. 5 Centimetres Per Second (2007)

2. Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011)

3. The Garden of Words (2013)

4. Your Name (2016)

5. Weathering With You (2019)

III. Mamoru Hosoda

1. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

2. Summer Wars (2009)

3. Wolf Children (2012)

4. The Boy and the Beast (2015)

Beauty Around Us: Part 4, Quotes to Inspire

For this post, I will post twenty-five quotes from books, movies and various people. Words which move us help set afire the beauty dormant within us.

1.

Around the world–even in some of the countries most troubled by poverty or civil war or pollution–many thoughtful people are making a deep, concerted search for a way to live in harmony with each other and the earth. Their efforts, which rarely reach the headlines, are among the most important events occurring today. Sometimes these people call themselves peace workers, at other times environmentalists, but most of the time they work in humble anonymity. They are simply quiet people changing the world by changing themselves.

Eknath Easwaran, Your Life is Your Message: Finding Harmony With Yourself, Others, and the Earth

2.

The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

3.

Peace begins with a smile..

Mother Teresa

4.

Wherever I go, I will speak of you with love.

Clive Barker, The Thief of Always

5.

Witch, do this for me,
Find me a moon
made of longing.
Then cut it sliver thin,
and having cut it,
hang it high
above my beloved’s house,
so that she may look up
tonight
and see it,
and seeing it, sigh for me
as I sigh for her,
moon or no moon.

Clive Barker Abarat: Days of Magic Nights of War

6.

When you are born,” the golem said softly, “your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk, and crusty things, and dirt, and fear, and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it’s so grunged up with living. So every once in awhile, you have to scrub it up and get the works going, or else you’ll never be brave again.

Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1)

7.

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.

Abraham Lincoln

8.

If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?

Yann Martel, Life of Pi

9.

A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.

Leo Tolstoy

10.

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Victor Hugo

11.

To love another person is to see the face of God.

Victor Hugo

12.

It’s easy to do nothing, it’s hard to forgive.”

Avatar the Last Airbender, “The Southern Raiders”

13.

The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same. We are all one people, but we live as if divided.

Avatar the Last Airbender, “The Guru”

14.

A lesson without pain is meaningless. That’s because no one can gain without sacrificing something. But by enduring that pain and overcoming it, he shall obtain a powerful, unmatched heart. A fullmetal heart.

Hiromu Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 25

15.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

16.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come.

William Wordsworth

17.

We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

18.

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

19.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always.

Gandhi, Gandhi

20.

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Albert Einstein

21.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

22.

“There is more to a boy than what his mother sees. There is more to a boy then what his father dreams. Inside every boy lies a heart that beats. And sometimes it screams, refusing to take defeat. And sometimes his father’s dreams aren’t big enough, and sometimes his mother’s vision isn’t long enough. And sometimes the boy has to dream his own dreams and break through the clouds with his own sunbeams.

― Ben Behunin, Remembering Isaac: The Wise and Joyful Potter of Niederbipp

The earth is speaking to us, but we can’t hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then – maybe – the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.

Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

24.

If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.”

Madeleine L’Engle

25.

When there is kindness, there is goodness. When there is goodness, there is magic.

Cinderella (2015)

Beauty Around Us: Part 3, European and Chinese Animated Backgrounds

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Continuing on, these are beautiful backgrounds from European and Chinese animation.

I. European Animation

1. French, Danish Long Way North (2015)

2. French, The Illusionist (2010)

3. French Ernest and Celestine (2014)

4. Dutch, Japanese The Red Turtle (2017)

5. French, Italian The Little Prince (2015)

6. French Tales of the Night (2011)

7. English Watership Down (1978)

8. French The King and the Mockingbird (Officially 1980)

II. Chinese Animated Films

1. Big Fish and Begonia (2016)

Beauty Around Us: Part 2, American and Irish Animated Backgrounds

“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
― Franz Kafka

Continuing on, the theme for this section is beautiful backgrounds from animated films in America and Ireland.

I. Disney Animated Films

1. Sleeping Beauty (1959)

2. Tarzan (1999)

3. Pocahontas (1995)

4.The Rescuers Down Under (1990)

5. Frozen (2013)

6. The Princess and the Frog (2009)

7. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

II. Pixar Animated Films

1. Coco (2018)

2. Wall-e (2008)

III. Dreamworks Animation

1. How to Train Your Dragon 1-3

2. Prince of Egypt (1998)

3. Kung Fu Panda 1-3

IV. Laika Studios

1. Coraline (2009)

2. ParaNorman (2012)

3. Kubo and the Two Strings (2015)

V. Cartoon Saloon

1. The Secret of Kells (2009)

2. The Breadwinner (2017)

3. The Song of the Sea (2014)

VI. Various Other American Animated Films

1. Anastasia (1997)

2. The Thief and the Cobbler (?)

3. The Secret of Nimh (1982)

4. Klaus (2019)

Beauty around Us: Day 13, Part 1

Most of the pictures in this post are actually from my personal camera phone. Spring is truly a beautiful time of year.

I’ve wondered a lot these past few weeks the value of taking the time to see and appreciate beauty around us. From commercials on solitude during the quarantine and even free access to operas, ballets and classical concerts I’ve found myself reflecting on how much I needed to slow down and LOOK at the world around me.

A peace has come into my life even amidst the chaos, stress and anxiety.

To see, understand and appreciate beauty is an integral part of the human condition. Its deeply personal. I’ve noticed how those who lose track of themselves most readily forget to find and see beautiful things. To be truly lost in the dark means also being blind to beauty.

But just like anything, the higher elevated our minds are, the more attune we are to celestial beauty. Even if we feel we aren’t adequate or insightful enough to know or find the best of everything, I’ve found for myself there is beauty everywhere if we are willing to look for it.

I remember several years ago doing a research project on what I believed to be the most beautiful animated films. I believe what I sad then applies to now. It is silly but I was upset because my favorite films had not been listed. These were my thoughts concerning the matter six years ago.

It is natural to be emotionally attached to beautiful things, and even more so to be upset when they are not recognized. 

Beauty and aesthetic opinions are ALWAYS subjective. . . Though beauty depends on personal opinion, I still believe there is a higher standard. To be able to recognize and appreciate true beauty takes time, patience and study.

So much of normal everyday life seems to be built upon abating physical appetites and receiving stimulation through our entertainment. But the experiences that really matter, which stick to us, are those which adhear to out spiritual desire to find beautiful things and experience them for ourselves.

Sometimes that is through a children’s story. Sometimes a photograph. It can be found in nature among trees and flowers and in looking up at the stars. Music at its peak also transports us to hearing and finding beauty within ourselves.

I wanted to share a few of my most favorite beautiful finds. I will list it by category. I find when I show others the things I love I understand and love myself more. It gives me confidence to know I can find beauty around me.

I. Background Art from Animated Shows

1. Samurai Jack

Art by Scott Wills

2. Avatar the Last Airbender

3. Hilda (2018)

Original art and concept by Luke Pearson

4. Over the Garden Wall (2014)

II. Backgrounds from Japanese Animated Shows

1. Mushishi (2005, 2014)

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2. Hyouka (2012)

3. Tsuritama (2012)

This post will be split into four or more parts! Stay tuned.