BeautyDialogues

The Moment of Beauty

My friend Beverly Robertson has an excellent eye for beauty and she recently sent me a link to some Digital Magic I want to share with you. It was created by Takayuki Sato (here's more about him) and has the kind of exquistely refined Japanese aesthetic I love:

Moved by Mountains

Several months ago I received review copies of Tom Reed's two exquisite photography & text books, the hardback Granite Avatars of Patagonia (2009) and recently released paperback Moved by a Mountain: Inspiration from an Alpine View in Alaska (2013).


The idea was to review them for Gatherings, the online Ecopsychology journal I co-founded and have edited for most of the last decade.

Due to travel, work deadlines, and the ordinary extraordinary catastrophes and celebrations of everyday life, it's taken me all this time to finish the reviews. But I have to say that the books are both so stunning that I only hope the reviews do enough justice to their profound beauty that there will be a rush on orders when everyone wants their own copy for Christmas (and the author will forgive my tardy delivery). 
 

Anyway, I thought I'd include some of the images and links to my reviews here in the Beauty Dialogues as well, since Reed's search for the deeper meaning and purpose of beauty resonates so deeply with me and is what this blog is all about.

Speaking of which, here's Tom Reed at TedX in Homer Alaska, speaking on "Natural Beauty and Aesthetic Arrest".

Read my full reviews (including some wonderful quotes) of these fabulous inspiring books here (or just cut to the chase and buy your copies now - I guarantee you won't be disappointed):

Moved by a Mountain: Inspiration from an Alpine View in Alaska
My Review
Buy Now

The Granite Avatars of Patagonia
My Review
Buy Now

The Secret Powers of Time

A fascinating RSA (animated) video on Philip Zimbardo's ideas about time … how different cultures (and generations) experience time differently and what that means for life as they know it:

 

 

Great Spirit

A beautiful video by the award-winning young Hawaiian filmaker Dominic Walczuk, about dance and Nahko's music and the great spirit that breathes us all:

 

 

Full Circle

Full Circle is a super-short video about the elements - earth, air, fire and water - and our relationship with them. It was created by the very cool Global Oneness Project and I got it through KarmaTube, brainchild of the fabulously selfless Niphun Mehta. Niphun is the man who started ServiceSpace, one of those great ideas that makes one proud to be a human being.

A film by Global Oneness Project.

Video from KarmaTube

 

Jim Carey introduces Ekhart Tolle

Someone sent me this video of Jim Carey introducing Tolle for his Ekhart Tolle TV, and I was intrigued by Jim Carey's ablility to be so funny and at the same time so sincere about the profundity of spiritual experience.

The Smell of Books

I love the smell of books, and was charmed and educated by this little video I heard about through the BK Communiqué, a wonderfully entertaining and informative monthly newsletter published by Jeevan Sivasubramaniam and his team at Berrett Koehler Publishers (who are celebrating their 20th anniversary this week).

The Beauty That is Right in Front of You

This quote by Neal Stephenson comes to me sometimes when the evening news is too full of murder and greed, or my heart stumbles too close to the edge of despair:

"Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways."

As if in response to the need Stephenson identified, Christóbal Vila's 3.75 minutes of healing beauty balm, reminding us that indeed beauty is all around us if only we have eyes to see it:

Nature. Beauty. Gratitude

If you are not one of the the 63,977 people who've seen it on YouTube, or even if you are - I receommend a daily viewing of this video from Louie Schwartzberg on Nature, Beauty, and Gratitude. You'll be charmed by Schwartzberg's time-lapse photography and and inspired by the articulate, heartful narration of David Steindl-Rast. Steindl-Rast says that cultivating gratitude for each day is like "life-giving water if you will only open your heart and drink". All I can say is drink this kool-aid. It's the best!

 

Silvi Alcivar

This is a delightful video about a magical poet, Silvi Alcivar. Silvi conjures spontaneous poetry from a red Royal typewriter and her immaculate mind, for hire at $15/poem (order online from the poetry store).

You will never find a better deal.

She does events too. I've experienced her work at two of them, and she absolutely transforms the space.

a desire for words from silvi alcivar on Vimeo.