In Japan there is a term for the truly beautiful.  It's called wabi-sabi.  It expresses a form of beauty that goes  beyond a visual, visceral expression of form or shape.  Something can be pretty to look at, or pleasing to the eye, but it may not be considered wabi-sabi. For an object to achieve that distinction it must reflect the experiences and value of its life. In that time it may have become chipped, or cracked, maybe broken and repaired, but none of those things have decreased the appreciation of its value or contribution. It might need to be handled more gently, or no longer used everyday and saved only for special occasions, but with each passing day, the more beautiful and revered it becomes.  The longer I live in the woods, and the older I get, the more I value this concept. Walking through the trees, watching the plants and animals struggle to live and grow and die, as well as my own loved ones, has taught me what the natural world knows.  Everything that grows and lives is deeply beautiful, right up to the last moment it withers away.

It's pouring rain--again!and the beautiful turkey wing mushrooms are beginning to rot.  Too much even for them but oh, whatever is taking hold on them is a gorgeous inky black. Next time dear ones you brush up against the artificial beauty beast--and we all know when that happens--step back and adjust your sight. When culture becomes obsessed with itself it will try to control and manufacture what it wants to see. See it for what it is and keep looking elsewhere. To find even in the mundane, the simple, the dying, the radiance of life reveals to us that our deepest humanity arises when we see not just with our eyes, but with our hearts..