Writing Because "I Love the World"

Like Natalie, Like Julia,

Writing Because I "Love the World"

Seeking Beauty—A Conscious Choice

 “The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world.”

~ Natalie Goldberg, from Writing Down the Bones

“Real life is persistent in its capacity to bring happiness.”

~ Julia Cameron, from The Right to Write

Visual beauty is most often associated with the idea of beauty, with the quest for beauty. In that quest on Tuesday, I viewed my world—the rain, the flowers, the trees. I wanted to look into the petals of the desert rose and the coneflower and say, “Yes, this is beauty; this is my beauty for the day.” I wanted the precious remaining gardenia blooms to delight me in such a way that I could say, “Yes, this is beauty.” I wanted to see a bird soar or have its song descend from the trees to my ears and say, “Yes, this is beauty.” Yes, each is beauty, the desert rose and coneflower petals, the gardenia, the birdsong. Visual and aural.

No lightning bolts or grand trumpets heralded any of those, however. “How can it be so difficult to focus on one thing?” I asked myself in frustration. Beauty is abundant. It’s everywhere.

Later in the day, when I least expected its arrival, beauty came to me from the pages of The Right to Write by Julia Cameron. In the chapter titled “Happiness,” Julia quotes Natalie Goldberg:

“The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is

that we are writing because we love the world.”

My heart cracked open when I read those words. In them, I found that which touched me most with beauty. I do write because I love the world. I love it in all its grittiness and dark and light, and sorrow and joy. I love it when I’m present, and being here—being present—happens most often when I write, and when I write about life. That love for the world happens when I write about the mundane as well as the magnificent because, as Julia Cameron says:

“Real life is persistent in its capacity to bring happiness.”

Real life reflects beauty. Words that I’ve read and written bring and reflect beauty. The pen to the page is all I need to tap into that beauty, to express it, to reflect it, to share it. Like Natalie, I write because I love the world. Like Julia, I know that real life does have an unending capacity for happiness, and happiness is found in writing.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012: I am focusing on seeking beauty each day and at the day’s end, deciding what experience, thought, or view awakened beauty most in my psyche. I hope this focus on beauty will enrich me and awaken the idea of beauty in others.