You don’t need a heaving bank account to be generous, just a full and willing heart. Money is the least of which we can express our generosity with. We have our time, our presence, we can make physical and emotional space, we can give our labor, our good thoughts, our patience.

Generosity is a channel for what the giver intends to impart, as in kindness, empathy, solidarity and understanding. Giving is the most natural, fundamental declaration of the heart, it manifests love, understanding and good will. It is a striking act of great Beauty.

What are they ways that you express generosity and with whom? Have you ever been on the receiving end of generosity in a way that moved you? Does this affect how you give today?

In a literal sense, radiance is the act of or point from which heat and/or light rays are emitted. Witnessing my garden waking up from a hard, cold spring, I’m feeling the value of this kind of growing warmth. Flowers have a special kind of radiance when they’re happy and have all they need.

Radiance expresses the spectrum of emotions that lay on the side of lightness and expansion, anything that opens up the heart. I like the idea of radiance as a verb. As in selecting a specific feeling to radiate such as kindness, generosity, creative joy…..

The dictionary gave me the phrase: ” To manifest in a glowing manner”. Which sounds like an amazing skill to have. What would you like to manifest in a glowing manner? Is there a specific feeling that you would like to radiate?

Engagement. Attention. Perseverance.

Commitment can present itself as an obligation. What we’ve committed to has been entrusted to us, depends on us.

My dog created a surprising amount of work in raising a puppy. Especially coming from the perspective of someone who has lived her entire life in the company of cats. I was not fluent in dog when I took him on. His needs were/are simple. I just have to show up a lot , sometimes in ways I had not anticipated. He has a frank, unguarded look of enthusiastic gratitude that makes it all worth it. This is where commitment creates great Beauty. That look, and the bond it comes from.

Commitment also has a bit of an awkward alternate meaning of involuntary consignment to a nice rest somewhere away from people. This can still fit when you have to put aside what looks like good sense to hitch your wagon to your dreams.

Commitment like that becomes a duty of the heart. Your thoughts, dreams and ideas are so tender and helpless before they’re expressed. Your commitment is a matter of life itself to them.

What are your commitments, big and small? Did you choose them for yourself? Are your commitment seamless with your purpose, or are you sowing bits of resentment here and there when you meet them?

Kindness is empathy in action.

Whether with family or strangers, kindness is always a choice. Standing in tenderness and consideration, it allows us to speak gently with our hearts. It creates for others what we’d like for ourselves.

Some acts of kindness are remarkable, even shocking and incomprehensible to some.The wonderful thing is that these acts have a ripple effect that expands the original intention endlessly.

Kindness can start at your very center, in the ways that you treat yourself.

What are the ways that you practice kindness with yourself? Your family? Your community? How does kindness affect you when you witness, receive or give it?

So that’s how this week’s Beauty muse was selected, straight from my subconscious.

Once I had my marching orders I went straight to my trusty dictionary of course. There are more words there to describe what simplicity is not rather than what it is. Simplicity is the removal of all but what is essential. Whether expressed in design or philosophy, in form or thought, simplicity peels away all complexity and artificiality.

I start to think of vanilla. plain, papery muslin. The shape of an egg.

Simplicity is the basic integrity of a thing. A direct clearness that can lead to nowhere but clarity. There’s great Beauty in the natural expression of simplicity.

Wanting more simplicity makes you think of what you can eliminate or have less of . Letting go of in order to gain. A little bit of a paradox.

Balance demonstrates a harmonious arrangement or proportion, the perfect set up for Beauty. From the dictionary:

-A stable state characterized by cancellation of all forces by equal opposing forces.

This made me think of times when I’ve conjured opposing forces of my own in very simple ways to regain balance, as in needing something and just asking for it. Or extreme self care in times of stress. I’ve created pockets of silence for myself when surrounded by endless chatter. Connection to remedy detachment. Physically moving to release pent up mental energy.

I guess we’re all capable of self leveling. You just need to check if the bubble is in the center of the line once in a while.

Another lovely phrase from the dictionary:

Emotional Equilibrium.

Sounds like a calm, placid body of water I’d love to dive into. Some kind of clear, bright lake would be wonderful to go to when balance is needed. I can see it plainly labeled on my own map of personal sanity.

I thought to write about patience as an act of Beauty because I wanted to have more of it for myself, my work. The slow, real time nature of sewing, painting, making things by hand, it’s a human sized pace that goes breath by breath and no faster. It doesn’t always compare too well with the half a blink speed of the digital realm where we spend a lot of time these days. You can get used to the feeling that any kind of completion can come with a few clicks.

From the dictionary:
-The capacity of calm endurance.
-Tolerant understanding.
I love all these words strung together in the same space. It reads like a recipe for saving the world. This is one of the reasons why we urgently need more Beauty in the world.