From earliest times, beauty has been a doorway to the spiritual world. When we contemplate beauty, we lift our wings, we awaken our soul. In this program we will appreciate how beauty affected CG Jung’s soul. We will follow on the path of poets, writers, and mystics as they celebrate beauty. They will show us the way to let beauty open our hearts and minds to the Eternal. We will add our own voices to celebrate the gift of beauty and to answer beauty’s call to be caretakers of the creation.
We will first look at how beauty has been honored throughout the centuries, from the hymns to Inanna in 3000 BCE to the poetry of Rilke in the beginning of the 20th century. We will then turn to C.G. Jung to appreciate the impact beauty had upon his soul. We will continue to open our eyes to a deeper seeing in reading Thomas Merton, Annie Dillard, John O’Donohue, Marion Woodman. We will find words for our own experiences of beauty. To conclude we will consider where beauty leads us as we listen to Simone Weil and return to CG Jung. Seeing beauty in nature calls us to be custodians of our planet. Seeing beauty in our fellow human beings calls us to be peacemakers. We will see how to answer the call of beauty.