Let It Be

Location: Somewhere at the rocky forks of a cascading stream in the Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina.

After a winter of bare trees, brown leaves and cold winds, spring is greeting the forest woodlands. Tiny green plants pop up everywhere through the leaf cover.

I sit on the crest of a small hill between two streams, watching as their separate currents merge into one. On every side, before, behind and below are the flowers of spring. Bursting forth from the forest floor are waves of white and pink trilliums, wild geraniums with their purple posies, yellow wood violets and crowds of may-apples shading the minuscule spring beauties.

No gardener alive could ever accomplish such a massive and complex display of floral delights. This is nature's garden, arranged by nature's desire. Mother Nature needs no "management" to put on a show greater than any man-made spectacle -- and available simply for the cost of getting out into the middle of it.

We humans seem to have inherent within our being the desire to arrange things to suit our own satisfaction. As a group, we agree (over time) on a set of organizational rules (otherwise called our "culture") which says that beauty is defined according to our mutually agreed-upon rules. We will travel hundreds of miles to see a display of carefully arranged beauty (such as a botanical garden or a Biltmore House). We marvel at how the designers molded the environment to fit the (current) rules of organization of beauty.

All too often, for many people, such organization of beauty becomes beauty itself. Anything outside the prevailing structure, anything not within the rules of organization of beauty, becomes un-beautiful. By definition. The same applies to a culture's standard of beauty in a person. Anyone not fitting the standards is not beautiful or handsome -- even though the very same person, in a different culture, may be the very epitome of beauty.

So it is in the mountains. Nature has its own inherent beauty. Nature cares not for any human notion of beauty. Nature does not try to fit anyone's idea of how it should be "managed." Nature simply is.

For one who accepts nature as it is, the world becomes a different place, an expansive place, a far more beautiful place: a place for gratitude. Seeing beauty, as it is, is to experience real beauty. Expanding one's vision beyond concepts of what beauty should be, of how it should look, enables one to see beauty everywhere.

We live in a beautiful world. It may not be the beauty of a city park or an arboretum. It may not be the stunning beauty of a Dutch field of tulips or the Parks Seed catalog. But it is beauty -- the beauty of Mother Nature herself. And that beauty asks to be taken on its own terms.

Sitting in the wild woods, I see beauty. I hear beauty. I feel beauty all around me. I do not demand that any piece of this scene in front of me should be modified (or "developed") in any way to fit my taste, the taste that I have been given as a member of my culture.

I accept it as it is. And then the most incredible part of it all begins to open to my vision. What happens when we accept the world just as it is, and appreciate it with gratitude for being what it is?

Joyful realization dawns. I start to feel the world accepting me for what I am. This is the reciprocal sharing of the beauty of nature, which we all are part of. We begin to feel it. We begin to accept ourselves for what we are (no small task). And we begin to accept others for what they are -- to se their own intrinsic beauty. And to see our own.

When we can see all of nature as beautiful, and when we can appreciate nature as the gorgeous Garden of Eden that it truly is, then we can also see that we are a part of the Garden of Eden. How could we then not be beautiful?

Our own standard of beauty (acquired by living in a culture -- everybody does, you know), if embraced as total reality, says to us that we're not beautiful, or worthy, or deserving. When we can get beyond such culturally ingrained standards to look at ourselves, we can see the wondrous part of nature's creation that we are (and everyone else is, too).

At the heart of all this is the simple truth that we live in the Garden of Eden, but we've voluntarily blinded ourselves to the awesome beauty by our own desires -- by wanting it to fit our own conceptions of what it should. How do we change?

By changing our desires. By wanting to see nature, as it is. Just let it be. Let you be, too. As you are. Then watch your inner beauty flourish!

Burton "EarthWalker" Smith is a wanderer. He can usually be found roaming somewhere around North America and writing about it. "I want to be a catalyst, inspiring others to follow their heart's dream, and be all they can be." He'd be delighted to hear from you. Voice-Mail: (704) 258-4839.

Next Article