Living in touch with beauty in our homes, in our hearts.
Love in the artist is simply that sense of Beauty that reveals to the world
its body and soul.
Oscar Wilde
In our daily lives, in our family homes we surround ourselves by that which is useful and practical. If possible we choose floorings, furniture, light fittings and soft furnishings which are easy to clean and care for. We are aware of spending more time away from home, at work, maintenance or leisure activities and may give little attention to our choice of particular and individual elements which create our home environment.
The home as that which receives and contains the family also reveals the soul of the individual members and the family soul. Hence the significance of particular ornaments, decorations reflecting idiosyncratic tastes of different members as well as the atmosphere created by the coming together of the expression of these tastes.
A child who is encouraged to participate in choosing furniture, wall hangings etc, for his/her room experiences freedom, joy and a sense of ownership and pride. She is free to express and develop her ego-identity since it is in choice-making primarily that ego-function is exercised. She is also encouraged to develop her soul since she is asked to exercise her imagination and to allow this to be captured by various textures, styles, colours and forms. Adults going through similar experiences of observation and discrimination may also reap the benefits thereof. In the course of deciding things to do with the home, couples may experience conflict of tastes and interests, appreciation of differences, resolution of conflict situations and a growing sense of relatedness and appreciation of home and persons.
What all this may mean to you when choosing a sink for a kitchen, for example, may be similar to the following. Let us say you are in a large establishment in view of various types of sinks. You observe the effect that various sinks may have on you and take the time to discriminate these effects. Your eyes may linger on the round one in beige and a warm feeling fills your chest. You know that this one has a particular appeal for you and you move towards deliberation and rational decision to purchase that sink. You are experientially satisfied with the choice of that sink and the statement – that is the right sink for me – fits. You may have gone further and fantasized the scenario of yourself within your own kitchen at work at your new sink.
This process of appreciation of objects to be brought home to form part of the family environment helps us to experience a sense of comfort and beauty in our surroundings. Beauty here is understood as `the quality in things that invites absorption and contemplation’. Besides practicality and utility we would do well if we would hold beauty in our high regard and give this value its rightful place in our hearts and our homes.
When considering home environments we take into account other aspects such as the extent of natural light available and the selection of wall colours and light fittings. We may take care to choose different colours and light fittings for different rooms to create an atmosphere conducive to different activities such as study, relaxation and intimacy. We all appreciate the contemplative effect, for example, of a candlelit Church during Easter Vigil and we can create soulful atmospheres within our homes using various systems of lighting.
Every home is a microcosm, the archetypal `world’ embodied in a house or an apartment. Renaissance sages advocated having cosmic ornaments such as the sun the moon or a dome that reflects the canopy of the sky to remind us of our place within the world. Our home is in fact, our world. What happens to us there has a way of being very similar to what happens in our relationships with other people; what happens to us there, therefore, happens in our entire world.
If we take time to become aware of the mystery and implications of this we realize that if we experience beauty, peace and comfort in our home then we will also experience beauty outside it. We are also able to create an atmosphere of beauty in our niches wherever we are – in our offices, for example with little ornaments or picture frames of loved ones; waiting for the bus, fumbling for that silver key chain, a gift from a friend – found it at last! and once again it warms your heart, softens your face, brightens your eyes; your beauty is enhanced in connectedness with the beauty of the gift and the love of your friend.
It is in experiences like these that we know that beauty is not an accessory, it is not dispensable. It is necessary for the development of our soul. The soul is nurtured by beauty. Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul tells us that what food is to the body, arresting, complex and pleasing images are to the soul.
It is important within the home for members to find a place where they can have an experience of ‘vacation’ – a moving away from ordinary activity in favour of a moment of reflection and wonder. Children frequently seek this experience in a yard or garden or on the roof. They may be seen enraptured by ants, worms or snails within a one meter square area of soil. Or else they may be enchanted by the rivulets made by water splashing from their paddling pool. We too as adults may take a break from the ordinary and tend to our indoor or outdoor plants marvelling at how they have grown since last time we saw them or else comiserating with the spiderplant for the loss of her ‘baby’.
Contact with beauty in the lives of our plants, pet animals and objects holding aesthetic value for us, enriches us and enables us to turn with renewed energy to other activities and people.
In the point of view presented above, we are invited to be like the artist –
searching for beauty,
truly seeing and appreciating beauty,
creating beauty
in ourselves, in our homes, in our worlds.
Patricia Camilleri , Gestalt Psychotherapist.