Chasing Beauty, Confronting Pain

Reflections on Nature and the Human Condition

I’m usually ‘in the field’ for these voiceovers, but today I’m indoors—no ambient sounds (unless you can hear my cat purring or the chime of the clock) but I still manage to stumble :-)

Greetings from the moss,

I often find that the act of reading fires sparks: words jump out from the page and I have an overwhelming urge to go and write something. The same is true on Substack—sometimes it’s a short-form Note on the app, sometimes a longer post. The latter was the nudge that led me to begin this essay early one morning.

Chasing Beauty

I have been chasing beauty hard. Perhaps it is the season, the knowledge that the riches of Autumn are short-lived. Returning from another walk in the woods, camera in hand, I reflect upon the suffering. It is too numerous to numerate.

I have been chasing beauty too hard. It diminishes it, and does not erase the pain.

The next morning the first thing I read is

rebecca hooper

’s piece titled The Goldfinch which considers the cost of sensitivity and that noticing also opens the door to pain.  The Goldfinch is an exquisite poem, a gift in my inbox. Repetition envelops and emphasises the interplay between beauty and sorrow, and the fleeting nature of the moments that connect us to the world around—and of life itself.

I have been chasing beauty. If we notice beauty, we feel pain too... This opens a chasm that I fall into. At its base, lying stunned like a goldfinch in the mud, I look up at the light. And wonder: “If everything was ugly, would there be no pain?”

My half-question, half-wish, is naive. As a species we seem determined to fight with each other, from the individual to tribe to country. I used to think that too often conflict grew out of religion—not what the founders intended—but now it seems any excuse will do. We gave up our nomadic lifestyle and settled, yet it seems at heart many are still hunter-gatherers. We just have different prey, and are endlessly inventive in ways to inflict pain.

Chasing beauty… A few years back, watching a program on the art of Spain, marvelling at the culture and the beauty left by the Moors, the thought bubbled up—“Perhaps the barbarians won?” In the north and west our written history is a litany of exploration, civilisation, advancement... In reality much was conquest and exploitation. I wonder what the world looks like from the other side?

I have been chasing beauty harder. It is a fickle mistress, a will o’ wisp, a sharp-edged knife. It is a mirror of dark and light. It is a salve; it is not oblivion. The moments I gather in image and word do not erase the pain. The suffering. It does not block the images from my eyes, the cries from my ears, the anguish from my heart. I see them; I hear them; I feel them. 

Chasing. The humans of this world seem to have expanded their capacity to cause suffering. It is bewildering: there are other things that we should be doing, other fights that we need to take up, together, not just for ourselves but for all the species we share this planet with. Among the fallen leaves I continue to look for hope, for beauty, for a brief respite from the weight of knowledge I carry. Nature was our first source of salves and cures…if only she could stop all this pain.

Is it greed, conquest, this urge to continue to make images? My own exploration, imposition, acquisition? Or do I seek to throw myself into the waters, let loose my grip and slip away? No. We cannot choose—or chase—only beauty: light is emphasised by shadows.

Beauty does not blind us. But even in ugliness, in the darkness, we will try to find the light.

---

I seem to write a little more eloquently in response to a spark; the tap opens and the words flow. I find it hard to match through deliberation. Please keep the sparks coming. 

I greatly enjoy writing to you. If my letters resonate, there’s an option to ‘upgrade to paid’, or to leave a one-off donation to support the craft of writing and evolving FLOW: Letters from the Moss.

Thank you for being here; I look forward to continuing our conversation. Every like, comment and share helps more people find these letters, whether their love is nature, art and photography, or simply tranquility.

Until next week,

Encore:

I had in mind an image to accompany this essay: a strand of old fencing wire, barbed points and organic lines of wire offset against the tree branches above. A distortion of nature’s lines. My first efforts didn’t meet the bar, and I returned with a different camera and lens, forgetting that macro would also have its limitations. I’m reasonably happy with the outcome though (at top). I know from a previous occasion that spiders use the wire to build webs, and loiter around the barbs, but this time I discovered just how cunning they are in their concealment. Somehow this too seems to suit the tone of this letter’s reflections: a creation designed to control and limit movement through potential pain, a trap for the unwary, the strange beauty of the juxtaposition.

All words and images are copyright © Michela Griffith except where otherwise noted