You are not obliged to be beautiful You don't have to shine. Blooming will happen when it happens. If you can be still for a moment you might notice that the roots that feed you are still reaching silently through the dark.
~ Lynn Ungar in "November" from THESE DAYS: POEMS FOR THE PANDEMIC AGE
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Beauty lies at the heart of the tea ceremony. Each object used must be beautiful. Special cups are made for this ceremony. Even to look on these cups is to be brought into a wider, calmer realm of the self.
The tea master Okakura KaKuzo has said that beauty evokes harmony and the mystery of mutual charity... . All that we call beautiful is a kind of vessel, like love, that holds what we know.