Kay and I went to Walpi, maybe the oldest continuous inhabited village on the continent... Near a stole altar lives an ancient great-grandmother, over a hundred years old, some say. She asked us to come in. Her hands are arthritic but she is a working potter. She not only throws the pots, but paints them afterward. I asked her how she manages to do it, since her knuckles are knotted by arthritis and she is nearly blind with cataracts.
She said, "It's not my hands that make the pot, it's my spirit. My hands are broken by my potteries hold my soul, and that's whole."
~ from THE THEFT OF THE SPIRIT by Carl A. Hammerschlag
Forgiveness is twice blessed. It frees the one forgiven from guilt and you from bitterness. Forgiveness sheds light on the subject. It lets love, instead of judgment, shine in. Judgment curdles the soul; forgiveness invites your spirit to burst into bloom.
Beauty is luminous radiance. Beauty is lucent, mystical essence, he face that is unforgettably lovely, the dance with the exquisite movements that our minds cannot erase, the music whose notes repeat themselves endlessly in our hearts. Beauty infuses; beauty enthralls; beauty inspires and illumines; beauty lifts up and enlivens our souls.
