The Philosophy of Beauty

The title of this weblog is the Temple of the Home.  So far, I have focused on the more material aspects of the Hestia, such the dinner table, the television, dress, and a ladies’ tea.  I have touched briefly on the philosophical and spiritual aspects of these matters; however, I think that the time has come for a deeper discussion.

On a spiritual level, humans are Axial Beings.  This is a large word to state that we have Free Will, and the ability to choose between Light and Dark, between Good and Evil.  I have written several articles on The Apple Seed, which is my weblog devoted to astrology and metaphysics.  These articles give a more detailed explanation our nature as Axial Beings.  If you are interested, you may refer to these articles as listed below:

Fate, Free Will, the Cross, and Wa

True and False Selves Through the Zodiac

Where We Come From and Why it Matters

I understand that this weblog is written for a different audience than the Apple Seed, so I will give a summary of the important point from these articles for our purposes here.  This point is that we have the power to choose, and we make choices every day, and sometimes every moment, that align us with Light and with Dark.

The choices we make in our material lives are not value neutral.  Everyday choices, such as our clothing, our furniture, our speech, and our manners, are choices between Light and Dark.  As it states in the feminine Scripture:

Truly, the world is a field of conflict between the powers of good and the legions of the Dark One.  In the cycles of civilization is the conflict manifest, and in the soul of every maid.

For the servants of the Dark One fasten upon the false self like to the bindweed upon a growing plan.  And the radiant Janyati of heaven stand ready to defend the soul when she shall cry upon them.

Truly, there is nothing in the world of clay that happens of itself, for the veil of matter is shot through with the light of the Real and the darkness of the false.

And not a sparrow lights upon a twig but it shows forth the conflict between evil and the Good, nor any grain of sand shifts in the desert reflecting not some spiritual truth;

neither does a star fall in the furthest corner of the firmament without an inward meaning.

As our choices are not value neutral, if we want to serve the Light, what do we choose?  I am aware that some of the readers of this weblog are quite conscientious about where they purchase goods and services, paying attention to political, social, and humanitarian practices of the companies they support.  Without minimizing those considerations, I think it is also important to pay attention to beauty and workmaidship of the products themselves.  Beauty is a source of Light.  In choosing to adorn our bodies and our houses with beautiful things, we are choosing to surround ourselves with Light.

There is a popular phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but I do not believe that this is true.  Beauty is an objective quality and is a reflection of the Beauty of the Divine.  The objectivity of beauty is even known by mundane physical scientists and mathematicians.  There is a number known as the Golden Ratio.  The closer anything reflects the proportions of the Golden Ratio, the more beautiful we perceive it to be.  Why would this be so?  I think that if material scientists were completely honest with themselves, they would have to admit that this pierces a huge hole in the Evolutionist world view that random chance and “survival of the fittest” are responsible for the world as we recognize it to be.  One must perform a lot of mental gymnastics to find a survival value to our recognition of beauty in the form of the Golden Ratio.

Similarly, what is the survival value to the beauty and multiplicity of flowers?  We are told that the beauty and multiplicity of flowers are to attract insects to spread pollen to propagate the species.  Yet, insects are just as attracted to soda cans as they are to brightly colored flowers.  Consider also the sand dollar.  As you can see, in each sand dollar there is a five petaled flower.  What is the survival value of that?  For those of my readers who are not familiar with astrology or metaphysics, the number five is the symbol for the Filianic Janya (Angel), Sai Sushuri, whose planetary representative on the physical plane is Venus.  Sai Sushuri in her pure form represents Divine Love and is also associated with Creation and Beauty.  It is also quite fascinating that Venus’ orbit over an 8 year span of time also produces a pentacle, or a five pointed star.  See below:

A modern scientist might say that primitive people observed these associations and “made up” the Divine as explanations for what they saw.  Yet, this theory does not explain why these things exist in the first place.  I think that it is far more likely that our foremothers understood things that we have forgotten in this day and age, and that they knew and understood exactly what they were talking about.

I thank my readers for their indulgence in this explanation, but I think it is important to understand that a choice of Beauty really is a choice of Light.  By the same token a choice of ugliness is a choice of Dark.  One may argue that there are practical and financial considerations, but is that really true?  Is it really that much more expensive to make something beautiful than it is to make something ugly?

In the header to this weblog, there is a quote from The Feminine Universe, by Miss Alice Lucy Trent.  Let me now share with my readers the passage from which I have taken this quote:

Much post-Eclipse design uses the excuse of ‘cheapness’ and ‘convenience’ for its hideousness, but this is nothing more than an excuse.  Given the same budgetary limitations, the same technics, and the same raw materials, the inspired designers of the Art-Neo period would have produced very different objects.  Objects that would uplift the soul rather than filling it with a sense of hollowness and worthlessness.  Design is, before all else, a language, expressing a thesis: and the thesis of the post-Eclipse design is the cheapness, ugliness, and worthlessness of life, and ultimately the chaos and the meaninglessness glare and babble of the inferior psychic regions.

Cheapness itself is a symptom.  The very willingness of the deracinated post-Eclipse person to fill her home with slick plastic in order to pay a little less money is symptomatic of a very terrible change.  An Art-Neo wireless set is, before all else, a piece of furniture in polished wood and gleaming metal or bakelite.  It cannot be anything else, because the home before the Eclipse–every home, from the greatest to the humblest–is still vestigally a Temple of Hestia, and its mistress still a Priestess of the Hearth Fire.  The remembrance of this Mysteria Domestica may be extremely remote, yet it is still a living thing that governs human actions at a very deep level.  Only that which is solid and good and worthy of the dignity of the Temple of the Home will be admitted within it.  A radiogram that is to occupy a prominent place within the home must be a noble and beautiful piece of furniture, else it cannot occupy that place.

This is quite a challenging passage for the modern reader, I believe.  Those of my readers who know me and who have been to my own home in the past will know that I have a long way to go towards the goal I am seeking.  On the other hand, I believe that my small efforts will be met with assistance of heaven, as in the above quoted passage of feminine Scripture, “And the radiant Janyati of heaven stand ready to defend the soul when she shall cry upon them.”

Thank you again for you indulgence with my philosophical discourse, and if by chance this discourse inspires any of readers of this weblog to begin to choose beauty, I wish you well with your own small efforts in that direction.