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On Beauty: A Manifesto
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Fat and the Moon hangs out in the categorical aisle of the mind, called ‘Health & Beauty’.
This coupling is taken for granted, though how often health and beauty actually overlap is questionable…
This month, we are reflecting on ‘Beauty’.
How we relate to this word, this loaded concept, fuels the way we create and talk about our potions.
Beauty has so much meaning, so many definitions, and so much variety. Beauty is a rich construction, highly subjective and cultural simultaneously. What is considered beautiful gives value to some things while devaluing others.
Beauty is a force for love as much as a force for hate.
Luckily, ‘Beauty’ has room to change, grow, which is why we’ve created our Fat and the Moon Beauty Manifesto. Our Beauty Manifesto is an active exercise in stretching our relationship and representation of Beauty.
FM BEAUTY MANIFESTO
On Beauty by Fat and the Moon
The Weeds…
Yesterday, the weeds were ugly, a sign of unkemptness, uncaring, undesirable. Growing between cement cracks, out of half buried tires. Noxious, invasive, threatening.
Today, the Weeds are Beautiful. Mugwort, Dandelion, Plantain, Amaranth, Blackberry, Poke Weed. Meet them and feel their strength. Medicine plants, resilient, abundant, laughing tricksters.
The only difference between yesterday and today is information, a re-valuation.
Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder, it is in the heart, the hands, the ears, nose and mouth: places we take in, and places we create from.
We experience and generate Beauty.
Beauty is a frontier of deep healing.
Insecurity is, after all, the root of so much destruction, self and otherwise.
Beauty and insecurity are intertwined riddles.
Insecurity creates a ‘not enough’ ambiance, and spins out into shame, blame, and narrow minded thinking that blinds us to potential- in ourselves and in others.
So let’s take this term, “Beauty”, and shape it into a luscious bridge back to our enoughness.
Q:
- What is your first memory of Beauty?
- How did it make you feel?
- When was the last time you found something Beautiful?
- When was the last time you found yourself Beautiful?
Beauty is in how we see, not what we see.
Beauty is participatory.
Q:
- What, or who, shapes what you think of as Beautiful?
- How do you shape what you think of as Beautiful?
- What gets in the way of you experiencing your Beauty?
The Paradox:
Beauty is complicated, fraught, restrictive.
Negates the Life Force
When we experience Beauty, we are free.
Builds the Life Force
The Most Important Question:
How can each of us challenge, detoxify and liberate our notions of Beauty so it can be a channel for celebration for potential? How can we support each other in this pursuit?
With love, kindness and solidarity in building the Beauty Bridge,
Fat and the Moon
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