Embodying Beauty
excerpt from Walking the Spiral Path: Awakening Power and Passion by JoAnne Dodgson
How is it we’ve come to believe that there are some people who are beautiful
and others who are not? 
Does it really make any sense that measuring tapes,
bathroom scales, clothing sizes,and calorie-counts hold the power to determine whether or not we’re worthy of love?What drives us to spend countless hours and dollars to recolor, reshape and resize our bodies, over and over again? Why has the beauty of who we are become so difficult to see?
The mother earth has something to say about beauty that’s free of judgment
and unburdened by fears. Bears don’t worry about the shape of their bodies.
Dragonflies aren’t distressed by the size of their wings. Oak trees don’t attempt to look more like the pines. Vultures aren’t hiding behind pretenses, pretending to do something other than what it is that they do. The mother earth reveals beauty that’s filled with integrity, that honors the rich diversity in the web of life.
Beauty sings out from the sunsets and echoes in the wind and rains down from
the moon and dances in the sea and whispers on wings and howls with coyotes and
weaves webs with the spiders and lingers in the scent of the sage. Beauty calls out
from the mountains and rumbles with thunder and sits quietly with the lizards and
soars with the hawks and radiates from the rocks and buzzes with the bees and
glistens in the shimmering dawn.
Beauty comes alive in the free, unencumbered expression of being just who you
are. In the mother earth’s beauty, there are no winners and losers, no blue ribbons or
first-runner-ups. There are no better thans or less thans. No too much of this and not
enough of that. Beauty is simply the honoring of what is, a celebration of life in all it’s
magnificent, mysterious, remarkable forms.
Mother Earth’s exuberant expression is a compelling invitation to open up to
our own natural beauty. Beauty is found in the feeling of who we are, in the essence of
our uniqueness. It’s not all tangled up in comparisons and competition. There are no
molds to squeeze into. There’s no suffering and sacrifice. Beauty just isn’t that
complicated. Beauty simply is. Beauty is energy, an expressive vibration, a sensual
awareness that resonates with the essence of life.
Remember the last time you experienced Mother Earth’s beauty? Maybe seeing
the full moon. Smelling spring rains. Tasting wild berries. Breathing fresh air.
Hearing the tree frogs call in the night.
Remember how you felt?
How full of beauty you felt?
How beauty-full you felt?
Remember. How beautiful. You felt.
Beauty resonates within us and ripples out into the world when we honor other
beings for being just who they are. Beauty radiates from within when we simply are
who we are, emanating clear self-awareness and unconditional regard. 
No judgments.
No hiding. No looking out-there for some official stamp of approval. Just resonating
beauty. No if-onlys or yes-buts involved.
So next time we’re about to step on the scale or look in the mirror to figure out
how much beauty we’ve got, we can remember to redirect our attention to how we’re feeling inside. We can bring back our knowing of beauty, remembering how beautiful we felt, that abundant, expansive feeling of the heart that resonates with the essence of life.
Filling ourselves up with the feeling of beauty, we are beautiful, instantly. It’s a matter of choice, of where we’re putting our attention, of what we’re allowing ourselves to feel. Beauty thrives in acceptance and unhindered self-expression. Beauty
comes alive when we simply honor who we are - all of who we are, exactly as we are - in the here and now.
© JoAnne Dodgson
JoAnne Dodgson, Ed.D., is a healer, teacher and author whose work is centered in the ancient Peruvian tradition Ka Ta See, “living in balance from the heart.” She has been involved in holistic healing, counseling and teaching for over twenty years. She has a doctorate in counseling psychology and has been on the faculty in holistic health, transpersonal psychology and women's studies programs.
For more information, please visit www.pathwaysforhealing.net. JoAnne can be reached at joanne@pathwaysforhealing.net or 1.888.846.6412.
JoAnne's writings include medicine stories and five books: Unleashing Love, MoonDance Journal, Walking the Spiral Path, Gifts of the Grandmother, and Cocooning.
UnLeashing Love
A Collection of Medicine Stories to Feed the Spirit and Awaken the Heart
Written by JoAnne Dodgson
Medicine stories are shared with the intent to evoke healing and inner reflection, to feed the spirit and awaken the heart. Unleashing Love is a beautiful collection of unique medicine stories filled with rich and compelling experiences to delight the senses and expand awareness, to nourish personal quests and invite connections with unseen worlds, to awaken the passions of life within us and all around.
$12.95 plus shipping
some Stories by JoAnne Dodgson
Order UnLeashing Love in our Bookshop
WALKING
the SPIRAL PATH: AWAKENING POWER
and PASSION
by JoAnne Dodgson
is a collection of medicine stories, each distinct yet
connected, all sparked by inescapable callings to delve
deeper for understanding, to see the unseen and give
voice to the unspoken, to unravel bindings in the quest
to be free.
Price: $14.00
Order this
book in our Bookshop
GIFTS
of the GRANDMOTHER
by JoAnne Dodgson
is the captivating true
story of a woman's spiritual quest which unfolds as she
explores high desert canyonlands. Her compelling story not only gives us a view of the incredible beauty she had discovered within herself but provides us with the promise that this beauty is within each and every one of us waiting to be discovered. 160 pages, color illustrations, 5 x 8" paperback, comb binding)
Price: $16.95
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book in our Bookshop
.
MOONDANCE JOURNAL
MoonDance Journal is a one-of-a-kind journal ~ handmade,
lovingingly printed and bound by JoAnne Dodgson.
a unique sacred space for exploring your inner journeys, spiritual quests and life path throughout thirteen moon cycles of a lunar year. Celebrate the rhythms and seasons of your life.
Retails for $19.95
Order MoonDance Journal in our Bookshop
