“…let the meteor of your laughter fly: electrify the natural names of things!”
~Pablo Neruda*
There came a day recently when I realized that there wasn’t enough beauty in my life. Not because beauty did not exist–within me, around me, near me and within my reach. I was not opening my eyes to it, feeling it, seeking it out and making it a priority. When I came to this awareness of the separation I had created between myself and beauty, I decided to return to some of my favorites from the past: Shakespeare, novels, poetry, music, dancing and sitting in the library. It is within these things that I find the connective tissue in between my existence and beauty in the form of hints, reminders, clues, rhythm and creative inquiry.
Although this is entirely taken out of context, I find this mantra to be brutal, sharp and instructive: Let the meteor of your laughter fly. Electrify the natural names of things.
Today, I tune into my capacity for laughter. A laughter with velocity, speed and the kind that carries the debris of my experience out of my body and transforms it into heat and light. Today I speak with electricity and do not take for granted the names of things or my capacity to speak of them.
I hope with all my heart that this mantra or even just this quick reminder that beauty is yours to behold whenever you choose help you connect with the parts of yourself that were made from the same elements of the stars.
Posted by Sharon Fennimore, a rogue anthropologist, mind-body coach, yogini and doula based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In town? Come take a yoga and meditation class with me.
*(pg. 519, Translation by Stephen Tapscott, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda 2003)
