How did Life in Beauty come about?
I would say there were two instigators and a pattern. The first instigator was a vision I had in which I saw myself at the front of a seminar room talking about beauty. I had an instant “aha!” experience . I “knew” I had to pursue this work. And the experience stayed with me. It was not like a dream. It seemed to walk along beside me no matter what I was doing or feeling.
The second instigator was the death of my twenty four year old marriage. I was shocked into a kind of numbness when it happened. And even when I would sit and look out of the window for hours, in complete silence, the vision was with me. So began a healing process of enormous introspection which culminated in the writing of the book. I suppose the year following the marriage break up was a kind of marinating process, as I began to collect ideas and experiences and found a shape to my thoughts, feelings and ideas about beauty. Even now, it amazes me that I did not get bitter and angry or engage in “after all I have done for you” kinds of thinking. I promised myself that I would discipline my mind to avoid any attack thoughts of any kind. This was profoundly helpful to me in my healing because it made room for me to find things that empowered and inspired me. And those things turned out to be beautiful things.
The pattern which helped the forming of the book was, I think, a life long preference for beauty. I remember as a young child, reading a Bobbsy Twins book. The scene being described was a picnic. I found myself engaged in the colours, imagining the beautiful dresses the ladies wore, the colour of the blanket on which they sat, the richness of the trees and meadow in the background, the sound of the songbirds singing in the trees, the puppy rolling over and the laughter of the children. Even today I can capture that moment in my memory. I think I had already, at age seven, begun to resonate with beauty. When I was in the third year of my nurse’s training, I took a night course in interior design. I remember feeling I had to get away from sickness. I had to do something that would inspire me rather than frighten me. So, I think I have always tended to look to find such things in my life. They have been a refuge of sorts for me. I instinctively knew they gave me strength.
Where did the Conscious Acts of Beauty Come From?
Above all, I wanted the book to be practical. There are many, many books about beauty and most of them are theoretical. They are full of insights and many more insights than I have. I wanted my book to be real for the reader. I wanted the reader to be able to “do” beauty. So, right from the start, I always intended to find a way to give my readers something practical to do.
The term “Conscious Act of Beauty” was, I suppose, an invention. I wanted a way to describe the choice that one makes to experience or give beauty. To my way of thinking, beauty is an experience we choose to have. As I worked with these ideas, the term “Conscious Act of Beauty” just turned up one day and I “knew” it was right. The actual list of twenty five things was intended as a list of possibilities that would, hopefully, inspire the reader if not to do one or two of them, then to create some for herself. They were the ones that came up on the days I was writing that section. I cannot explain why those exact ones came up. I just wanted to give readers something to choose from.
Why did you put your book in the box?
Well, this is not unlike the above answer. I wanted to do what I was talking about. I was talking about beauty and about how to do beauty. To my way of thinking, it would be ingenuous to produce a book that was not beautiful. Moreover, if I could find a way to have the reader experience a moment of beauty, to get to the experience of awe and wonder then I would have done what I set out to do. The idea for the box came quite late in the process, on a day I was having a conversation with my publisher and editor. My publisher commented “This book is a treasure.” I thought well, if it is a treasure lets package it as a treasure. And the idea of the box was born.
It felt both enormously risky and completely right. But I had a lovely experience with my bank manager when I finally had a box prototype. I had some bank business to do on the very day I had received the first box from the printer. She knew I was publishing a book and so I showed her the box. She loved it. But the thing I remember most, was that when I gave it to her she held the box in one hand and moved her other hand across the top of the box, as if she was petting a kitten, and she sighed. I was thrilled. I knew that for one moment she had stopped her mind and simply experienced. It was wonderful.
What makes Life in Beauty stand out amongst other spiritual type books out there?
Well, in many ways, I think that is answered above. Because of its unusual presentation (the “Beauty Treasure Box”) it stands out right away. It is an adventure even getting to the book. The box also makes it a unique gift (especially for guys who don’t like to wrap, looking for a gift for their mothers or sisters or girlfriends). But, mostly what I think makes it unusual is that it contains real stories of real people in every day situations finding ways to experience and be inspired by beauty.