It’s like standing at the edge of a cliff. There’s a vast space in front of me. It is steep, I could fall deep. Leaning into my friend’s invitation: “Will you tell me about your Beauty?” is like falling down that steep cliff into a space of vast nothingness.

I am fumbling for words. What is my Beauty?

I keep leaning in, forward into the unknown. What emerges is this, to my own surprise:

“My Beauty is that I exist.”

“Just” that.

Beauty keeps coming up for me more and more. I am so touched by it, deep in my core. My heart goes soft and my sadness fills me up with liquidity when I witness Beauty. My Being relaxes.

There is so much Beauty all around. The kind of Beauty that does not follow an ideal. The kind of Beauty that just is. It exists.

It is part of my Beauty that I can witness Beauty. I witness the Beauty of the world, swelling up with sadness as an expression of my deep Love for the world.

I remember sitting on Huka Falls bridge in March 2020, a sunny autumn day. We were in our first lockdown and I had gone out for a walk. There was no one else there. The bridge, usually crowded with tourists, lay empty across the abyss through which the blue-white water of the Waikato River pounds. Tourists from across the world would come to witness this particular Beauty. But not now, as the human world stood seemingly still. I sat down in the middle of the bridge and I cried. I cried for the Beauty of this moment, for the Beauty of the water rushing beneath me, for the Beauty of this particular piece of nature.

I was surprised, because I would have thought I would feel glad, happy, in the face of such Beauty. And yet what I felt was Sadness. Deep, heart-opening sadness.

When I really allow my heart to connect with Beauty, my sadness flows. I have witnessed that over and over again since that day in March 2020.

The other day I stood on the lawn with my friend and my gaze caught a spectacle of light and colour as I looked in the direction of a bush. This bush has no leaves yet, coming fresh out of winter. In it hung dew drops like jewels, glistening in the sun. Not the usual white only, which reminds me of diamonds. This here looked like a Christmas tree heavily decorated with chains of light in all colours: yellow, green, red, orange, blue, white, purple. The reflection of the sun made them even dance.

In that moment, I actually felt a lot of Joy, right next to my Sadness. My heart expanded, lightness flowed through my body. The word that comes up for me is awe.

I am in awe of the Beauty of this planet and its creations, its Beings, its life.

I consider myself lucky. What are the chances?

Out of a multiverse of universes, an inconceivable number of galaxies in this universe, one planet in our galaxy ended up at exactly the right distance from its sun so it would not be too hot and not too cold to sustain life as we know it. Somehow, magically, there is water here. Clear water to drink, to create life. Not only that: simple life forms co-created an atmosphere of gases, including oxygen, around this planet. As a result of many seemingly rather random circumstances, magically, a specific kind of life form emerged. It is the result of billions of years of evolution. They call themselves homo sapiens. And out of all of those humans, after generations and generations of forebearers, one sperm and one egg collaborated to make me. So that I could join in in this orchestra of Beauty of all existence.

Awe is the word that best describes my experience of that.

My Beauty is that I exist.