The Uses of Beauty and Order

May Beauty and Order Flower! A Strong Support to the Recovery of Our Human Power

I had the pleasure of being with Harvey (and typing what he wrote) as he dictated the essay, "The Uses of Beauty and Order," back in 1972. Like Harvey's other essays, this one is a bright beam of light focused on an important area of re-emergence. Harvey wrote, the "care and improvement of our environment . . . needs to be and can be applied continuously in every moment of our lives." I remember my delight at the clarity of the concepts. Hearing them only once was enough to influence my relationship to my immediate environment from then on. I have since done my best to make my surroundings orderly and beautiful so that they will reflect back to me an accurate picture of benign reality and my excellent human nature, and remind me of these at all times. Housework seems less like drudgery when I realize the results are a mirror of my real, uncluttered-with-patterns, self.

Harvey also discusses creativity and the need to make our creations visible to ourselves and others as a way to get a picture of who we truly are. So I had fun writing, and now sharing, a little jingle about the pamphlet:

Harvey's essay is a gem
Ideas to help us stem
A tide of patterned horrors
That pile up like garbage
In and out of doors.
I hope this pamphlet you will read
And plant another re-emergence seed!

Katie Kauffman

***

Thanks for reminding me of this truly wonderful jewel! I remember when it was first published and how it profoundly shaped my view of taking care of the environment. I taught it to my daughter, including the idea that we must leave things in at least as good a shape as we found them in. As a result, she and I have the habit of picking up litter everywhere we go, among other things. I'm going to dust my copy of it off and read it again, then share it with others. How could I resist after reading Katie's sweet jingle?

Love,
Emilia Bellone
Lafayette, LA, USA

***

Dear Katie,

Ads, they come in all dimensions,
And jar the mind with more impressions
But your fine jingle is more revealing
With beauty near, we find some healing.

Love,
Sara Woodsmith
Santa Cruz, CA, USA

***

Thanks Tim and Katie.

I recently discovered this pamphlet of Harvey as we have had the luck to have it translated into French by two French RCers in our last issue of Ecoute. For me too it has been a great discovery and I like very much what you share Katie. It helps to go out of isolation which I feel very present - or simply restimulated - in this area too! (At home I often feel that I'm the only one to notice that that and that should be done, and so I'm the only one to do it...)

Love,
Delphine Barberot
Le Cannet, France

***

Great idea having a "pamphlet of the month." And what a powerful, complex, and hugely hopeful message is "The Uses of Beauty and Order". . . I am so proud of our Irish government at present, and how the Minister for Health has stuck with banning cigarette smoking in public places, particularly pubs. . . . . I am crying now as I come across that piece Harvey wrote: "Our own whistling and singing are handy and effective weapons against the gloom and discouragement of a restimulative environment. . . ."

Brian Smeaton
County Donegal, Ireland

***

This pamphlet drives home the point that caring for our immediate surroundings as well as our global environment is a form of self care. So true!

. . . . I share Harvey's vision of a future in which "No air will be used without being returned to the atmosphere in good condition. Water taken from aquifer or stream will be returned pure. No bit of metal, wood, rock, or soil will be used without being restored to a healthy and useful condition after our use of it. The sewage and garbage of the future will be composted as fertilizer and humus." (page 3) To me this is a society in which we live in harmony with our environment, not in opposition to it.

Although distress plays a role in each, I think the basic dynamic which governs our interaction as human societies with the global environment is fundamentally different from that which governs our interaction with our immediate surroundings as individuals. I see "exploitation or degradation" of the environment as primarily due to the relentless drive to make profit rather than being "caused by the effects of distress patterns." (page 2) Groups, such as corporations, that exploit or degrade the environment often take advantage of distress patterns to justify their actions or undermine opponents. The individuals directing the exploitative activities may themselves be distressed. But their departure from an organization or their re-emergence will not change the societal imperative that drives the exploitation and degradation. That would require a new kind of society that is not based on the pursuit of private profit. I believe that re-emerged individuals will form the basis of that new society.

I, and many others, have a hard time keeping clutter and disorder out of our homes and offices. I find it difficult to set priorities, make decisions, develop realistic plans, or imagine what something will be like before I actually do or create it. It's not that I "can't" — it's that I have to work at these things much harder than many other people do, with more self-consciousness and with more support. To bring beauty and order into my life, I need to make it a counseling priority, focusing not only on my distress, but also on practical steps I can take that would move me forward and on ways others could support me. I have found "think and listen" sessions particularly helpful.

Michael Inskeep
Wayne, Pennsylvania, USA