DW's Blog

Beauty: The Affair That’s Lasted a Lifetime

by DW Green — October 29, 2025

“Beauty is what appears when Truth and Love come together—when we see what is (Truth) with the eyes of Love.”

I’ve been having an affair with Beauty for as long as I can remember.

Not the kind you read about in magazines or see on billboards—not the carefully curated, airbrushed, socially sanctioned version of beauty that sells products and promises. I’m talking about something wilder, more unpredictable, more honest. The kind that shows up uninvited in the middle of ordinary moments and stops you in your tracks. The kind that appears in a dented aluminum garbage can or the persistent chirp of a cricket at 2 AM or the face of someone the world might call homely whose smile touches your soul in ways that perfect features never could.

This affair has been passionate, surprising, sometimes uncomfortable. Beauty keeps appearing where I’m not expecting it, where I’ve been taught it shouldn’t be, where conventional wisdom says to look away. And every time I’m willing to really see, really look past my conditioned judgments and preferences, there it is—unmistakable, undeniable, devastating in its realness.

NOT MY BEAUTY, BUT THE BEAUTY

Let me be clear from the start: this isn’t about my personal taste or aesthetic preferences, as if beauty is simply subjective opinion. Yes, my experience of Beauty is uniquely mine—the particular moments it has arrested me, the specific forms through which it has revealed itself, the individual history of this affair. But what I’m pointing toward is something universal, something that exists whether anyone notices it or not.

Beauty, like Truth, like Love, is one face of the One expressing itself. It’s not a quality that some things have and others lack. It’s a way of seeing, a quality of attention, a recognition of what IS when we’re willing to look without the filters of judgment and preference.

The Beauty I’m speaking of was here before humans developed ideas about attractiveness. It will be here after our cultural standards of pretty and ugly have long been forgotten. It’s woven into the fabric of existence itself—not as decoration, but as the very texture of reality when perceived clearly.

THE ANNOYING CRICKET

There’s a cricket outside my window some summer nights. Its chirping used to annoy me—insistent, repetitive, interrupting the quiet I thought I wanted. The mind labeled it: annoying. Unwanted. A disturbance to be eliminated if possible, endured if not.

But one night, instead of resisting, I actually listened. Not to the idea of the cricket or my judgment about it, but to the sound itself. And something shifted.

Suddenly it wasn’t annoying at all. It was this ancient, perfect rhythm. This tiny creature announcing its existence to the universe, doing what crickets have done for millions of years, participating in the great song of life that includes my breathing and the rustling leaves and the distant hum of traffic and everything else that is.

The sound hadn’t changed. The cricket was still the cricket. But my seeing had changed. Or rather, I had stopped overlaying my preferences and judgments onto what was actually there, and in that space, Beauty revealed itself.

This is what Beauty does—it shows up in what we’ve labeled “annoying” or “ugly” or “wrong” and says: Look again. See what’s actually here. Not what you think should be here, not what you prefer to be here, but what IS here.

THE DENTED GARBAGE CAN

I remember standing in an alley behind a restaurant, waiting for someone, with nothing to do but look at an old aluminum garbage can. Dented. Discolored. Stained with rust and who knows what else. The kind of object we’re trained not to see, trained to look past, trained to categorize as ugly and move on.

But I looked. Really looked. And there it was.

The way the dents caught the light. The history written in every mark—years of use, of being knocked against walls, of serving its humble purpose. The patina of age and weather. The honest wear of a thing that has done its job without complaint, without trying to be anything other than what it is.

Was it pretty? No. Was it Beautiful? Absolutely.

Because Beauty isn’t about pleasantness or aesthetic appeal according to cultural standards. Beauty is the quality that emerges when we see something fully, when we meet what is with attention and openness rather than judgment. When we see the truth of a thing—its is-ness, its participation in existence, its perfect appropriateness to itself—that’s when Beauty appears.

The garbage can didn’t become beautiful because I was generous enough to find beauty in ugliness. The designation of “ugly” was the problem—a turning away, a refusal to see. When I actually looked, when I met it as it was, the Beauty was simply there, waiting to be noticed.

THE HOMELY FACE, THE SOUL-TOUCHING SMILE

I’ve known people the world would call homely. Features that don’t match magazine covers. Faces that won’t launch ships or sell cosmetics. And I’ve watched one of these people smile—a genuine, unguarded smile—and felt my soul touched in ways that perfect beauty never has.

What is that?

It’s not that I’m seeing beauty “despite” the homeliness. It’s that in the moment of that smile, in the warmth and genuineness and humanity shining through, the whole person becomes visible. Not as a collection of features to be judged against arbitrary standards, but as consciousness expressing itself, as the One looking out through these particular eyes, offering this particular smile.

That’s Beautiful. Not because I’m being kind or generous in my perception, but because it IS beautiful—the real kind, the kind that has nothing to do with symmetry or conventional attractiveness and everything to do with seeing truly.

The most conventionally attractive face, if seen with judgment and comparison and assessment, can be empty of Beauty. The most unconventional face, met with openness and genuine seeing, can be devastating in its Beauty.

Because Beauty isn’t in the object. It’s in the quality of seeing, the willingness to meet what is without the filters of preference and conditioning.

BEAUTY IN TRAGEDY

This is where it gets harder. Where the affair with Beauty becomes uncomfortable, even challenging.

Because Beauty doesn’t only show up in crickets and garbage cans and unexpected smiles. It shows up in grief. In loss. In tragedy and despair and the moments that break your heart.

I’m not talking about the sanitized version—not “everything happens for a reason” or “find the silver lining” or any of the ways we try to make tragedy palatable. I’m talking about the raw, terrible Beauty of what is, even when what is breaks you open completely.

The Beauty of grief that reveals how deeply you loved. The Beauty of loss that shows you what mattered. The Beauty of being human enough to hurt this much, to care this much, to be cracked open by life rather than armored against it.

This isn’t pretty. It’s not pleasant. It’s not what we’d choose. But there’s a Beauty in it—in the honest feeling of it, in the full living of it, in the willingness to be present to what is rather than turning away because it hurts.

When someone weeps with their whole body over a loss that matters—that’s Beautiful. Not because suffering is good, but because the weeping is real, is honest, is the appropriate response to love meeting loss. The Beauty is in the authenticity, in the full participation in being human, in the courage to feel what’s there to be felt.

THE TRINITY OF SEEING

You can’t really separate Beauty from Truth and Love. They’re three faces of the same recognition, three ways the One reveals itself.

Truth is the recognition of what is. Love is what meets that is-ness with complete acceptance, with recognition of itself in all forms. And Beauty is what appears when Truth and Love come together—when we see what is (Truth) with the eyes of Love.

When you look at the garbage can with Truth—seeing it as it actually is rather than as your judgments about it—and with Love—meeting it without needing it to be other than it is—Beauty appears. Not as something you’re adding, but as what’s revealed when the filters fall away.

When you look at tragedy with Truth—acknowledging the full reality of what’s happening—and with Love—staying present rather than armoring against it—there’s a terrible Beauty in that too. The Beauty of being awake enough, open enough, courageous enough to be with what is.

This is why the mystics speak of Beauty and Truth and Love as if they’re the same thing wearing different clothes. Because they are. They’re all pointing toward the same recognition: everything, exactly as it is, is an expression of the One. And when we see clearly enough, when we love fully enough, that’s Beautiful.

LEARNING TO SEE

This affair with Beauty has been teaching me one thing above all: how to see.

Not to look at—we do that all day long, scanning surfaces, categorizing, judging, moving on. But to actually see. To meet what’s in front of us with attention and presence and openness. To look past our conditioned responses of “beautiful” or “ugly,” “pleasant” or “unpleasant,” and see what’s actually there.

A flower is beautiful—yes, we’re trained to see that. But can you see the Beauty in the weed growing through cracked concrete? In the way rust patterns metal? In the face lined with hard years? In the sound that annoys you? In the moment that breaks your heart?

This isn’t about forcing yourself to see beauty in everything through positive thinking or spiritual bypassing. It’s about becoming willing to look without your preferences running the show. To see what is, as it is, with the kind of attention that allows Beauty to reveal itself.

Some things will still please you more than others—that’s human, that’s fine. But underneath the preferences, when you’re willing to really look, there’s Beauty in all of it. Not the same flavor, not the same impact, but the same fundamental quality: the is-ness of things, fully met, fully seen.

THE INVITATION

Beauty is available to everyone because Beauty is what everything becomes when truly seen. You don’t need special training or mystical experiences or particular sensitivities. You just need to look. Really look. Without the filters of judgment and preference running interference between you and what’s actually there.

Try it right now. Look at something near you—something ordinary, something you’d normally overlook or dismiss. Not a sunset or a flower or something already designated as beautiful. Something plain. Something you might call ugly. Something you’ve judged and categorized and stopped really seeing.

Look at it. Not to find beauty in it. Not to convince yourself it’s beautiful. Just look. Meet it as it is. Let yourself see it fully—its texture, its particularity, its existence, its is-ness.

What do you notice?

Maybe nothing at first. The mind’s categories are strong, the habits of judgment well-worn. But keep looking. Keep meeting what’s there with genuine attention. And see if Beauty doesn’t start to appear—not because you’re making it happen, but because it’s what’s revealed when we see clearly.

THE AFFAIR CONTINUES

I’m still having this affair with Beauty. Still being surprised by where it shows up. Still learning to see past my conditioned responses to what’s actually there. Still being stopped in my tracks by the dented garbage can and the annoying cricket and the homely smile and the terrible beauty of honest grief.

Beauty keeps teaching me that nothing is as I’ve judged it to be. That everything, when truly seen, reveals itself as part of the One expressing itself in infinite forms. That the categories of beautiful and ugly are judgments we overlay on reality, not reality itself.

The affair continues because Beauty never stops revealing itself. It’s not hiding. It’s not reserved for special objects or special moments. It’s here, now, in everything, waiting to be seen by anyone willing to look without the filters of preference and conditioning.

All you have to do is see what’s actually there.

And when you do—when you really do—you’ll understand why I call this an affair. Because once Beauty starts revealing itself in unexpected places, once you begin to see what’s really there rather than what you’ve been trained to see, you can’t unsee it. You’re hooked. You’re in it for life.

The world becomes endlessly interesting. Endlessly revealing. Endlessly Beautiful—not in the pretty way, but in the real way. The way that includes the dented and the damaged and the judged-as-ugly and the heartbreaking and the ordinary and the overlooked.

Everything. All of it. Beautiful.

When you’re willing to see.