Will you follow the call of beauty?

how noticing beauty is both a powerful guiding force and a comforting homecoming.

Hello, I am so glad you have found your way here… I’m Lyndsay — mother, creative and storyteller with a background in interiors PR.

Step inside Story & Thread., a cosy, layered home where the threads of creativity, interiors and mothering meet. Here, we unearth the stories from the seasons of our lives, with a house & a garden at the heart, and everyday beauty as our guide…

Cosmos in our autumn garden.

“When we experience the Beautiful there is a sense of homecoming. Some of our most wonderful memories are of beautiful places where we felt immediately at home. We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul.”

–John O’Donohue, Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace.

Dearest reader…

How are you doing as we move towards the end of October?

This week is feeling heightened as we approach the end of a long and full first half-term of school, and my thoughts are filled with other things too — including a trip away on a retreat for two nights (without my children for the first time), and returning home in time for a special family birthday celebration at the weekend.

An intensity of layered feelings is apt as we step through a potent and spellbinding portal at this time of year that is submerged in the swirling depths of Scorpio season — it is a time that marks the midpoint between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, and is enveloped by the enchanting veils of Samhain, (pronounced Sow-wen, meaning ‘summer’s end’, an ancient festival that coincides with Halloween, and also heralds the Celtic New Year).

We will be honouring this misty and magical portal of late October and early November in the first, autumn edition of A Seasonal Salon, an online creative gathering as part of The Beauty Thread. membership, which will take place at 11am GMT on Tuesday 5th November 2024 via Zoom.

Please see more info at the end of this post, I would be delighted if you would like to join us. Further details will be sent to members of The Beauty Thread. in the coming days…

As I begin to work towards the first seasonal salon, today I am writing to you about beauty — as both a powerful guiding force and a comforting homecoming, an idea that underpins The Beauty Thread.

Over the years, I have been influenced by ancient texts, Romantic poetry, design philosophy and Celtic lore on the subject of beauty, but more than any reading and learning, I am realising that the threads of my life so far converge on an intention to cultivate a deeper meaning of beauty in my world and beyond.

The layers of beauty.

Beauty is often confused with image, glamour, and that which is obvious, skimming the surface of life. In my mind, beauty is none of those things (although they can all be a part of something beautiful).

Beauty is not perfection, it is quite often the opposite¹. Beauty is not contained in the things that we feel we should save for special occasions. It is not a nicety or a luxury. Beauty is not a particular style or an aesthetic — and although the feeling of being graced by beauty can be fleeting, ephemeral and transient, it is certainly not a passing trend.

Instead, beauty is nestled within the mundanity of our everyday lives, and therein lies the magic, but it is up to us to notice it. Beauty is very often the extraordinary masquerading as the ordinary — something that we could easily pass by or overlook if we didn’t make the intention, and carve out the time and space, to really see it.

Beauty is noticing.

When we notice and observe, we place reverence on the stuff of the everyday that is embedded in our lives.

The inner scenery of beauty.

Beauty operates in symmetry, it is both an internal and external experience — something we glimpse at and reach for in our surroundings elicits a relational response that becomes imprinted deep within our inner landscape.

Despite often being prompted by something sensory, the lasting effect of beauty goes beyond the original tangible stimulus. Beauty evokes a depth of overwhelming awe and wonder. It leaves a resonance, a sense of being profoundly touched by an experience, we are left subtly changed by it — it is both uplifting and grounding, inspiring and comforting. These are the fragments that make up our inner scenery and shape the way that we move through life.

Monday 22nd October 2024 — stepping into the woods felt like entering an enchanted forest today. Through the filter of the remaining canopy, yellow leaves appear suspended on barely-there branches, silhouettes of trunks blackened by rain seem to go on forever, and a single leaf flutters through the air to be absorbed by the soft woodland floor.

Yellow leaves suspended in the woods.

As Irish philosopher, theologian and mystic John O’Donohue said in his book ‘Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace’, being witness to (and therefore participant in) beauty leads us to awaken and surrender in the same breath. Perhaps it is in the presence of beauty that we feel both softened and most alive. Beauty nudges us along our path of discovery, and it bring us home.

The call of beauty.

I was fascinated yet not surprised to learn that the Greek root for the word ‘beauty’ is related to the word for ‘calling’ — ‘kalon’ and ‘kalein’. John O’Donohue said that beauty is a human calling, that it is the bridge between our inner and outer worlds, the seen and the unseen, and that it is the heart of creativity.

It is true that beauty calls out to us, and we seek it out in our own ways too — in art, books, music, movement, in our relationships, in our homes and gardens, and in the living world around us. It is in the witnessing and in the doing — we commune with something that calls us from around and within. What calls you?

Our personal experience of beauty guides us towards the path of our aliveness, a place where we can feel most fulfilled. When we experience something beautiful, we are lit up, it brings lustre to our lives. It is the glimmers and shimmers that allow us to see the world in a different way, even for just a moment. It kindles a glow within, and when we pause to notice and value it, we become intertwined — it becomes a part of us. Beauty reminds us of our connection to the potential, possibility and infinity within us and in the wider constellation of connectedness. Romantic poet John Keats believed that when we come to know beauty, it will never leave us, instead it transforms us, the onlooker, into an exquisite piece of life’s tapestry.

Friday 18th October 2024 — mist enshrouds everything, nothing is untouched, it is as though the world is cloaked in a smudged, foggy film. It feels cool and moist, like balm to dry skin. Large drops of moisture fall from the trees, the spiderwebs now adorned with shimmering gems, laced in mist and dew. The way is unclear, outlines are faint and blurred, and yet everything is illuminated, both dazzling and dreamy.

Following the call.

As I continue emerge from the earliest years of mothering and step into a somewhat misty outline of life ahead, I have come to realise that a quest to find a deeper sense of beauty has been a thread woven tightly into what I have been called to so far.

My work in interiors and arts PR opened up a world of exquisite materials, intentional craft, meaningful architecture and eye-opening creativity. I learned the importance of our space and how we fill it, about cultivating both comfort and adornment in the stories of our lives. This, woven alongside my studies in yoga allowed me to discover the significance of fostering beauty to usher in a sense of sacredness, with layers of ritual in our everyday lives.

Seasonal rituals at home.

Both strands are entwined with a call to connect to my own interiority, to the space around and within me, creating a sense of homecoming — a union between inner and outer worlds. I have come to realise that by simply noticing beauty, we are intuitively led along a path of discovery, as well as being shown where we feel ‘at home’. That although beauty is about noticing and observing in our everyday lives, it also transcends what we know and see. It is a way of being. That just as our environment and surroundings have the power to shape us, that we too, leave an imprint on the landscape of our lives, from the inside out.

Thank you so much for reading, I would love to hear your thoughts and chat more in the comments, or of course feel free to send me an email, it is always lovely to hear from you.

I will follow this post soon with an exploration of the benefits of living in relationship with beauty, why I believe it is so important, and practical ways to notice and cultivate beauty in our lives.

I would love to hear your experiences —what do you see when you slow down to notice moments of beauty around you? Do you feel a shift when you do?

A Seasonal Salon, autumn edition.

A Seasonal Salon is an online creative gathering as part of The Beauty Thread. membership — an invitation to anchor and soften into the season, as we create time and space to notice, and take cues from the beauty that surrounds us.

The time spanning the end of October and the beginning of November is a potent and spellbinding portal. It feels like a tender time to gather — to not only move through this mystical passage together, but to engage in the threshold it represents, orienting ourselves fully into the season and actively participating in the slow burn of transformation.

I would be so delighted if you chose to gather around the bonfire with me, where, by weaving together stories, art, folklore and flowers, we will:

• reflect on the season so far

• make time to notice how the beauty of the season unfolding around us

• kindle embers as cues to craft intentions as we move further into the darker part of the year (or of course, lighter in the southern hemisphere)

It is a time to gaze at the sky, as well as to make offerings to the ground in the form of seeds and bulbs, allowing our very deepest intentions to take root. You can upgrade your subscription to join us.

1. See the Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi — sometimes described as appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature.