Whimsy & Tea | Handwoven Tea Towels

weaving beauty into your everyday

  • HOME
  • ABOUT MARILYN
    • Meet Marilyn
    • In the media
    • Environmental stewardship
  • HANDWOVEN GOODS
    • Kitchen towels
    • Table napkins
    • Custom orders
    • About colorgrown cotton
    • Laundering
    • A word about color
    • My guarantee
  • EVENTS
  • e-WHIMSY
    • Whimsy-grams
    • Whimsy-watch
  • BLOG
    • Making cloth
    • Thoughts on beauty
    • Life’s lessons at the loom
    • More than a dog walk
    • Customer stories
    • Recent posts
  • CONTACT
  • SHOP ONLINE

Beauty: the perfect medicine

July 2, 2012 By Marilyn Webster Leave a Comment

I’ve been settling into my new more permanent home and running move-related errands: opening bank accounts, registering my car, finding a vet, getting a landline and more.

Normally I would balance these exhausting and often frustrating tasks with the calming rhythms of weaving. With my looms still in California, I find myself sitting at my desk looking out the window and listening to the birds.

When I focus on the foreground, I notice lots of activity in the out-of-control wisteria. A brown butterfly with white spots keeps returning to a particular branch. A small bird — a phoebe maybe — flies to and from the nest near the window. I watch two woodpeckers chase each other and am delighted when a ruby-throated hummingbird shows up.

When I shift my focus and look into the distance, I see the Appalachian Mountains and one peak in particular. Today the peak stands out clearly against the blue sky; the other day it was hidden behind pre-rain whiteness.

Sometimes as I stare out the window, I feel like I’m not doing anything. But actually, I am allowing my soul to catch up with my body. There’s a softness to this landscape. The blues and greens of the sky, the trees and the mountains are soothing.

In Beauty and the Soul, Piero Ferrucci discusses how beauty “heals our emotional wounds, lightens the weight of our worries, guides us in our confusion — and, to some extent, […] can also heal, or at least soothe, our physical suffering.” Among other examples, he mentions a study conducted with patients recovering from a common type of gall bladder surgery (cholecystectomy) in a suburban Philadelphia hospital. Half the patients had windows with a view of a brick wall; the other half looked out on some deciduous trees. The patients with the tree-view had shorter hospital stays, took fewer pain medications and had fewer negative comments from the nurses. Another study showed that photographs of natural landscapes have a positive effect on cardiac patients after surgery.

I am not recovering from surgery, but I have undergone a major uprooting. Without realizing it, I have prescribed myself regular doses of beauty. The particular beauty of this environment has become my medicine during this challenging transition.

My invitation to you: Can you spend some time soaking in the particular beauty of your environment — be it looking out your window, enjoying a photograph, spending time outside or in some other way? How do you feel when you give yourself this gift? I’d love to hear.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Tweet

You may also like:

  1. Ordinary and extraordinary beauty
  2. Where is beauty when it hurts?
  3. A gift for you – The Power of Beauty in Everyday Life: Five Stories
  4. Beauty is not a luxury
  5. Does everyday beauty make a difference?

Filed Under: Beauty, Natural World

Join the conversation Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Whimsy-watch

I’ve recently pressed pause on Whimsy-watch, a subscriber-only email with new product news.

 

You’re still invited to subscribe …

 

You’ll hear from me in your inbox when Whimsy-watch returns.

You can read my privacy policy here.

Popular Whimsy & Tea posts

  • In praise of slow weaving
  • But it’s too beautiful to use!
  • The sound before the sound
  • Enough
  • Weaving the Gulf Shores towels
  • Replenishing a tired spirit
  • Honoring the ordinary

Read my newest stories

All new writing – whether it’s about weaving, walking or something else that wants to be written – is at WalksWithAsha.com, a blog that’s also a podcast.

Read new stories

Copyright © 2021 Marilyn Webster | Whimsy & Tea | Conway, MA | Contact | 413 - 369 - 4713 | All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

  • HOME
  • ABOUT MARILYN
    ▼
    • Meet Marilyn
    • In the media
    • Environmental stewardship
  • HANDWOVEN GOODS
    ▼
    • Kitchen towels
    • Table napkins
    • Custom orders
    • About colorgrown cotton
    • Laundering
    • A word about color
    • My guarantee
  • EVENTS
  • e-WHIMSY
    ▼
    • Whimsy-grams
    • Whimsy-watch
  • BLOG
    ▼
    • Making cloth
    • Thoughts on beauty
    • Life’s lessons at the loom
    • More than a dog walk
    • Customer stories
    • Recent posts
  • CONTACT
  • SHOP ONLINE
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.