Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

While traveling through the Canadian Rockies one of our stops was the Jasper Park Lodge in Fairmont. Our cabin was situated facing Lac Beauvert (pronounced: Lack Buh-vair), “beautiful green lake.” By this time we had seen, smelled, touched, and listened to so much natural beauty that we were emotionally overwhelmed, and the stamina squeezed out.

But through the cabin window the mesmerizing view of the lake magnetized us. After enjoying a cup of hot tea, we decided to walk the trail that circled the lake. We must have walked for fifteen minutes or so when the view stopped me in my tracks. My heartbeats fastened. The surface of the crystal-clear turquoise water was shimmering silver; tiny shiny waves waltzing over large spherical stones. The reflections of distant mountain ranges—green at some places, blue at others—gave way to a majestic flock of Canadian geese that flew in and floated on the water surface making ripples over the white fish splashing underneath. I was cemented to the ground. I couldn’t return to the cabin even if I wanted to. A sudden pull wrenched my heart. I felt a tug similar to the one caused by a lover’s departure.  

The beauty that made me fall in love as well as distressed me was stirred by that heavenly exquisiteness. Everything was perfect the way it was. I did not know what to do with the contradictory emotions. Motionless I took in that beauty through all my senses that absorbed the emotions and eventually my heartache. Whereas the lovers consummate their love by uniting physically, the union of nature lover and natural beauty takes place in the mind and heart. This union of individual with spirit, artist with art, devotee with God, Self with soul is a spiritual sublimation.When viewing such beauty, you may want to possess it in a photo or painting, but soon you realize none of those reproductions would give as much pleasure as when your inner Self first awakens to a view like that. Senses stimulate. Body animates. The beauty of the moment wells up your eyes, your heart aches, the tenderness and fragility of the moment stings. The impulse is not external union but internal joining, resulting in the rise of sheer joy or pleasure which often results as an artwork.