Girandole.

Beauty radiating outward.

Enlightening.

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first realized that the most common things can be infused with beauty. I had taken up residence in a culture very different from my own. I was in Paris for a year of school. Needing some warmer clothes, and feeling very much the adult (I was a little Okie girl, all of 18), I took the metro to the Boulevard Haussmann, where the closest department store was located. Hoping my modest amount of money would be enough, I stepped inside the Galeries Lafayette store and headed through the cosmetics department toward the coats and sweaters. A towering Christmas tree had been set up, and as my gaze moved upward to the star on top, I saw the breathtaking underside of the huge stained glass dome (pictured above).

I would have expected to see that kind of beauty in a cathedral, a museum, or some important national edifice. I didn't expect to see it overarching the displays of makeup, hairbrushes, housewares, underwear and, well... stuff. Ordinary stuff that people need and use in everyday life. Many times since then, I've spotted beautiful things at unexpected times or in unexpected places. I've been given eyes to see, so to speak.

Moreover, I've known people, both American and French, whose lives convey the steadiness, the centeredness, the beauty of the girandole. Spending time with them is like getting a dose of peace.

Application.

Girandole. Bejeweled center, radiating beautiful things, good things, in unexpected (and even difficult or painful) places. No matter where we are in the world, we can approach life with a kind of reverence because, in effect, for that precise moment in time, wherever we happen to be is the center of our universe. We can be alert, responsive, connected to others, even those who are different from us in the most fundamental of ways.

Where does the self-knowledge come to an end? Nowhere. For anyone with the heart of a learner, it goes on forever.

Hear what I mean.

Gymnopedie, by Erik Satie (b. Honfleur, 1866, d. Paris 1925)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atejQh9cXWI&feature=related (RECOMMENDATION: rather than watching the video, why not just close your eyes and listen?)