SOS Asheville

Report #:16

Name of Topic: The Relationship of Beauty and Sustainability

Name of Leader: Laurel Reinhardt

Names of Participants: Elizabeth Bunch, Raphael Peter, Charlotte Anthony,

Chris Weaver, Kathy?, Gayatri, Irene Wright

Previous story regarding this topic if there is one:

1. Experience at Getty Museum garden led to thought: “If everyone on the planet had access to this kind of beauty on a regular basis, there could be no war; life would be totally sustainable.”

2. PBS special with Yo-Yo Ma, who had been commissioned to create a virtual musical garden (for Boston?); the paths themselves were musical, the plants evoked a feeling of music, and there were to be speakers at various places playing the music Yo-Yo Ma had created in response to the music of the space itself. (The garden never went beyond virtual, I don’t believe, but the music is available on one of his c/ds.)

Highlights of Discussion (present story unfolding):

How to create more ceremonial spaces of beauty in harmony with surroundings; self-organizing rather than created by an infrastructure.

Martine Prechtel’s ideas of gods/goddesses responding to the beauty created by humans (even in their speech patterns), and being drawn to nourish the humans in return. Prayers as courtship.

Damenhur: A community in Italy which embraces arts and beauty, brings people together, what helps make the community sustainable.

City Repair: An organization that goes around a community, helping citizens beautify their communal spaces with art (like murals in intersections).

There seems to be a culture clash between people who have been in the mountains for generations, and those coming in now, and different perceptions of beauty (though sometimes it is the generational people who are “trashy,” and sometimes the newcomers who “trash” the mountain sides with bulldozers and big houses).

The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander: Noticing the patterns of a place which bring it to life. Can’t define beauty, but know when something strikes me. It’s about developing a language to bring it to life; in this way we can sustain things.

How to encourage community projects designed to bring people together to create beauty.

Such places of beauty are spiritual/transformative.

Charlotte’s gardens: express her own internal experience of beauty, to which people respond in amazingly deep ways. “I just listen to the land, the path which wants to be there, etc.”

Let the beauty you love be what you do.    Rumi

Changing education: open schools to artists every Friday for ongoing mentorship programs, so ALL students, not just those in arts schools, get exposed to art/beauty, and people who are passionate about it.

How do we sustain growth/development without destroying beauty.

Great Circle Builders connect newcomers with green/alternative services for all areas of life which might not be readily identifiable in the marketplace.

Power of intention.

Need to see the beauty in everyone; need everyone’s beauty to sustain humanity.

Discussion of demineralization of soil, change in diversity, effect on health, and how to reminernalize.

Future Action/Next Steps:

1. Charlotte Anthony to write a story for Spirit in the Smokies about an experience she had around intentionality in a community in Colorado.

2. In body of this story, invite people in WNC to create a virtual community which will visualize/intend that people who live here to intend that Beauty be a standard for decision-making, community interaction, and development. Feel what it would be like, be grateful that it is already there, know it together three times a day (8, noon, 4?) for 5 minutes.

3. A collaborative website, starting with language, then photo essay, and any other way of showing the beauty of WNC/Asheville.