We do not need a large budget to create beauty. I was looking around my house and thinking of all the treasures that found me. There is the beautiful, foot-high solid stone lion that I found at a yard sale; the bottom half of a Chinese lacquer box with brass inlays that someone left on the street; the white and gold-leaf willow-pattern vase that I found at a thrift store, which now holds my makeup brushes. I was thinking about why these “found” treasures should give me such a great feeling of accomplishment. Shouldn’t I feel more accomplished knowing that I wanted something, searched for it, and then spent lavishly on it? I was pondering on this, and realized that when treasures find me, I feel a sense of exhilaration, because it’s as if I receive an unexpected gift.
The world is just crammed with wonderful gifts waiting to be found. It is just a matter of being open to them – of seeing them. To increase the chance of treasures finding you, it is important to activate the Beauty Eye. In scientific terms, this is called Reticular Activation: the more beauty you look for, the more you will see, until it will be an almost unconscious process, one part of your brain constantly on the alert for The Precious. You will have a “feeling” to just pop into that particular store. Or maybe you will be driving or riding your bike down a particular street, and something will just show up. Or a friend will out of the blue give you a gift. Or you will pass a yard sale and decide to stop on a whim.
Activating the Beauty Eye will often turn mundane stores into secret treasure storehouses. For example, Ross Dress for Less does not normally provide the pinnacle of Zen shopping experience. Crammed on the shelves, most things look rather cheap and jumbled together. Yet when you are exercising your Beauty Eye and focusing on each object in question, visualizing them in your particular living space, you start seeing the treasures. Like a delicate bamboo plant stand with wonderful flowing lines; or a beautiful mirror or framed print which looks really wonderful once you place it.
Tiny task for the day: Think of something beautiful you may need or want, then enjoy a calm and expectant attitude about finding it. Keep the thought in mind, on the back-burner. You may not have instant gratification, but it is just a matter of time before the desired item will find you. You will know that something is treasure because you will get a little “lift” when you see it. This cannot be faked, and you cannot talk yourself into it. Be patient, there is no hurry. Take time to smell the flowers!