Altered

I’m smiling like I mean it. The moment I see my image reflected back to me, I am reminded of Glennon Doyle’s definition of beautiful. As she describes it, it’s less of a statement about a person’s appearance and more about witnessing them in a moment when they are filled up with beauty—whether it be from nature or art or love. Beautiful as in full of beauty.

As we wind up our retreat, Julia, our co-facilitator, asks us to pose for a picture next to the morning altars we created. This will allow us a keepsake of our delight, as our designs made of flowers, twigs, fruit, and leaves stay in place to fertilize the ground beneath them.

My eyes linger on my face once she texts me the photo. There are surely pictures of me that are technically more flattering—that show my thighs a little less, where my face looks less round and my eyes less squinty. Instead, in this photo, my eyes almost twinkle, if this is even a thing beyond Santa Claus lore.

Instead of nitpicking the elements of my physical self that could be more defined and take up less physical space, I save the photo and designate it with a heart so that it lands in the favorites folder on my phone. This will be my reminder of how I look when I am full of beauty after spending a day serving my spirit alongside women who are open and gentle and seeking peace, like me.

“For your first pass, choose items from nature that represent what you are ready to let go of as we move toward fall,” Aparna, our other facilitator, instructed us.

I rummaged through the pile of items we had each contributed from our yards to find the elements I would least like to feature. I chose pinecones, tree bark, and dead flowers so brittle they started to crumble as I arranged them in place. Their decay represents the grieving of old loves, the yearning to achieve validation from my work, and the rot of relationships that no longer serve me due to their one-sidedness or lack of new energy. So brown and lifeless, this arrangement symbolizes the quick march toward winter that awaits us, when I hope to shed the weight of these boughs that weigh me down.

“For your next phase, choose items that reflect what you welcome to enter your life,” Aparna offered.

Easy, peasy. With greedy enthusiasm, I reached for the snips of hot pink bougainvillea, plump succulents, and purple statice. The cones of my eyes danced with delight at the vibrant colors filling my palms. I wanted more, but I stepped back to allow others a chance to shop the pile. Once they made their selections, I went back in for a yellow rose, ripe lime, and more vibrant greens.

As I transported these colorful additions back to my mound of brown grains, bleached sticks, and deep rust leaves, I considered how I would incorporate the living with the dead. The fact that I hesitated was a revelation. Old me – the me of maybe just last year – would have buried all signs of the dead and covered them with symbols of living. As if to deny, metaphorically, that hard things happen, that pain lingers in my heart, that even beautiful people and things have to die.

For sure, I am in favor of welcoming more of what I love, which is what the pinks, purples and greens represented for me in my creation. I crave new learning, adventure, and interesting conversations. I want to connect with people who are hungry for hope and determined to make meaning and find interest in their days.

But this time, rather than cover the bleak representation of my sorrows with the delight of my hopes and wishes, I decided to weave them together – with acorns and pebbles alongside a fragment of fern and the petals of a pale pink geranium – to more honestly depict the complexities of life that we must sit with, side by side.

This altar I’ve created proclaims that my art and I are here to coexist authentically in both the joy and the pain of what it means to be a human in the world today. And my smile in the photo keepsake of the experience is my testimony that acknowledging this duality in the company of other seekers feels beautiful.