Beauty is most often associated with our sense of sight. But as this theme’s PerSpectives contributor Frank Fitzpatrick so aptly writes, “Those qualities we aspire to most . . . exist in the realm of the Unseen.” In our Beauty and the Senses issue, KidSpirit contributors venture far beyond the visual to explore beauty in travel and thought, in song and the sublime. Join us for an exciting exploration!

1. Is there one, unchanging attribute that defines beauty? Can things some people label ugly be beautiful to others? These are the big philosophical questions underlying Nimai Agarwal’s Big Question and Akash Mehta’s review of Ugly. After examining different works of art, music, books, even the interior of fast food restaurants, the two writers come to different conclusions. Nimai argues that love is the essence of beauty, while Akash hesitates to say that we can definitively call anything ugly or beautiful. Read the two essays and discuss. What do you call beautiful? Ugly? Can something abstract like love be at the heart of those concepts?

2. In her feature article, Elly Goetz reflects on the sublime in painting and in her own art. On a trip to Yellowstone, she follows in the footsteps of painter Thomas Moran and even paints from the same vantage point as Moran’s famous image of the canyon. After reading about the feeling of the sublime that Elly describes, try your hand at creating a drawing, painting or poem to elicit the same powerful emotions. How do you feel when creating art, poetry or music? How does the art of your peers affect you? Do you agree with Elly that it is difficult in this age of media saturation to feel the same awe in response to Art that people did in the past?

3. Sharon Lin’s feature, "The Flaws of Frail," unpacks the media’s role in creating and perpetuating unrealistic, unhealthy body image expectations. Do you experience ways in which the mainstream media limits or shapes your view of what is beautiful? If so, is it possible to counteract the messages that you see? Share your experiences and brainstorm ways to recognize unhealthy portrayals of beauty around you.

Beauty and the Senses Group Guide

Before traveling to Suzhou, a city in Jiangsu Province just to the west of Shanghai, I knew little about it, except for a Chinese saying that I had been taught in Mandarin class: “上有天堂，下有苏杭,” or “Above there is heaven, below there are Suzhou and Hangzhou.”

I also had heard that renowned architect I. M. Pei was from a Suzhou family and that the ancient garden city, dubbed “the Venice of the East” by Marco Polo, was a major influence on his modern, geometric style.

Suzhou gardens are meant to imitate the natural world, yet there is something wonderfully supernatural in their beauty. Labyrinthine stone paths and tunnels, rock sculptures, green ponds, lush flora, arched bridges, white stucco walls and gray tiled roofs comprise the gardens. I found the rock sculptures extremely intriguing. Striking and amoebic, they first seemed to be anomalies of nature, reminding me of coral snatched from the depths of the sea.

After returning home to Brooklyn, I discovered that rock sculptures are created by a long, painstaking process. An individual rock is chosen by a rock farmer for a specific spirit or quality sensed within. It is then chiseled to form openings that, when the rock is placed in a lake or stream, are shaped and smoothed by currents. This process takes decades or even centuries. Sometimes the son or grandson of a rock farmer will be the one to remove a sculpture from the water. A rock sculpture represents both the life and aesthetics of a rock farmer. It is a concrete example of the beauty and harmony created by the combination of human expression and natural power.

I longed to go back to the gardens and examine the rock sculptures, knowing that there was so much intention placed behind each curve and crevice. I came to realize that the sculptures are carefully chosen and designed to fit a certain location, just as each of I. M. Pei’s buildings is created to fit its function and setting. Each one is unique. There are no overarching rules qualifying a rock which is to be formed into a sculpture, just as there is no set way to go about creating a new building, for the design of each structure relies on the history of its location, the personality and interests of the client, and the purpose it will serve.

Ieoh Ming Pei, commonly known as I. M. Pei, was born on April 26, 1917, in Guangzhou, China. It was the Warlord Era, full of strife and poverty. Pei’s grandfather, Litai, negotiated with militia, begging them not to destroy his beloved city of Suzhou, while Pei’s father, a banker named Tsuyee, was forced to flee to Hong Kong. A few years later, he was promoted by the Bank of China and given a manager’s position in Shanghai. He moved with his wife, Lien Kwun, and five children to the diverse, westernized city, 65 miles to the east of his hometown, Suzhou. I.M. Pei spent his summers studying Confucian ethics in Suzhou with his grandfather. Doing so allowed him to explore his family garden, the Lion’s Grove, named for a lion-like rock sculpture that resided there. In 1935, Pei left Shanghai, the city with tall, inspirational buildings, and Suzhou, the city whose style and spirit would influence Pei’s work throughout the years, to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later to obtain his master’s degree in architecture at Harvard. In 1955, he founded I. M. Pei & Associates, which 11 years later became I. M. Pei & Partners. Pei went on to become one of the world’s most famous architects. Some of his prominent works include: the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, the National Gallery of Art East Building, the Bank of China Tower, the Grand Louvre, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the Miho Museum, and the Museum of Islamic Art.

After graduating from architecture school, Pei worked for prominent real estate developer, William Zeckendorf. One of Pei’s early projects was Denver, Colorado’s first skyscraper, nicknamed the Mile High Center. He designed the tower to take up only one quarter of the building site and refused to have the first floor rented out to shopkeepers. Instead, the remaining acreage was left for gardens and fountains. The design of the structure and the open space caused the apartments to rent for a premium and the building to have the lowest vacancy rate in Denver. Pei was able to incorporate aspects of traditional Chinese architecture, such as ample space for gardens and leisure, in his design, making the skyscraper distinctively attractive. Like a rock farmer, he shaped the building according to his own aesthetic principles, allowing it to become a work of art that others would appreciate.

Due to World War II and the subsequent Communist takeover of China, Pei and his wife Eileen did not to return to their homeland for many years. The couple became naturalized citizens of the United States in 1954 and their four children grew up in America. In 1972, just six months after President Nixon’s historic invitation to China, Pei received an invitation of his own. After years of self-isolation, the nation was beginning to reopen, metaphorically tearing down the so-called “bamboo curtain” that allowed Nixon to become the first American President to visit the communist state. As Pei would soon discover, the China of the 1970’s was very different than that of the 30’s. For example, the Pei family garden was now open to the public; centuries-old buildings were destroyed by war or cemented over by the government. In 1974, Pei returned to China in the midst of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), during which many bourgeois intellectuals and artists were imprisoned, exiled, or killed. When Pei arrived, he met with government officials who proposed projects near the Forbidden City, the palace of the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasty emperors and the largest collection of ancient wooden structures in the world. Pei found himself defending the priceless buildings which, to many, symbolize the power and history of one of the world’s oldest cultures. Looming skyscrapers would ruin the aura of the Forbidden City. Pei took this into account, cognizant of how people perceive and internalize a space and its surroundings.

As tourists began to venture to China once again, new hotels were built. In the late 70’s, Pei was asked to design a hotel, called Fragrant Hill, just outside Beijing. The feel and function of the building would be very important, for it would make a long lasting impression on foreigners. Pei was faced with the task of representing China through his design, and displaying the aspirations that the country had with his streamlined, modernist touch. The hotel wove around the site’s ancient trees, in order to avoid cutting them down, and as with the Mile High Center, Pei left room for gardens. Drawing upon his ancestral Suzhou, he chose to incorporate a rock element. He happened upon a two-million-year-old stone forest called Beyond the Clouds. After a year of negotiations with officials in charge of running the national park, Pei was able to transport 230 tons of rock monoliths to Beijing by train. The rocks served to complete the hotel, which was sleek and geometric, while still retaining characteristically Chinese elements, such as the sense of harmony between buildings and nature. Pei successfully combined the traditional and the modern to create a unique style of 20th century architecture.

After an illustrious career, Pei retired from his firm, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, in 1990, with the desire to take on projects only outside the United States for the joy of doing so. In the early 2000’s Pei was asked to design another building in his homeland, a museum in beloved Suzhou, the city that had inspired him throughout his career.

This past summer, I studied in China for a month, spending a week in Suzhou with a host family. One day, after visiting Taihu, the third largest freshwater lake in China and the place where many rock sculptures are formed, my host sister and I broke off from our fellow students to see Pei’s Suzhou Museum, which was completed in 2006. In the sweltering heat of late July, we searched for a cab through the congested traffic. The relief I felt once we found one didn’t last long, for the car reeked of cigarette smoke and was not well ventilated. When we finally arrived at the museum, I jumped out of the cab and was immediately overcome by the beauty of the long street paved with stone and lined with traditional buildings on one side and Pei’s modern, angular museum on the other. As I entered through the front gates, I was reminded distinctly of the typical Suzhou gardens through which I had been wandering for the past few days, yet I also felt like I was in an almost futuristic place. This is similar to the dual sensation that I experienced in the gardens themselves, which seemed strangely natural and supernatural at the same time.

The Suzhou Museum, which is located in the historic Old City, is built from the same white stucco walls as traditional Suzhou buildings, yet lack the curved tile roofs. Pei opted for gray slanted roofs, some parts of which come together at a box-like top that is a continuation of the white stucco. The structure simultaneously fits in with the old-fashioned buildings in the surrounding area and stands out due to its smooth, geometric form, representative of I. M. Pei’s style. The museum incorporates a magnificent garden, which is streamlined like the buildings. A straight, low bridge extends across a large pond, with koi swimming in the waters. Next to the bridge is a pagoda with a roof made of slanted glass triangles and rectangles. When I was there, adults and teenagers alike sat in the shade reading, while parents rested with children. It is a place for people to connect with the paradoxically historical and futuristic environment created by the museum, just as pagodas in Suzhou gardens serve as spots for quiet contemplation and achieving harmony with nature. Next to the pond are thinly cut rocks, which play the role of rock sculptures, yet evoke the mountains of a traditional Chinese landscape painting. The rocks were chosen carefully, some tinted darker to create a sense of perspective and to give an impression of mist floating between mountain peaks.

Hexagonal windows and large glass walls function as portals between the garden and the interior of the museum. Windows of various shapes and ornate designs are prominent in classic Suzhou architecture, forming a frame from which to view a garden or look into a sitting room. Pei takes advantage of light in his design of the museum, as he has with other projects (for example, the primary purpose of the Louvre pyramids is to let light into the underground entrance). The hallways connecting the wings of the museum are lit by bars of sunlight streaming through the spaces between thin wood panels on the ceiling. The exhibits are also lit for the most part by skylights, giving the space a natural feel. The museum’s permanent collection contains artifacts from the Ming and Qing dynasties, during which Suzhou was a major cultural hub. There is also a special exhibition on display in the downstairs rooms. Light shines to the bottom floor accompanied by a waterfall, which runs into an indoor pond. This scene itself is something at which to marvel, and, like the garden, is a place to rest and appreciate the beauty of the museum and the works of art that it houses.

Designing the Suzhou Museum was a meaningful return home for Pei late in his distinguished career. Not only was he able to connect with his ancestral city, but also to share his experience with family. Two of his three sons, Chien Chung and Li Chung Pei, known as Didi and Sandi (Chinese for “little brother” and “third brother”), have followed in their father’s footsteps. Both practiced at I. M. Pei & Partners before founding their own firm, Pei Partnership Architects, in 1992. They collaborated on the design of the Suzhou Museum with their father. Like the sons of a rock farmer, who continue to preside over a rock as it is shaped by currents, waiting to remove the finished product from nature and carry on the spirit of the original farmer, the two Pei brothers further their father’s vision by continuing to practice as architects.

I look forward to returning to Suzhou and experiencing the beauty and the element of surprise that both the city and museum encapsulate. Last summer, as I turned a corner or walked beneath the archway of a classic garden, I was constantly presented with new images. These various amazements were in the shape of windows, foliage and rock sculptures. When I go to the gardens again, my mind will process these forms in a different fashion. A rock sculpture that once evoked a certain memory will conjure another. Similarly, when I revisit the Suzhou Museum, I will notice previously unseen allusions to traditional architecture and also observe more characteristics of Pei’s individual style. Both Suzhou gardens and Pei’s design serve as a window into oneself. The opportunity to reflect on my summer in China has allowed me to examine my own aesthetics and sensibilities, while learning about I. M. Pei and the ancient city of Suzhou.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Anya reflects on a summer in China and her encounter with the work of modernist architect I. M. Pei in the ancient city of Suzhou.

Discovering the Aesthetics of Suzhou

As the winter season rapidly approaches, the fashion industry prepares to unveil their newest trends. Fashion catwalks erupt around the holidays, while adoring fans of Victoria’s Secret, Bloomingdale’s, and Vogue tune into their televisions to scrutinize the latest styles.

Super skinny models take the runway, showing off skimpy outfits and outrageous costumes to an adoring audience. After all, the holidays have always been a time for fashionistas to find inspiration for the coming season. With the standards of beauty constantly changing, it is practically essential to keep up with the most innovative styles or risk being left in the dust.

One thing is certain: in the past few decades, the general definition of beauty has undergone severe and drastic modifications. Gone are the days when women with curvier bodies were accepted by society. Gone are the days when natural beauty was admired by fashionistas. Gone are the days when health and perfection could coexist.

Today’s definition of the perfect body shape is closer to the likes of actresses Nicole Ritchie and Keira Knightley. With thin, wiry arms, shockingly wide thigh gaps, sunken cheeks, and bony frames, their figures would have been distasteful had they lived in an earlier era. Although it is likely that many women such as themselves are naturally thin—and can live healthily with a lower body weight—it is inevitable that envious young women will come to fawn over their body as the epitome of beauty. Simply because they are subject to images of thin women on a daily basis, today’s young girls develop the mindset that beauty means mirroring their favorite celebrities.

The standards of beauty seem to change with the fads that fade in and out through the seasons. It has become nearly impossible to keep up with the latest styles without either spending a fortune or driving oneself insane with fashion tips, magazines, and clothing catalogs. In fact, the effort required to keep up with the latest fashions is hardly even conceivable, since the volatile nature of the fashion industry deems it about as erratic of the modern day stock market.

Printed magazines include a plethora of ads calling for women who wish to change their appearances. From over-priced protein shakes and “magic pills” to severe surgical procedures such as liposuction, there are an incredible number of companies taking advantage of women who are uncomfortable with the shape of their body. In fact, a shocking 97% of all women who had participated in a recent poll by Glamour magazine were self-deprecating about their body image at least once during their lives.

Why is this so? It is widely believed that the Romans had cherished the thicker bodied women in their society. Similarly, rural cultures in parts of Asia have a long history of rich gluttony. Namely, the poor, malnourished peasants had to work in the field, burning off significant amounts of calories. Meanwhile, rich landlords were able to afford an extravagant life where their every need and hunger was waited upon by an attentive staff. This led to a widespread belief that the plump were to be admired for their wealth and fortune.

Thus, it may come as unsettling that the Romans did not necessarily believe that their women were to be as voluptuous as their paintings and sculptures suggest. Christopher E. Forth, a history professor at Kansas University, explained in Flab: A Cultural History of Fat, “It is a common misperception that, if we fear fat today, there must have been a time when fatness was accepted and even celebrated […] The fact is there was never a time when Western societies viewed fat as entirely good or entirely bad. It has always been viewed with ambivalence. […] What has changed over time is the intensity with which different societies have viewed fat inside the body. Our obsession with very thin bodies may be relatively recent, but our misgivings about fat as a substance are not.”

Although the Romans had associated fat with richness, fertility, and increase, they also warned that too much could lead to rot and ruin. Ancient Hebrew words for greasiness—a quality of fat—referred to fertile plots of soil. They warned that overly fat soils would be infertile. St. Augustine had even gone so far as to counsel his patrons that their bodily fat would be redistributed upon acceptance into heaven.

Historians have uncovered a first-hand account from ancient Rome on a middle-aged man who was commenting on the tendency for mothers to emphasize a slim figure for their daughters. In the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, there is a story about Terrence, a comic living in ancient Rome. An analysis following the tale explained how mothers would “strive to make [their daughters] have sloping shoulders, a squeezed chest so that they look slim. If one is a little plumper, they say she is a boxer and they reduce her diet.” Although the men of the time did not particularly care for such slender bodies, the girls were nonetheless dieting in order to achieve a sort of body that they believed others would prefer over their natural form.

Because the body has been seen as a canvas of the soul, perhaps we will never be satisfied with our own shapes. However, a perpetual cycle of self-hate does nothing but damage the emotional maturation of a young woman. Especially during teenage years and early adulthood, when many women are still biologically fitting into their body shapes. They may grow several inches wider, taller, have lankier arms, or even experience voice changes, but nothing really awful happens. Puberty is simply the period of time when hormonal changes occur and when young bodies are transforming into mature bodies. It is, however, the period of time when most girls become most self-conscious about their bodies. They think they must change their body to conform to the expectations of society.

Many girls today mistreat their bodies, developing an unhealthy relationship with the basic activities that our bodies need to survive: eating, exercising, and waste removal. The use of laxatives, the development of eating disorders, and the woes of over-exertion all originate from a desire to please others. In fact, the opposite can end up happening in the minds of young women who abuse their bodies in this manner. Rather than becoming the slender and fit self they envisioned, their eating disorders become addictive to the point where they can no longer accept themselves. There is no skinny enough for their standards. And many young women see only fat, ugly, and disgusting representations of self.

The body should not be seen as a canvas on which we can change every aspect to fit our personal needs. There is a reason why humans are so diverse and our DNA unique. Each person is their own definition of beauty. There need not be such malevolence felt towards the self, because it is essentially the body that is the physical representation of the spirit, of one’s soul. The body, so long as it is treated well, naturally adjusts and adapts to its environment. Whether it resembles the shape of a famous model on television or an actress in a tabloid does not change the fact that each body-type should be cherished simply because humanity is so diverse.

Because humans are such socially inclined organisms, we have a natural tendency to want to conform and participate with others. Standing apart from a group may prove to be dangerous, as the group is not there to help with protection. Many of the same mechanisms that had once kept humans alive as a group or civilization with the ability to reproduce may be at a disadvantage today. However, the ability to blindly follow in the footsteps of others can often lead people—not necessarily just self-deprecating girls—to their demise.

In many ways the media is to blame for these negative body images. More attention must be paid so that we can veer away from media images that promote unrealistic body types. Instead, the media should have a greater focus on natural beauty and a healthy form. Seventeen magazine has promised not to Photoshop their models’ photos to such an extent as to alter their body shape. By changing the body types of people young women are subjected to seeing on a daily basis, we can begin to turn the tide on this destructive cycle of bodily abuse.

The winter season may be delivering an awaited change of fashion, but can it also spur an era of self-appreciation? Will Victoria’s Secret finally take their Love Your Body campaign seriously and begin to display models who actually encompass a genuine glow of health as opposed to the deprived appearance of starvation? After all, it is never too late to start a revolution and, if anything, a revolution is exactly what this culture needs. Many of today’s young women will be the leaders of tomorrow, and unless we want a future of misconstrued preconceptions, now is the time to start a new standard of beauty.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Sharon offers invaluable insight and criticism into how the media shapes our understanding of beauty, health, and our bodies.

The Flaws of Frail

If you have ever stood at the edge of a large waterfall or tried to understand the size and workings of the universe, you are most likely feeling an emotion that artists of the sublime attempt to elicit from the viewer.

The sublime can be described as a feeling inspired by nature or by a piece of art (whether it be painting, literature, or modern day media), which cannot be completely comprehended and often strikes awe and fear. The sublime causes tension or unease in the viewer by the introduction of something large in size or complexity, making it incomprehensible. Since I am interested in the visual arts, when I recently visited Yellowstone Park in Wyoming where Thomas Moran painted his famous “The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,” I set out to learn what it was like to be Thomas Moran painting in Yellowstone and to experience the grandeur of the park and try to capture that in a painting. Here, I will focus on painting and the sublime in the 19th century in the United States, share my experiment trying to capture the sublime in a painting, and then look at how our modern-day obsession with images changes our access to the feeling of the sublime.

During westward expansion in the nineteenth century, American artists created paintings as proof that the natural beauty and grandeur of the West actually existed. Many of their paintings illustrated places inhabited by western Native American peoples that had never been seen or experienced by people from the eastern United States or Europe. And those landscapes were very different from anything they had ever seen before. Magnificent new images of the West represented the potential of the new nation and differentiated the United States from what Americans thought of as old England and Europe.

In the 19th century, the Western United States also commonly represented God’s land and the immensity of God’s work. When explorers of that era saw the features of the area now known as Yellowstone National Park for the first time they felt they were “very near the presence of the Almighty,” as explorer Nathaniel P. Langford said after seeing the hot springs. While some believed the boiling pools and deep canyons of Yellowstone were the gates of Hell, others believed the area to be a fantasyland.

Thomas Moran was the first artist to paint the landscape of the not yet formed Yellowstone National Park. In 1871, Moran was hired along with the photographer William Henry Jackson, and others, to bring back images of a landscape that was indescribable. The trappers who gave reports of the scenery were not a reliable source because they tended to tell tall tales. This artistic team was charged to record the scenery in order to persuade the United States Congress that Yellowstone’s wonders were real, and to convince Congress to establish the area as a national park. Moran made watercolor sketches while in the area and when he got back to his home in New Jersey, he combined the sketches to make incredible, skillful, panoramic views of the geological features of the Yellowstone area. This painting must have been especially overwhelming to see in 1872 because such landscapes had never been seen before and Moran’s talent as a painter heightened the drama. Jackson’s photographs were delivered to Congress, along with Moran’s paintings, as proof that such landscapes did exist. In 1872, Yellowstone, with its geographical features, such as geysers, canyons, and hot springs, became the first National Park in the world. Moran was able to portray the grand, unseen, magical land in a way that elicited a feeling of the sublime to the Congressmen of the United States.

This summer I visited Yellowstone and realized that I was on the trail of Thomas Moran. I saw many scenes that looked familiar from reproductions I had studied. The rangers spoke of him often, credited the park to him and there was a small museum and movie about him. As I toured Yellowstone I thought about how Thomas Moran must have felt to be there. It made me understand the context in which he painted and how frightening it must have been for him to paint this scenery, virtually alone, with the threat of wild animals, accidents and fatal navigational errors. There was the added possibility of facing the wrath of society for painting a place that some believed, because of the boiling pools and deep canyons, were the gates of Hell. While traveling in Yellowstone, I discovered that the landscape is overwhelming and awe-inspiring: the contrast of the bright, blinding sun and the cold blue, misty tall mountains on the horizon; the pools of boiling cyan water bubbling up from caverns in the earth next to pools of water with orange bacteria and bleached, dead trees scattered around from the many forest fires that burn in the park; huge waterfalls running over high cliffs plunging into canyons, with walls of reds and yellows and oranges. Not to mention the geysers, some constantly spewing water, and Old Faithful erupting every 90 minutes. I felt awe-struck when looking at the geographical features of the park. The mountains and canyons are so high that they made me feel small and insignificant. I took pictures to show people back home, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t take a photo that captured the grandeur of what I saw. Every photo looked small, insignificant, flat, and cropped.

I wondered if it was possible to capture the awe of this place in a painting when I got home. I decided to make a painting of the lower falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and made a watercolor sketch from Artist’s Point, rumored to be the place where Thomas Moran painted “The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.” I discovered from a park ranger that he used many views and sketches to make his final oil painting of the area, which gives the feeling of the canyon. As I was painting, I had vertigo from the great height in which I was viewing the scene. It was beautiful but also frightening.

Working on a watercolor sketch of the lower falls, it was hard to capture the vastness, depth, atmosphere, beauty, and the feelings of awe and fear. Is this how Thomas Moran felt when he was working on his sketches for the “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone?” While I was working I realized that I was painting this wild, strange, vast, and amazing landscape with every modern convenience sitting on a bench in the shade sipping bottled water. I thought as I worked: “Something more must be added to my final oil painting (that I paint at home), in order to completely convey the emotions I feel when viewing this scene.” How could I make this painting feel sublime? What are the characteristics of Thomas Moran’s paintings that helped him elicit the sublime?

Moran painted something that had never been seen before, and he painted a landscape that was sublime itself. The unfamiliarity of the landscape made it easier for him at that time to evoke emotion from the viewers of the eastern United States who had never seen anything like it. Also, many people of that time were influenced by religious convention to think of nature as God’s awesome work. Paintings that call forth the sublime in the 19th century formulaically have dark shadows in the foreground and a very light background. Many paintings have dramatic extreme landscape elements such as mountains, large boulders, waterfalls, cliffs, deep valleys, and unusual colors. These paintings feature dramatic skies with ominous, low clouds and small figures that define the scale as overpowering.

Moran’s “Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone” is very large. It measures 7 feet by 12 feet. His landscapes in general emphasize certain elements of the scene. For example, he exaggerates rocks and geographical elements and combines views so that the viewer can be in the shoes of the painter and feel what it was like to be where he had been. A photograph or an exact copy cannot do this. In order to elicit the sublime, the artist must add something more in order to bring out the emotions that he or she wants to convey. The artist is making a translation of the scene so we know just how grand and awe inspiring it is.

One of the problems I faced in creating my painting was that I knew I had to make the canyon scene I chose original and new in order to make it sublime. When I arrived home from my trip, I got to work painting the canyon from my watercolor sketch. I tried many of the techniques I learned from looking at painters to evoke the sublime, such as layering darks and lights, depicting a dramatic scene and placing small figures in the foreground. I studied Thomas Moran’s watercolor sketches of Yellowstone, his painting of the Canyon and the work of Caspar David Friedrich to inspire me. As I worked, I thought about today, comparing our culture to that of the nineteenth century. If Thomas Moran made his painting today would it have the same impact as it did in 1872? Probably not because the Yellowstone landscape has been depicted in art so many times, in many types of media and the actual canyon is seen by millions of visitors every year. I had to make a painting that resonated with the viewers of today in order to evoke an emotional response.

Today, however, we are bombarded with images, static or moving, from television, computers, the Internet, movies, posters, billboards, magazines, newspapers, and our phones. Daily, hourly, minute by minute, we can see hundreds or more images of things, people or places. Paintings are no longer the primary means to convey images of the sublime. What we see becomes mundane and everyday. We are desensitized to the power of images by the sheer number that we are exposed to. Therefore artists or others who make images wanting to elicit the sublime may have to produce a work extra shocking, exotic, or extreme. Damien Hierst actually takes nature (a shark, butterfly wings) and uses it in his work instead of just an image from nature. His “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,” where he exhibits a preserved tiger shark in a tank filled with formaldehyde, and his “For the Love of God,” in which he arranges dead butterflies to make the image of a stained-glass window, illustrate the shock factor needed to evoke a modern day viewer’s emotions.

In addition, the images that move or shock us may have fewer roots in reality and more in man-made and computer-generated images. For example, in the movie Inception, there is a scene where the street peels off the earth, rears up and curves toward the viewer. It makes us fearful because it looks dangerous and makes us afraid of being in such a situation even though we are not actually there. We are also amazed by the image because it is so fresh and new. Finally, we don’t just passively observe images today, we interact with them. Our culture pressures us to be more like some images, to change ourselves to fit an ideal. Think of depictions of women’s bodies, in media and advertisements, where everything is airbrushed and altered to make the model look thinner, taller, and have perfect, flawless skin. We don’t ask ourselves whether the image is real; we wonder how we can make ourselves into that idealistic image.

Through my research about paintings and images that evoke the sublime, and painting my own work, I realized that what a person feels about an image is influenced by culture and ultimately relies on the viewer’s interaction with the image and their experiences. An image or painting that would be sublime to one person may not be to another. An image that is sublime to an era or culture may not be significant in another. When I stood at the edge of the actual Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, I realized that no image of it could capture all the emotion I felt while standing before it. There in the fantastic, awe-inspiring park, I did not have cell phone or Internet service; there were no billboards or bus posters, no flashy advertisements. I was alone and small and insignificant in this huge wild park where I could feel the power of nature. Perhaps in order to feel the sublime, we must unplug and limit the media, television, and ads that are desensitizing us, so we can open up and truly experience what is simply in front of us.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer and artist Eleanor is inspired by 19th century painter Thomas Moran to convey the awesome (and sometimes terrifying) power of nature.

Awe, Nature, and Fear

Humans have always searched for the elusive epitome of beauty.

It has evolved over time, and continues to express itself in new forms. There are many kinds of beauty, and many aspects. There is beauty for the eyes, the ears, the tongue… but all these forms of beauty are unified by one thing which never changes and is present in all the variations: love.

Art is one of the most widely seen expressions of our ideals of beauty. When did art stop being “art?” Could a canvas painted in a single color be considered complete and beautiful? For example, Renaissance artists were redefining art with revolutionary levels of realism, focusing on very polished popular scenes, like those from the Bible or portraits of wealthy figures. Artists further stretched the concept of art, and moved to showing the plight of the working class. These paintings were gritty and unflattering, but found many admirers. Artists later experimented in minimalistic and abstract styles. Could a few simple geometric shapes be as meaningful or beautiful as a smoothly rendered portrait? With so many ideas of beauty and art — some of which directly contradict the philosophy of others — can there be such a thing as an “essence” when dealing with beauty in art?

In addition to art, the idea of beauty has undergone great changes in many other realms. We see advertisements for beauty products on television, in malls, and on billboards. The media advertises the idea of beauty to strive for. It tells women to be skinny, with flawless skin, and men to have six-pack abs. Bottled beauty, they say — put it on and you can achieve the ideal that’s advertised. Centuries ago, the ideal of the perfect body, immortalized in painting and sculpture, would be considered undesirable by many today.

Beauty is a breathing, changing thing that evolves within different cultures and societies. For example, the Kayan women of Burma wear steel coils around their necks, adding more rings as they age. While they view this practice as a sign of elegance and beauty, others might find it frightening. The epitome of beauty varies from country to country, from group to group, from person to person.

Aside from the pleasure of the eyes, we seek beauty for all our senses. Music has many genres, each one unique. My mother can’t get behind the idea of dubstep, but it has many fans who swear by it! The diverse genres of music are an example of how the condition of one group of people can affect what they create and consider beautiful. Hip-hop was formed from the social and economic turmoil of the 1970s in New York City. One of the ways people dealt with such turbulence was by creating music as an outlet for the strife in their lives. Some define beauty as being the marriage of harmony and variety. Music, with all its variation but intrinsic unity, represents that concept.

Blind people can experience beauty as well. They find it in forms that are available to them, such as smell, taste, and sound. In a recent interview, a blind man said that he is attracted to a person by their personality or their smell, relying on his other senses to make up for the lack of sight. Humans can find beauty in unique places according to their physicality and conditioning. I believe it is our nature to seek beauty, just as a plant grows towards light.

However, it does seem that beauty is relative. It is linked to our perception of an event or thing, and therefore its epitome is different for each individual. Stendhal famously defined beauty as “the promise of happiness.” But even though beauty is relative, does it have an essence?

For this I turn to love. Love and beauty are closely related. When we see something that appeals to us, we appreciate it and label that experience as “beautiful.” By this logic, the phrase, “drawn to beauty,” is redundant, for beauty by definition labels something we’ve liked or been drawn to. There are many things we appreciate in the world. For me it can be the sound of birds, a good book, tasty food, an engaging thought. But, the highest kind of acknowledgement or appreciation is love. And therefore, it is the essence of beauty. It is when we love something that we see the beauty in it. Call it a bias, but reality as we see it, is always biased. We feel through the faulty instruments of our senses, and filter experiences into boxes of “beautiful” and “ugly.” These boxes are shaped by biases we form through our lifetime. A mother might have a child who is thought to be ugly and useless in all respects, but the mother will still see her child as beautiful. That is because she loves him. Love is the essence of beauty.

Modern art is an example of how love influences our conception of beauty. I went to the Museum of Modern Art recently and saw a lot of, in my view, seemingly unexceptional paintings. Some were plain canvases or jumbles of abstract shapes; these perhaps had exceptional value to their creators but not to my eye. These pieces were perhaps beautiful to the person who created them and to others who viewed them, but to me it looked just like what it was — a few shapes on a canvas. That is so with all art. Paintings are two dimensional; they are simply surfaces with different shapes and colors applied. Yet, when we see a painting of a flower, we love that painting, for we love flowers. We find that particular assortment of shapes and colors on a flat surface appealing because of love.

The world is full of beauty and wonder. There are always new things to experience: sounds, smells, sights. There are numerous ideas of beauty in numerous cultures and traditions. Beauty can change according to the conditions of a person, a group of people, or a society, and is truly in the eye of the beholder. But even though beauty is so varied, there is a thread of unity that connects all these ideas. Love is the connecting factor, for where there is love, we find beauty.

In a KidSpirit Big Question response, teen writer Nimai investigates why there's so much variety in what we consider beautiful — and why love lies at the heart of all of it.

What is the Essence of Beauty?

Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry by Stacy Malkan is a non-fiction book dedicated to exposing the chemicals used in beauty products and other chemically-based products.

The author is the co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which tries to convince big cosmetic corporations to become more health and safety oriented. She is considered an expert in the field of chemical studies and wrote the book in order to raise awareness about harmful substances used in beauty products. I think this book is intended for people of all ages who want to begin to understand exactly what is in their products, and whether they want it there or not.

The majority of the book spends its time pointing out the harmful chemicals in many beauty products. There is a long compilation of facts meant to persuade the reader of being wary of anything from wooden cupboards to nail polish, because of the toxic chemicals used in production and in the finished products. It offers few solutions to these problems, and only briefly analyzes current beauty topics, such as the way modern women feel about their bodies, and how the media influences these feelings. The book would be better suited to a shorter environmental article as the way it is written offers no solutions to avoid dangerous products such as pesticides. Methods or solutions on how to avoid dangerous products should have been included in the book, as it talks a lot about how harmful chemicals are for people.

The book even states outright: “Naturally, everyone wants the quick fix, the easy shopping list. But unfortunately, it doesn’t exist.” Although this book does offer some difficult and time-consuming ways to avoid chemicals, like finding the ingredients in your products and entering them to an online database, there is no quick or easy way for a person to learn if a product is safe or not.

Although I think the subjects touched on in this book are accurate, such as we should take action against cosmetic companies, I feel as though they are repeated too often. While I agree with those points, I wish there were more. Many of the examples of groups in this book are inspiring, like a group of mothers called MOMS, fighting to keep harmful chemicals out of their breast milk by writing letters, protesting and boycotting several products. It made me really want to protest as well.

The author spent about 60% of the book discussing toxic cosmetics. She also revealed toxins in wood products and foods like chicken, pork, and soda. However, the book was advertised as being about cosmetics and beauty products. If the author wished for it to be about toxins in general, she should have described it differently. I don’t see anything wrong with discussing these topics; I just was slightly misled by the title.

Culturally, there are problems with how we perceive beauty and use makeup, but they were discussed only very briefly in a section about skin whiteners in China and other countries. The author reveals the dangerous toxins in these, the companies that makes them, and why women want paler skin. There is also the connection to how African American women have a higher rate of breast cancer, which may be linked to hair products and pomades they are more likely to use. As a reader I found these to be the most interesting and best chapters to read because this really is a worldwide issue. However, I feel as though it was slightly glossed over, and I wish she had spent more time on it.

The positive side of Not Just a Pretty Face is that it really does show the problems within the beauty industry. However, without offering a solution, the book feels slightly depressing. I understand that the author may be using this as a tactic to raise awareness of the problem and to encourage others to investigate it. But, for me, a child without a degree in chemistry or the ability to solve this puzzle, it raised a lot of anxiety. It made me feel as though I have no control over what enters my body, and no power to change that. The author did briefly examine the possibility of green cosmetics, which involves removing toxins from certain products, and certain eco-friendly companies, like Tom’s of Maine, the toothpaste company. Unfortunately, it seems the cosmetics industry is just too large a giant to be taken down. Even the author seemed hopeless, saying, “My head is spinning. I feel like Alice who fell down the rabbit hole.”

In the last chapter, there are a dozen bullet points, such as: “Use your nose” and “Go natural.” These are good points, but given the way the author describes the problem, the solution should have had been given a lot more depth. It is an important topic because there is much evidence showing that chemicals and pesticides are harmful to humans and the environment, and that many diseases could be prevented if we created an open debate about what products should and should not enter our bodies. While I think the book was well-meaning and had a good central idea, the author could have found solutions to better suit the needs of the average person hoping to avoid toxic chemicals.

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer Grace offers her assessment of Stacy Malkan's "Not Just a Pretty Face," about the chemicals used in cosmetics products.

Living in a Chemical World

One beautiful Friday afternoon while my brother was practicing violin with my mom, and the radio was blasting NPR, I sat myself down with a box of cookies and a Do-Not-Disturb sign on the door and prepared to watch Cave of Forgotten Dreams, directed and narrated by Werner Herzog, and produced by Eric Nelson and Adrienne Cuiffo.

All I knew about the documentary was that it was a French movie about caves. As you can imagine, I was not very excited to watch a movie about caves no matter how good people said it was. So as I began to watch I had pretty much no idea what was in store for me.

The movie opens to a string of melodic “ah”s as the camera swoops over the beautiful countryside around the Ardèche River in the south of France. As you zoom in to a narrow path on a cliff face on one side of the river the “ah”s end and the voice of Werner Herzog permeates the scene. You watch on and learn how on that very path three speleologists (people who study caves) led by Jean-Marie Chauvet were about to make history. The three speleologists on that day in 1994 were looking for drafts of air coming from inside the rock face that would signify the existence of a cave. The three found what they were looking for and eventually squeezed down a narrow shaft into one of the most important discoveries about human history ever made.

The narrative starts with Herzog explaining some of the history of the cave. He tells you how the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc, discovered in 1994 and named after its discoverer, had been trapped by a rock slide that perfectly preserved it for tens of thousands of years before its discovery. And how the Chauvet cave contains the oldest cave paintings known to man, approximately 32,000 years older than any other cave painting. In the film, however, Herzog rambles on about the countryside and other natural formations in the area, instead of staying true to the theme of the movie which is the cave. Also, when the movie switches to the inside of the cave, Herzog introduces a sense of urgency – based on having a limited time in the cave – that is contradicted by the seemingly long time they spent in the cave.

The cave is breathtaking with pure white stalactites and stalagmites and has a sort of ethereal feel to it. But the movie is not about the beauty of the cave, it is about the paintings on the wall. The cave paintings occupy a large portion of the 1,300 foot long cave and they range from intricate and beautiful paintings of horses, bears, and mammoths, to simple handprints on a wall. The cave is presented well, with sweeping flashlights illuminating the paintings and a lot of interesting commentary by archeologists who have been allowed to enter the cave with the movie. There are shots of just the paintings so you really feel like you get to know them. The whole encounter is intimate.

One of the most striking things about the paintings is how beautiful they are. The paintings seem to move along the curves of the wall along with the flashlights, and prehistoric man has added some visual nuances to make them appear to be running or dancing; sweeping legs, the manes of horses streaming out from behind their bodies. The utilization of some of the curves in the wall help the animals depicted almost come to life. Although the paintings are not beautiful in the same way as a rose or a stained glass window, there is something awesome about them in that you know that those paintings are the source of all the art we know today. I wonder sometimes whether the prehistoric men and women who made those paintings knew what an impact they would have on a society that would exist tens of thousands of years after their time.

Throughout the first half of the movie you follow the team as they look through the cave, analyzing the paintings, the skeletons on the floor of the cave, and the cave itself. The work by the team was interesting and informative, although the film could have described more of the research being done. During the second half of the movie I began to catch myself drifting off. It went on a bunch of different tangents, some barely relevant. They even interviewed the former president of the French perfume society who was apparently trying to find new caves by smell.

Although the cave and paintings were beautiful, and the movie was full of funky, psychedelic music, I felt the movie left something to be desired. I was left with the feeling that I had not really learned that much about the history, and the research being done on the Chauvet cave. Maybe that was because the topic was so extensive or because people don’t know that much about it, but I felt like the movie had too many brief scenes that weren’t explained in depth (with the exception of those actually filmed inside the cave), and it also had an odd metaphor about albino crocodiles at the end which either went way over my head or just didn’t make sense.

Although I didn’t love Cave of Forgotten Dreams, I think some people definitely would. I was watching the movie expecting a lot of information about the cave, but people who are interested more simply in seeing the paintings in the cave and getting a taste of prehistoric life in general will enjoy Cave of Forgotten Dreams. It is a good movie for children of any age and especially those interested in art or prehistoric life.

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer William review Werner Herzog's documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," about some of the earliest-known illustrations in human history.

A Review of Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Ugliness is a fascinating concept. For me, there’s one question that pops into my mind when I think about it: what makes us view a certain object as ugly?

Perhaps it’s something to do with our evolutionary instincts; animal and human waste, for example, is generally ugly, both visually and in odor. Could this be a safeguard implemented by our body so that we don’t eat it? But that wouldn’t explain why there are objects that don’t pose a risk to our health that we view as ugly. Does it have to do with symmetry? Or color balance? Probably, but with every criteria for ugliness you think of, there are a host of exceptions that present themselves. Could it be partly random? Perhaps. And of course, our judgment of beauty and ugliness is subject to individual taste, which serves only to complicate things further.

When I began reading Stephen Bayley’s Ugly: The Aesthetics of Everything, I was excited to see what his answer to this question would be. Stephen Bayley is an award-winning British design critic. He’s written a host of books about style and design, has lectured at many universities, and curated several exhibitions at various museums. Ugly, his latest book, is an exploration of the concept of ugliness. Tom Wolfe said of Bayley, “I don’t know anybody with more interesting observations about style, taste and contemporary design.” He has written for a plethora of publications, and served as a design consultant to many different groups, including Ford, Coca-Cola, and BMW. Given how much he must have interacted with ugliness in his professional life, I couldn’t wait to see what his response to the seriously perplexing question of what exactly constitutes ugliness.

I was surprised, then, on finishing the book, to find that he hadn’t really tried to answer the question at all. He had written about several answers various historical persons and cultures had subscribed to – including the Shakers’ beliefs that ugliness lay in the unnecessary and useless and Gustav Pazaurek’s Principles of Ugliness – but with obvious flaws: they were all thoroughly unconvincing, and none of them were at all modern.

The fact that Bayley didn’t give an answer to this question (something that I think he was aware of, given that on multiple occasions he would acknowledge the lack of a definition for ugly, with phrases like “whatever ugly might mean”), does not lead me to the conclusion that the book failed to do what it set out to do. Rather, I think that Bayley did not make clear from the get-go what the book’s mission was, that ugliness is what the book would explain, and what it would leave unanswered. Bayley did not attempt to probe the issue of what ugliness is, philosophically. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t a bit disappointed with this.

What Bayley did achieve, however, was a fascinating narrative of the historical evolution of the West’s attitude towards ugliness. He discusses everything from how the industrial revolution affected our ideas of ugliness, to the nineteenth century debate over whether or not the bicycle stands for everything that is ugly or everything that is beautiful. He talks about the role ugliness plays in advertising, the question of whether instruments of death like guns or bombs are ugly, and the different prominent opinions on kitsch (often cheap or sentimental decorative art). At one point, Bayley pokes fun at an obscure 1959 book called The History of the Concrete Roofing Tile: Its Origin and Development in Germany, and he is equally good at uncovering unexpected details in the history of ugliness, as when discussing the glass paperweight craze, or the relationship between Jesus and landfills. The reader is left with a wealth of information about a host of things he never thought worthy of attention.

Any review of the book would be woefully incomplete without a mention of the book’s hundreds of illustrations. Despite its name, the book is a visual treat, with fascinating photographs of everything from the interior of a Japanese McDonalds to the London’s Ugly Modeling Agency of 1969. The book is also rich with historical paintings; there’s a whole art gallery inside it. These illustrations are essential to the book. How dry would discussing the implications of John Constable’s Windmill Among Houses and Rainbow be without seeing the painting itself?

At the end of Bayley’s preface, he says, “I hope when you look and read Ugly you’ll begin to wonder exactly why we prefer the Boboli Gardens to the hellscape of Gehenna….” Well, if that was his mission, he certainly succeeded. Having been confronted with a book’s worth of examples of things that people have considered beautiful and ugly, the reader will certainly wonder why. But he will be left to answer that question himself.

It is incredibly hard, perhaps impossible, to isolate ugliness. There was not a single illustration in the entire book – not the painting of the man covered in oozing warts from ergotism, not the “ugliest bartender in the world,” not Lord Voldemort, that I can look at, point to, and say, “There. That’s ugly.” You try it yourself. Is there anything that when you stare at it for long enough, it doesn’t turn – dare I use the word – beautiful? I haven’t found that object for myself yet.

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer Akash shares his thoughts on Stephen Bayley's "Ugly: The Aesthetics of Everything," a cultural survey of the concept of ugliness.

Ugly: A Review

The Times of India’s Newspaper in Education (NIE) journalism internship for aspiring student writers in grades 8 to 12 transformed me as a writer when I attended this two-week internship in June 2010.

I was in 9th grade and along with 36 other shortlisted students from all over Delhi, I had the opportunity to be a part of an editorial board at Times NIE, where we got the chance to design our very own youth newspaper. We were selected on the basis of a test that examined our writing skills. Little did I know that my dream of interning for this prestigious newspaper would come true!

I stepped into the mesmerizing world of creative writing at age seven. Writing always takes me to another world, a world entirely mine, where I let my ideas find newer vistas. The internship gave me a glimpse into the world of journalism. Under the guidance of the eminent editors of Times NIE, my skills were sculpted and I was able to pursue my ongoing passion for writing.

We were divided into groups of four and began constructing the layout and framework for our newspaper. The experience of working in a group involved joint efforts to frame our ideas. The fun part was that apart from writing an individual article, we also got the chance to write one story together. Each of us suggested themes for the various articles and collaborated on the ideas. We widened our imaginations and spawned great ideas for titles of our articles, such as: “Do ghosts really exist?” “Creatures beyond the realm of reality.” “Blood diamond and its dark luster.”

Once we decided on those, we were introduced to the various facets of journalism. On the first day, we were given a session on reporting. The following days involved interesting sessions on sub-editing, critical reviews, news features, commentaries, and page design. We finally received the fruits of our labor: print copies of our newspaper. It looked fabulous. It felt like we all had accomplished a herculean task!

After that, we went to the Times of India printing press offices in Sahibabad, Uttar Pradesh, an industrial hub 15 miles north of New Delhi. What a lovely day it was. We actually witnessed the entire printing process; seeing the various mammoth machines and how quick the entire process was as the work of media is around the clock. The people there also explained the mechanics of those huge printing machines in detail. We gained oodles of knowledge.

The true essence of any creative collaboration is teamwork. It is an enriching experience to exchange ideas and give feedback to one another, or to work together on the same feature, fusing together everyone’s perspective. Tackling the big questions together and collaborating on articles formed our perfect youth newspaper. Interacting with senior students in the creative process gave me a broad scope of improvements, which helped me recognize my shortfalls as a writer, too. I understood the spirit of leadership and teamwork as vital life virtues.

Even after the internship, I remained in touch with the Editorial Board. They contacted me regularly to contribute articles to the Times NIE. I wrote an article about GenY, a limerick on Harry Potter, and book and movie reviews. The feeling of being published in a newspaper that is distributed to schools all over India is indeed lovely. These were undoubtedly some of the most cherished moments of my life. I wish I could relive those internship days: the great friends I made, the amiable NIE editorial team, the fun we had! The knowledge I gained there is enough for a lifetime.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Tanmaya describes a fun, collaborative journalism internship at the Times of India that reaffirmed her passion for writing.

Creative Bliss

Alarmed by an unfamiliar noise, I took my eyes off the path beneath my feet just in time to see a little green bird take off in front of me. I rushed after it, my camera ready, hoping to capture its unique splendor.

My eyes focused on the bird as it darted off to the right. After it had disappeared from sight, my eyes readjusted. The beauty of what lay before me was striking: from the edge of the trail, I was presented with a complete image of the Kenyan landscape. The lush forests of Mt. Kenya rushed down the mountain and blended with the flourishing farmland, which in the distance reached the wide-open plains of the savanna. In this moment, the vast beauty of the country overwhelmed me.

My trip to Kenya was not a leisurely sequence of five-star safari camps found in travel journals, rather I had come to Kenya as an assistant teacher working in a rural primary school, and volunteering at the nearby orphanage which meant that I kept a busy schedule. Although there was a lot of work to be done, I was pleased to take a day off to experience what Kenya had to offer by spending the day hiking Mt. Kenya.

I took a moment to explore the other details that I had been overlooking as my mind wandered from my to-do list to my calendar and back. Once I had escaped from my unconscious distractions, I was awed by what I found: colobus monkeys hiding behind the vines of an African oak, leopard tracks trailing off into the brush, and an army of siafu ants scurrying to find shelter from the approaching storm. Off in the distance I heard the grunting of a water buffalo that drowned out the chirps of the birds that were gathering seeds from an African rosewood.

I never cease to be astounded by the exquisite beauty in our world that goes unnoticed as daily concerns consume our lives. Whether it be rushing from the car to front door and failing to admire the fresh spring day, or that moment of panic when I realized how much time the hike had taken, I regularly find that my life revolves around the need for expediency. We live in a world in which Wikipedia and YouTube have become substitutes for learning through experience ourselves. It only takes a small but significant moment to remind us that there is a world around us that operates outside the sphere of technology, work, and efficiency. In these moments, I remember that we are all part of a greater picture. As a result, those daily worries become mere trivialities. On that hike, I found satisfaction in the knowledge that the drifting thoughts and daily concerns that previously divided us had faded as we developed an appreciation for the same view that stood before each of us. In that moment none of us thought about the college essay we had to write, or the flights home that we had to check in to that night.

As modern conveniences become more accessible, the importance we place on expediency distracts us from the richness of a world around us that operates at a different pace. I have found the most remarkable moments in my life to be those in which I am able to take a step back from the chaos that is my day-to-day life, and absorb the natural wonders of the earth. When I am overwhelmed by daily stresses, I think back to those birds, darting in and out of the canopy of trees, adding color and life to an already vibrant landscape. Remembering that moment, I remind myself of how fortunate I am to live in such a beautiful place, and my worries are slightly diminished. Those moments have served as a source of comfort to me over the years as the demands and pressures of modern society continue to build and weigh upon my shoulders.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Caroline witnesses the inspiring natural beauty of Kenya and resolves to step back from the hectic pace of everyday life.

Kenya Calling

I stand there, at the top of the world, and look down through the glass below me. It’s raining, of course.

Typical London weather. The rain has been relentless since the day I arrived. Nevertheless, the view is still phenomenal. Big Ben stands majestically. A red double-decker bus provides a pop of color against the grey sky. You can see the entire city; you can see everything for miles and miles.

I didn’t want to go on The London Eye; I’ve been scared of heights for as long as I can remember. Now I am glad I did, the view alone is well worth facing my fears. Being so high up makes me feel important, all-powerful. Yet it also makes me feel so miniscule, so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. As we start heading back down on the other side, two realizations strike me at once. One, my fear of heights is at least temporarily gone. And two, I want to go back up again.

I allow myself to savor the moment a little while longer. To enjoy the experience of being somewhere entirely new. I try not to think about the other fears in the back of my head, taunting me to face them. I am nervous about learning photography, which is a bit ironic considering I’m in London because of a photography program. The fear had sunk its teeth into my consciousness the first day when I realized photography was a lot harder than I had originally thought, and that everyone else was way ahead in terms of experience. And then there was that other fear, the one that formed when I was packing and realized I knew nothing about the people I was traveling with. I was going to a city I barely remembered with strangers. Suddenly, everything that could go right just vanished, replaced with the insistent pounding of everything I was sure was going to go wrong. These two fears were the most persistent, like my fear of heights, in that they prevented me from experiences I could have otherwise enjoyed. And they seemed insurmountable, I told myself I couldn’t face them and I did not want to. I was tempted to just give up and do what I used to do with my fear of heights: avoid situations where I had to confront it.

I take out my camera, adjust the shutter speed and the aperture, and start shooting pictures. The photography workshop is a 12-day program for high school students. Before the trip, I didn’t know a lot about photography. I applied because the program was intended for all skill levels. Despite this, on my first day I felt like I was drowning. Drowning in a sea of technical terms, blurry and overexposed pictures, cryptic buttons on my camera, and the London rain, which never seemed to stop.

Over the course of the trip, one of my fears would solve itself. I got to know the other people in the program easily. In just a few days, I felt like I had known everyone forever. Seven-hour plane rides, shared jet lag, and living in the same dorms at the University of London will do that to people. They got to know everything about me, from my love of Starbucks (it’s even better in England), to how long it takes me to wake up in the morning (quite a while). We bonded over painting our nails in the rooms at night, finding our “real” laughs, and getting lost on the tube (London’s Underground) for a scary five minutes.

My fear of learning photography was conquered through experience. As the days went on, my photography vastly improved. While I still wasn’t as good as many of my friends, I liked the pictures I took, and I grew to love the many nuances of photography. One of the nice things about having talented friends is that they help you improve your pictures.

In London I was put into situations where I had no choice but to dive headfirst into what I was most worried about. But instead of my trip being a gigantic disaster, I had three amazing experiences. I faced my fear of heights, and got to see a unique perspective of London from 443 feet in the air. I learned how to use a DSLR camera, and found a new hobby in photography. I made 27 friends who live around the world, everywhere from Japan to Bermuda. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t taken a risk, and went to London despite my fears. And the experience of going there, and succeeding, has given me the confidence to take future risks, even though I know they may not work out. Now, I am willing to try them just because of the possibility that they will.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Rachel recounts her incredible experiences learning photography in London with other students from around the world.

Looking Through the Eye of London

Half asleep, we picked up a moving truck when I was just three. I’ve inner-tubed through an icy Oregon river. Before I could walk, I talked. I’ll never forget climbing the Great Wall, the huge steps and the fire in my legs. My grandma taught me about competition. We dug holes in search of Indian clay. And I’ll forever remember that rush of relief and excitement after winning for the first time. I’ve seen the Mona Lisa, tucked away behind glass, security guards, and hoards of people. I learned to swim. My lucky bracelet was stolen, twice. We won the debate and so we chose Ella, our cat from the local rescue shelter. We tried to fry an egg on the sidewalk. Only once, I found myself lost in a city too big to call home. I’ve skipped through aisle ten. I’ve cheered so loud I lost my voice. I’ve failed to learn another language but benefited from the experience. We laughed and laughed like recess would never end. I was never lonely with my sister by my side. I skipped a grade for a week. I’ve tiptoed in darkness, cautious of monsters. We went out to dinner for sushi. Forced onto a roller coaster, I cried so hard my eyes swelled shut. We danced in rain puddles. With the passage of the sun, we hid in forts. No school day elapsed unconquered. I cart wheeled all summer long and somewhere in between I grew up.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Caiseen narrates a waning childhood through a series of vivid and subtle snapshots.

Life Between the Lines

My bow glides around the tightly wound strings,

The sound is ample as I play the familiar melody,

With each note, I drift farther away from the reality that consumed me moments before.

The audience watches me, but I do not watch them.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Daya imagines herself surrounded by listeners as she performs on her violin.

In That Instant

I wrote to the moon once, it cried out to me
how painfully it stands alone in the dark.
The bits of clouds dream of being the stars,
with the light beaming through them.
The dandelions hiss as they lose themselves,
bewildered little books with unread pages,
streaming away in the mouth of the wind.
The rainbow aches to be touched,
to be felt, to be understood.
The earth’s revolutions and rotations showcase its struggle
to move on.
The stars are just little bits of the moon,
feeling abandoned and lost
in the forest of the sky.

Nature’s whimsical music pours from our heart,
from our emotions,
from our emptiness.
We belong,
we have power.

I wrote to the earth once,
it told me about how the planets
look down upon it,
they don’t see the life in it.
And I just told it,
that planets like these
live in our souls, too.

We are not victims.
We are not trapped.
We are an answer.
We are a reason.
We are from a universe who is struggling
Everyday,
with us,
we are all a part of the same painting,
but we still don’t accept each other’s different shades,
different strokes.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Niti discovers that the universe is lost and seeking to be found — just as human beings are.

The Soul of Nature

The mountains, their jagged peaks
shrouded in mist, loom high above
the checkerboard of emerald meadows
and forests like slumbering beasts.

Far below, people climb the rocky
backs of these colossal titans,
small and insignificant as insects
in this boundless world of nature.

The sun’s rays cut down, slicing
the crisp crystal air,
illuminating the great hulk
of the grey giants,
the kings of their realm.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Will envisions a mountain range as a forest of regal, sleeping beasts.

The Beasts

It scares me to think
That someday I will leave home.

That someday
I won’t dump my backpack on the bench as I come back from school
I won’t hear the bang my bag makes as it slumps onto the ground
Exhausted and glad to be back
Just like me

That someday
I won’t sit beside my sister as we do our homework
Relaxed
In quiet companionship

That someday
I won’t eat at the family dining table
The scratch still imprinted on it from when I was three
A reminder that
Some things
Never change

I am still a kid
I still like the same things I did

But life is different now.
And it scares me to think
That the world has changed
That I have changed

That someday soon
I’ll pack up my bags
Say farewell
Goodbye, dear home
I’m sorry
for all the marks and bruises I have caused you
I’m sorry
to be leaving you

I shudder
The idea scares me.
Goodbye home?
I’m not ready
I’m not prepared
Yet.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Caie dwells on the painful transience of young adulthood.

Not Yet

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Darius draws on forest fires to craft an austere, contemplative haiku about the cycles of death and rebirth.

Roots

Find something you love,
Find the place where worries leave,
Find where there are cheerful chirps and a shining light.

Use words that rhyme,
Be sure to keep in time
With your poem, and yourself.

Describe love, emotions, thoughtful experiences,
Or the rusty old gate outside the house.

Lose yourself in the words you write,
Become the message you teach –
Then you will be
What you seek.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Kacey offers poignant advice and inspiration on how to write a poem.

Crafting a Poet: Advice from the Internet

Love of beauty is taste,
Judging by its temptations.
Creation of beauty is art,
Everlasting through eternity.

Take a glance around you.
And value the beauty that isn’t momentary.
Refuse to linger on the brief fragrance of a rose
For its thorn will eventually be revealed.
Examine the fallen leaves on the withered ground.
Compare them to the depth of an ancient root.

Do not pity those untouched by charm,
Instead, take sorrow upon those delusional disguises.
Love of beauty might be appealing,
But beauty of love is eternal.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Ashley Liu entreats the reader to find beauty not in fleeting temptations but in the oldest and most enduring aspects of our world

Love of Beauty

The sharp clip clop of high heels on bricks

A teacher’s soothing voice broken by china

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Lulu conjures a wide range of sounds, from the subtle to the explosive, to represent the voices of important mentors.

The Voices of My Teachers

And I, a forlorn soul, got charmed by the magnificence

Her pristine beauty amazed me, I stood still

A divine being showed its benign presence

Held her head high, as she sang, dignified

God’s gift, a sweet voice, a symbol of purity

Coated in golden silk, feathers shimmering

High up in the skies, a beauty fluttering

A scenic sight yielded, wings emitting golden light

For a pleasant creature understood my plight

And brought about hope and blissfulness, evidently

Fulfilled her task — healing the depressed — she took flight

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Tanmaya finds herself filled with delight after a brief encounter with a swallow.

The Swallow

I was born and raised in Mumbai, India, a country full of different traditions and values.

India has a caste system with different classes in Hindu society: Gujratis, Kutchis, South Indians, Punjabis, and many more. Since each caste believes in a different god, India is adorned with many different beautiful temples. Each caste has its own set of rituals, beliefs, cuisines, colors, festivals– and there is so much variety. Variety like the colors in the sky; each color holds something fresh.

Today the caste hierarchy in India is disappearing, especially when it comes to celebrating festivals together and sharing cultures. That is what often astounds me. Each city has its own culture, its own cuisine, its own style. Everything is so different, yet every part of India shines with its own light. In every part of the country, people are not afraid to be proud of their culture. Living in Mumbai I have friends from all different cultures, all coming together and celebrating festivals.

One such festival is Holi, the festival of colors, the colors representing the arrival of spring. People of different religions come together and put color on each other. The color is usually a powder or paste, and it is smeared on the face and hair. Imagine many people doing this to each other! The powder is blown into the air and the whole atmosphere of the city smiles like a rainbow.

An old Indian story, which is also said to be one of the stories behind Holi, is of Prahlad and Holika. Holika was the sister of a demon king of the Asuras. But Prahlad, the demon king’s son, was a devotee of Lord Vishnu. The demon king became angry as he wanted his son to worship him. He challenged his son to sit in a burning pyre, on his aunt Holika’s lap, who was said to be wicked and have a power that would protect her from the fire’s harm. Prahlad prayed to Lord Vishnu to keep him safe and when the time came, Holika was burned to ashes, but Prahlad remained unharmed. Some say that Holika begged for forgiveness before her death and Prahlad told her that they would remember her every year on the day of Holi.

Ganesh Chathurthi, my favorite festival, is about bringing an idol of Lord Ganesha home and decorating it. Relatives, friends, and visitors come together at home to receive his blessings. This is done as we offer prasad, which are sweets, to Lord Ganesha. After this ritual, we offer these sweets to all our guests and this is how we then receive his blessings. What I like is the strength in our belief; we believe in god with all our hearts. As much as I wish I could take home his idol and decorate it, I never have to worry, because the whole city has millions of idols and decorations. During the festival just walking down the road is like being in a parade!

Gods and goddesses hold strong meaning in India, and there is depth to every festival as each is based on a real-life story. Within the history of India, and Indian mythology, there are various real-life stories and specific events that have taken place when a god came to the earth as a human.

One of the most inspiring festivals is Janmashtami, in honor of Lord Krishna. Men climb onto each other’s shoulders to make a human pyramid, and break a dahi handi, which is a pot of curd. This is a mud pot that is hung very, very high! Men create a human pyramid to break this pot and once they finally do, there is an uproar of clapping and excitement from the crowds. This event happens almost everywhere, all over the city. It is meaningful because, as a village child, Lord Krishna was very fond of curd and one day broke the pot. Janmashtami is a celebration of his life and is inspiring because it reminds us, when we are deep into our prayers, of our faith and love.

These festivals mean a great deal to me because there is so much worth celebrating in my culture: how strongly we believe in the light of our religion and how grateful we are to god. Each celebration has its own intricacies and differences, whether it be in clothing, food, music, or rituals. And all these differences, in culture, religion, people, make life so much more stimulating.

Each culture is like a star. If we connect these stars, what do we find? A constellation that guides us home.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Niti describes how the myriad festivals celebrated in India bring people from all backgrounds together.

Jewels of India

Beauty is most often associated with our sense of sight — but in our Beauty and the Senses issue, KidSpirit contributors venture far beyond the visual to explore beauty in travel and thought, in song and the sublime.

Beauty and the Senses Group Guide

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