Nature’s Imperfect Beauty

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.”

- Alice Walker

We are a part of nature—we may not identify our Selves with the animals, trees, plants, land, etc. the English language associates with nature. But, at the end of the day, we are just as much a part of nature as the imperfect, yet beautiful trees Alice Walker described, which means we are all still beautiful despite our imperfections.

It’s sometimes hard to feel beautiful, unique, successful, or special in today’s world–the constant comparisons to lives created for show on social media, society’s influence on how we should look, what we should do, and how we should think, and nonstop feedback from individuals we don’t even know warp how we view our Self.

Like nature, we are not perfect and in that imperfection we find that we actually are perfect–we just can’t see it. 

As I sat with Walker’s quote in meditation this morning, I wondered if we humans do bring about an imperfection in our Self by trying to be who we were not created to be. Do we become imperfect by not being our authentic Selves?

Trees don’t try to be anything other than a tree. 
Birds don’t try to be anything other than a bird.
Mountains don’t try to be anything other than a mountain.

So even though the trees, birds, and mountains are not perfect, they are perfect because they are what they were created to be.

Humans on the other hand, often try to be versions of their Selves that are not authentic. Instead of embracing our authentic Self, with all our “imperfections,” we strive for a fake perfect version of our Self, or a version others tell us we should be, which takes us away from our natural state of perfection, making us imperfect after all.

The path back to our natural state of perfection is to love our Selves—your true, authentic Self. That love can only be found internally, and if you are unable to find that self-love, connecting to your spirit, mind, and body and aligning them might lead you to understand who your authentic Self is, imperfections as all, and allow you to move back to your natural state of imperfectly perfect.

Like the contorted trees, you are part of nature and when you can find, live, and love your authentic Self you step into the beautiful version of your Self that completes the rest of us.

See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC