FOCUS | From the Editor
“THE PEACOCK’S TAIL!” EXCLAIMED CHARLES DARWIN. “There is some- thing that really makes me sick.”
Darwin was upset, explains scientist David Rothenberg in this special Winter 2010-2011 issue of PARABOLA, because his theory of natural selection couldn’t account for the flagrant beauty of the peacock’s tail. Indeed there is something about great beauty that confounds us and that can drive us to extremes. The beauty of Helen of Troy launched a thousand ships. The music of Mozart, the poetry of Keats, the paintings of Monet can transport us, and the night sky can hold us rapt with wonder.
We explore and celebrate beauty in many ways within these pages. In his essay “The Zeitgeist of Beauty,” historian Olivier Bernier surveys the wildly varying standards of beauty over the ages and across cultures, and asks whether there is any “true, unchanging, eternal beauty?” Other contributors answer this question with an exultant yes, such as Patrick Laude, who in his essay reveals beauty's connection to the sacred, or Gilla Nissan, who shares with us kabbalistic teachings on beauty in the realm of the divine.
What is beauty? Certainly not prettiness. As Joyce Kornblatt demonstrates in her essay “This Ruined House,” about the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, beauty can be found in the worn and the aged as well as the fresh and the young. Beauty can convey a profound depth and resonance, and in this issue we offer some striking examples of such beauty, from an astonishing portfolio by photographer Brian English to a set of new poems from the great Mary Oliver.
With an abundance of original essays, plus conversations with provocative philosopher Peter Kingsley and meditation teacher Gina Sharpe, as well as stories and folktales and an array of traditional and modern art, this issue of PARABOLA, we think, is itself a beauty. We hope you will agree.
—JEFF ZALESKI
