Profound Memories and their Stories Part 4
July 23, 2025
Profound Memories and their Stories Part 4
To savor life’s beauty is to feed the soul. Experiences such as awe, affection, love, levity, excitement, friendship, closeness, serendipity, intimacy, compassion, and joy, anchor in our soul, all the wonderful and beautiful aspects of life. We have access to these; it’s a matter of being sensitive to them. The overwhelming majority of us absorb enough of these wonderful things to make our lives worthwhile and to enjoy life. But sadly, for some of us, because of trauma, the beautiful cannot outweigh the ugly.
Many of us experience so much of the beautiful that we live life to its fullest and never want to leave it. I am reminded of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “God’s World,” which expresses love for the glory and beauty of nature.
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! Thy mists, that roll and rise! Thy woods, this autumn day,
that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this:
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear,
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year; My soul is all but out of me,—let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem about such beauty was written in her adulthood, yet chances are her early life experiences, and her earliest caretakers first imbued and inspired her with the abilities to see and absorb that beauty. To me, it seems that beauty was a huge force in her life, and that possibly her awareness of it was so strong that it outweighed her traumatic experiences. Millay won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 for a collection of poems that included “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver,” which is about the profound and infinite love of a mother for her child.
In our infancy, our primary caretakers lay the foundation for receiving life’s wonderful and beautiful things. The infant learns to trust their closest attachments and that their caretakers will supply the sweetness, communication, intimacy, affection, joy, closeness, stimulation, and enough gratification to reinforce their existence. This includes the ability to feel joy. Once this foundation is laid, other people in our lives build on it, and then we learn to make these experiences for ourselves. I recall the exact time my infant son first expressed joy to me. Ben lay on his back on the sofa. Right beside him, I made faces while tickling him. When the smile broke and then the laughter, my heart sang. I will never forget that smile.
Scientific studies by Rene Spitz as early as the 1940s show that, without the primary caretaker who gives reinforcement, joy, affection, encouragement, and attachment, the human infant is depressed, and if circumstances continue, they fail to thrive and develop. If left without an original significant attachment for more than three months, even if the caretaker returns, the depression will be irreversible, and at least one in three of those babies will die. These studies attest to the vital nature of those who introduce us to and reinforce our mental, physical, and emotional abilities to receive and savor all the goodness of life.
Spiritual practice: Consider the following question for reflection and journaling: What are some of your first memories of joy, wonder, awe, and beauty? How have you built on these? How have these first memories informed your spiritual life?
Dear God,
I am so thankful for the wonder and beauty of your world. And for those first beautiful experiences my mother and father showed me. They loved me into life—into being. Amen
