Tippett: It was actually in your book that I first realized, and I had never thought about this, that the root — the Greek root for the word “beauty” is related to the word for “calling”; to “kalon” and “kalein.”
O’Donohue: That’s right. That’s it exactly.
Tippett: That’s fascinating.
O’Donohue: It is, actually, and it means that, actually, in the presence of beauty, it’s not a neutral thing, but it’s actually calling you. And I feel that one could write a wonderful psychology just based on the notion of being called — being called to be yourself and called to transfigure what has hardened or got wounded within you. And it’s also, of course, the heart of creativity, this calling forth all the time, because, like in the work that I do, trying to write a few poems, you never write the same poem twice. You’re always at a new place, and then you’re suddenly surprised by where you get taken to.
On Being with Krista Tippett, John O’Donohue : The Inner Landscape of Beauty
Original Air Date : February 28, 2008
“Pleasure … can fortify us. The pleasure that is beauty, the beauty that is meaning, order, calm” (RS)
