7 (More) Notes Towards Beauty

Another update from the Research Desk

Jun 14, 2025

This June, I’m sharing ‘Notes Towards Beauty’—fragments, quotes & musings on beauty paired with photography. These notes come from the reading and writing I’ve been doing for my MSc Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes (CWTP). My research investigates the experience of beauty in the therapeutic journey and specifically during CWTP interventions, that is, when writing therapeutically. Each week in June (and maybe beyond that), I’ll collect 7 notes and share them in a post for your thoughts. You can also follow daily on Notes. 💙

AI generated image of a women in a blue dress with long brown wavy hair writing at a typewriter. She is in a cottage by the sea and outside of the large windows you can see wild seas. — Prompted by me; created by AI.

Dear You—

Art is capable of making all disagreeables evaporate from their being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth.
— John Keats —

This morning, I’ve been reading about the mission of the Romantic poets who affirmed the power of poetry to convey the truth and beauty of the human condition and, by doing so, have guided, illuminated and healed us.

Geri Chavis (poetry therapist, psychologist and English professor) in her book Poetry and Story Therapy (1994, Jessica Kingsley Publishers) relates a story about a depressed John Stuart Mill who turned to the poets for help.

John Stuart Mill, Depression and Poetry

In his Autobiography, specifically in his chapter ‘A Crisis in My Mental History’, Mill writes that in poetry, especially in those poems which conveyed the “beauty and grandeur of Nature”, he found hope.

He refers specifically to Wordsworth’s poems:

What made Wordsworth’s poems a medicine for my state of mind, was that they expressed, not mere outward beauty, but states of feeling, and of thoughts coloured by feeling, under the excitement of beauty.

What if this letter were a real, handwritten letter, properly posted to you? Would you like that?

Beauty as Therapeutic Invitation

I love the possibility of the “excitement of beauty”. In my research project, I am exploring ways of opening up to beauty, of being excited by beauty and of writing beautifully. I have a sense that this is therapeutic, but I’m not yet sure of the underlying mechanism.

One thing I have noticed is that the possibility of beauty — in my writing, which I feel is a reflection of myself — makes me feel hopeful. I feel hopeful about my writing, about myself, and about my place in the world. There is hope that I can heal from everything that has troubled me and live beautifully as I move towards the final years of my life. I feel hopeful about this. And I believe in the possibility of this.

Hope

Hope is not just a feeling of optimism for a positive outcome. It is also a cognitive stance; a belief in the possibility of a positive outcome. (I need to read more about this). This cognitive stance must surely be important for mental wellbeing.

If we embark on a journey of personal and therapeutic development we do so with hope; an expectation that our pain and confusion might be healed and that we’ll be reborn with tools and a framework for sustaining and nourishing wellbeing even in the face of future difficulties (which we can be certain will come).

Keats as Poet-Healer

Chavis writes about Keats, too. I didn’t know or didn’t remember, but Keats was going to become a doctor. However, he chose the path of poetry instead. His mission was still to heal, but with words instead of medicine.

In a letter to his brothers, George and Tom, in 1817, Keats wrote:

The excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate from their being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth.

I’m not sure poetry can evaporate the disagreeable experiences we’ve lived but maybe poetry can give us something beautiful in addition to whatever is disagreeable or painful.

The Terrible and the Beautiful

At the StAnza Poetry Festival earlier this year, poet Nuala Watt was talking about grief and writing poetry.

About her experience and process she said:

You take a difficult experience and you make out of it a beautiful thing. Afterwards, you will still have the terrible experience but you will now also have the beautiful thing.

Chavis writes that “mental health and maturity are characterised by the ability to appreciate complexity”. The terrible and the beautiful can — and do — coexist in the world. Holding them together, and even containing them in a poem, is possibly one of the only ways to heal.

These Notes and my Research

I’m using these Substack Notes and this weekly roundup to briefly engage with my research on a daily basis and to practice writing about the research in an informal way. My dissertation (15,000 words) is due for submission at the end of September, and I am finding it scary to look at the big document. This practice feels nice and fun and confirms on a daily basis how much I love this research project.

Thank you for reading — send encouragement!

Notes Towards Beauty, #8-14

And here are this week’s ‘Notes Towards Beauty’. Click on them below to reveal the complete note; follow daily by clicking here: Notes.

Until my next letter,

Meet me in the comments section:

Thank you for reading. Do any of these notes resonate? How do you experience beauty? What is your relationship with beauty? Are some experiences of beauty more pleasing and healing that others? For example, beauty in nature versus beauty in individual appearances? What does beauty reveal for you? I’d love to know!