"Beauty Is a Doorway Into the Mystery of Life"
Beauty Q & A With Claire Coenen, whose exquisite poetry collection explores grief, mental illness, and spiritual searching--and how beauty percolates even during the dark times.
Through Oct 9—that’s TODAY—get 30% off a paid subscription FOREVER. Includes discounts on coaching and other offerings, which at some point I WILL get around to cooking up in my caldron over here. XO
Through Oct 9—that’s TODAY—get 30% off a paid subscription FOREVER. Includes discounts on coaching and other offerings, which I will be cooking up in my caldron soon. XO
Dear Beautiful Friends,
I have a special Beauty Hunter Q&A for you, with Claire Coenen. Her recent poetry collection, The Beautiful Keeps Breathing (Kelsay Books) is an artful, moving, exquisite work on the “indestructible truth of beauty” during life’s struggles and dark times.
Before we get to the Q&A, watch & listen to Claire reading the first poem from her book, “More Beautiful.”
Q: How do you experience beauty (or return to it) during the darker passages of life?
Claire: Beauty is a doorway into the mystery of life. During the darker passages, remembering that life is so much wilder and vaster and incomprehensible than I can imagine helps me. Connecting with the beauty in the natural world especially reminds me that there are cycles of life. Darkness, disintegration, and death are inevitable in nature and in the lives of every human. Remembering this helps me feel less like a victim when I’m experiencing something painful.
There is tremendous suffering in the world and there is tremendous beauty in the world. Spending time outside, lighting candles, collaging, reading poetry, and listening to a lot of music are some of the practices that return me to the indestructible truth of beauty.
Q: In your acknowledgment page you thank “the invisible, creative presence of diving beauty that breathes through all of us and consistently sustains and surprises me.” How did you come to see beauty this way?
I’m glad this connected with you! Since I can remember, the beauty in the world has always offered me a window into the sacred. These days, beauty in the world reminds me that there is something more compelling and dependable than my ego. I love John O’Donohue’s book Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, and this book has really impacted how I reflect on beauty. O’Donohue writes:
“We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul.”
I feel enormous gratitude for that experience of the Beautiful presence in my life, and I wanted to capture that gratitude in the acknowledgement section and throughout my book.
Q: Some might say that putting beauty at the center of one’s life is a privilege, “nice if you can do it.” What’s your take on this?
I understand that when someone is trying to survive in the face of awful violence or poverty, it is offensive and ridiculous to say, “Just look for the beauty around you!” We must have a certain level of physical safety in order to intentionally attend to beauty around us. That said, I believe the world would be a safer, more stable place if we recognized and drew inspiration from the inherent beauty found in the natural world, all forms of art, and the people around us. The soul is hungry for beauty, so centering beauty in our lives is a way of centering the soul.
“Beauty is a doorway into the mystery of life. During the darker passages, remembering that life is so much wilder and vaster and incomprehensible than I can imagine helps me.”
How did your poetry collection come about?
The Beautiful Keeps Breathing did not begin as a poetry collection. As a divinity school student in 2016, I had the wonderful opportunity to write a spiritual memoir for my master's thesis. In the chapters of this manuscript, which I titled The Beautiful Keeps Breathing, I dove into my past experiences with grief, mental illness, and spiritual searching. I briefly considered publishing it as a memoir, but it wasn't ready to be in the world. After divinity school, I continued to write and devoted myself to writing and studying poetry.
In the spring of 2023, I connected with James Crews, a poet and teacher I respect. James helped me refine my poems and consolidate the writing I'd done over the past several years into a full collection of poems. During this process, I realized the title of my thesis, The Beautiful Keeps Breathing, was really meant to be the title for this collection of poems.
When people create from an authentic inner place, they create beauty. Beauty does not have to be pretty. It can be messy and complicated. But when people are connecting with the soul, beauty is there.
Q: What are some of your favorite Beautiful Things?
Book: Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Movie: Goodwill Hunting
Food: Blueberries
Travel destination: any place tropical
Guilty pleasure: Fancy spa treatments!
How do you bring Beauty into your work with others?
I left my work as a psychotherapist in the summer of 2023, and since then I have been offering a variety of groups focused on therapeutic creative expression. My main focus in these groups (whether they are writing groups or SoulCollage® groups) is to encourage people to connect with their intrinsic creativity. In my experience, when people create from an authentic inner place, they create beauty. Beauty does not have to be pretty. It can be messy and complicated. But when people are connecting with the soul, beauty is there.
How can people reach you and buy your book?
Do you have any events/workshops to share?
You can buy the book here, from my website.
I have upcoming classes in Nashville, TN on October 19, and will be in Athens, GA with James Crews the weekend of October 26.
You can learn more about what I’m up to via my website, Facebook, and Instagram.
You can email me at: clairecoenen@gmail.com.
Tatyana, thanks for all you do for all of us hunting for beauty! <3
Claire Coenen, LMSW, M.Ed. M.T.S., believes the act of creating can sustain, renew, and surprise us all in beautiful ways. Since childhood, Claire has loved to play with language. Now she channels that love toward writing poetry that explores questions about belonging, beauty, loss, and hope. Her debut collection of poems is The Beautiful Keeps Breathing (Kelsay Books).
You can read more of her poems on her website, here.
To listen to one of Claire’s favorite philosophers on beauty: here’s a conversation between On Being’s Krista Tippett and Irish poet and philosopher John Donohue, who insisted that Beauty is a human calling.
Thank you for being part of the Beauty Hunter community. Our aim here is to turn toward Beauty (however you define it) in daily life, and consider beauty’s unconditional nature, even (especially) during troubled times. What if this was the purpose of life?
Through Oct 9—that’s TODAY—get 30% off a paid subscription FOREVER. Includes discounts on coaching and other offerings, which at some point I WILL get around to cooking up in my caldron over here. XO
I have some fun, creative, community offerings coming up this fall and winter, for paid members—including Zoom Creative Hours for anyone who wants a space to do their writing/art/projects in the company of others, and get a little bit of inspo along the way.
If you’ve tried all the tricks, jumped through all the hoops, and clenched out so much discipline that your jaw still hurts, HERE’S SOMETHING NEW:
Turn toward Beauty as a portal to change. Discounts for BH subscribers.
