What is Beauty?
Flare, Fall 2004
By Severn Cullis-Suzuki

The Kayapo women told me I'd be beautiful if only I'd pluck out my eyebrows. In the Amazon, it's part of the beauty regime. They also shave their heads up the middle and wear paint for clothing. In the months that I stayed there, those styles became normal to me. I was so excited the first time I got painted, happy to wear the beautiful designs and finally fit in.

Beauty rituals depend on culture, reflecting the human culture in which you live. In other, older cultures, style reflects traditions, history and symbols. But what about my own culture?

Here, beauty is big business. It's every woman's duty to pursue beauty. But who or what defines it? Is it our culture? Our traditions? Or are we simply a consumer group subject to the influence of corporate intent? Do individuals get a chance to define beauty for themselves? Do we pursue real beauty? We're encouraged to chase beauty in a quick-fix way in the fast-paced life of city living. We see beauty in makeup, fashion, even through surgery.

The Kayapo women don't chase after beauty. Yet they are beautiful.

Beauty happens when truth happens. I see beauty everywhere in nature. It radiates from people when they are true to themselves, when their actions align with their values. When they live beautifully.

In our culture, there is so much focus on being beautiful and so little on living a beautiful life. Is it possible to be truly beautiful without living beautifully? Living beautifully can sometimes be difficult to do in a city. It's hard to be true to yourself, to follow what you know is right for yourself, right for you body and right for your moral values. It's hard to always align your actions with your beliefs. There are so many things pulling you in different directions. And living beautifully takes time, something we don't seem to have in North America. We may have wealth, but we are poor in time; there's not enough to lead beautiful lives.

The occasions I feel most beautiful are when I have time. When I'm outside. When there are no mirrors. When I'm not thinking about beauty at all. Like last weekend, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, after a day of surfing in the sun; I could feel the salt in my hair, my sunburned face and my body so relaxed from hours of exercise and being tossed around by the Pacific Ocean. I felt so free and full of possibility. And strong. I felt beautiful.

Of course, like all those truth-telling clichés, beauty really is about how you feel. Go camping with friends and many things that were important in the city will suddenly become irrelevant. A clutter falls away and the true beauty of your companions has the time to space to shine through.

Every once in a while in the midst of city life, in the midst of a sea of clutter, I get reminded of what I know when I'm on the beach or on a mountain. Movie-star images and self-help chatter are swept aside when I meet a woman who is truly beautiful. Someone who radiates deep beauty. Strength. Confidence. Someone who I can see lives a beautiful life, someone following what she believes in. It makes me question how I pursue beauty and whether I'm living what I believe. It always shakes me up to meet a woman like that. She doesn't buy her beauty. I never notice her makeup or her clothes-or even if she had eyebrows.