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  • Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

  • Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope
  • By: John O'Donohue
  • Narrated by: John O'Donohue
  • Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (123 ratings)
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Beauty: The Invisible Embrace cover art

Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

By: John O'Donohue
Narrated by: John O'Donohue
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Summary

The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves. When we experience the Beautiful, there is a wonderful sense of homecoming; we feel fully alive. Our lives become illuminated, and behind the shudder of appearances we come to glimpse the sure form of things. On Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue invites us to remember and to awaken the Beautiful; it is always secretly there, awaiting but our attention and reverence in order to come alive. Beauty is the true priestess of individuation. But our times are dominated by anxiety and by what is vulgar, coarse, and artificial. Were Beauty to awaken in the fields of politics, religion, planning, discourse, and seeing, our world would heal, and fresh wells of hope would refresh us. Kathleen Raine, the English poet says: "Strangest of all is the ease with which the vision is lost, consciousness contracts, we forget over and over again, until recollection is stirred by some icon of that beauty. Then we remember and wonder why we ever forgot."

©2006 John O'Donohue (P)2006 John O'Donohue

What listeners say about Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

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Captivated.

I have listened and will continue to listen to this audio book over and over again. Each time a little bit more gold sticks to me.

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11 people found this helpful

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Exquisite

I have listened to this incredible piece of work during every break from work or sleeping. I was enchanted, soothed, mesmerised by the content and Mr O'Donohue's tender voice. I want to hear more of his work and this is a book I have and will, recommend to friends and clients. It is especially poignant having lost a dear friend through suicide a couple of weeks ago, I was particularly moved by the chapter on our relationship to spaces. This is a book everyone on earth should read, and I am not normally do emphatic.

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7 people found this helpful

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beautiful and evocative

a very healing book that sheds light on hidden depths with us and offers a great source of strength through appreciation of the beauty in every day

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3 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars

Excellent.

Deep, meaningful and unforgettable. John O Donaghie is the voice of beauty and knowledge. What a gift to the ears.!

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2 people found this helpful

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Brilliantly inspiring

I loved this book, I will actually listen again so I can wrote down some gems. John O'Donohue was a very special man and has given great inspiration to me as an artist and human being in general!

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1 person found this helpful

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profound

literally just finished listening to this. I will listen to it again and again to eat the beauty so laid out for us the listener. I yearn hungary for my beloved to expand deeper and wider the inheritance that we live and move in. I'm lost for words really and that's a good thing.

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  • 02-08-22

Breakfast for the soul

It makes sense that a book about beauty is so beautifully written and read by the author.

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Beautiful

Johns way of writing and speaking is truly beautiful and moving and this was a lovely experience and way to connect to the divine

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Absolutely Divine

I really enjoyed it it resonated so much with my experience. so many precious words and inspiring insights

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Stunning

Wonderful, thought provoking study of beauty, read by John O'Donoghue in his own earthy, beautiful way.

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