Aspiring to Beauty
by Eve Bruce, M.D.
Beauty,
Sensuality, Sexuality, Charisma. I have long questioned these notions. What are
these things? Are they culturally defined? Dependent on the fashion of the time?
Are they culturally, racially, or gender specific? Are there universal
definitions?
During my formative years I was surrounded by the beauty of Africa -- natural
vistas, the savannah, the Indian Ocean, equatorial lakes, wilderness, animals,
trees. And human beauty -- raw, wild, sensual, sexual, exotic. Cultural
diversity was a part of the daily life of my family. It seemed that there was a
constant stream of guests at our home -- friends, travelers we met on the
streets with nowhere else to go, all kinds of people -- coming and going.
Somalis drinking spiced chaff and chewing qat, Americans resting in their
journeys and smoking everything, Watutsi, Zulus, Kambas, Indians, Pakistanis...
none were turned away. Here I learned the sacred nature of generosity and
hospitality. I learned to honor the diversity of humanity. I learned that there
are limitless ways of living, each "right" in its own context.
Kenya was a nation of mixed heritage, including Bantus, Nilots, Caucasians,
and Asians. The tribespeople were unabashedly naked, glowing with health and
vitality. The American and European expatriates of the "happy valley" days were
wild in their own unique way, splashy and vibrant. The Asians were demurely
sensual, flowing in multicolored silk. People adorned with tattoos,
scarification, ocher, piercings, stretched and elongated earlobes, lips, and
necks -- testimony to rites of passage, pride, and passion.
Surrounded by these images and experiences, I formed my personal notion of
beauty, while those around me formed theirs in a myriad of variations. There was
no single way in which to aspire to beauty. The white women struggled to lose
weight and be thin, while being attentive to their makeup, hair, jewelry, and
clothes. The Bantus struggled to gain weight, heaviness being a sign of
prosperity and a highly sought after, attractive characteristic in a woman. The
Masai adorned their necks with circle after circle of colorful beads, the stiff
beaded necklaces bouncing up and down on their bared breasts with each step. The
Muslims covered as much skin as possible when out in public, all black and
shrouded in the hot African sun. The Indians were wrapped in layer after layer
of rich colored silk, midriffs bared, bejeweled and pierced with precious stones
in their ears and noses, painted with kohl and mendhi.
As a young girl I watched as all of the women around me aspired to their own
culture's definitions of beauty. I watched and questioned. What of the skinny
Baganda woman who can't seem to gain weight or hasn't enough food to eat? What
of the chubby European who inherited large hips and thighs, a propensity for a
larger layer of fat? What of the ones whose fashion sense doesn't match that of
their culture? Are they not beautiful? Are they doomed to feel that in their
communities they are ugly?
The outer manifestations of striving for beauty and the rites of passage to
man- and womanhood varied widely, yet the inner qualities of strength,
magnetism, charisma, beauty, and sensuality were omnipresent. Notions of inner
beauty crossed racial and cultural lines, regardless of the methods of external
attainment. Some had all the external trappings of beauty -- absolutely perfect
external features -- yet were not in the least beautiful, attractive, or
charismatic. Others had none of the fashionable external features of beauty, yet
when they walked into a room, it lit up with a brightness of pure charisma, of
sensuality. Every person in the room was attracted to them, like moths to a
flame, their beauty sending out waves of energy, infecting those around them
with a lightness of being, smiles appearing on all faces as they came near.
What exactly is beauty?
From the perspective of a plastic surgeon, beauty is in the three-dimensional
lines, the balance, the proportions. Artistic masters have written of the golden
proportions for eons -- the mathematical proportions that are pleasing to the
eye -- the balance seen throughout nature, in the curve of the nautilus shell,
the spiral of the sunflower. We can take measurements as plastic surgeons: the
ratio of the length of the nose to the depth; the angles; the proportion of the
face from the hairline to the eyes, the eyes to the base of the nose, the nose
to the chin; the projection of the chin; the distance of the helix of the ears
to the scalp; the distance of the sternal notch to the nipples ... so many
measurements. Using plastic surgery, we, as surgeons, can adjust these
measurements and these proportions. Does this create beauty?
What about those in our culture whom we consider beautiful? The icons? The
supermodels? Do they always have these golden proportions? The answer is "No,
not always." What else makes up beauty if it is not just the three-dimensional
physicality, the measurements, the proportions? Think about someone you know
whom you consider beautiful. What is it that makes that person beautiful?
Look at the magazines of ten and twenty years ago. Hasn't our culture's
concept of even physical beauty changed? Where are the voluptuous full-figured
curves of the pin-up models? Why were there only Caucasians in the older
magazines? Where did the variety and the exotic looks -- the full lips and high
cheekbones -- of today's models come from? Is this a change in our definition of
human beauty or a change in perception, in the way we see?
Is beauty truly in the eye of the beholder? Can we call whatever we see
beautiful, depending on our perspective? Can we enhance our looks by changing
our vision? What do we all strive for? Why? I found myself asking these
questions as I approached puberty in this sea of life and multiculture. It was
right at puberty that I ceased being a maiden and became a mother. Pregnant at
age fifteen -- a short time as maiden, indeed. Later, as a plastic surgeon, a
deliverer of the dream called beauty, I discovered that every woman wants to be
a maiden -- forever. We abhor the trappings of motherhood: the childbearing
hips, the sagging breasts. As we pass through menopause, our grasping at eternal
maidenhood becomes even more desperate. Where are the crones, the wise women, of
our time?
Through the years I have watched how we treat the elderly in the United
States, my home for a quarter of a century now, and I wonder why anyone would
ever want to become a crone. The wise women (and men) are viewed as though they
have long passed their time of usefulness; they are treated as dispensable, even
burdensome, members of society. No wonder people come to me in droves for
facelifts, eyelid surgery, laser skin resurfacing, breast augmentations and
lifts, tummy tucks, liposuction. No wonder -- their very place in their
communities, their very ability to be perceived as a plausible and desired
member of society, is at stake.
Maidens forever? Wait! Let's reassess this notion. If old women and men are
not taken seriously in our culture, are maidens and warriors? What is the
consequence of this tremendous block in the flow of our communal energy as we
age? What are we creating for ourselves by this vision of perpetual youth? What
is the essence of our dreams for ourselves, and for our children's children?
What is our perception of beauty? Is beauty itself a dream, or is it a method
that we hope to use to achieve another dream? If it is the latter, what is the
underlying essence of the dream that is fueling our wish for beauty? Is it sex?
Power? Recognition? Love? Do we strive to look better, or to see better?
Many times, while pondering these questions, I find myself journeying through
the land of memory, transported to another time and place, a shamanic expedition
with Dream Change Coalition, a pivotal time in my life, a deep healing in the
upper Amazon region of Ecuador. I was in the courtyard outside the lodge of a
great Shuar shaman, Tuntuam, dancing rhythmically under the influence of the
great teacher ayahuasca. The spirit of the vine opens one's head -- takes the
top off -- so that one can commune with the spirits. That night I was communing
with the moon and the stars, the forest and the earth, and dancing, dancing,
dancing.
As the night progressed, the moon came to me and said she had a gift. I
thanked her and awaited the explanation with a feeling of profound gratitude.
After some time she said, "I give you the gift of new eyes." I knew immediately
what she was referring to -- my view of the world, of life, my perspective.
The vision shifted at that point. I saw a community of people, each one
glowing with an aura of vitality and purpose -- children, parents, and
grandparents laughing and talking as they worked. I saw Maria Juana, the shaman
from the Andes. Her eyes shone through the map made by the wrinkles in her face
with a beauty and passion that surpassed that of any Vogue model. I saw dona
Amalia, the Shuar shaman and plant medicine woman, singing as she harvested
healing plants, imbued with the beauty of all the earth, the beauty of the
mother, the beauty of the crone. I saw my daughters playing with their
daughters, dancing in the sunlight, full of their individual charismatic energy
and beauty, dancing like no one was watching. I saw them reaching out to one
another, and to their brothers and fathers, full of love and connection, happy
and vital. I saw the essence of the dream of being human.
New eyes. Expanded perception.
"Life is the embodiment of our dreams," said the moon. "Perception defines it
moment by moment."
 This
article is excerpted from the book:
Shaman M.D.: A Plastic Surgeon's Remarkable Journey into the World of Shapeshifting
by Eve Bruce.
©2002. Reprinted
with permission of the publisher, Destiny Books.
www.innertraditions.com
Info/Order this book.
About the Author
Eve
Bruce, M.D., has a plastic surgery practice in Maryland. She also performs
shamanic healings, gives workshops on shamanic techniques at Esalen and the
Omega Institute, and leads shamanic study tours for the Dream Change Coalition
to places as far flung as Ecuador, Tibet, and South Africa.
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