Sunflowers

Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or in yonder seas; they are in your own backyard, if you but dig for them.

~ Russell H. Conwell

I think I’m going to forever associate sunflowers with my mother’s illness and death.  Not in a bad way, but in a way I can’t fully explain just yet.  Perhaps I’ll never be able to explain it completely other than to say that somehow sunflowers brought a measure of beauty, peace, light, and comfort into my life at a time when I most needed those things.  Some of my sunflower photos even served as expressions of my feelings –  feelings I couldn’t put into words — on my blogs.

I was going through my collection of sunflower pictures when I came across this one, in a possibly-rejects file (the “possibly-rejects” are those photos I couldn’t make a decision about in regards to saving or deleting).  I don’t know why I didn’t like it at the time or why I suddenly see something in it now that I didn’t then, but I’m glad I saved it.  It was, for me, worth another look.

Vigorous expression

It is not by meticulous care in avoiding all contaminations that we can keep our [spiritual body] clean and give it grace, but by urging it to give vigorous expression to its inner life in the very midst of all the dust and heat and hurts.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

Exits and entrances

Every exit is . . .  an entrance somewhere else.

~ Tom Stoppard

Links between the ages

(The kitchen table.  Robbins Crossing.  November 2009.)

We inherit from our ancestors gifts so often taken for granted — our names, the color of our eyes and the texture of our hair, the unfolding of varied abilities and interests in different subjects . . .  Each of us contains within our fragile vessels of skin and bones and cells this inheritance of soul.  We are links between the ages, containing past and present expectations, sacred memories and future promise.  Only when we recognize that we are heirs can we truly be pioneers.

~ Edward C. Sellner

Flood of light

Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul.

~ Simone Weil

The moon in the tree

Tell me what you feel in your room when the full moon is shining in upon you and your lamp is dying out, and I will tell you how old you are, and I shall know if you are happy.

~ Henri Frederic Amiel

Age

As we grow old …  the beauty steals inward.

~  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Boundless

(November moonrise.)

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

~ Jean Jacques Rousseau

Vision

We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.

~ Author unknown

This is not my usual style, but I liked the light, colors and shapes in an otherwise blurry photo so I blurred and twisted them a bit.

Individuality

The more we let each voice sing out with its own true tone, the richer will be the diversity of the chant in unison.

~ Angelus Silesius