When the emotions are strong one should paint bamboo; in a light mood one should paint the orchid.
~ Chueh Yin
Nature
(Yesterday’s rainbow.)
There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
(American winterberry, a holly.)
Red ‘rings’ inwardly with a determined and powerful intensity. It glows in itself, maturely, and does not distribute its vigor aimlessly…
~ Vassily Kandinsky
(Magnolia blossom.)
Happiness consists not in having, but of being, not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the warm glow of a heart at peace with itself.
~ Norman Vincent Peale
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.
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
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
(November moonrise.)
The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.
~ Jean Jacques Rousseau
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
(Autumn in the woods.)
behind me
the autumn wind blows
me home~ Issa, 1806
Bountiful Healing 