Monday, September 20, 2010

Monday, November 9, 2009

Leaf with frost


Leaf frosted fallen

On the snowy marshy grass
Skim of ice sparkles

Monday, September 14, 2009

A good education


If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences, than it would have done, in their correction, by a good education.
- Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 1818

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Zinnia bud


My repugnance to the writing table becomes daily and hourly more deadly and insurmountable. In place of this has come on a canine appetite for reading. And I indulge it, because I see in it a relief against the taedium senectutis; a lamp to lighten my path through the dreary wilderness of time before me, whose bourne I see not. Losing daily all interest in the things around us, something else is necessary to fill the void. With me it is reading, which occupies the mind without the labor of producing ideas from my own stock.
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1818 May 17

Friday, May 29, 2009

A summer's day

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date . . . .
Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Perennial

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disappointment
it is as perennial as the grass.
- Max Ehrman, 1927

Friday, April 24, 2009

Right feeling

Art is simply a result of expression during right feeling. It’s a result of a grip on the fundamentals of nature, the spirit of life, the constructive force, the secret of growth, a real understanding of the relative importance of things, order, balance. Any material will do. After all, the object is not to make art, but to be in the wonderful state which makes art inevitable.
- Robert Henri

Trusting

When I am trusting and being myself as fully as possible,
everything in my life reflects this by falling into place easily,
often miraculously."

- Shakti Gawain

Friday, March 6, 2009

To blossom


And finally the day will come when the risk it takes to remain
tight in the bud will be more painful than the risk it takes to blossom.

- Anais Nin

Saturday, January 24, 2009

A new era


"The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit;
to choose our better history;
to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea,
passed on from generation to generation:
the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free
and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
"
- Barack Obama, January 20, 2009

Friday, December 26, 2008

The air was warm

Balmy
Breezy
Barefoot
Sipping
Swimming
Strolling

Monday, November 17, 2008

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Reflection

Only when the clamor of the outside world is silenced
will you be able to hear the deeper vibration.
Listen carefully.

- Sarah Ban Breathnach

Monday, November 10, 2008

Dewdrops

Red leaves and frostdrops
Diamonds on huckleberry
Angel tears or dew

Friday, November 7, 2008

Leave a trace

All I can do is leave a trace.
I can leave it on a piece of paper;
or on the ground,
but the best place to leave it
is in the heart and memory of someone else.

- Eli Wiesel