Dance of Life

Dance of Life

Sometimes it is hard to know

Who to follow, who to oppose

Which side of a conflict is correct

Most right, or at least less wrong

Each has another side, and another after that one

In the relatively distant future

Things are even more difficult

To understand how to choose

What is right, missing a hundred years

Context — Progress of history, change

Of ideas and ideologies, factions and organizations

Of power and authority — Leaving aside questions

Of how I am where I am now, at this time

More importantly, when I am — This new world

Offers almost undreamed of possibilities

Yet unknown dangers as well, but I cannot say

I regret waking up here and now, though I do miss

The people I left behind — As far as I can tell they are gone

But perhaps there is a way for me to see them again

If I can find out how I came to be here and now

One hundred years distant from everyone I once loved

Organizations of darkness, banal evil in service to horrible goals

And ideals — Extra-dimensional creatures without compassion or ethics

Or at least from a human perspective, except in the peculiar culture

Of the darkness beyond — Our Universe of Light and Darkness

Mingle together — Forms of life completely alien to us

Except perhaps in some of our nightmares, hells — Giant insects

Communities of organization without joy or art or love

At least from our perspective — Some form of love exists there no doubt

And the swirling chaos of apparently infinite darkness, with only a little

Light — And there are some figures of light and wisdom that have dealings

With the dark powers, for their own inscrutable goals, reasons beyond

Our understanding, for now — Out of darkness comes the light

Yet within the darkness continues in its almost infinite varieties

Forms of diversity — Doorways exist between our two worlds

Universes — Guarded by agents of order and chaos, light and darkness

Sometimes close to doorways between the higher realms of pure consciousness

And our Universe — Life and love have transcended all material barriers

Deep darkness of the void beyond our dimension of mixed light and darkness

Combines in the Dance of Life with Light, the five worlds of Eternal Love

The darkness frightens us and yet exhilarates us, providing a source

And destination for all that we do not like about ourselves, others

Our world and cosmos working out the complexity and simplicity of life

In the Universe we call home, in the perhaps infinite expanse of space

Material World — Where beauty in the spiral and circle of time plays out

Shell Galaxies in Pisces – Lao Tzu, Balzac, Mahatma Gandhi, Carl Sagan, Rumi, Martin Luther King, W.H. Auden <3

via apod.nasa.gov

Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love.
- Lao Tzu

If you believe that anything other than you can control you, you are wrong.

Once our eyes are opened to the truth, we suddenly realize that we outnumber them. Don’t let them close your eyes.

You are not under any tyranny and suppression of any government. Remember, their power depends on your fear and apathy.
- Yoko Ono

‎”Love is the cure, for your pain
will keep giving birth to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love as
effortlessly as your body yields its scent.”
- Rumi

“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former. That is why we demand education and knowledge.

To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.

A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labour and there is an invisible labour.

The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.

A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas. A day will come when the bullets and bombs are replaced by votes, by universal suffrage, by the venerable arbitration of a great supreme senate which will be to Europe what Parliament is to England, the Diet to Germany, and the Legislative Assembly to France.
A day will come when a cannon will be a museum-piece, as instruments of torture are today. And we will be amazed to think that these things once existed!

God manifests himself to us in the first degree through the life of the universe, and in the second degree through the thought of man. The second manifestation is not less holy than the first. The first is named Nature, the second is named Art.

You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea.

In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.

It is man’s consolation that the future is to be a sunrise instead of a sunset.
~ Victor Hugo (born 26 February 1802)

Put your heart, mind, intellect, and soul even into your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.
– SWAMI SIVANANDA

There was never a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people if he’s any good.
- Fitzgerald

If our spirit is turned towards kindness, the positive side of things, loving our neighbors, this is the best way to solve our problems.
- Dalai Lama

☮Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

Got no checkbooks, got no banks,
Still I’d like to express my thanks;
I’ve got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.
– IRVING BERLIN

via apod.nasa.gov

via apod.nasa.gov

Little darling,
I feel that ice is slowly melting.
Little darling,
It seems like years since it’s been clear.
Here comes the sun…
Here comes the sun,
And I say
It’s alright.

Something in the way she moves attracts me like no other lover.

Give me love, give me peace on earth, give me light, give me life, keep me free from birth, give me hope, help me cope, with this heavy load, trying to, touch and reach you with, heart and soul.
~ George Harrison ~
(born 25 February 1943)

Every intelligent child is an amateur anthropologist. The first thing such a child notices is that adults don’t make sense. ~ John Leonard (born 25 February 1939)

When the state murders, it assumes an authority I refuse to concede: the authority of perfect knowledge in final things. ~ John Leonard

If there is victory in overcoming the enemy, there is a greater victory when a man overcomes himself. ~ José de San Martín

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.
- Albert Camus

“Every moment of your life is infinitely creative, and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you”
- Mahatma Ghandi

“We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire’s level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet’s daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us.”
- Buckminster Fuller

Despair says I cannot lift that weight. Happiness says I do not have to.
~ James Richardson

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
- Carl Sagan

“We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.”
— Carl Sagan

In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
- Carl Sagan

Humor is also a way of saying something serious.
- T. S. Eliot

It’s enough to have faith in one aspect of God. You have faith in God without form. That is very good. But never get into your head that your faith alone is true and every other is false. Know for certain that God without form is real and that God with form is also real. Then hold fast to whichever faith appeals to you.
- Sri Ramakrishna

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly; devils fall because of their gravity.
- G.K. Chesterton

The grace of God is a wind which is always blowing.

Common men talk bagfulsof religion but do not practise even a grain of it. The wise man speaks little, even though his whole life is religion expressed in action.

Great men have the nature of a child. They are always a child before Him; so they are free from pride. All their strength is of God and not their own. It belongs to Him and comes from Him.
- Sri Ramakrishna

‎”To grasp God’s beauty, you must become God.”
- Rumi

Ethics and Aesthetics are one.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.

My work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one.

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

I will admit that an artist may be great and limited; by one word he may light up an abyss of soul; but there must be this one magical and unique word.

The lot of critics is to be remembered by what they failed to understand.

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

Terrible is the day when each sees his soul naked, stripped of all veil; that dear soul which he cannot change or discard, and which is so irreparably his.
- George Moore

My heart will never seek another heart,
Or smell another flower, knowing you.
Your love has made heart’s field a desert waste;
No love other than yours grows in that place!
- Rumi

If we want to help humanity in a practical way, we must begin by setting an example of mutual respect, harmony and cooperation.

Developing altruism is one of the most powerful methods for countering negative tendencies and destructive impulses.

To promote the idea of nonviolence, we must above all encourage people to foster in themselves an attitude of love and affection for others
- Dalai Lama

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
— Laozi

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
— Laozi (Tao Te Ching)

via spacetelescope.org

via eso.org

On any given day, in any given moment, something could happen that opens up for you an entirely new path. Be still, be alert, be ready.
- Marianne Williamson

I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.
- Mahatma Gandhi

While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.
- Maya Angelou

☮Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

☮Let us forgive each other – only then will we live in peace
- Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910)

☮All we are saying is give peace a chance.
- John Lennon (1940-1980)

☮Peace is the only battle worth waging.
- Albert Camus (1913-1960)

☮Peace is a daily,a weekly,a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures
- JFK

☮Peace is every step. – Thich Nhat Hahn

☮Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. – Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

☮… and if you think that one person can’t make a difference, you’re wrong, particularly young people. – Jimmy Carter

☮Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age. — Adlai E. Stevenson

☮Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. — John F. Kennedy

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

From there to here,
from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.
~ Dr. Seuss

If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Man is always something more than what he knows of himself. He is not what he is simply once and for all, but is a process… ~ Karl Jaspers (born 23 February 1883)

The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience. ~ W. E. B. Du Bois

There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.

There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.
~ W. E. B. Du Bois

We cannot avoid conflict, conflict with society, other individuals and with oneself. Conflicts may be the sources of defeat, lost life and a limitation of our potentiality but they may also lead to greater depth of living and the birth of more far-reaching unities, which flourish in the tensions that engender them.

One who would influence the masses must have recourse to the art of advertisement. The clamour of puffery is to-day requisite even for an intellectual movement.

The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life…

Man, if he is to remain man, must advance by way of consciousness. There is no road leading backward.

Philosophy seemed to me the supreme, even the sole, concern of man.
~ Karl Jaspers

How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory; and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily. ~ W. E. B. Du Bois (Born February 23, 1868)

There are two ways to slide through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both save us from thinking.
- Korzybski

The control of the palate is a valuable aid for the control of the mind.
– MAHATMA GANDHI

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
- Alice Walker

Your earthly lover
can be very charming and coquettish
but never very faithful.
The true lover is the one who on your final day
opens a thousand doors.
- Rumi

Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn’t mean he lacks vision.
~ Stevie Wonder

The light which shines in
the eye is really the light of the heart !
- Rumi

“Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.”
~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Be quiet and tear the thorn from your heart.
Uncover in silence your soul’s own rose garden.
- Rumi

Don’t be afraid. Open your minds. They belong to the world.
- Yoko Ono

The power to move the world is in the subconscious mind.
♥ William James

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
♥ William Blake

It is only when we FORGET our learning…that we begin to KNOW.
♥ Henry David Thoreau

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.
– John Ruskin

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
– Oscar Wilde

“Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.”
—
Morihei Ueshiba

This life of separateness may be compared to a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning.
– THE BUDDHA

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky, —
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat — the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain … Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay ~

The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.
- Elizabeth Drew

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. ~ Isaac Asimov

I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. ~ George Washington (born 22 February 1732)

Promote… as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. ~ George Washington

Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.

Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants.

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

Compassion is the basis of all morality.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/February#22

“Being myself on fire I set others on fire.”
- Anais Nin

He is the reason
and all that brings reason to naught.
- Rumi

When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.
~ Langston Hughes

Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
- Helen Keller

We are all part of the rivers running into the great wide ocean.

The fenceless and doorless world is soon to come. It’s our fear which is keeping the doors closed and the fences high.
- Yoko Ono

Everything you can imagine is real.
– Pablo Picasso

Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.
– Groucho Marx

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.
– Lily Tomlin

I’ve always thought people write because they are not living properly.
- Tom Stoppard

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
– THE BUDDHA

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose
comes round in another form.
- Rumi

via en.wikiquote.org

We are beginning to see the influence of dream upon reality and reality upon dream.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

Life is so fluid that one can only hope to capture the living moment, to capture it alive and fresh … without destroying that moment.

Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage.

The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.

The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous.

Feelings are images, sensations are like musical sounds.

Most artists have retired too absolutely; they grow rusty, inflexible to the flow of currents.

I seek the real stuff of life. Profound drama.

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

The artist is the only one who knows that the world is a subjective creation, that there 0is a choice to be made, a selection of elements…

When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.

All writers have concealed more than they revealed.

The writer’s responsibility is to increase, develop our senses, expand our vision, heighten our awareness and enrich our articulateness.

All those who try to unveil the mysteries always have tragic lives…

You have a vehement silence, one feels it is charged with essences…

The dream has to be translated into reality.

The creative personality never remains fixed on the first world it discovers. It never resigns itself to anything.

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.
~ Anaïs Nin ~

Careful the things you say, children will listen. Guide them along the way, children will see and learn. Children may not obey, but children will look to you for which way to turn; to learn what to be! Careful before you say “Listen to Me.” Children will listen. ~ Into the Woods (Sondheim/Lapine)

For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
~ W. H. Auden (born 21 February 1907)

When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with. ~ Anaïs Nin (born 21 February 1903)

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

If, in order to hear some music, a man has to wait for six months and then walk twenty miles, it is easy to tell whether the words, “I should like to hear some music,” mean what they appear to mean, or merely, “At this moment I should like to forget myself.”

The idea of a sacrificial victim is not new; but that it should be the victim who chooses to be sacrificed, and the sacrificers who deny that any sacrifice has been made, is very new.
~ W. H. Auden ~

Without Art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without Science, we should always worship false gods. ~ W. H. Auden

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
~ W. H. Auden (born 21 February 1907)

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. ~ Anaïs Nin

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
♥ Ralph Waldo Emerson

☮Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence.
— Mahatma Gandhi

“To stumble twice against the same stone is a proverbial disgrace”
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

via apod.nasa.gov

Since the lover patiently continued knocking at the door,
at last one day he gained an intimate meeting.
- Rumi

The more one judges, the less one loves.
- Honore de Balzac

Amplify’d from apod.nasa.gov

Shell Galaxies in Pisces Image Credit & Copyright: Stephen Leshin

Explanation: This Swimming within the boundaries of the prominent on the left; the curious shell galaxy NGC 474 and its blue, spiral-armed neighbor NGC 470. The faint, wide arcs or shells of NGC 474 could have been formed by a gravitational encounter with neighbor NGC 470. Alternately the shells could be caused by a merger with a smaller galaxy producing an effect analogous to ripples across the surface of a pond. Remarkably, the large galaxy on the right hand side of the deep image, NGC 467, appears to be surrounded by faint shells too, evidence of another interacting galaxy system. Intriguing background galaxies are scattered around the field that also includes Milky Way Galaxy. The field of view spans 25 arc minutes or about 1/2 degree on the sky. Read more at apod.nasa.gov

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/brutg

A Green Flash From The Sun – Dalai Lama, Einstein, Gandhi, Rumi, Sagan, Newton (Born Jan. 4, 1643), TS Eliot<3

via apod.nasa.gov

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. ~ Isaac Newton (born 4 January 1643)

Men learn little from others’ experience. But in the life of one man, never the same time returns. ~ T. S. Eliot, in Murder in the Cathedral (died 4 January 1965)

The main Business of natural Philosophy is to argue from Phenomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects, till we come to the very first Cause, which certainly is not mechanical. ~ Isaac Newton (born 4 January 1643)

It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine).
~ R.E.M. ~ (birthday of Michael Stipe, lead singer and major song writer in the band — which divides the credit on all its songs equally)

That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough.
~ R.E.M. ~

The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt.
The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify mens curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by Providence.
~ Isaac Newton

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January#4

Every man’s memory is his private literature.
- Aldous Huxley

“There is no force so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
- Everett Dirksen

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.
- Lao Tzu

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
- Voltaire

Determination and hope are key factors for a brighter future.

As I see it, compassion is the essence of a spiritual life.
-Dalai Lama

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. ~Frank Herbert, Dune Chronicles

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the and the blind can see.
~ Mark Twain

Fall down seven times, stand up eight.
♥ Japanese Proverb

☮Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.
- Jill Jackson and Sy Miller

Ever since happiness heard your name,
it has been running through the streets trying to find you.
~ Hafiz

Our possibilities, opportunities and horizons expand and increase as our fears diminish and decrease. Fear itself has no physical reality of it’s own. The fact that it is a mental construct is the key to its own undoing. We are the only force that gives it any meaning or power over us through our belief in it and thus we can withdraw its hold over us by replacing it with a new meaning.
~ Hal Tipper

Friends are kisses blown to us by angels.
♥ Author Unknown

via spacetelescope.org

via apod.nasa.gov

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee… ~ John Donne

Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age? ~ Cicero (born 3 January 106 BC)

Each comprehended only that part of the mind of Ilúvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet ever as they listened they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion (Tolkien born 3 January 1892)

The rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. ~ “Gandalf” inThe Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

This is an ancient hallow, and ere the kings failed or the Tree withered in the court, a fruit must have been set here. For it is said that, though the fruit of the Tree comes seldom to ripeness, yet the life within may then lie sleeping through many long years, and none can foretell the time in which it will awake. ~ Gandalf in The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

He who looks on a true friend looks, as it were, upon a kind of image of himself: wherefore friends, though absent, are still present; though in poverty, they are rich; though weak, yet in the enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to assert, though dead, they are alive.
~ Cicero ~

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January#3

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.
– Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Even he, to whom most things that most people would think were pretty smart were pretty dumb, thought it was pretty smart.
– Douglas Adams

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
– Groucho Marx

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
- Heinrich Heine

via apod.nasa.gov

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profundity. Kindness in giving creates love.
~ Lao Tzu ♥

Better to remain silent & be thought a fool that to speak & remove all doubt.
- English proverbs

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.
- Wordsworth

I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.
~ Harold Kushner

Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation. Use it!
-Ram Dass

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
~ Albert Einstein

We are all in this together. ~ English proverb

via en.wikiquote.org

How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection…That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers. ~ Isaac Asimov (born 2 January 1920)

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. ~ Isaac Asimov

When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise — even in their own field. ~ Isaac Asimov

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be … ~ Isaac Asimov

I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be. ~ Isaac Asimov

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.
~ Isaac Asimov ~

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January#2

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
- Kurt Vonnegut

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
- Pablo Picasso

“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree… Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking… The solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”
- Albert Einstein

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.”
- Carl Sagan

“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

Read not the Times. Read the Eternities.”
- Henry David Thoreau

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.

My life is my message.

Every moment of your life is infinitely creative, and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.”
- William Butler Yeats

“By Being, It Is.”
- Parmenides

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
- Nietzsche

“When the Earth is sick, the animals will begin to disappear; when that happens, The Warriors of the Rainbow will come to save them.”
- Chief Seattle

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
- George Santayana

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.”
- Carl Jung

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
- Rene Descartes

“We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.”
- Richard Feynman

“Then he said ‘Remember Bob, No Fear, No Envy, No Meanness’” “And I said ‘hmmm, right.’”
- Bob Dylan

“The reverse side also has a reverse side.”
- Japanese Proverb

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
- William James

“If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do… How would I be? What would I do?”
- Buckminster Fuller

“The most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West or by a nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge….”
- Sri Aurobindo

“The Self alone exists; and the Self alone is real. Verily the Self alone is the world, the I-I and God. All that exists is but the manifestation of the Supreme Being.”
- Ramana Maharshi

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
- Jiddu Krishnamurti

“Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.”
- John F. Kennedy

Dont GO through life, GROW through life. ♥ Eric Butterworth

When will you begin your long journey into yourself?
- Mevlana Rumi

Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts.
- Charles Dickens

“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”
- Oscar Wilde

“My love of poetry is love of joy.”
- Jack Kerouac

I you can’t love do not come to my alley; if you can’t be naked don’t come to my river, if you have resentments stay on your side
- Rumi

We can’t wait for a miracle or simply pray for our dreams/ We can’t just condemn the violence and denounce the mean/ We are the ones who must be held to account/ For the mountain ahead, we can’t just give commentary; we must fight, climb and surmount.
- Cory Booker

We stand on this beautiful planet enjoying the sunrise sunset changeofseasons oceans mountains & lovely towns & cities we created together
- Yoko Ono

http://twitter.com/yokoono

An ancient dictum says that when Zeus wanted to destroy someone, he would first drive him mad.
- Jean-Marie Le Pen

If once in this world I win a moment with thee,
I will trample on both worlds; I will dance in triumph forever !
~Maulana Rumi

These words are a drop,
From love’s infinite ocean.
To the world,
thirst-quenching nectar,
To the soul,
everlasting life.

Stand with dignity in the magnificent current of my words and they will carry you into God’s arms.
~Rumi

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, yet again, come, come.

~Inscribed on Rumi’s Shrine in Konya, Turkey
What is to be done, O Moslems? For I do not recognise myself.

I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem.

I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea;

I am not of Nature’s mint, nor of the circling heaven.

I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire;

I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.

I am not of India , nor of China , nor of Bulgaria , nor of Saqsin.

I am not of the kingdom of ’Iraqian, nor of the country of Khorasan

I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise , nor of Hell.

I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rizwan.

My place is the Placeless; my trace is the Traceless;

’Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.

- Rumi
The Soul of the Beloved

What is to be done, O Moslems? For I do not recognise myself.
I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem.

I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea;
I am not of Nature’s mint, nor of the circling heaven.

I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire;
I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.

I am not of India , nor of China , nor of Bulgaria , nor of Saqsin.
I am not of the kingdom of ’Iraqian, nor of the country of Khorasan

I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise , nor of Hell.
I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rizwan.

My place is the Placeless; my trace is the Traceless;
’Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.

I have put duality away; I have seen that the two worlds are one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.

He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward;
I am intoxicated with Love’s cup, the two worlds have passed out of my ken;

If once in my life I spent a moment without thee,
From that time and from that hour I repent of my life.

If once in this world I win a moment with thee,
I will trample on both worlds; I will dance in triumph forever.

~Maulana Rumi

Translate­d by Reynold A. Nicholson

http://www.facebook.com/beloved.of.rumi

“The capacity to be patient, to bear with others through thick and thin, is within the reach of anyone”
- Eknath Easwaran

✦ Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
- Aristotle

A hug is like a boomerang – you get it back right away.
- Bil Keane

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. ♥ Jim Rohn

☮Nonviolence is absolute respect for each human being. – Adolpho Perez Esquival

☮If you let go a little you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace. ~ Ajahn Cha

via apod.nasa.gov

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
- Italo Calvino

http://themodernword.com/

Be an angel to someone else whenever you can, as a way of thanking God for the help your angel has given you. ♥ Eileen Elias Freeman

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

All we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.
~ J. D. Salinger ~

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die. ~ E. M. Forster (date of birth)

I do not believe in Belief. But this is an Age of Faith, and there are so many militant creeds that, in self defence, one has to formulate a creed of one’s own. Tolerance, good temper and sympathy are no longer enough in a world where ignorance rules, and Science, which ought to have ruled, plays the pimp. Tolerance, good temper and sympathy — they are what matter really, and if the human race is not to collapse they must come to the front before long. ~ E. M. Forster

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote, and brings to birth in us also the creative impulse. ~ E. M. Forster

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal. ~ E. M. Forster

The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it. ~ J. D. Salinger

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January

A person hears only what they understand.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. ♥ Albert Einstein

☮Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain. — Marquis de Sade

via nasa.gov

via apod.nasa.gov

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”
— Leo Tolstoy

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At each stage I reach a balance, a conclusion. At the next sitting, if I find that there is a weakness in the whole, I make my way back into the picture by means of the weakness — I re-enter through the breach — and I reconceive the whole. Thus everything becomes fluid again.
~ Henri Matisse ~

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame:
And down the wave and in the flame was borne
A naked babe…
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Idylls of the King ~

For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!
~ “Auld Lang Syne” by Robert Burns ~

For my part I have never avoided the influence of others. I would have considered it cowardice and a lack of sincerity toward myself. ~ Henri Matisse (born December 31, 1869)

It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy… Let’s go exploring! ~ Bill Watterson – Final strip of Calvin and Hobbes, published December 31, 1995

The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it. ~ George Marshall

When a thing is done, it’s done. Don’t look back. Look forward to your next objective. ~ George Marshall

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#31

Compassion creates a positive, friendly atmosphere. With such an attitude, you can create the possibility of receiving affection or a positive response from someone else. If the other person doesn’t respond to you in a positive way, your own feeling of openness gives you the flexibility and freedom to change your approach as needed and still allows for the possibility of having a meaningful conversation with them.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Awareness of impermanence and appreciation of our human potential will give us a sense of urgency that we must use every precious moment.
~Dalai Lama

☮If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. — Mother Theresa (1910-1997)

☮We do not inherit the earth from our fathers. We borrow it from our children.

☮Either war is obsolete or men are. — Buckminster Fuller

☮How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. — Anne Frank

☮The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens. — Baha’ullah

☮Nonviolence is the supreme law of life. — Indian Proverb

☮Imagine all the people living life in peace You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. — John Lennon

☮ — Albert Camus (1913-1960)

☮Nonviolence is absolute respect for each human being. – Adolpho Perez Esquival

http://twitter.com/PeaceQuotes

Man won’t fly for a thousand years.
- Wilbur Wright

http://themodernword.com/

“Love is the Ultimate Expression of Faith” -
- AntHallTheJedi

via apod.nasa.gov

I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too…
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!
~ Rudyard Kipling ~ (born 30 December 1865)

The greatest book is not the one whose message engraves itself on the brain, as a telegraphic message engraves itself on the ticker-tape, but the one whose vital impact opens up other viewpoints, and from writer to reader spreads the fire that is fed by the various essences, until it becomes a vast conflagration leaping from forest to forest. ~ Romain Rolland(died 30 December 1944)

It is the artist’s business to create sunshine when the sun fails. ~ Romain Rolland
Justice has nothing to do with victor nations and vanquished nations, but must be a moral standard that all the world’s peoples can agree to. To seek this and to achieve it — that is true civilization. ~ Hideki Tojo

One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved. ~ Romain Rolland

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#30s

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
- Herman Melville

http://themodernword.com/

Procrastination isn’t the problem, it’s the solution. So procrastinate now, don’t put it off.
– Ellen DeGeneres

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
– Ernest Rutherford

I was the kid next door’s imaginary friend.
– Emo Phillips

He who knows patience knows peace.
♥ Chinese Proverb

Success is not the key to happiness. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
- Albert Schweitzer

The worried, heroic doings of men and women seem weary and futile to dervishes enjoying the light breeze of spirit
~ Rumi

Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities. ♥ Terry Josephson

via apod.nasa.gov

I will make company with creators, with harvesters, with rejoicers; I will show them the rainbow and the stairway to the Superman. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra

If I am shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet. ~ Andrew Johnson (born 29 December 1808)

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? There is a brotherhood among all men. This must be recognized if life is to remain. We must learn the love of man. ~ Pablo Casals

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not

poet enough to call forth its riches. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke (Date of death)

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. ~ William Ewart Gladstone (born December 29, 1809)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#29

Never mistake motion for action.
- Ernest Hemingway

http://themodernword.com

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust ☺

The good man is the friend of all living things.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
~ G.K. Chesteron

When you say it’s difficult, it becomes more difficult. When you say it’s easy, it actually becomes easier.
♥ Nithya

At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards.
- Hunter S. Thompson

We all must seek and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

I believe a proper use of our time is to serve others if we can or at least refrain from harming them. That is the basis of my philosophy.
- Dalai Lama

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.
– George Santayana

We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld

There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.
– Doctor Who

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.
♥ Zig Ziglar

Speak truth to power. ~Marian Wright Edelman

I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. … Recently, we’ve managed to wade a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting.

For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but our species is young, and curious, and brave. It shows much promise.

We are made of starstuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
- Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
– Aldous Huxley

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
– Laurence J. Peter

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
– A. A. Milne

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
♥ Albert Einstein

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.

Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group.

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us ââ,¬” there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but our species is young, and curious, and brave. It shows much promise.

We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true.

We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there ââ,¬” on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
- Carl Sagan

A person hears only what they understand.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.
- Marquis de Sade

I am still learning. ~ Michelangelo ☺

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift ~ Albert Einstein

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
- Carl Sagan

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.
- Victor Hugo
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Amplify’d from apod.nasa.gov

A Green Flash from the Sun Credit & Copyright: Juan José Manzano (Grupo de Observadores Astronómicos de Tenerife)

Explanation: Many think it is just a myth. Others think it is true but its cause isn’t known. Adventurers pride themselves on having seen it. It’s a green flash from the Sun. The truth is the green flash does exist and its cause is well understood. Just as the setting Sun disappears completely from view, a last glimmer appears startlingly green. The effect is typically visible only from locations with a low, distant horizon, and lasts just a few seconds. A green flash is also visible for a rising Sun, but takes better timing to spot. A dramatic green flash, as well as an even more rare blue flash, was caught in the above photograph recently observed during a sunset visible from Teide Observatory at Tenerife, Cannary Islands, Spain. The Sun itself does not turn partly green or blue – the effect is caused by layers of the Earth’s atmosphere acting like a prism. Read more at apod.nasa.gov

 

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/gmK0Ns

Hubble’s Sharpest View Of The Orion Nebula – Patti Smith, Novalis, Dalai Lama, Morihei Ueshiba, & Mahatma Gandhi

via spacetelescope.org

When you don’t know how you will make the whole journey, just take the next step. Courage is in the now. Let the universe take care of the future how.
- Cory Booker

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit
~ Kahlil Gibran

We do not inherit the earth from our fathers. We borrow it from our children.
- Peace Quotes

http://twitter.com/peacequotes

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
– Albert Schweitzer

The best way to succeed in this world is to act on the advice we give to other people.
- Proverb

When it’s obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.
- Confucius

Compassion is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace, mental stability and for human survival.
- Dalai Lama

I believe that we, that this planet, hasn’t seen its Golden Age. Everybody says its finished … art’s finished, rock and roll is dead, God is dead. Fuck that! This is my chance in the world. I didn’t live back there in Mesopotamia, I wasn’t there in the Garden of Eden, I wasn’t there with Emperor Han, I’m right here right now and I want now to be the Golden Age …if only each generation would realise that the time for greatness is right now when they’re alive … the time to flower is now.

…heroine: the artist, the premier mistress writhering in a garden graced w/highly polished blades of grass… release (ethiopium) is the drug…an animal howl says it all…notes pour into the caste of freedom…the freedom to be intense…to defy social order and break the slow kill monotony of censorship. to break from the long bonds of servitude-ruthless adoration of the celestial shepherd. let us celebrate our own flesh-to embrace not ones race mais the marathon-to never let go of the fiery sadness called desire.

For life is the best thing we have in this existence. And if we should desire to believe in something, it should be a beacon within. This beacon being the sun, sea, and sky, our children, our work, our companions and, most simply put, the embodiment of love.
— Patti Smith

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/196092.Patti_Smith

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patti_Smith

I don’t consider writing a quiet, closet act.
I consider it a real physical act.
When I’m home writing on the typewriter, I go crazy.
I move like a monkey.
I’ve wet myself, I’ve come in my pants writing.
- Patti Smith

FEMINISM NOT EXIST IN VACUUM. HULK SMASH FOR ALL FORMS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE! HULK NO LET HEGEMONY SNEAK IN THE BACK DOOR.
- Feminist Hulk

Happiness is anyone and anything that’s loved by you.
~ Charlie Brown

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We are near waking when we dream that we dream.

There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real ones. They rarely coincide.

I was still blind, but twinkling stars did dance
Throughout my being’s limitless expanse,
Nothing had yet drawn close, only at distant stages
I found myself, a mere suggestion sensed in past and future ages.

True anarchy is the generative element of religion. Out of the annihilation of all existing institutions she raises her glorious head, as the new foundress of the world.

Friends, the soil is poor, we must sow seeds in plenty for us to garner even modest harvests…

We do not know the depths of our own spirit. — The mysterious path leads within…

We are on a mission: we are called to the cultivation of the earth.

Before abstraction everything is one, but one like chaos; after abstraction everything is united again, but this union is a free binding of autonomous, self-determined beings.

Where children are, there is a golden age.

Love works magic. It is the final purpose of the world story, the Amen of the universe.

The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet. Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap.

Men travel in manifold paths: whoso traces and compares these, will find strange Figures come to light; Figures which seem as if they belonged to that great Cipher-writing which one meets with everywhere…

Whoso speaks truly is full of eternal life, and wonderfully related to genuine mysteries does his Writing appear to us, for it is a Concord from the Symphony of the Universe.

He watches in our eyes whether the star has yet risen upon us, which is to make the Figure visible and intelligible.

No one, of a surety, wanders farther from the mark than he who fancies to himself that he already understands this marvellous Kingdom, and can, in few words, fathom its constitution, and everywhere find the right path.

Long, unwearied intercourse, free and wise Contemplation, attention to faint tokens and indications; an inward poet-life, practised senses, a simple and devout spirit: these are the essential requisites of a true Friend of Nature.

Moral Action is that great and only Experiment, in which all riddles of the most manifold appearances explain themselves.

Metaphysical ideas stand related to one another, like thoughts without words.

We had to abide by metaphysical Logic, and logical Metaphysic, but neither of them was as it should be.

There is but one temple in the Universe and that is the Body of Man.

All Fabulous Tales are merely dreams of that home world, which is everywhere and nowhere.

Man consists in Truth. If he exposes Truth, he exposes himself. If he betrays Truth, he betrays himself.

The Art of a well-developed genius is far different from the Artfulness of the Understanding, of the merely reasoning mind … They are emblematic, have many meanings, are simple and inexhaustible, like products of Nature; and nothing more unsuitable could be said of them than that they are works of Art, in that narrow mechanical acceptation of the word.
- Novalis

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Novalis

Novalis is known as the originator of the central symbol of the German Romanticism, The Blue Flower; he shared in the movement’s deification of Nature, the demand for the Absolute, the idea of spiritual rebirth.
~ Graham Brown

The ardent and holy Novalis…
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

For Novalis the poetic in the world was the only genuine reality, even as the poetic spirit in man was the proof of man’s divine origin. All of his poetry is concerned ultimately with revealing and celebrating the poetic spirit.
- Bruce Haywood

Never was he seen languid or exhausted, never out of spirits or out of humor.
- Ludwig Tieck

1
Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light — with its colors, its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the wakening Day? The giant-world of the unresting constellations inhales it as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its blue flood — the sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the wild, burning multiform beast inhales it — but more than all, the lordly stranger with the sense-filled eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. — Its presence alone reveals the marvelous splendor of the kingdoms of the world.

Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night. Afar lies the world — sunk in a deep grave — waste and lonely is its place. In the chords of the bosom blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of dew, and mingle with the ashes. — The distances of memory, the wishes of youth, the dreams of childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole long life, arise in gray garments, like an evening vapor after the sunset. In other regions the light has pitched its joyous tents. What if it should never return to its children, who wait for it with the faith of innocence?

What springs up all at once so sweetly boding in my heart, and stills the soft air of sadness? Dost thou also take a pleasure in us, dark Night? What holdest thou under thy mantle, that with hidden power affects my soul? Precious balm drips from thy hand out of its bundle of poppies. Thou upliftest the heavy-laden wings of the soul. Darkly and inexpressibly are we moved — joy-startled, I see a grave face that, tender and worshipful, inclines toward me, and, amid manifold entangled locks, reveals the youthful loveliness of the Mother. How poor and childish a thing seems to me now the Light — how joyous and welcome the departure of the day — because the Night turns away from thee thy servants, you now strew in the gulfs of space those flashing globes, to proclaim thy omnipotence — thy return — in seasons of thy absence. More heavenly than those glittering stars we hold the eternal eyes which the Night hath opened within us. Farther they see than the palest of those countless hosts — needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths of a loving soul — that fills a loftier region with bliss ineffable. Glory to the queen of the world, to the great prophet of the holier worlds, to the guardian of blissful love — she sends thee to me — thou tenderly beloved — the gracious sun of the Night, — now am I awake — for now am I thine and mine — thou hast made me know the Night — made of me a man — consume with spirit-fire my body, that I, turned to finer air, may mingle more closely with thee, and then our bridal night endure forever.

2
Must the morning always return? Will the despotism of the earthly never cease? Unholy activity consumes the angel-visit of the Night. Will the time never come when Love’s hidden sacrifice shall burn eternally? To the Light a season was set; but everlasting and boundless is the dominion of the Night. — Endless is the duration of sleep. Holy Sleep — gladden not too seldom in this earthly day-labor, the devoted servant of the Night. Fools alone mistake thee, knowing nought of sleep but the shadow which, in the twilight of the real Night, thou pitifully castest over us. They feel thee not in the golden flood of the grapes — in the magic oil of the almond tree — and the brown juice of the poppy. They know not that it is thou who hauntest the bosom of the tender maiden, and makest a heaven of her lap — never suspect it is thou, opening the doors to Heaven, that steppest to meet them out of ancient stories, bearing the key to the dwellings of the blessed, silent messenger of secrets infinite.

3
Once when I was shedding bitter tears, when, dissolved in pain, my hope was melting away, and I stood alone by the barren mound which in its narrow dark bosom hid the vanished form of my life — lonely as never yet was lonely man, driven by anxiety unspeakable — powerless, and no longer anything but a conscious misery. — As there I looked about me for help, unable to go on or to turn back, and clung to the fleeting, extinguished life with an endless longing: — then, out of the blue distances — from the hills of my ancient bliss, came a shiver of twilight — and at once snapt the bond of birth — the chains of the Light. Away fled the glory of the world, and with it my mourning — the sadness flowed together into a new, unfathomable world — Thou, Night-inspiration, heavenly Slumber, didst come upon me — the region gently upheaved itself; over it hovered my unbound, newborn spirit. The mound became a cloud of dust — and through the cloud I saw the glorified face of my beloved. In her eyes eternity reposed — I laid hold of her hands, and the tears became a sparkling bond that could not be broken. Into the distance swept by, like a tempest, thousands of years. On her neck I welcomed the new life with ecstatic tears. It was the first, the only dream — and just since then I have held fast an eternal, unchangeable faith in the heaven of the Night, and its Light, the Beloved.

4
Now I know when will come the last morning — when the Light no more scares away Night and Love — when sleep shall be without waking, and but one continuous dream. I feel in me a celestial exhaustion. Long and weariful was my pilgrimage to the holy grave, and crushing was the cross. The crystal wave, which, imperceptible to the ordinary sense, springs in the dark bosom of the mound against whose foot breaks the flood of the world, he who has tasted it, he who has stood on the mountain frontier of the world, and looked across into the new land, into the abode of the Night — truly he turns not again into the tumult of the world, into the land where dwells the Light in ceaseless unrest.
On those heights he builds for himself tabernacles — tabernacles of peace, there longs and loves and gazes across, until the welcomest of all hours draws him down into the waters of the spring — afloat above remains what is earthly, and is swept back in storms, but what became holy by the touch of love, runs free through hidden ways to the region beyond, where, like fragrances, it mingles with love asleep.
Still wakest thou, cheerful Light, that weary man to his labor — and into me pourest joyous life — but thou wilest me not away from Memory’s moss-grown monument. Gladly will I stir busy hands, everywhere behold where thou hast need of me — praise the lustre of thy splendor — pursue unwearied the lovely harmonies of thy skilled handicraft — gladly contemplate the clever pace of thy mighty, luminous clock — explore the balance of the forces and the laws of the wondrous play of countless worlds and their seasons. But true to the Night remains my secret heart, and to creative Love, her daughter. Canst thou show me a heart eternally true? has thy sun friendly eyes that know me? do thy stars lay hold of my longing hand? and return me the tender pressure and the caressing word? was it thou did adorn them with colors and a flickering outline — or was it she who gave to thy jewels a higher, a dearer weight? What delight, what pleasure offers thy life, to outweigh the transports of Death? Wears not everything that inspires us the color of the Night? She sustains thee mother-like, and to her thou owest all thy glory. Thou wouldst vanish into thyself — in boundless space thou wouldst dissolve, if she did not hold thee fast, if she swaddled thee not, so that thou grewest warm, and flaming, begot the universe. Truly I was, before thou wast — the mother sent me with my brothers and sisters to inhabit thy world, to hallow it with love that it might be an ever-present memorial — to plant it with flowers unfading. As yet they have not ripened, these thoughts divine — as yet is there small trace of our coming revelation — One day thy clock will point to the end of time, and then thou shalt be as one of us, and shalt, full of ardent longing, be extinguished and die. I feel in me the close of thy activity — heavenly freedom, and blessed return. With wild pangs I recognize thy distance from our home, thy resistance against the ancient, glorious heaven. Thy rage and thy raving are in vain. Unscorchable stands the cross — victory-banner of our breed.
Over I journey
And for each pain
A pleasant sting only
Shall one day remain.
Yet in a few moments
Then free am I,
And intoxicated
In Love’s lap lie.
Life everlasting
Lifts, wave-like, at me,
I gaze from its summit
Down after thee.
Your lustre must vanish
Yon mound underneath –
A shadow will bring thee
Thy cooling wreath.
Oh draw at my heart, love,
Draw till I’m gone,
That, fallen asleep, I
Still may love on.
I feel the flow of
Death’s youth-giving flood
To balsam and ether
Transform my blood –
I live all the daytime
In faith and in might
And in holy fire
I die every night.

5
In ancient times, over the widespread families of men an iron Fate ruled with dumb force. A gloomy oppression swathed their heavy souls — the earth was boundless — the abode of the gods and their home. From eternal ages stood its mysterious structure. Beyond the red hills of the morning, in the sacred bosom of the sea, dwelt the sun, the all-enkindling, living Light. An aged giant upbore the blissful world. Fast beneath mountains lay the first-born sons of mother Earth. Helpless in their destroying fury against the new, glorious race of gods, and their kindred, glad-hearted men. The ocean’s dark green abyss was the lap of a goddess. In crystal grottos revelled a luxuriant folk. Rivers, trees, flowers, and beasts had human wits. Sweeter tasted the wine — poured out by Youth-abundance — a god in the grape-clusters — a loving, motherly goddess upgrew in the full golden sheaves — love’s sacred inebriation was a sweet worship of the fairest of the god-ladies — Life rustled through the centuries like one spring-time, an ever-variegated festival of heaven-children and earth-dwellers. All races childlike adored the ethereal, thousand-fold flame as the one sublimest thing in the world. There was but one notion, a horrible dream-shape –
That fearsome to the merry tables strode,
A wrapt the spirit there in wild fright.
The gods themselves no counsel knew nor showed
To fill the anxious hearts with comfort light.
Mysterious was the monster’s pathless road,
Whose rage no prayer nor tribute could requite;
‘Twas Death who broke the banquet up with fears,
With anguish, dire pain, and bitter tears.

Eternally from all things here disparted
That sway the heart with pleasure’s joyous flow,
Divided from the loved ones who’ve departed,
Tossed by longing vain, unceasing woe –
In a dull dream to struggle, faint and thwarted,
Seemed all was granted to the dead below.
Broke lay the merry wave of human bliss
On Death’s inevitable, rocky cliff.

With daring spirit and a passion deep,
Did man ameliorate the horrid blight,
A gentle youth puts out his torch, to sleep –
The end, just like a harp’s sigh, comes light.
Cool shadow-floods o’er melting memory creep,
So sang the song, into its sorry need.
Still undeciphered lay the endless Night –
The solemn symbol of a far-off might.
The old world began to decline. The pleasure-garden of the young race withered away — up into more open, desolate regions, forsaking his childhood, struggled the growing man. The gods vanished with their retinue — Nature stood alone and lifeless. Dry Number and rigid Measure bound it with iron chains. Into dust and air the priceless blossoms of life fell away in words obscure. Gone was wonder-working Faith, and its all-transforming, all-uniting angel-comrade, the Imagination. A cold north wind blew unkindly over the rigid plain, and the rigid wonderland first froze, then evaporated into ether. The far depths of heaven filled with glowing worlds. Into the deeper sanctuary, into the more exalted region of feeling, the soul of the world retired with all its earthly powers, there to rule until the dawn should break of universal Glory. No longer was the Light the abode of the gods, and the heavenly token of their presence — they drew over themselves the veil of the Night. The Night became the mighty womb of revelations — into it the gods went back — and fell asleep, to go abroad in new and more glorious shapes over the transfigured world. Among the people who too early were become of all the most scornful and insolently estranged from the blessed innocence of youth, appeared the New World with a face never seen before — in the poverty of a poetic shelter — a son of the first virgin and mother — the eternal fruit of mysterious embrace. The foreboding, rich-blossoming wisdom of the East at once recognized the beginning of the new age — A star showed the way to the humble cradle of the king. In the name of the distant future, they did him homage with lustre and fragrance, the highest wonders of Nature. In solitude the heavenly heart unfolded to a flower-chalice of almighty love — upturned toward the supreme face of the father, and resting on the bliss-foreboding bosom of the sweetly solemn mother. With deifying fervor the prophetic eye of the blooming child beheld the years to come, foresaw, untroubled over the earthly lot of his own days, the beloved offspring of his divine stem. Ere long the most childlike souls, by true love marvellously possessed, gathered about him. Like flowers sprang up a strange new life in his presence. Words inexhaustible and the most joyful tidings fell like sparks of a divine spirit from his friendly lips. From a far shore, born under the clear sky of Hellas, came a singer to Palestine, and gave up his whole heart to the wonder-child:
The youth thou art who ages long hast stood
Upon our graves, so deeply lost in thought;
A sign of comfort in the dusky gloom
For high humanity, a joyful start.
What dropped us all into abyssmal woe,
Pulls us forward with sweet yearning now.
In everlasting life death found its goal,
For thou art Death who at last makes us whole.
Filled with joy, the singer went on to Hindustan — his heart intoxicated with the sweetest love; and poured it out in fiery songs under the balmy sky, so that a thousand hearts bowed to him, and the good news sprang up with a thousand branches. Soon after the singer’s departure, his precious life was made a sacrifice for the deep fall of man — He died in his youth, torn away from his beloved world, from his weeping mother, and his trembling friends. His lovely mouth emptied the dark cup of unspeakable woes — in ghastly fear the birth of the new world drew near. Hard he wrestled with the terrors of old Death — Heavy lay the weight of the old world upon him. Yet once more he looked fondly at his mother — then came the releasing hand of eternal love, and he fell asleep. Only a few days hung a deep veil over the roaring sea, over the quaking land — countless tears wept his loved ones — the mystery was unsealed — heavenly spirits heaved the ancient stone from the gloomy grave. Angels sat by the Sleeper — delicately shaped from his dreams — awoken in new Godlike glory; he clomb the limits of the new-born world — buried with his own hand the old corpse in the abandoned hollow, and with a hand almighty laid upon it a stone which no power shall ever again upheave.
Yet weep thy loved ones tears of joy, tears of feeling and endless thanksgiving over your grave — joyously startled, they see thee rise again, and themselves with thee — behold thee weep with sweet fervor on the blessed bosom of thy mother, solemnly walking with thy friends, uttering words plucked as from the Tree of Life; see thee hasten, full of longing, into thy father’s arms, bearing with thee youthful humanity, and the inexhaustible cup of the golden future. Soon the mother hastened after thee — in heavenly triumph — she was the first with thee in the new home. Since then, long ages have flowed past, and in ever-increasing splendor have stirred your new creation — and thousands have, away from pangs and tortures, followed thee, filled with faith and longing and fidelity — walking about with thee and the heavenly virgin in the kingdom of love, serving in the temple of heavenly Death, and forever thine.
Uplifted is the stone –
And all mankind is risen –
We all remain thine own.
And vanished is our prison.
All troubles flee away
Thy golden bowl before,
For Earth and Life give way
At the last and final supper.

To the marriage Death doth call –
The virgins standeth back –
The lamps burn lustrous all –
Of oil there is no lack –
If the distance would only fill
With the sound of you walking alone
And that the stars would call
Us all with human tongues and tone.

Unto thee, O Mary
A thousand hearts aspire.
In this life of shadows
Thee only they desire.
In thee they hope for delivery
With visionary expectation –
If only thou, O holy being
Could clasp them to thy breast.

With bitter torment burning,
So many who are consumed
At last from this world turning
To thee have looked and fled,
Helpful thou hast appeared
To so many in pain.
Now to them we come,
To never go out again.

At no grave can weep
Any who love and pray.
The gift of Love they keep,
From none can it be taken away.
To soothe and quiet his longing,
Night comes and inspires –
Heaven’s children round him thronging
Watch and guard his heart.

Have courage, for life is striding
To endless life along;
Stretched by inner fire,
Our sense becomes transfigured.
One day the stars above
Shall flow in golden wine,
We will enjoy it all,
And as stars we will shine.

The love is given freely,
And Separation is no more.
The whole life heaves and surges
Like a sea without a shore.
Just one night of bliss –
One everlasting poem –
And the sun we all share
Is the face of God.

6
Longing for Death
Into the bosom of the earth,
Out of the Light’s dominion,
Death’s pains are but a bursting forth,
Sign of glad departure.
Swift in the narrow little boat,
Swift to the heavenly shore we float.

Blessed be the everlasting Night,
And blessed the endless slumber.
We are heated by the day too bright,
And withered up with care.
We’re weary of a life abroad,
And we now want our Father’s home.

What in this world should we all
Do with love and with faith?
That which is old is set aside,
And the new may perish also.
Alone he stands and sore downcast
Who loves with pious warmth the Past.

The Past where the light of the senses
In lofty flames did rise;
Where the Father’s face and hand
All men did recognize;
And, with high sense, in simplicity
Many still fit the original pattern.

The Past wherein, still rich in bloom,
Man’s strain did burgeon glorious,
And children, for the world to come,
Sought pain and death victorious,
And, through both life and pleasure spake,
Yet many a heart for love did break.

The Past, where to the flow of youth
God still showed himself,
And truly to an early death
Did commit his sweet life.
Fear and torture patiently he bore
So that he would be loved forever.

With anxious yearning now we see
That Past in darkness drenched,
With this world’s water never we
Shall find our hot thirst quenched.
To our old home we have to go
That blessed time again to know.

What yet doth hinder our return
To loved ones long reposed?
Their grave limits our lives.
We are all sad and afraid.
We can search for nothing more –
The heart is full, the world is void.

Infinite and mysterious,
Thrills through us a sweet trembling –
As if from far there echoed thus
A sigh, our grief resembling.
Our loved ones yearn as well as we,
And sent to us this longing breeze.

Down to the sweet bride, and away
To the beloved Jesus.
Have courage, evening shades grow gray
To those who love and grieve.
A dream will dash our chains apart,
And lay us in the Father’s lap.
- Novalis, Hymns to the Night

http://www.logopoeia.com/novalis/hymns.html

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.

Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us.

Where are we really going? Always home.
- Novalis

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/187510.Novalis

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The meaning of life is to find your gift, the purpose of life is to give it away.
~ Joy J. Golliver

Compassion is not religious business, it is human business … it is essential for human survival.
- Dalai Lama

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
- Albert Einstein

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Loving kindness is greater than laws; and the charities of life are more than all ceremonies.
~ The Talmud

If we use favorable circumstances such as good health or wealth to help others, they can be contributory factors to achieving a happier life.

I don’t think human affection and compassion are just religious concerns; they’re indispensable factors in our day-to-day lives.

A spiritual practice is a constant battle within, replacing previous negative conditioning or habituation with new positive conditioning.

At one level, all major religious traditions have the same aim – to transform the individual into a positive being.
- Dalai Lama

Become aware. Be honest with yourself. Express what you are. Love others just as they are, whether or not they love you back. It is the love that comes from you rather than the love that comes to you that makes you happy.
~ Don Miguel Ruiz

via en.wikiquote.org

The Art of Peace is not easy. It is a fight to the finish, the slaying of evil desires and all falsehood within. On occasion the Voice of Peace resounds like thunder, jolting human beings out of their stupor.

Instructors can impart only a fraction of the teaching. It is through your own devoted practice that the mysteries of the Art of Peace are brought to life.

True Budo is to accept the spirit of the universe, keep the peace of the world, correctly produce, protect and cultivate all beings in nature.

I felt the universe suddenly quake, and that a golden spirit sprang up from the ground, veiled my body, and changed my body into a golden one. At the same time my body became light. I was able to understand the whispering of the birds, and was clearly aware of the mind of God, the creator of the universe.
At that moment I was enlightened: the source of Budo is God’s love — the spirit of loving protection for all beings… Budo is not the felling of an opponent by force; nor is it a tool to lead the world to destruction with arms. True Budo is to accept the spirit of the universe, keep the peace of the world, correctly produce, protect and cultivate all beings in nature.

I am the Universe.
~ Morihei Ueshiba (born 14 December 1883)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Morihei_Ueshiba

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#14

I wonder if the artist ever lives his life — he is so busy recreating it.
-Anne Sexton

http://themodernword.com

Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.
- Johann von Schiller

Your true radiance is always shining. It is only you that stands in the way.
~ Amoda Maa Jeevan

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
- Anatole France

If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom.
- Terri Guillemets

Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.
~ Carl Jung

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain
- Bob Marley

No experience has been too unimportant, and the smallest event unfolds like a fate, and fate itself is like a wonderful, wide fabric in which every thread is guided by an infinitely tender hand and laid alongside another thread and is held and supported by a hundred others.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

I don’t have any desire to live on a planet that has no heroes, and no angels, and no saints, and no art.

Without having a real cosmic discussion about it, let’s just say I have an optimistic feeling about the future.

I know art got us because if art gets you, you never can be normal. You can never enjoy. You cant go anywhere without trying to transform it.

One doesn’t have to be very learned to speak against the build-up of WMDs or nuclear weapons. All of human society should abolish them.

Oh, God, give me something: a reason to live. I don’t want no handout; no, not sympathy. Come on. Come and love me. Come on. Set me free.
- Patti Smith

A painting is never finished – it simply stops in interesting places.
- Paul Gardner

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
~ Muriel Rukeyser ~

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page

It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom. The universe as a whole is also weird, with laws of nature that make it hospitable to the growth of mind. I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.

Both as a scientist and as a religious person, I am accustomed to living with uncertainty. Science is exciting because it is full of unsolved mysteries, and religion is exciting for the same reason. The greatest unsolved mysteries are the mysteries of our existence as conscious beings in a small corner of a vast universe.

We stand, in a manner of speaking, midway between the unpredictability of atoms and the unpredictability of God.

I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.

To talk about the end of science is just as foolish as to talk about the end of religion. Science and religion are both still close to their beginnings, with no ends in sight.

Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious dogma or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute
~ Freeman Dyson (born 15 December 1923)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson

It is not the right angle that attracts me,
Nor the hard, inflexible straight line, man-made.
What attracts me are free and sensual curves.
The curves in my country’s mountains,
In the sinuous flow of its rivers,
In the beloved woman’s body.
~ Oscar Niemeyer (his 100th Birthday — born 15 December 1907)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#15

via en.wikiquote.org

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though ’twere his own.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Intuition is the clear conception of the whole at once.
- Unknown

I’m still learning.
- Michelangelo

Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.
- Frederick Wilcox

‎Sacred trees hold a message in silence. It is a stream of consciousness that can be tapped. It is not unlike the quietness of the painter and the stillness inside the notes of the composer. It is a sympathy with something grand outside of the human fold, a voice that transcends time and is heard down into the marrow of bones.
- Diana Beresford-Kroeger

Zen says that if you drop knowledge – and within knowledge everything is included; your name, your identity, everything, because this has been given to you by others – if you drop all that has been given by others, you will have a totally different quality to your being: innocence. This will be a crucifixion of the persona, the personality, and there will be a resurrection of your innocence. You will become a child again, reborn.
— Osho

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Hatred, jealousy and excessive attachment cause suffering and agitation. I feel compassion can help us overcome these disturbances and let us return to a calm state of mind. Compassion is not just being kind to your friend. That involves attachment because it is based on expectation. Compassion is when you do something good without any expectations – based on realizing that “the other person is also just like me”.
- Dalai Lama

Just go out there and do what you’ve got to do.
- Martina Navratilova

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa

The future is like heaven – everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.
- James Arthur Baldwin

If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
- Moshe Dayan

… and if you think that one person can’t make a difference, you’re wrong, particularly young people.
- Jimmy Carter

Abstract Art: A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.
- Albert Camus

If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.
- John Maxwell

There is no time left for anything but to make peacework a dimension of our every waking activity.
- Elise Boulding

‎Healing does not happen in a vacuum but through interactions with other people. By giving, you are focusing on what you have to offer others, inviting more abundance into your life. Giving of any kind is taking a positive action that begins the process of change. It will shift your energy for life.
- Mbali Creazzo

Amplify’d from www.spacetelescope.org

Hubble’s sharpest view of the Orion Nebula

This dramatic image offers a peek inside a cavern of roiling dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, represents the sharpest view ever taken of this region, called the Orion Nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon.

The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars. The bright central region is the home of the four heftiest stars in the nebula. The stars are called the Trapezium because they are arranged in a trapezoid pattern. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars. Located near the Trapezium stars are stars still young enough to have disks of material encircling them. These disks are called protoplanetary disks or “proplyds” and are too small to see clearly in this image. The disks are the building blocks of solar systems.

The bright glow at upper left is from M43, a small region being shaped by a massive, young star’s ultraviolet light. Astronomers call the region a miniature Orion Nebula because only one star is sculpting the landscape. The Orion Nebula has four such stars. Next to M43 are dense, dark pillars of dust and gas that point toward the Trapezium. These pillars are resisting erosion from the Trapezium’s intense ultraviolet light. The glowing region on the right reveals arcs and bubbles formed when stellar winds – streams of charged particles ejected from the Trapezium stars – collide with material.

The faint red stars near the bottom are the myriad brown dwarfs that Hubble spied for the first time in the nebula in visible light. Sometimes called “failed stars,” brown dwarfs are cool objects that are too small to be ordinary stars because they cannot sustain nuclear fusion in their cores the way our Sun does. The dark red column, below, left, shows an illuminated edge of the cavity wall.

The Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years away, the nearest star-forming region to Earth. Astronomers used 520 Hubble images, taken in five colours, to make this picture. They also added ground-based photos to fill out the nebula. The ACS mosaic covers approximately the apparent angular size of the full moon.

Credit:

NASA, ESA, M. Robberto ( Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team   Read more at www.spacetelescope.org

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Reflecting Merope – Erich Fromm, Erica Jong, Roy Croft, Sophocles, Aldous Huxley, Herodotus, Dalai Lama, Dr. West

via nasa.gov

You were created from ecstasy; you were created out of LOVE & LIGHT. It is your birthright.
- Bashar

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.
- James Matthew Barrie

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
- Mahatma Gandhi

You’ll never find rainbows if you’re looking down!
- Charlie Chaplin

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
- William Shakespeare

The purpose of our lives is to give birth to the best which is within us.
- Marianne Williamson

Keep alert, stand firm in your faith; be courageous, be strong, let all that you do be done in LOVE.
- Corinthians

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
- William Shakespeare

People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.
- Albert Einstein

Never injure a friend, even in jest.
- Cicero

To truly give charity, you must be free of selfishness!
- Mother Teresa

You were born from a ray of God’s majesty and have ALL the blessings of a good star.
- Rumi

Everybody wants to eat at the government’s table, but nobody wants to do the dishes.
- Werner Finck

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depends on simplicity.
- Plato

A ship has a soul.
- John Rhodes

Follow your HEART
- ♡

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
- Rumi

If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.
- Hal Borland

Come, come again, whoever you are, come!
Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!
Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,
Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.
- Rumi

It takes awareness to remember that life is a gift, don’t feel overwhelmed by other thoughts. Feel joy as spirit reflects back onto you.
- Deepak Chopra

The minute I heard my first love story I started
looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally
meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
- Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi

Looking at American prisons in our day, we see primarily poor people, disproportionately but not exclusively black & brown.
- Cornel West

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
- Anne Frank

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

The Great Vehicle path requires the vast motivation of a Bodhisattva, who, not seeking just his or her welfare, takes on the burden of bringing about the welfare of all sentient beings.

All living beings are believed to possess the nature of the Primordial Buddha Samantabhadra, the potential or seed of enlightenment, within them.

For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I, too, abide to dispel the misery of the world.

As time passes I have firmed my conviction that all religions can work together despite fundamental differences in philosophy. Every religion aims at serving humanity. Therefore, it is possible for the various religions to work together to serve humanity and contribute to world peace.

When we reach beyond the confines of narrow self-interest, our hearts become filled with strength.

Only the inner protection of patience can keep us from experiencing the turmoil of negative thoughts and emotions.

Always embrace the common humanity that lies at the heart of us all.

By developing a sense of concern for others’ well-being, then no matter what others’ attitudes are, you can keep inner peace.

No matter what activity or practice we are pursuing, there isn’t anything that isn’t made easier through constant familiarity and training.

If you make your best effort to be kinder, nurture compassion, make the world a better place, then you can say ‘At least I’ve done my best’.

Certain desires are positive: a desire for happiness; for peace; for a more harmonious and friendlier world.
- Dalai Lama

via en.wikiquote.org

In awarding the Peace Prize to H.H. the Dalai Lama we affirm our unstinting support for his work for peace, and for the unarmed masses on the march in many lands for liberty, peace and human dignity.
- Egil Aarvik, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee

There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.
- Erich Fromm

Peace is more precious than a piece of land.
- Anwar Sadat

No one is fool enough to choose war instead of peace – in peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons.
- Herodotus

All that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant.
- Aldous Huxley

My sun sets to rise again.
- Robert Browning

Grace was in all her steps, Heav’n in her Eye, In every gesture dignity and love.
- John Milton (Born December 9, 1608)

Without labor nothing prospers.
- Sophocles

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.
- Roy Croft

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.
- Erica Jong

Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’
Mature love says: ‘I need you because I love you.’
- Erich Fromm

The Search for Truth is a Search for Identity, that in finding Truth, we find Ourselves.
- Neil Sutton

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Amplify’d from www.nasa.gov

Reflecting Merope

In the well known Pleiades star cluster, starlight is slowly destroying this wandering cloud of gas and dust. The star Merope lies just off the upper left edge of this picture from the Hubble Space Telescope. In the past 100,000 years, part of the cloud has by chance moved so close to this star–only 3,500 times the Earth-Sun distance–that the starlight itself is having a very dramatic effect. Pressure of the star’s light significantly repels the dust in the reflection nebula, and smaller dust particles are repelled more strongly. As a result, parts of the dust cloud have become stratified, pointing toward Merope. The closest particles are the most massive and the least affected by the radiation pressure. A longer-term result will be the general destruction of the dust by the energetic starlight. Image Credit: NASA Read more at www.nasa.gov

 

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M81 & Arp’s Loop – John Milton, Peter Kropotkin, Grace Hopper, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Robert Louis Stevenson

via apod.nasa.gov

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

As good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.

Freely we serve,
Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all liberties.

- John Milton (Born December 9, 1608)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Milton

via en.wikiquote.org

One single war — we all know — may be productive of more evil, immediate and subsequent, than hundreds of years of the unchecked action of the mutual-aid principle may be productive of good.

All belongs to all. All things are for all men … All is for all!

A different conception of society, very different from that which now prevails, is in process of formation. … Acknowledging, as a fact, the equal rights of all its members to the treasures accumulated in the past … it seeks to establish a certain harmonious compatibility in its midst — not by subjecting all its members to an authority that is fictitiously supposed to represent society, not by trying to establish uniformity, but by urging all men to develop free initiative, free action, free association.

Man is appealed to to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best tribal, but by the perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle — has had the leading part.

We take men for what they are worth — and that is why we hate the government of man by man, and that we work with all our might — perhaps not strong enough — to put an end to it.

- Peter Kropotkin (Born December 9, 1842)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin

A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.
- Grace Hopper

Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it, they are wrong. I do not say give them up, for they may be all you have, but conceal them like a vice lest they spoil the lives of better and simpler people.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#9

Change is inevitable, growth optional. Choose Wisel
- Cory Booker

Grant that we may not so much seek to be understood as to understand.
- Saint Francis of Assisi

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
- Joseph Campbell

The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence
- Norman Vincent Peale

Love helps break down barriers.
- Cornel West

Peace is liberty in tranquility.
- Cicero

The most compassionate form of giving is done with no thought or expectation of reward, and grounded in genuine concern for others.

I look at people from a positive angle, seeking positive aspects. This immediately creates a feeling of affinity, a kind of connectedness.

When we ignore the question of the impact our actions have on others’ well-being, inevitably we end up hurting them.

By studying others’ viewpoints, it is possible for us to discover new and refreshing perspectives on the world – including our own life.

I think that ethical behavior is another feature of the kind of inner discipline that leads to a happier existence.
- Dalai Lama

Amplify’d from apod.nasa.gov

M81 and Arp’s Loop Image Credit & Copyright: R Jay GaBany - Collaboration: A. Sollima (IAC), A. Gil de Paz (U. Complutense Madrid) D. Martínez-Delgado (IAC, MPIA), J.J. Gallego-Laborda (Fosca Nit Obs.), T. Hallas (Hallas Obs.)

Explanation: One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth’s sky and similar in size to the Milky Way, big, beautiful spiral M81 lies 11.8 million light-years away in the northern constellation Ursa Major. This deep image of the region reveals details in the bright yellow core, but at the same time follows fainter features along the galaxy’s gorgeous blue spiral arms and sweeping dust lanes. It also follows the expansive, arcing feature, known as Arp’s loop, that seems to rise from the galaxy’s disk at the right. Studied in the 1960s, Arp’s loop has been thought to be a tidal tail, material pulled out of M81 by gravitational interaction with its large neighboring galaxy M82. But a recent investigation demonstrates that much of Arp’s loop likely lies within our own galaxy. The loop’s colors in visible and infrared light match the colors of pervasive clouds of dust, relatively unexplored galactic cirrus only a few hundred light-years above the plane of the Milky Way. Along with the Milky Way’s stars, the dust clouds lie in the foreground of this remarkable view. M81′s dwarf companion galaxy, Holmberg IX, can be seen just above and left of the large spiral. On the sky, this image spans about 0.5 degrees, about the size of the Full Moon. Read more at apod.nasa.gov

 

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Supernova Remnant- John Muir, John Lennon, Osho, Aristotle, Dalai Lama, & Siddhartha Buddha (Bodhidharma Day) <3

via nasa.gov

Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where nature heals and give strength to body and soul alike
- John Muir

A small body of determined spirits, fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission, can alter the course of history
- Mahatma Gandhi

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion
- Dalai Lama

Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
- Marcus Aurelius

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain

via en.wikiquote.org

The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.

Bling bling with no end and no aim is nothing but a form of idolatry.

Non-marketplace values, like LOVE, struggle against a market-driven culture.

LOVE can change the world.

Freedom fighters keep track of the indescribable scars & bruises but refuse to be victims.

FYI: Black women are going to be the crucial part of the next wave of our collective leadership.
- Cornel West

As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

We are but the instrument of heaven. Our work is not design but destiny.
- Owen Meredith ♡

Peace begins with a smile.
- Mother Theresa

Beauty is being in harmony with what you are.
- Peter Nivio Zarlenga

There is no brilliant single stroke that is going to transform the water into wine or straw into gold.
- Coleman Young

Anything that you can imagine is yours to be or do or have.
- Abraham Hicks

Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship’s captain has to avoid a shipwreck.
- Guy de Maupassant

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Even modern medical researchers have come to the conclusion that peace of mind is vital for good health.

Once you encourage the thought of compassion in your mind, once it becomes active, then your attitude towards others changes automatically.
- Dalai Lama

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.
- Clint Eastwood

Poetry is a sort of homecoming.
- Paul Celan

Where thou art, that is home.
- Emily Dickinson

A day without laughter is a day wasted.
- Charlie Chaplin

via en.wikiquote.org

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

The great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in this, that man and maid, freed of all false feelings and reluctances, will seek each other not as opposites, but as brother and sister, as neighbors, and will come together as human beings.

We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one; I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.
- John Lennon

It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people — that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.
- James Thurber (born 8 December 1894)

May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.
- Delmore Schwartz (Born 8 December 1913)

A hero is someone who rebels or seems to rebel against the facts of existence and seems to conquer them. Obviously that can only work at moments. It can’t be a lasting thing. That’s not saying that people shouldn’t keep trying to rebel against the facts of existence. Someday, who knows, we might conquer death, disease and war.
- Jim Morrison (Born 8 December 1943)

I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter.
- Horace

via apod.nasa.gov

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

Better than a thousand hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.
Better than a thousand hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace.
Better than a hundred hollow lines
Is one line of the law, bringing peace.

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage… If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love. This is the eternal rule.
- Gautama Buddha
in
Dhammapada
(Bodhi Day a traditional date of celebration of his enlightenment)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#8

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go!
- T.S. Eliot

There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, “Truth is the daughter of Time.”
- Abraham Lincoln

When the heart is innocent & the walls have disappeared, you are bridged with infinity
- Osho

As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. JUMP.. It’s not as wide as you think.
- Joseph Campbell

via en.wikiquote.org

The essence of spiritual practice is your attitude toward others. When you have a pure, sincere motivation, then you have right attitude toward others based on kindness, compassion, love and respect.

Once you encourage the thought of compassion in your mind, once it becomes active, then your attitude towards others changes automatically.

Looking at the pattern of our existence from birth to death, we can see the way in which we are fundamentally nurtured by other’s affection.

Looking at various means of developing compassion, I think empathy is an important factor: the ability to appreciate others’ suffering.

I think that ethical behavior is another feature of the kind of inner discipline that leads to a happier existence.

We must insist on the observation that my right to happiness carries no more weight than others’ similar right.

I am convinced that everyone can develop a good heart and a sense of universal responsibility with or without religion.

All the major religious traditions carry the message of love, compassion and forgiveness.

The ultimate factor determining whether we have a healthy mind and a healthy body lies within.
- Dalai Lama

Give what you want to receive.
- Russell Simmons

All we are saying is give peace a chance.
- John Lennon

There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.
- Erich Fromm

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
- Chinese Proverb

Violence just hurts those who are already hurt…Instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it.
- César Chávez

We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it — for a little while.
- Willa Cather

The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence
- Norman Vincent Peale

It is more difficult to organize a peace than to win a war; but the fruits of victory will be lost if the peace is not organized.
- Aristotle

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. There is nothing to do but be.
- Stephen Levine

When the mind has thus vanished, you realize eternal Peace.
- Ramana Maharshi

That’s all nonviolence is – organized love.
- Joan Baez

Human Beings, indeed all sentient beings, have the right to pursue happiness and live in peace and freedom.
- The XIVth Dalai Lama

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.
- Desiderius Erasmus

Treasure each empty moment of the experience. Something sacred is about to be born!
- Osho

It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.
- Albert Einstein

Amplify’d from www.nasa.gov

Supernova Remnant

In the nearby galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud, a massive star has exploded as a supernova and begun to dissipate its interior into a spectacular display of colorful filaments, reminiscent of fireworks display. The supernova remnant (SNR), known as “E0102″ for short, is the greenish-blue shell of debris just below the center of this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. This delicate structure, glowing a multitude of lavenders and peach hues, resides in the upper right of the image. Determined to be only about 2,000 years old, E0102 is relatively young on astronomical scales and is just beginning its interactions with the nearby interstellar medium. Young supernova remnants like E0102 allow astronomers to examine material from the cores of massive stars directly. This in turn gives insight on how stars form, their composition, and the chemical enrichment of the surrounding area. As well, young remnants are a great learning tool to better understand the physics of supernova explosions. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a nearby dwarf galaxy to our own Milky Way. It is visible in the Southern Hemisphere, in the direction of the constellation Tucana, and lies roughly 210,000 light-years distant. Image credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) and J. Green (University of Colorado, Boulder) Read more at www.nasa.gov

 

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Too Close To A Black Hole- Willa Cather, Chomsky, Einstein, Paulo Coelho, Nietzsche, Rumi, Hafiz, Gaiman, Kundera

via apod.nasa.gov

via en.wikiquote.org

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving…

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.

Never memorize something that you can look up.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
- Albert Einstein

And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away
- Paulo Coelho

Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.
- Alan Moore

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.
- Kahlil Gibran

He is not dead who departs from life with a high and noble fame; but he is dead, even while living, whose brow is branded with infamy.”
- Johann Ludwig Tieck

If you are going to tell people the truth, be funny or they will kill you.
- Billy Wilder

And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.
- Erica Jong

If there’s anything unsettling to the stomach, it’s watching actors on television talk about their personal lives.
- Marlon Brando

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
- Walt Whitman

The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.
- Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that’s beautiful.

You can’t measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.
- Milan Kundera

It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

via en.wikiquote.org

The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.

I can believe things that are true and things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.
I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen – I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.
I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.
I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.
I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.
I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.
I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.
I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.
I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too.
I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.
I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.

Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
- Neil Gaiman

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
- Siddhārtha Gautama

Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually command.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man has but little heeded the advice of the wise men. He has been – fatefully, if not willingly – less virtuous, less constant, less rational, less peaceful than he knows how to be, than he is fully capable of being. He has been led astray from the ways of peace and brotherhood by his addiction to concepts and attitudes of narrow nationalism, racial and religious bigotry, greed and lust for power.
- Ralph J. Bunche

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.
- Avram Noam Chomsky (Born December 7, 1928)

Peace is a chain reaction of love.
- A First Grader

If we cannot agree, let us at any rate agree to differ, but let us part as friends.
- Mohammad Ali Jinnah

There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

Transparency, info, clarity & interpretation, are required for a deep democracy. That’s why Wikileaks is a challenge to the powers that be.
- Cornel West

The great threat to the young and pure in heart is not what they read but what they don’t read.
- Heywood C. Broun (Born December 7, 1888)

Oh, if a man tried to take his time on earth and prove before he died what one man’s life could be worth, I wonder what would happen to this world?
- Harry Chapin

via en.wikiquote.org

The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.

Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.
- Willa Cather (Born December 7, 1973)

I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for.
- Thornton Wilder (Died December 7, 1975)

It’s an alethiometer. It’s one of only six that were ever made. Lyra, I urge you again: keep it private. … It tells you the truth. As for how to read it, you’ll have to learn by yourself. Now go — it’s getting lighter…
- Philip Pullman (Quote from The Golden Compass (1995) the movie adaptation opening on December 7, 2007)

That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed. – Algernon Sydney (Executed on this date, no birthdate known)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#7

War is fear cloaked in courage.
- William C. Westmoreland

You are a precious gift of God….now go be who you are.
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path
- Morpheus, The Matrix

Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
- A. G. Bell

Literature is a state of culture. Poetry is a state of grace, before and after culture.
- Juan Ramon Jimenez

http://themodernword.com

All know the way, but few actually walk it
- Bodhidharma

For beautiful lips, speak words of kindness.
- Audrey Hepburn

There are different wells within your heart. Some fill with each good rain, Others are far too deep for that.

This sky where we live is no place to lose your wings so love, love, love!

The fish needs to say “Something ain’t right about this camel ride- and I’m feeling so damn thirsty”
- Hafiz

During your life, never stop dreaming. No one can take away your dreams.
- 2pac

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.
- Basho

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back.
- Plato

Your life is always perfect: you are always at the right place at the right time.
- Salerno

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The giving of love is an education in itself.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

I’ve discovered that the fastest way “to find God” is to find each other. To
stop hiding out from each other, of course, we must stop hiding from
ourselves.
- Neale Donald Walsch

If I adore You out of fear of Hell,
Burn me in Hell!
If I adore you out of desire for Paradise
Lock me out of Paradise.
But if I adore you for Yourself alone,
Do not deny to me Your eternal beauty
- Rabia al-Basri

via en.wikiquote.org

This poetry. I never know what I’m going to say.
I don’t plan it.
When I’m outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

‎The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Only from the heart can you touch the sky.

I pretended to leap to see if I could live there. Someday I must actually arrive there or nothing will be left to arrive.

O lovers, lovers it is time
to set out from the world.
I hear a drum in my soul’s ear
coming from the depths of the stars.
Our camel driver is at work;
the caravan is being readied.
He asks that we forgive him
for the disturbance he has caused us,
He asks why we travelers are asleep.
Everywhere the murmur of departure;
the stars, like candles
thrust at us from behind blue veils,
and as if to make the invisible plain,
a wondrous people have come forth.

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

And just the moment
when you are all confused
leaps forth a voice
hold me close
I’m love and
………I’m always yours.

Before a flower can open in His rose garden thousands of thotns come to pierce it. Although the soul has received only grief from Him, Love has made her turn away from all worldly attachments: She has preferred this anguish to all rewards. She has chosen suffering above all joys. In her eyes, His thorn is more glorious than any flower, His lock more precious than all other keys, His tyranny victorious over all earthly happiness. The poison of His anger transforms itself into tenderness, His refusal is worth far more than the agreement of others. Cornelian and happiness of supreme lover of God-All the joys of this world are nothing to it.

Silence
You are the diamond in me
the Jewel of my real wealth!
From your soft earth
grow thousands
of rose gardens
whose perfumes
drown me
in my heart.

My love, you are closer to me than myself,
you shine through my eyes.
Your light is brighter than the Moon.
Step into the garden
so all the flowers,
even the tall poplar
can kneel before your beauty.

Let your voice silence he lily
famous for its hundred tounges
When you want to be kind
you are Softer than the soul
but when you widraw
You can be so cold and harsh

The Buraq of love has taken my mind as well as my heart, do not ask me where. I have reached such a realm that there is no moon, nor day. I have reached a world where the world is no longer the world.

And just the moment
when you are all confused
leaps forth a voice
hold me close
I’m love and
I’m always yours.

That barbed wire on your path is the mind
Cut the wire and your path clearly find.
Heart trickster, soul veil and mind bind
To find the path you must put all three behind.
When you transcend heart and soul as well as mind
…It is like giving sight to the blind.

There is no salvation for the soul
but to fall in Love.
Only lovers can escape
out of these two worlds.
This was ordained in creation.
Only from the heart
can you reach the sky:
The Rose of Glory
can grow only from the heart.

‎I want to see you.
Know your voice.

Recognize you when you
first come ’round the corner.

Sense your scent when I come
into a room you’ve just left.

Know the lift of your heel,
the glide of your foot.

Become familiar with the way
you purse your lips
then let them part,
just the slightest bit,
when I lean in to your space
and kiss you.

I want to know the joy
of how you whisper
“more”

Let the beauty we love be what we do

The grapes of my body can only become wineAfter the winemaker tramples me.I surrender my spirit like grapes to his tramplingSo my inmost heart can blaze and dance with joy.Although the grapes go on weeping blood and sobbing“I cannot bear any more anguish, any more cruelty”The trampler stuffs cotton in his ears: “I am not working in ignoranceYou can deny me if you want, you have every excuse, But it is I who am the Master of this Work. And when through my Passion you reach Perfection,You will never be done praising my name.

And if every way is closed before you, the secret one will show a secret path no other eyes have seen.

I hear nothing in my ear but your voice.
Heart has plundered mind of its eloquence.

Love writes a transparent calligraphy, so on
the empty page my soul can read and recollect.

My beloved grows
right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be

Do you want to enter paradise?
To walk to the path of Truth, you need the grace of GOD.
We all face death in the end.
But on the way, be careful, never to hurt a human heart

You’ve no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.
What’s the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean.
Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient.
It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these.
So- I’ve brought you a mirror.
Look at yourself and remember me

Because of love
I have become
the giver of light.

Only You
i choose
among the entire world

is it fair
of you
letting me be unhappy?

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere,
…they’re in each other all along.

if you pass your night
and merge it with dawn
for the sake of heart
what do you think will happen?

if the entire world
is covered with the blossoms
you have labored to plant
what do you think will happen?

if the elixir of life
that has been hidden in the dark
fills the desert and towns
what do you think will happen?

if because of
your generosity and love
a few humans find their lives
what do you think will happen?

if you pour an entire jar
filled with joyous wine
on the head of those already drunk
what do you think will happen?

go my friend
bestow your love
even on your enemies
if you touch their hearts
what do you think will happen?

what is it you seek everyday n everynight…..
if it is pleasure it will elude you
if it is contentment pleasure will be at your feet..

Be occupied, then, with what you really value and let the thief take something else.

My sweet heart,
you have aroused my passion,
your touch has filled me with desire,
I am no longer separate from you,
these are precious moments,
I beseech you,
don’t let me wait,
let me merge with you.

Don’t mind the destination,
Don’t mind the end.

Don’t mind the good or bad
or right and wrong.
Grow from the past,
But grab hold of now.
Now is always evolving.
Listen my love,

As you walk this eternal path,
Show courage by remaining guiltless
in the midst of an ever-reaching end.

Don’t expect to find any more in me
Than what you give
Don’t search for Hidden pockets
Because I have shown you that
All I have is all you gave…

Death comes, and what we thought
we needed loses importance.

The living shiver, focused
on a muscular dark hand,
rather than the glowing cup it holds
or the toast being proposed.

In that same way love enters
your life, and the I, the ego,
a corrupt, self-absorbed king,
dies during the night.

Let him go.
Breathe cold new air,
the nothing of roselight.

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there

This is how I would die into the love I have for you:
As pieces of cloud dissolve in Sunlight.

People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another.

When I see your face, the stones start spinning.
You appear. All studying wanders.
I lose my place.

Water turns pearly.
Fire dies down and does not consume.

In your presence I do not want
what I thought I wanted,
those three little hanging lamps.

Inside your face the ancient manuscripts
seem like rusty mirrors.
You breathe, and new shapes appear.

The music of a desire as widespread as spring
begins to move like a great wagon.

Drive slowly.
Some of us walking alongside are lame.

Oh soul,you worry too much.

You have seen your own strength.

You have seen your own beauty.

You have seen your golden wings.

Of anything less, why do you worry?

You are in truth the soul, of the soul, of the soul.

Rationality
He who perceives Your chain-like, linked tress-on-tress and then stays “rational” is mad.

Today, like every other day, we wake up emptyand frightened. Don’t open the door to the studyand begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
- Mevlana Rumi

http://www.facebook.com/mevlana

Amplify’d from apod.nasa.gov

Too Close to a Black Hole Credit & Copyright: Alain Riazuelo

Explanation: What would you see if you went right up to a black hole? Above is a computer generated image highlighting how strange things would look. The black hole has such strong gravity that light is noticeably bent towards it - causing some very unusual visual distortions. Every star in the normal frame has at least two bright images - one on each side of the black hole. Near the black hole, you can see the whole sky – light from every direction is bent around and comes back to you. The original background map was taken from the 2MASS infrared sky survey, with stars from the Henry Draper catalog superposed. Black holes are thought to be the densest state of matter, and there is indirect evidence for their presence in stellar binary systems and the centers of globular clusters, galaxies, and quasars. Read more at apod.nasa.gov

 

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The work of the eyes is done. Go now & do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you – Rilke, Born Dec. 4

via apod.nasa.gov

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Either war is obsolete or men are.
- Buckminster Fuller

It always seems impossible until it’s done.
- Nelson Mandela

The psyche is the greatest of all cosmic wonders and the “sine qua non” of the world as an object. It is in the highest degree odd that Western man, with but very few — and ever fewer — exceptions, apparently pays so little regard to this fact. Swamped by the knowledge of external objects, the subject of all knowledge has been temporarily eclipsed to the point of seeming nonexistence.
- Carl Jung

Live truth instead of professing it.
- Elbert Hubbard

Every man’s memory is his private literature.
- Aldous Huxley

Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die, Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly, Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams go, Life is a barren field, Frozen with snow.
- Langston Hughes

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?
- Alice Walker

Read as you taste fruit or savor wine, or enjoy friendship, love or life.
- George Herbert

Heaven means to be one with God.
- Confucius

No one could ever paint a too wonderful picture of my heart or God.
- Hafiz

I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim.
- Frida Kahlo

You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.
- Alan Watts

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
- Mark Twain

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.

Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.

Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us…

If only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful.

Just as language has no longer anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most of the people who live in cities have lost their connexion with the earth; they hang, as it were, in the air, hover in all directions, and find no place where they can settle.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,—
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening…

Already my gaze is upon the hill, the sunny one,
at the end of the path which I’ve only just begun.
So we are grasped, by that which we could not grasp,
at such great distance, so fully manifest—
and it changes us, even when we do not reach it,
into something that, hardly sensing it, we already are;
a sign appears, echoing our own sign…
But what we sense is the falling winds.

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

Rose, oh pure contradiction, desire,
To be no one’s sleep under so many
Lids.
- Epitaph

He was a poet and hated the approximate.

Death is the side of life which is turned away from us.

Everywhere I am folded, there I am a lie.
- Rainer Maria Rilke (Born December 4, 1875)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke

Dream always of a peaceful, warless, disarmed world.
- Robert Muller

There was never a good war or a bad peace.
- Ben Franklin

Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of the gods.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.
- Johann von Schiller

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
- Thomas Carlyle

You don’t get very far in life without having to be brave an awful lot. Because we all have our frightening moments and difficult trials and we don’t have much of a choice but to get through them, and it takes a lot of bravery to do that. The most important thing about bravery is this — It’s not about not being scared — it’s about being scared and doing it anyway — that’s bravery.
- Ysabella Brave

Is there any religion whose followers can be pointed to as distinctly more amiable and trustworthy than those of any other? If so, this should be enough. I find the nicest and best people generally profess no religion at all, but are ready to like the best men of all religions.
- Samuel Butler

That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.
- Thomas Carlyle

Standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards any one.
- Edith Cavell

I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
- George Carlin

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#4

Write down your wishes on a piece of paper. Read them after a year. Read them after 10 years. Read them after 20 years … Let’s visualize all the people living life in peace. 10 seconds. One hour. All day. Anywhere and anytime of the day … Negative thinking is a luxury we can’t afford … Let’s carry the clearest vision of a peaceful world. And do it with a spirit of fun and joy. Not with anger, not with fear … Let’s sing, dance and hug each other to bring in the new year, and with it, a new world … Let’s report to the Universe how glad we are that our planet is part of such a beautiful constellation … Find peace in your heart. It will spread over the world. The effect of it is strong and immediate … Smile to the future and it will smile back to you … Keep your quiet centre and stand for peace. We can do it. – Yoko Ono

A dream you dream alone is only a dream.
A dream you dream together is reality.
- Yoko Ono

http://IMAGINEPEACE.com/
http://twitter.com/yokoono
http://bit.ly/yokoping

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Looking at various means of developing compassion, I think empathy is an important factor: the ability to appreciate others’ suffering.

The efforts we make sincerely to transform ourselves spiritually are what make us genuine practitioners.

The ultimate factor determining whether we have a healthy mind and a healthy body lies within.

We need to make an effort to develop our inner values, irrespective of whether we are religious or not.

Looking at the pattern of our existence from birth to death, we can see the way in which we are fundamentally nurtured by other’s affection.

Although I personally believe that our human nature is fundamentally gentle and compassionate, I feel it is not enough that this is our underlying nature; we must also develop an appreciation and awareness of that fact. And changing how we perceive ourselves, through learning and understanding, can have a very real impact on how we interact with others and how we conduct our daily lives.
- Dalai Lama

‎The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you.
- John E. Southard

Unfortunately, when hope diminishes, the hate is often turned most bitterly toward those who originally built up the hope.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age.
- Adlai E. Stevenson

God sleeps in the minerals, awakens in plants, walks in animals, and thinks in man.
- Arthur Young

I have always wanted my colours to sing.
- Paul Delvaux

A nation afraid to let its people judge truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation afraid of its people.
- John F. Kennedy

Meditating on beach, the ocean waves are like my thoughts coming and going. Neither one affects my stillness

In meditation as in life thoughts come & go. They shld have no bearing on yr happiness. Happiness sits in the heart not the mind
- Russell Simmons

Love is a catalyst for change. When you love on folk, people can change.
- Cornel West

Faith is a commitment to live as if life is a wondrous mystery…as if we are responsible for the well-being of those around us.
- Guengerich

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Self is a sea boundless and measureless.
- Khalil Gibran

Listen to the ocean inside your body.
- Yoko Ono

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
- Pablo Picasso

So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind, while just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In philosophy if you aren’t moving at a snail’s pace you aren’t moving at all.
- Iris Murdoch

I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one.
- Marilyn Monroe

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.

No matter what activity or practice we are pursuing, there isn’t anything that isn’t made easier through constant familiarity

Material development only brings us physical comfort; mental development depends on training the mind.

You need self-confidence and determination: feeling depressed and losing hope will never really help to correct any situation.

If you use violence, you may get some temporary satisfaction. But the nature of violence is unpredictable – unexpected results often happen.

A calm mind helps our human intelligence to assess the situation realistically.

I look at people from a positive angle, seeking positive aspects. This immediately creates a feeling of affinity, a kind of connectedness.

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

I believe that whether a person follows any religion or not is unimportant, he or she must have a good heart, a warm heart.
- Dalai Lama

Dream always of a peaceful, warless, disarmed world.
- Robert Muller

Fair flowers are not left standing along the wayside long.
- German Proverb

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, & the world around us.
- Socrates

Amplify’d from apod.nasa.gov

Sunset at the Spiral Jetty Image Credit & Copyright: Arne Erisoty

Explanation: In dwindling twilight at an August day’s end, these broad dark bands appeared in the sky for a moment, seen from Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty on the eastern shore of Utah’s crepuscular rays, they are actually shadows cast by clouds near the distant western horizon, the setting Sun having disappeared from direct view behind them. The cloud shadows are parallel, but seem to converge in the distance because of perspective. Coiled in the salt-encrusted lake surface, Read more at apod.nasa.gov

 

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/g3ff0V

Thich Nhat Hanh – Enjoying The Ultimate – Winter 2010 Retreat Talk 1

“This is the opening talk of the Winter Retreat of 2010-2011 given on Nov. 28, 2010 in the Lovingkindness Hall of New Hamlet, Plum Village. Thầy continues to talk on the Discourse on Enjoying the Ultimate, Verses 21-24.”

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Silence of the Press: US media turns blind eye to RT crew arrest

An RT crew was locked up in a U.S. jail for 32 hours after filming a protest against a controversial military training facility in Georgia dubbed the School of Assassins.

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Wikileaks revelations emerge

Some 250,000 confidential diplomatic cable sent by US officials have been released to newspapers by the Wikileaks website.

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The First Lady Receives the White House Christmas Tree

The First Lady is presented with the Official White House Christmas Tree.

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Dr Vandana Shiva (1) Beyond Dead Democracy and Killing Economies

Dr Vandana Shiva (1) Beyond Dead Democracy and …
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