I was looking for a course, a way and meaning in my life and thought the answer could be found in all that wise men wrote. And they are surely not to blame if I ended up no wiser. That mystery so clear, so deep, is not to be found in books. It was in your eyes, shining, blue, that I first saw it once. Eternity opened a tiny crack, And earth and heaven sang. ~ Olav H. Hauge (The Magic of Fjords)
Like Rain it sounded till it curved And then we knew ’twas Wind — It walked as wet as any Wave But swept as dry as Sand — When it had pushed itself away To some remotest Plain A coming as of Hosts was heard That was indeed the Rain — It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools It warbled in the Road — It pulled the spigot from the Hills And let the Floods abroad — It loosened acres, lifted seas The sites of Centres stirred Then like Elijah rode away Opon a Wheel of Cloud — ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1245)
We got 1.75″ of rain on Tuesday! Our drought status has moved from severe down to moderate.
The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month. ~ Henry Van Dyke (Fisherman’s Luck & Some Other Uncertain Things)
All forests are one. … They are all echoes of the first forest that gave birth to Mystery when the world began. ~ Charles de Lint (Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, Spring 1990)
The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveler who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should shut and the keys be lost. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien (J. R. R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth)
It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it. ~ John Burroughs (Winter Sunshine)
I would say that there exist a thousand unbreakable lines between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves — we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny. ~ Mary Oliver (Upstream: Selected Essays)
No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love. ~ Edvard Munch (www.edvardmunch.org)