Sunday, February 20, 2011

Quotes by Lao Tzu

-- Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

--If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

-- For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack, and to be firm in the case of defense. When Heaven is to save a person, Heaven will protect him through deep love.

-- At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Autumn Landscape, 1905 - Maurice de Vlaminck (French, 1876-1958)



Maurice de Vlaminck

Five Quotes by Joseph Conrad

"Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank -- but that's not the same thing." 
- The Secret Sharer and other stories

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." 
- Heart of Darkness


"Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams..."
- Heart of Darkness


"Joy and sorrow in this world pass into each other, mingling their forms and their murmurs in the twilight of life as mysterious as an overshadowed ocean, while the dazzling brightness of supreme hopes lies far off, fascinating and still, on the distant edge of the horizon"

" Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you -- smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering -- Come and find out." 


Joseph Conrad

An Interview with Sylvia Plath - Part 1

A Film on Gauguin in Tahiti

Monday, February 14, 2011

A Quote from Black Elk

Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other,
thus should we do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.

Black Elk

Anna Pavlova at Ivy House England






Monday, February 7, 2011

The Spiral

Spirals in Nature

The Carter Family Home

Original Cabin
Restored Cabin
The Carter Family

Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 2 - Andante

Unfinished Masterpiece by Cezanne - The Bathers (National Gallery London)

The Great French Music Teacher Nadia Boulanger

Matisse

A Nation of Immigrants - Annie Moore

"From 1820 to 1920, more than 4 million people left their native shores of Ireland bound for the Port of New York and a new life in America. When Ellis Island officially opened on January 1, 1892, the first passenger registered through the now world-famous immigration station was a young Irish girl named Annie Moore. Just 14-years old and traveling with her two younger brothers, Anthony (11) and Phillip (7), Annie departed from Queenstown (County Cork, Ireland) on December 20, 1891 aboard the S.S. Nevada, one of 148 steerage passengers. The trio would spend 12 days at sea (including Christmas Day), arriving in New York on Thursday evening, December 31. They were processed through Ellis Island the following morning, New Year's Day and also Annie's 15th birthday. All three children were soon reunited with their parents who were already living in New York." 

Selected Haiku

Selected Haiku Old and New

old pond
a frog jumps into
the sound of water
(Basho)

Wake! The sky is light!
  let us to the road
  again...
Companion butterfly!
(Basho)

Cold night: the wild duck
sick, falls from the sky
  and sleeps awhile.
(Basho)

coming back--
so many pathways
through the spring grass
(Buson)

thinking of you
I go up on the hill
and wander
(Buson)

a summer river being crossed
how pleasing with sandals
in my hand!
(Buson)

retreating waves
pull the world from
beneath my feet
(Robert Mestre)

father's pride-
ducks watch my daughter
pretend to be a duck
(Robert Mestre)

staying on the beach
so long it forgets
I am here
(Jane Reichhold)

asleep on the sand
the smell of sea
in my hand
(Jane Reichhold)

Autumn loneliness
finding your postcard
from Manhattan
(Geppo)

Story-telling art
Lives on in Nigeria
Just check your e-mail
(John, Cho)

round lumps of cells grow
up to love porridge  later
become The Supremes
(Anselm Hollo)

Chanda Mama - Playing for Change

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Camille Pissarro - Shepherd in a Downpour

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Thoreau's Walden

The original title page with drawing 
by Thoreau's sister Sophia.

Replica of the cabin and interior at Walden Pond.

TED Prize Winner Sylvia Earle - Her Wish




















 

“I wish you would use all means at your disposal — films! expeditions! the web! more! — to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.”

Whippoorwill by Carlos Nakai

Redroofs by Camille Pissarro

Carl Jung on the Anima