—	Pearl S. Buck

epithalamus:

Alchemical work was rooted in the philosophy of a gradual but irreversible process of improvement in nature.

The fundamental idea was that Nature was perfectible and that it was in a perpetual process of self-improvement. All metals tend, or wish, to become gold, and they do so over centuries of change. However, man can intervene and quicken the process of natural growth. This human implication into the course of Nature was accompanied by a feeling of sacredness and reverence toward her. This was not inert, inferior matter: but matter hiding the very seeds of divinity. It was by delving deep into the heart of Nature that the alchemist discovered the secrets of Creation and immortality.

In the dry way, the ‘first matter’ – which was usually a metal such as gold, tin orcopper – was immolated by fire, vitriol, antimony or aqua regia. This process wascalled calcination. In the wet way, the same reduction was achieved throughputrefaction (6). The result was dark ashes – hence the first stage of the work was called nigredo (black). 

Nigredo was a destructive, sorrowful stage – the moment where an existing thing (a gold piece, for instance) was brought to dissolution. To symbolize this dark moment alchemists often used figurative images like the Black Crow, the Raven or the Toad (7).

Continuing on the right path, often an intermediary state, the so-called ‘Peacock’s Tail’ occurred– an explosion of colors in the flask. Associated with the goddess Venus, the peacock was a beautiful display of all the colors of the work (8).

Mixing other substances in the flask, the blackness of the matter eventually disappeared to make room for a whiteness called albedo. This sudden inversion of colors was a sign that the work was going in the right direction. Albedo was usually portrayed in the form of a White Eagle, Dove or Swan (9, 10). It was also associated with silver, and the moon (11).The whitening was compared to the coming of dawn after a long night, and embodied as a white Virgin (12). This was a moment of rejoicing, of hope; it was a proof that darkness would not last forever.

The next state was citrinitas, yellowing, a stage that many authors after the 15th century tended to suppress, or rather compress into the last one, rubedo. While the albedo represented the moon – or female, citrinitas referred to the sun – or male. The union of male and female (the so-called ‘chemical wedding’) was often a symbol of the Work. From their conjunction the hermaphroditic offspring-philosophical Mercury was born.

This phase –rubedo – was the triumph of the Work: the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone in the form of a transparent red stone. This Stone, often portrayed as a Phoenix, was supposed to perfect anything from metals to human beings, bestowing long life or immortality (13).

The four-stage Work could never have been accomplished without the so-called Philosophical Mercury, which was the unifying spirit enlivening the matter, the divine flow without which transmutation was impossible. Philosophical Mercury was not common mercury, although mercury could be seen as an image of the philosophical one. The purpose of the whole alchemical process was in fact, the fixation –solidification of this elusive spirit, often imagined as a bird. The only way Mercury could be transformed into matter was by passing through the colorful four-phase journey.

As a final note, I should add that the four-stage alchemical Work became the basis of the Jungian psychology of the Self (14). Believing that alchemists in fact did not pursue physical transmutation, but spiritual one, Jung sought to express the process of achieving the Self through alchemical imagery.

artetamour:

I love this, It is very Artistic! 

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

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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

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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

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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 CreazzoAmplify’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

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

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Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
- Samuel Beckett

http://themodernword.com

I have learned that every heart will get what it prays for most.
- Hafiz

What you think, you create. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you become.
- Adele Basheer

Promise me you’ll always remember: you’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, & smarter than you think.
- Christopher to Pooh

Nothing happens unless first we dream.
- Carl Sandburg

My understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe did not come out of my rational mind.
- Albert Einstein

Self-respect is often mistaken for arrogance when in reality it is the opposite. When we can recognize all our good qualities as well as or faults with neutrality, we can start to appreciate ourselves as we would a dear friend and experience the comfortable inner glow of respect. To embrace the journey towards our full potential we need to become our own loving teacher and coach. Spurring ourselves on to become better human beings we develop true regard for ourselves and our life will become sacred.
- Osho

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
- Bertrand Russel

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

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

There is no model; there is only color.
- Paul Cezanne

Unfold your own myth, without complicated explanation, so everyone will understand the passage.

Only from the heart can you touch the sky.
- Mevlana Rumi

What we are is God’s Gift to us; What we become is our Gift to God.
- Eleanor Powell

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

All the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind.
- Eckhart Tolle

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

Let him that would move the world first move himself.
- Socrates

Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real.
- Deepak Chopra

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
- Gilbert K. Chesterton

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

Nothing happens unless first we dream.
- Carl Sandburg

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

Be kind to unkind people - they need it the most.
- Ashleigh Brilliant

When you blame others, you give up your power to change.
- Douglas Noel Adams

Where there is great love, there are always miracles.
- Willa Cather

What you seek is seeking you!
- Mevlana Rumi

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

The owners of this country know the truth: It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
- George Carlin

There are three truths: my truth, your truth and the truth.
- Chinese Proverb

‎Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
- Vincent Van Gogh

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
- Albert Einstein

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway… And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!
- Anne Frank

We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race.
- Kofi Annan (Elected Secretary General of the United Nations on December 13, 1996)

Where they burn books, they will also burn people.

Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance.
- Heinrich Heine (Born December 13, 1797)

Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry… To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery.

The best of ideas is hurt by uncritical acceptance and thrives on critical examination.
- George Pólya (Born December 3, 1187)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#13

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The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be defined is not the unchanging name.

The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds.

The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities.

A leader is best when people barely know that he exists…

Since before time and space were, the Tao is. It is beyond is and is not.
How do I know this is true?
I look inside myself and see.

A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.

Without the laughter, there would be no Tao.

A journey of a thousand li starts with a single step.

The mark of a moderate man is freedom from his own ideas. Tolerant like the sky, all-pervading like sunlight, firm like a mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, he has no destination in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring his way.

The Master has no possessions.
The more he does for others, the happier he is.
The more he gives to others, the wealthier he is.

The Tao nourishes by not forcing.
By not dominating, the Master leads.
- Laozi, Tao Te Ching

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

Hope isn’t obvious or easy. It takes a stubborn resolve & an indomitable will. With hope, no matter how dark the day, there is always light.
- Cory Booker



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, Pale Blue Dot

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The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.

Peace is every step.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.
- William Shakespeare

via spacetelescope.org

I am a passenger on Spaceship Earth.
- Buckminster Fuller

via apod.nasa.gov

“Explanation: Have you contemplated your sky recently? Tonight will be a good one for midnight meditators at many northerly locations as meteors from the Geminids meteor shower will frequently streak through. The Geminds meteor shower has slowly been building to a crescendo and should peak tonight. Pictured above ten days ago, a group of celestial sightseers in the Maranjab Desert in Iran, were treated to a dark and wondrous pre-dawn sky that contained the planet Venus and a crescent Moon. Tonight Mars and Mercury should be visible just above the southwestern horizon at sunset, while the first quarter Moon will set around midnight.”Amplify’d from www.spacetelescope.org

A Dazzling Planetary Nebula

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has turned its eagle eye to the planetary nebula NGC 6572, a very bright example of these strange but beautiful objects. Planetary nebulae are created during the late stages of the evolution of certain stars that eject gas into space and emit intense ultraviolet radiation that makes the material glow. This picture of NGC 6572 shows the intricate shapes that can develop as stars exhale their last breaths. Hubble has even imaged the central white dwarf star, the origin of the dazzling nebula, but now a faint, but hot, vestige of its former glory.

NGC 6572 only began to shed its gases a few thousand years ago, so it is a fairly young planetary nebula. As a result the material is still quite concentrated, which explains why it is abnormally bright. The envelope of gas is currently racing out into space at a speed of around 15 kilometres every second and as it becomes more diffuse, it will dim.

NGC 6572 was discovered in 1825 by the German astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, who came from a family of distinguished stargazers. The name planetary nebula is left over from the time when the telescopes of early astronomers were not good enough to reveal the true nature of these objects. To many, the discs looked like the outer planets Uranus and Neptune. The application of spectral analysis, later in the 19th century, first revealed that they were glowing gas clouds.

NGC 6572 is magnitude 8.1, easily bright enough to make it an appealing target for amateur astronomers with telescopes. It is located within the large constellation of Ophiuchus (the Serpent Bearer) and at low magnification it will appear to be just a coloured star, but higher magnification will reveal its shape. Some observers report that NGC 6572 looks blue, while others state that it is green. Colour as seen through the eyepiece is often a matter of interpretation, so you may make your own decision!

This picture was created from images taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 2. Images through a blue filter that isolates the glow from hydrogen gas (Hβ, F487N, coloured dark blue), a green filter that isolates emission from ionised oxygen (F502N, coloured blue), a yellow broadband filter (F555W, coloured green) and a red filter that passes emission from hydrogen (Hα, F656N) have been combined. The exposure times were 360 s, 240 s, 100 s and 180 s, respectively and the field of view is just 29 arcseconds across.

Credit:

ESA/Hubble & NASA

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—	William Blake (Born November 28, 1757)