Sunday Dinner: Nostalgia II

Colonial Williamsburg 2016

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“How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof,

thinking of home.”

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  William C. Faulkner

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Colonial Williamsburg, 2016

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“It is strange how we hold on

to the pieces of the past

while we wait for our futures.”

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  Ally Condie

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Colonial Williamsburg 2016

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“The Greek word for “return” is nostos.

Algos means “suffering.”

So nostalgia is the suffering caused

by an unappeased yearning to return.”

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Milan Kundera

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Colonial Williamsburg 2016

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“Memory believes

before knowing remembers.

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  William Faulkner

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Colonial Williamsburg December 2015

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“Remembrance of things past

is not necessarily the remembrance of things

as they were.”

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Marcel Prous

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Colonial Williamsburg 2015

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“There are a few moments in your life

when you are truly and completely happy,

and you remember to give thanks.

Even as it happens you are nostalgic for the moment,

you are tucking it away in your scrapbook.”

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David Benioff

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December 2016

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“For children, childhood is timeless.

It is always the present.

Everything is in the present tense.

Of course, they have memories. Of course, time shifts a little for them

and Christmas comes round in the end.

But they don’t feel it. Today is what they feel,

and when they say ‘When I grow up,’

there is always an edge of disbelief—

how could they ever be other than what they are?”

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Ian McEwan

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December 2016 Powhatan Creek

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“The ‘what should be’ never did exist,

but people keep trying to live up to it.

There is no ‘what should be,’

there is only what is.”

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Lenny Bruce

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Rose window, Bruton Parish, Williamsburg VA December 2017

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We each find ourselves in uncharted territory this December as we struggle to adapt to the changes swirling around us.  We are haunted by memories, sweet and sad; even as we look ahead with hope.  Let us focus on the eternal ‘Now,’ finding peace and happiness in this present moment.  One day we will look back with nostalgia at this unique time, as rich in opportunities as in limitations. 

As we approach Winter Solstice and a fresh new year, let us mine the sweetness of this moment, share the love always bubbling up in our hearts, and spread the light of understanding, one to another.

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Colonial Williamsburg, December 2016

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Woodland Gnome 2020

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December 2020

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Please visit my other site, Illuminations, for a daily photo of something beautiful and a positive thought.

 

Sunday Dinner: Paradox

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“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.

Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

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  Marcus Aurelius

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“Art is the lie that

enables us to realize the truth.”

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  Pablo Picasso

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“But you can’t make people listen.

They have to come round in their own time,

wondering what happened

and why the world blew up around them.

It can’t last.”

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  Ray Bradbury

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“The opposite of a correct statement

is a false statement.

But the opposite of a profound truth

may well be another profound truth.”

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Niels Bohr

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“You may choose to look the other way

but you can never say again

that you did not know.”

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William Wilberforce

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“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.”

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Isaac Newton

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“Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth,

and if a man does not know what a thing is,

it is at least an increase in knowledge

if he knows what it is not. ”

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Carl G. Jung

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2020

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“Cherish those who seek the truth

but beware of those who find it.”
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  Voltaire

Sunday Dinner: Bloom Where You Are Planted

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“To accomplish great things we must not only act,

but also dream;

not only plan, but also believe.

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Anatole France

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“Only those who attempt the absurd

can achieve the impossible.”

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Albert Einstein

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“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion,

which is life,

by artificial means and hold it fixed

so that a hundred years later,

when a stranger looks at it,

it moves again since it is life.”

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William Faulkner

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“People pretend not to like grapes

when the vines are too high

for them to reach.”

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Marguerite de Navarre

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“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing

unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…

I have never in my life envied a human being

who led an easy life.

I have envied a great many people

who led difficult lives and led them well.”

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Theodore Roosevelt

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“Not much happens without a dream.

And for something great to happen,

there must be a great dream.

Behind every great achievement

is a dreamer of great dreams.

Much more than a dreamer is required

to bring it to reality;

but the dream must be there first.”

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Robert K. Greenleaf

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2020

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“One bulb at a time.

There was no other way to do it.

No shortcuts–simply loving the slow process of planting.

Loving the work as it unfolded.

Loving an achievement that grew slowly

and bloomed for only three weeks each year.”
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Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards

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Visit Illuminations, for a daily photo of something beautiful.

Sunday Dinner: Seeing What There Is to See

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“Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book

which ever is before our eyes –

– I mean the universe –

– but we cannot understand it

if we do not first learn the language

and grasp the symbols in which it is written.

The book is written in mathematical language,

and the symbols are triangles,

circles and other geometrical figures,

without whose help it is impossible to comprehend

a single word of it;

without which one wanders in vain

through a dark labyrinth.”

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Galileo Galilei

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“In the various arts,

and above all in that of writing,

the shortest distance between two points,

even if close to each other,

has never been and never will be,

nor is it now, what is known as a straight line,

never, never, to put it strongly

and emphatically in response to any doubts,

to silence them once and for all.”

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Jose Saramago

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“His way had therefore come full circle,

or rather had taken the form of an ellipse or a spiral,

following as ever no straight unbroken line,

for the rectilinear belongs only to Geometry

and not to Nature and Life.”

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Hermann Hesse,

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“The brain does not own any direct copies

of stuff in the world.

There is no library of forms and ideas

against which to compare the images of perception.

Information is stored in a plastic way,

allowing fantastic juxtapositions and leaps of imagination.

Some chaos exists out there,

and the brain seems to have more flexibility

than classical physics

in finding the order in it.”

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James Gleick

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“Give me a place to stand,

a lever long enough and a fulcrum.

and I can move the Earth”

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Archimedes

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“The pits and tangles are more

than blemishes distorting the classic shapes

of Euclidian geometry.

They are often the keys

to the essence of a thing”

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James Gleick

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“Maths is at only one remove from magic.”

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Neel Burton

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“That’s the thing about magic;

you’ve got to know it’s still here,

all around us,

or it just stays invisible for you.”

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Charles de Lint

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Sunday Dinner: Harmony

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“That is where my dearest

and brightest dreams have ranged —

to hear for the duration of a heartbeat

the universe and the totality of life

in its mysterious, innate harmony.”

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Hermann Hesse

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“Peace is more than the absence of war.

Peace is accord.

Harmony.”

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Laini Taylor

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“If there is righteousness in the heart,

there will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character,

there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home,

there will be order in the nations.
When there is order in the nations,

there will peace in the world.”

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Confucius

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“Digressions are part of harmony, deviations too.”

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Dejan Stojanovic

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“Instead of railing against hate, we focus on love;

instead of judging the angry,

we offer them our peaceful presence;

instead of warning against a dystopian future,

we provide a hopeful vision.”

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Gudjon Bergmann

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“The happy man needs nothing and no one.

Not that he holds himself aloof,

for indeed he is in harmony

with everything and everyone;

everything is “in him”;

nothing can happen to him.

The same may also be said

for the contemplative person;

he needs himself alone; he lacks nothing.”

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Josef Pieper

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“Out of clutter, find simplicity.”

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Albert Einstein

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“Through our eyes,

the universe is perceiving itself.

Through our ears,

the universe is listening to its harmonies.

We are the witnesses

through which the universe

becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”

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Alan Wilson Watts

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Sunday Dinner: Renewal

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“What’s wonderful about life is you always have to start over.

No many how many meals you’ve eaten,

words you’ve spoken, breaths, you’ve taken,

you always have to start over.”

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Marty Rubin

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“Miracles… seem to me to rest

not so much upon… healing power

coming suddenly near us from afar

but upon our perceptions being made finer,

so that, for a moment,

our eyes can see and our ears can hear

what is there around us always.”

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Willa Cather

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“It is always quietly thrilling

to find yourself looking at a world

you know well

but have never seen

from such an angle before.”

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Bill Bryson

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“Whether we know it or not,

our lives are acts of imagination

and the world is continually re-imagined

through us.”

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Michael Meade

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“Everything you can imagine is real.”

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Pablo Picasso

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“I realized, it is not the time that heals,

but what we do within that time

that creates positive change.”

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Diane Dettmann

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“We do not need magic to change the world,

we carry all the power we need

inside ourselves already:

we have the power to imagine better.”

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J.K. Rowling

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“There is the strange power we have

of changing facts

by the force of the imagination.”

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Virginia Woolf

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“As I leave the garden
I take with me a renewed view,
And a quiet soul.”
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Jessica Coupe

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Still Learning How To See

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“I keep drawing the trees, the rocks, the river,

I’m still learning how to see them;

I’m still discovering how to render their forms.

I will spend a lifetime doing that.

Maybe someday I’ll get it right.”

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Alan Lee

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“In a forest of a hundred thousand trees,

no two leaves are alike.

And no two journeys

along the same path are alike.”

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Paulo Coelho

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“There is life and death in all forest,

the life will bring you beauty

and the dead will bring you new life!”

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Roland Kemler

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“One moment the world is as it is.

The next, it is something entirely different.

Something it has never been before.”

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Anne Rice

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“So many hues in nature

and yet nothing remained the same,

every day, every season

a work of genius, a free gift

from the Artist of artists.”

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E.A. Bucchianeri

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“This is why children can see Angels, touch spirits,

hear the songs of the trees, and talk to the animals.

Quite simply, they acknowledge the magic.”

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Elizabeth Eiler

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At first glance, it was just another wet and chilly February day.  The sounds of wind and rain had awakened me in the night, another storm passing over swelling creeks and spongy ground.  Heavy clouds still roiled across the sky, blocking all of the golden from the cold, grey light that reached us.

It was still a day worth using, and so we set out to have a look at the river after brunch and before busy-ness.

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There is beauty and grace, even in February.  There is the halo of faint color around the latticework of limbs, clothed in swelling buds.  There is the wake left by a passing work boat, and moss glowing thick and green through the gloom. There is the delicate etching of branches stretching for the sky; the living nearly indistinguishable from the dead.

I paused to consider that after a life-time of looking, I’m really still learning how to see….

Woodland Gnome 2019

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“Everything has beauty,

but not everyone sees it.”

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Confucious

Sunday Dinner: Imagination

Caladium ‘Peppermint’

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“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.”

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Jonathan Swift

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Begonia

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“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.

That myth is more potent than history.

That dreams are more powerful than facts.

That hope always triumphs over experience.

That laughter is the only cure for grief.

And I believe that love is stronger than death.”

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Robert Fulghum

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Begonias with Caladium ‘Moonlight’

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“Imagination does not become great

until human beings, given the courage and the strength,

use it to create.”

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Maria Montessori

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Caladium ‘Berries and Burgundy’

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“Logic will get you from A to Z;

imagination will get you everywhere.”

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Albert Einstein

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Begonia ‘Flamingo’

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“Consciousness, unprovable by scientific standards,

is forever, then, the impossible phantom

in the predictable biologic machine,

and your every thought a genuine supernatural event.

Your every thought is a ghost, dancing.”

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Alan Moore

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Caladium ‘Sangria’

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018  

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“Everything you can imagine is real.”

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Pablo Picasso

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“An idea is salvation by imagination”

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Frank Lloyd Wright

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Caladium ‘Summer Breeze’

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“When I start a new seminar

I tell my students that I will undoubtedly contradict myself,

and that I will mean both things.

But an acceptance of contradiction is no excuse for fuzzy thinking.

We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us,

yet acknowledge that they cannot take us

all the way.”

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Madeleine L’Engle

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Begonia

 

Sunday Dinner: Juxtaposed

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“Because you don’t notice the light without a bit of shadow.

Everything has both dark and light.

You have to play with it

till you get it exactly right.”

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Libba Bray

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“You couldn’t have strength without weakness,

you couldn’t have light without dark,

you couldn’t have love

without loss”

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Jodi Picoult

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“Red was ruby, green was fluorescent,

yellow was simply incandescent.

Color was life.

Color was everything.

Color, you see,

was the universal sign of magic.”

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Tahereh Mafi

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“Hygge is our awareness of the scale of our existence

in contrast to the immensity of life.

It is our sense of intimacy

and encounter with each other

and with the creaturely world around us.

It is the presence of nature

calling us back to the present moment,

calling us home.”

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Louisa Thomsen Brits

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“Yes, contrast teaches us a great many things

and there is purpose for it.

Yet it is time to transcend your everyday dramas

that are but drops in an ocean.

Cease focusing on your droplets of water and look around you.

Everything you say and touch and do

sets into motion ripples

that either heal and create

or curse and destroy.

Let me repeat: Everything.”

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Alaric Hutchinson

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

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“…the basic stuff of the universe, at its core,

is looking like a kind of pure energy

that is malleable to human intention and expectation

in a way that defies our old mechanistic model of the universe-

-as though our expectation itself

causes our energy to flow out into the world

and affect other energy systems.”

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James Redfield

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“A warrior has to believe,

otherwise he cannot activate his intent positively.”

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Théun Mares

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Sunday Dinner: Knowledge

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“The beginning of knowledge

is the discovery of something

we do not understand.”

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Frank Herbert

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“Proper teaching is recognized with ease.

You can know it without fail

because it awakens within you that sensation

which tells you this is something

you have always known.”

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Frank Herbert

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“A process cannot be understood by stopping it.

Understanding must move with the flow of the process,

must join it and flow with it.”

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Frank Herbert

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“Without change something sleeps inside us,

and seldom awakens.

The sleeper must awaken.”

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Frank Herber

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“The future remains uncertain and so it should,

for it is the canvas upon which we paint our desires.

Thus always the human condition

faces a beautifully empty canvas.

We possess only this moment

in which to dedicate ourselves continuously

to the sacred presence

which we share and create.”

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Frank Herbert

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

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“If you need something to worship, then worship life –

all life, every last crawling bit of it!

We’re all in this beauty together!”

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Frank Herbert

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“When a wise man does not understand, he says: “I do not understand.”

The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance.

They remain silent

when a question could bring them wisdom.”

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Frank Herbert

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