Wordless Wednesday: After the Rain

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“They both listened silently to the water,

which to them was not just water,

but the voice of life, the voice of Being,

the voice of perpetual Becoming.”
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Hermann Hesse

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

Illumination and The Freedoms We Celebrate

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“But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?

It is the greatest of all possible evils;

for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Those who know what virtuous liberty is,

cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads,

on account of their having

high-sounding words in their mouths.”

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Edmund Burke

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“If ever a time should come,

when vain and aspiring men

shall possess the highest seats in Government,

our country will stand in need

of its experienced patriots

to prevent its ruin.”

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Samuel Adams

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“Liberty without Learning is always in peril

and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.”

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John F. Kennedy

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“They who can give up essential liberty

to obtain a little temporary safety

deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

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Benjamin Franklin

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“Those who deny freedom to others,

deserve it not for themselves”

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Abraham Lincoln

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

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“I am an American; free born and free bred,

where I acknowledge no man as my superior,

except for his own worth,

or as my inferior,

except for his own demerit.”

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Theodore Roosevelt

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“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom,

must, like men,

undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”

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Thomas Paine

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Structure

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“Life on earth is a whole,

yet it expresses itself in unique time-bound bodies,

microscopic or visible,

plant or animal, extinct or living.

So there can be no one place to be.

There can be no one way to be,

no one way to practice, no one way to learn,

no one way to love, no one way to grow or to heal,

no one way to live, no one way to feel,

no one thing to know or be known.

The particulars count.”

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Jon Kabat-Zinn

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“Nothing is less real than realism.

Details are confusing.

It is only by selection, by elimination,

by emphasis,

that we get at the real meaning of things.”

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Georgia O’Keeffe

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“The basic structure of the universe

is balanced on a razor’s edge

for life to exist”

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Sunday Adelaja

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Structure

WPC: Transient

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“The only way to make sense out of change

is to plunge into it, move with it,

and join the dance.”

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Alan W. Watts

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“Nothing endures but change.”

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Heraclitus

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“If a beautiful thing were to remain

beautiful for all eternity, I’d be glad,

but all the same I’d look

at it with a colder eye.

I’d say to myself: You can look

at it any time, it doesn’t have to be today.”

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Hermann Hesse

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“It is in changing that we find purpose.”

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Heraclitus

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Clematis ‘Violet Elizabeth’

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For The Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Transient

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WPC: Order

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“Deep in the human unconscious

is a pervasive need for a logical universe

that makes sense.

But the real universe

is always one step beyond logic.”

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Frank Herbert

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“Mathematics expresses values that reflect the cosmos,

including orderliness, balance, harmony, logic,

and abstract beauty.”

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Deepak Chopra

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“The order that our mind imagines

is like a net, or like a ladder,

built to attain something.

But afterward you must throw the ladder away,

because you discover that, even if it was useful,

it was meaningless.”

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Umberto Eco

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“Chaos is merely order

waiting to be deciphered.”

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José Saramago

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“The world is not to be put in order.

The world is order.

It is for us to put ourselves in unison

with this order.”

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Henry Miller

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“Chaos was the law of nature;

Order was the dream of man.”

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Henry Adams

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

.  .  .

For the Daily Post’s 

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Order

Wordless Wednesday: Water Lily

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“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous,

the cheerful, the planners, the doers,

the successful people with their heads in the clouds

and their feet on the ground.

Let their spirit ignite a fire within you

to leave this world better

than when you found it…”

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Wilferd Peterson

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“Plant seeds of happiness, hope,

success, and love; it will all

come back to you in abundance.

This is the law of nature.”

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Steve Maraboli,

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

taken at Brent and Becky Heath’s display gardens in Gloucester, VA

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Wednesday Vignette: Peace

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“Peace begins with a smile..”
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Mother Teresa

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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness:

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate:

only love can do that.”

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Martin Luther King Jr.

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“The day the power of love overrules the love of power,

the world will know peace.”

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Mahatma Gandhi

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“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness.

If you are attentive, you will see it. ”

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Thich Nhat Hanh,

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“The mind can go in a thousand directions,

but on this beautiful path,

I walk in peace.

With each step, the wind blows.

With each step, a flower blooms.”

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Thich Nhat Hanh

Wednesday Vignette: Vision

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“The truth.” Dumbledore sighed.

“It is a beautiful and terrible thing,

and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

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J.K. Rowling

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“I believe in everything until it’s disproved.

So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons.

It all exists, even if it’s in your mind.

Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares

aren’t as real as the here and now?”

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John Lennon

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“Facts do not cease to exist

because they are ignored.”

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Aldous Huxley

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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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“In a time of deceit

telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

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George Orwell

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

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Oscar Wilde

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Reflecting

Wednesday Vignette: Connected

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“Just as the wave cannot exist for itself,

but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean,

so must I never live my life for itself,

but always in the experience which is going on around me.”

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Albert Schweitzer

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“There is a deep interconnectedness of all life on earth,

from the tiniest organisms,

to the largest ecosystems,

and absolutely between each person.”

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Bryant McGill

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“When we know ourselves to be connected to all others,

acting compassionately is simply the natural thing to do. ”

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Rachel Naomi Remen

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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“…the Ultimate Truth: nothing exists in the universe

that is separate from anything else.

Everything is intrinsically connected,

irrevocably interdependent,

interactive, interwoven into the fabric of all of life.”

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Neale Donald Walsch

 

 

 

Wednesday Vignette: Intricacies

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“Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind:

Study the science of art.

Study the art of science.

Develop your senses-

especially learn how to see.

Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

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Leonardo da Vinci

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“The artist is the confidant of nature,

flowers carry on dialogues with him

through the graceful bending of their stems

and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms.

Every flower has a cordial word

which nature directs towards him.”

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Auguste Rodin

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“All sciences are vain and full of errors

that are not born of Experience,

the mother of all Knowledge.”

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Leonardo da Vinci

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“Patience is also a form of action.”

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Auguste Rodin

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“While human ingenuity may devise

various inventions to the same ends,

it will never devise anything more beautiful,

nor more simple,

nor more to the purpose than nature does,

because in her inventions nothing is lacking

and nothing is superfluous.”

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Leonardo da Vinci

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“If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model,

your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves;

but Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree.

No two leaves are exactly the same.

The artist who paints only what is in his mind

must very soon repeat himself.”

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

of Mountain Laurel, Kalmia latifolia,

a  North American native shrub

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“Details make perfection,

and perfection is not a detail.”

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Leonardo da Vinci