México

Happy 50th birthday, Ms. Yelda. Blessings and peals of laughter.

el paraguas

Felíz cumpleaños mom. Te quiero.

express yourself

Happy birthday, Kristen.

On beauty

On Beauty

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?

And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?

….

It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,

But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.

It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,

But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.

People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.

But you are life and you are the veil.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

--Kahlil Gibran

In personal trying times, I notice how more attuned I am to beauty around me: a spangled sunset, or being under the umbrella of a gingko tree, or the crashing of waves on the rocky shore, or the spray of stars at night, or the pull of jasmine on a summer night, or the thunder of a waterfall, or the delicate architecture of a flower. I am stuck by these transient moments if only briefly—which mirror our fleeting life.  Nothing gold can stay. It is as if the beauty assuages my soul and brings me respite and solace and strength when there is none; and I live on this bread for temporary periods.

But perhaps I am arrested by beauty because the beauty within recognizes the beauty without. There is the philosophical tenet sicut videt sicut, like sees like, which means I see the beauty in you because I see the beauty in me. And being so, I should be awe of the beauty that resides in me and allows me to see what a wonderful world.

Think of all the beauty

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

--Anne Frank

On love

When love beckons to you, follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams

as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.


--Khalil Gibran

To love beauty

To love beauty is to see light.

--Victor Hugo

The soul

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Becky & Chris & Kids

Becky, Chris, Ysabel and Christian in front of Old St. Mary's.

People are like stained - glass windows

People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.

--Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Of life's two chief prizes

Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand.

--Khalil Gibran

Beauty saves

Beauty saves. Beauty heals. Beauty motivates. Beauty unites. Beauty returns us to our origins, and here lies the ultimate act of saving, of healing, of overcoming dualism.

--Matthew Fox

Beauty is whatever gives joy

Beauty is whatever gives joy.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

Beauty awakens

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

--Dante Alighieri

Felíz cumpleaños Nina. Te quiero.

Our hearts were drunk

Our hearts were drunk with a beauty our eyes could never see.

--George William Russell

San Francis

Happy Birthday Claire. Much love...

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.  

~Saint Augustine

Remember that the most beautiful things

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.  

~John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, 1851

There is a road from the eye to the heart

There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect. 

~Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Beauty

Beauty... is the shadow of God on the universe.  

~Gabriela Mistral, Desolacíon