Whimsical Serendipity
Post Created by Jk the secret keeper
Videos Created by Jennifer Kiley
Created May 31st & June 1st 2013
Posted June 1st 2013
Dedicated To Shawn: EARLY BIRTHDAY PRESENT—HAPPY BIRTHDAY on JUNE 3rd
carter the lion—HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY MOM SHAWN—JUNE 3rd
“As I look out at all of you gathered here, I want to say that I don’t see a room full of Parisians in top hats and diamonds and silk dresses. I don’t see bankers and housewives and store clerks. No. I address you all tonight as you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.” ― Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
“Flowers lead to books, which lead to thinking and not thinking and then more flowers and music, music. Then many more flowers and many more books.” ― Maira Kalman
“These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination.” ― Rabindranath Tagore
“Do you know a better time than the present for igniting your dreams?” ― Carolyn Tody, Author and Artist, A Whimsical Holiday for Children
“Vital lives are about action. You can’t feel warmth unless you create it, can’t feel delight until you play,can’t know serendipity unless you risk.” ― Joan Erickson
“Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked.” ― Elizabeth Berg, The Year of Pleasures
“But in Friendship, being free of all that, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting—any of these chances might have kept us apart… — C.S. Lewis
“In the abstract, it might be tempting to imagine that irreducible complexity simply requires multiple simultaneous mutations – that evolution might be far chancier than we thought, but still possible. Such an appeal to brute luck can never be refuted… Luck is metaphysical speculation; scientific explanations invoke causes.” ― Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
“It’s a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn’t even know you were aiming for.” ― Lois McMaster Bujold
Adorable Baby Elephant
Video on YouTube
Written by Jennifer Kiley
Created May 30th 2013
Posted June 1st 2013I watched this video with the sleepy baby elephant. People watching her and encouraging her to get up. To wake up. She looks so adorable. The people making the video, I assume, are the ones making the sounds and talking to the precious little creature. She struggled and struggled but was having a difficult time of it. I won’t spoil any more of the video for you. I would, however, ask that you pay very close attention to the language and attitude of the those who are watching this baby elephant being so adorable. You feel yourself being drawn in. How could you not be. So watch the video. Following the watching of the video I have continued my comment. Please wait to read after you have viewed the entire video. Thank You. By Jennifer Kiley
Adorable Baby Elephant Now that you have viewed the video, think further about how it made you feel. One point I will make right away. I did not know, as you did not know that there was a mother elephant just a short distance away. The people making the video were so enjoying the baby elephant struggling to get up and that she was sleepy, so she was struggling with this dilemma, probably wondering through her sleepiness: “Why isn’t my Mom coming to help me? She can see I am having trouble. Please Mom, won’t you please come and help me. All these people are saying strange things to me. They don’t understand that I am having a difficult time and just want my mother. Why aren’t you helping me.”
Well, when the camera finally scans over to the mother, these pleas are answered for you. The mother is chained by the ankle and being kept in a stationary place where she is totally unable to come to aid of her daughter. She can’t answer her frustration and panic that might be setting in. The Mother also sees these humans talking near her child. She doesn’t understand whether they are safe or not. Her child keeps struggling and all she can do is to watch helplessly. No attendant is anywhere near by to lend assistance.
I have become quite angry long before this point. The cuteness has turned into unbelievability that the Mother elephant is chained up. Not only chained up but is unable to reach her child. The cruelty just keeps growing in my mind. This is not such an adorable video afterall. The title says: “Adorable Baby Elephant ” It is closed with a smiley face. There is nothing to smile at here. Whoever stood there and took this video and did nothing about the horror they were watching is truly amazing and heartless. Why weren’t they looking for help for both the baby and the mother who were separated and in distress.
Now some may feel I am over-reacting but I think I am under-reacting. It took me a short while after watching this video to react in the way that I have. Which is placing this video on my blog post and writing up my feelings and reactions. I hope others who see this will take this video and do the same on your own blogs or on Facebook or whatever social media that you use and spread this word. It is not acceptable to treat animals in this way. You do not chain up any elephant. You do not chain up a Mother elephant far enough away from her baby so she can do nothing to protect her. Elephants are quite maternal and protective of their babies. But that is not the specific point.
The point is we as humans do not have the right to treat animals in this way for the amusement of sadistic human beings who take pleasure in the watching of a Mother Elephant being tortured by keeping her struggling baby from her. And the people did nothing but enjoy themselves fully aware, which the viewer of the video was not aware, that there was a Mother Elephant so near but chained, but not near enough to help her baby out. Why were these people not trying to find someone to correct this horrible situation. Keep in mind also that the surface these two elephants are on is concrete. Not exactly natural to any animals.
This is a disturbing video when you know all the facts and have seen the entire footage. Yes, it has an ending that helped the baby but it never should have gone that far. Those elephants need to be placed in an environment where this can never happen to them again. By Jennifer Kiley.
“We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.” ― Albert Schweitzer
“I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.” ― Abraham Lincoln
“The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion in the only guarantee of morality.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality
“The question is not, “Can they reason?” nor, “Can they talk?” but “Can they suffer?” ― Jeremy Bentham
“We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to help people understand that the animals are fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves.” ― César Chávez
“Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people. ” ― César Chávez
“Know that the same spark of life that is within you, is within all of our animal friends, the desire to live is the same within all of us…” ― Rai Aren, Secret of the Sands
“You have someone in your life whom you honor and revere so much that every hurt on them is inflicted on you as well. And the closer they are to you, the greater the pain.” ― Masashi Kishimoto
“When someone is close by, you just know it.” ― James Dashner, The Scorch Trials
“I tried to put things in perspective but sometimes you’re just too close to it.” ― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
“Closeness means you get hurt; closeness means letting down your defenses and letting people see the tender skin under the carapace.” ― Cathy Kelly, Never Too Late
“You can decorate absence however you want- but your still gonna feel what’s missing.” ― Siobhan Vivian, Same Difference
“They say when you are missing someone that they are probably feeling the same, but I don’t think it’s possible for you to miss me as much as I’m missing you right now” ― Edna St. Vincent Millay
“He was so close to her then that they owned every molecule of air in the tiny room and the air grew heavy with their desire and worked to move them together.” ― Ann Patchett, Bel Canto
“When you miss someone….it’s weird…your body doesn’t function normally..as it should. Because I miss you, and my heart…it’s not steady…my soul it sings numb. Fingers are cold…like you…your soul.” ― Coco J. Ginger
Reflections of Freedom
By Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Written 5.09.13
Created May 10th 2013
Posted May 11th 2013
Reflections of Freedom
By Jennifer Kiley
5.10.13
Reflections,
Clouds of darkness block my vision.
Remembrance of wilder moments come to mind.
Being told no, pushed the rebelliousness of my true nature.
Running away nullified permission,
When done in the passionate way I felt,
Carried me beyond their threat.
I dismissed them from my mind,
As though they never existed..
The tears were flowing as I ran
To escape was necessary,
It was blaring loudly in my head
Run, let your bare feet carry you over the fences,
Across the open fields, past the horses,
Enjoying the sour fruits of the apple trees,
Along the stone fences where they grew,
But were not high enough to keep me out,
As I flew over them as though I were a gazelle.
My friend eventually would find his moment for escape.
We would then meet in the woods to plan that day’s adventure.
Our parents couldn’t keep us apart.
The magnetic pull to be together,
Was stronger than their punishment,
To keep us bound, even though mine was severe,
We rejected their threats.
We needed to be comrades together in our escape,
Pretending in our minds we were searching the woods,
Feeling we would discover that bag of hidden treasure,
Left behind by someone running from the mob.
Being rich enough, we could really run away for good,
Beyond the limits where our parents would ever find us.
We would disappear forever,
Into Wonderland or Neverland,
Whichever one could find us.
No one could touch us again,
Far beyond them we would be,
Together friends forever,
Who dared defy authorities blank and powerless voices.
Winning and free at long last,
Never to be hurt again,
By any one of them.
No more pain.
No more abuse.
Just the love and support of our friendship,
Forever and ever more.
a secret entrance way behind the waterfalls. first, one needs to find this location.
QUOTATIONS on ESCAPE/RUNNING AWAY
“I do know this. It’s the things we run from that hurt us the most.” –Brad Sturdevant” ― Norma Johnston
“If you want to disappear, Emily, you can do it most anywhere.” ― Barbara Delinsky, Escape
“Sometimes I wish I was in the movies…Not to be famous or nothing. I just wish I was made of light. Then nobody’d know me except for what they saw up on that screen. I’d just be light up on the silver screen…” ― Alan Heathcock, Volt
“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. ” ― William S. Burroughs
“Besides the alternate universe offered by a book, the quiet space of “the woods” was my favorite place to go…I was an escapist at heart . . . that I preferred imaginary worlds to the real one. It’s true that I’ve always been able to yank myself out of this world and plunge myself into another.” ― Amy Plum, Die for Me
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” ― Graham Greene, Ways Of Escape
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.” ― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
“But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.” ― Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“Talking won’t change it. But sometimes it was what she wanted most, to tell someone; often, though, she just wanted to escape those horrid feelings, to escape herself, so there was no pain, no fear, no ugliness.” ― Melissa Marr, Ink Exchange
“I choose to write because it’s perfect for me. It’s an escape, a place I can go to hide. It’s a friend, when I feel out casted from everyone else. It’s a journal, when the only story I can tell is my own. It’s a book, when I need to be somewhere else. It’s control, when I feel so out of control. It’s healing, when everything seems pretty messed up. And it’s fun, when life is just flat-out boring.” ― Alysha Speer
“I spent the rest of the day in someone else’s story. The rare moments that I put the book down, my own pain returned in burning stabs.” ― Amy Plum, Die for Me
Related Article: Artistic License The Anatomy of a Cover
The Anatomy of a Cover – artist Masloski Carmen – author: Artistic License by Emerian Rich
Happy 4/20 Legalize It!
FREE MEDICINAL CANNABIS / MARIJUANA TREATMENTS
Created by jk the secret keeper
Created & 04/20/2013
California Time Posted 4/20/13
EDT Posted 4.21.13
“Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.” ― Bob Marley
“When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.” ― Bob Marley
“Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.” Thomas Jefferson
“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?” ― Bill Hicks
“We all need something to help us unwind at the end of the day. You might have a glass of wine, or a joint, or a big delicious blob of heroin to silence your silly brainbox of its witterings but there has to be some form of punctuation, or life just seems utterly relentless.” ― Russell Brand, My Booky Wook
“Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use.” — Richard M. Nixon
“If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life; it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.” ― Mitsugi Saotome
“When you lost sight of your path, listen for the destination in your heart.” ― Katsura Hoshino
“The magic of purpose and of love in its purest form. Not televison love, with its glare and hollow and sequined glint; not sex and allure, all high shoes and high drama, everything both too small and in too much excess, but just love. Love like rain, like the smell of a tangerine, like a surprise found in your pocket.” ― Deb Caletti
“Those who have failed to work toward the truth have missed the purpose of living.” ― Gautama Buddha
“It’s funny. No matter how hard you try, you can’t close your heart forever. And the minute you open it up, you never know what’s going to come in. But when it does, you just have to go for it! Because if you don’t, there’s not point in being here.” ― Kirstie Alley
“Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose” ― Leonardo da Vinci
“In spite of where we were, how we had gotten here and why we had come, I felt that at this moment of our lives, this place was exactly where we belonged. We were not drifting but rising, rising toward something right and of significance.” ― Dean Koontz
“Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.” ― Brené Brown
“There are so many stupid things that steal that purpose from us. The stupid things that you believe a lie that we ‘re not as important as we really are. That our life isn’t as important as it really is. It’s important to the people that you love, it’s important to the people that you will love in the future, it’s important to the world around you and it’s so important that you fulfill the purpose that only you can fulfill the way that you can fulfill that.” ― Lacey Mosley
“I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.
He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time
that she spent alive on earth…
and now only those who loved her
know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not, how much we own;
the cars….the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.
So think about this long and hard…
are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left.
(You could be at “dash midrange.”)
If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real,
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.
And be less quick to anger,
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect,
and more often wear a smile…
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.
So, when your eulogy’s being read
with your life’s actions to rehash…
would you be proud of the things they
say about how you spend your dash?”
― Linda Ellis, The Dash Making A Difference With Your Life
“The great essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.” ― Joseph Addison
“Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don’t see a different purpose for it now.” ― Dorothea Tanning
this is my purpose. this is what makes my life have meaning.
“I am proud only of those days that pass in undivided tenderness.” ― Robert Bly, A Little Book on the Human Shadow
“You don’t blast a heart open,” she said. “You coax and nurture it open, like the sun does to a rose.” ― Melody Beattie, The Lessons of Love: Rediscovering Our Passion for Live When It All Seems Too Hard to Take
“Tender,” she said again. “Tender is kind and gentle. It’s also sore, like the skin around an injury.” ― Brenna Yovanoff, The Space Between
“Live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness. Tenderness awakens within the security of knowing we are thoroughly and sincerely liked by someone…” ― Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
“You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship. Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness.” ― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie
“You know those little moments when an unexpected act or a spoken word affects your heart with sweet, satiating intensity – a simple gesture that possesses deep, personal meaning beyond what anyone realizes? You know those tender moments? That’s the Goddess pressing her lips on your forehead and whispering, ‘I love you’.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich
“And this tenderness was not like
That which a certain poet
At the beginning of the century called true
And, for some reason, quiet. No, not at all
It rang out, like the first waterfall,
It crunched like the crust of bluish ice
And it prayed with a swanlike voice,
And it broke down right before our eyes.”
― Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems
“He danced the way he made love, with passion and tenderness and spirit, communicating with hands and eyes the most subtle messages, tenderly making up for Lila’s awkwardness. In his lashes and his hair, mist clung in tiny diamond drops. She could not take her eyes from him.” ― Ruth Wind, The Light of Day
“I will never hurt you.
I will always help you.
If you are hungry
Ill give you my food.
If you are frightened
I am your friend.
I love you now.
And love does not end.”
― Orson Scott Card, Songmaster
“That deepest thing, that recognition, that knowledge, that sense of kinship began the first time I saw you,and it is the same now – only a thousand times deeper and tenderer. I shall love you to eternity. I loved you long before we met in this flesh. I knew that when I first saw you. It was destiny. We are together like this and nothing can shake us apart.” ― Kahlil Gibran
The Deep Parts of Life
Post Created by Jennifer Kiley
Poem Written by Rainer Maria Rilke
Dedicated to a Special Friend
Abstract Digital Art by j. kiley
Created 03.16 13
Post 03.16.13
“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.” ― Elie Wiesel
“She’s kind of a walking poem, she’s this perfect beauty…but at the same time very deep, very smart.” ― Johnny Depp
“And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.” ― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you’ve been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.” ― Dave Barry
“I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” ― Langston Hughes
“When you reach for the stars, you are reaching for the farthest thing out there. When you reach deep into yourself, it is the same thing, but in the opposite direction. If you reach in both directions, you will have spanned the universe.” ― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
“Fate is a funny character. She puts obstacles in your path to see what character ye have. Life isn’t fair,life is a test.”
― Melissa Francis, Bite Me!
“Things are never as they seem. A person. A Mark. A statement. They are always deeper than we perceive, like walking in the ocean and suddenly dipping under the surface because the bottom has disappeared beneath your feet. The water appears shallow until you are suddenly flailing around beneath the surface, desperately searching for stable ground once again.”
― Kelseyleigh Reber
“I’m the idea of the human imagination, which, when you think about it, is the only thing we can really be certain ISN’T imaginary.” ― Alan Moore, Promethea, Vol. 5
“The real world is in a much darker and deeper place than this, and most of it is occupied by jellyfish and things. We just happen to forget all that. Don’t you agree? Two-thirds of earth’s surface is ocean, and all we can see with the naked eye is the surface: the skin.” ― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“The product of paper and printed ink, that we commonly call the book, is one of the great visible mediators between spirit and time, and, reflecting zeitgeist, lasts as long as ore and stone.” ― Johann Georg Hamann
“One who has conquered every aspect of his pain except the deepest.”
― Mary Balogh, Simply Love
“What is it like to be at one with the world? Is it peaceful, where we simply fade into nothing-ness? Or a delicate balance, one where the slightest of things disturbs it. Is it humbling or terrifying? Does it take our breath away? Or does it subtly flow through us all, finding rare times to surface.” ― Alexander Geiersbach
“Images have enormous power, and images freed from deep within ourselves can change us profoundly.” ― Alice McCall
“When you feel someone else’s pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them.” ― Ann Brashares, Girls In Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood
“We know from daily life that we exist for other people first of all, for whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.” ― Albert Einstein
“Without friends, no one would want to live, even if he had all other goods.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics
“There is a twilight zone in our hearts that we ourselves cannot see. Even when we know quite a lot about ourselves-our gifts and weaknesses, our ambitions and aspirations, our motives and our drives-large parts of ourselves remain in the shadow of consciousness. This is a very good thing. We will always remain partially hidden to ourselves. Other people, especially those who love us, can often see our twilight zones better than we ourselves can. The way we are seen and understood by others is different from the way we see and understand ourselves. We will never fully know the significance of our presence in the lives of our friends. That’s a grace, a grace that calls us not only to humility, but to a deep trust in those who love us. It is the twilight zones of our hearts where true friendships are born.” ― Henri J.M. Nouwen
“Female friendships that work are relationships in which women help each other belong to themselves.” ― Louise Bernikow
“The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.”
― Sarah Orne Jewett
“You, of all people, deserve a happy ending. Despite everything that happened to you, you aren’t bitter. You aren’t cold. You’ve just retreated a little and been shy, and that’s okay. If I were a fairy godmother, I would give you your heart’s desire in an istant. And I would wipe away your tears and tell you not to cry. -Rachel to Julia” ― Sylvain Reynard, Gabriel’s Inferno
“Never worry alone. When anxiety grabs my mind, it is self-perpetuating. Worrisome thoughts reproduce faster than rabbits, so one of the most powerful ways to stop the spiral of worry is simply to disclose my worry to a friend… The simple act of reassurance from another human being [becomes] a tool of the Spirit to cast out fear — because peace and fear are both contagious.” ― John Ortberg Jr., The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God’s Best Version of You
“The distant soul can shake the distant friend’s soul and make the longing felt, over untold miles.” ― John Masefield
“There comes that mysterious meeting in life when someone acknowledges who we are and what we can be, igniting the circuits of our highest potential.”
― Rusty Berkus
“Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”
… It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision – it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“Friendship is an obstetric art; it draws out our richest and deepest resources; it unfolds the wings of our dreams and hidden indeterminate thoughts; it serves as a check on our judgements, tries out our new ideas, keeps up our ardor, and inflames our enthusiasm.” ― Antonin Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods
“In the consciousness that another mind reflects your thought, you find the keenest satisfaction. Here is the high office of a friend, and in these high experiences is the point of attachment.– ” ― Samuel McChord Crothers
“But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.”
― William Shakespeare
Below you will find the most amazingly beautiful art form that I have never seen used before. It really draws you in and the results will blow your visual senses away while the flute will hypnotize your auditory senses. Actually both are mesmerizing. And I am not talking about the activity alone of working with the paints and water, I am speaking of the final results of the entire process. Do Enjoy the art.
Preceding the water art exhibition I added the magic of computer technology, the flowing of a stream in motion over rocks and boulders, working its way toward its infinite destination. After you, hopefully, find satisfaction from the art & wonderful Japanese Flute Music, and the streaming river or, if you prefer, stream, I introduce in a totally unrelated video, the most adorable wombat baby. She (I am assuming female—usually do) is a snuggly & sweet, loves her tummy rubbed, fuzzy baby animal. I stress baby b/c you would definitely not do this with an adult wombat. Enjoy the warmth that is exuded through the connection between baby animal and affectionate human. Enjoy all of what these awaken in your senses. And absorb what you will from the chosen quotations that end this post on love of water, art & animals. Namaste. jk the secret keeper ps. And, of course, a touch of Philip Glass — Tearing Herself Away (The Hours)
“Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.” ― Colette
“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
“Morning: Slept.
Afternoon: Slept.
Evening: Ate grass.
Night: Ate grass. Decided grass is boring.
Scratched. Hard to reach the itchy bits.
Slept.”
― Jackie French, Diary of a Wombat
“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.” ― Alice Walker
“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” ― Anatole France
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
“An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.” ― Martin Buber
“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.” ― Anaïs Nin
“Holding this soft, small living creature in my lap this way, though, and seeing how it slept with complete trust in me, I felt a warm rush in my chest. I put my hand on the cat’s chest and felt his heart beating. The pulse was faint and fast, but his heart, like mine, was ticking off the time allotted to his small body with all the restless earnestness of my own.” ― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“It is good to 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 well done.” ― Vincent van Gogh
“True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind’s true moral test, its fundamental test (which is deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.” ― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“You’re mind is working at its best when you’re being paranoid.
You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation
at high speed with total clarity.” ― Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall
“When animals express their feelings they pour out like water from a spout. Animals’ emotions are raw, unfiltered, and uncontrolled. Their joy is the purest and most contagious of joys and their grief the deepest and most devastating. Their passions bring us to our knees in delight and sorrow.” ― Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy – and Why They Matter
“Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you over dramatize it, or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong parts or ignore the important ones. At any rate, you never write it quite the way you want to.” ― Sylvia Plath
“Animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do.” ― Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
“It’s so hard to express yourself.’
I understand this.’
I want to express myself.’
The same is true for me.’
I’m looking for my voice.’
It’s in your mouth.’
I want to do something I’m not ashamed of.’
Something you are proud of, yes?’
Not even. I just don’t want to be ashamed.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
“We patronize the animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they are more finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time.”
― Henry Beston
“Inside of all of us there is the need and the desire to be heard, to have our innermost thoughts, feelings and desires expressed for others to hear, to see and to understand. We all want to matter to someone, to leave a mark. Writers just take those thoughts, feelings and desires and express them in such a way that the reader not only reads them but feels them as well.” ― Vicktor Alexander
“For centuries poets, some poets, have tried to give a voice to the animals, and readers, some readers, have felt empathy and sorrow. If animals did have voices, and they could speak with the tongues of angels–at the very least with the tongues of angels–they would be unable to save themselves from us. What good would language do? Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells and eyes. We discover the remarkable intelligence of the whale, the wolf, the elephant–it does not save them, nor does our awareness of the complexity of their lives. Their strength, their skills, their swiftness, the beauty of their flights. It matters not, it seems, whether they are large or small, proud or shy, docile or fierce, wild or domesticated, whether they nurse their young or brood patiently on eggs. If they eat meat, we decry their viciousness; if they eat grasses and seeds, we dismiss them as weak. There is not one of them, not even the songbird who cannot, who does not, conflict with man and his perceived needs and desires. St. Francis converted the wolf of Gubbio to reason, but he performed this miracle only once and as miracles go, it didn’t seem to capture the public’s fancy. Humans don’t want animals to reason with them. It would be a disturbing, unnerving, diminishing experience; it would bring about all manner of awkwardness and guilt.” ― Joy Williams, Ill Nature
“My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being…When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups…I want to speak to their souls.” ― John Coltrane
“Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.” ― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals
“Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer
“A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is thereby a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.”
― Ansel Adams
jk the secret keeper ps. And, of course, a touch of Philip Glass — Tearing Herself Away (The Hours)
