In the Ivory Light of Winter

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Abstract, Black and White, Drear, Droplets, Florida, Light, Lonely, Loss, Monochrome, Nature, Pensive, Photography, Quotes, Rain, Sky, Stark, Sunset, Urban, Water

“But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope”
-From “Middlemarch” by George Eliot

“When I left my home and my family
I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of the railway station running scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know”
-From the song, “The Boxer” by Simon and Garfunkel

“Even death has a heart.”
-Markus Zusak, “The Book Thief”

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.”
-Carl Sagan
“The old ones called it ‘the hour of the wolf’. It is the hour when the most people die, and the most are born. At this time, nightmares come to us. And when we awake, we are afraid.”
-Ingmar Bergman, film “The Hour of the Wolf” (“Vargtimmen”)

Coquetry of Wandering

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Black and White, Nature, Pensive, Photography, Plants, Quotes, Thoughts, Woods

“I am much inclined to live from my rucksack, and let my trousers fray as they like.”
―Hermann Hesse

“Even in warmest
glow
how cold my shadow”
―Kobayashi Issa

“A cold wind was blowing from the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things.”
―George R.R. Martin

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.”
―Vincent van Gogh

Dusk and Rain…

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Bike, Bird, Black and White, Boca Raton, Dreary, Droplets, Florida, Gustave Flaubert, Jack Kerouac, Juno Beach, Matsuo Basho, Meandering, Nature, Photography, Quotes, Rain, Scott Nicholson, Sea, Thoughts

“Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries.”
―Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“this autumn
why am I aging so?
to the clouds a bird”
―Matsuo Basho

“The rain fell like dead bullets.”
―Scott Nicholson

“Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am out walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins.”
―Gustave Flaubert

September Broodings

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Black and White, Dreary, Leaves, Light and Shadow, Musing, Nature, Nature Photography, Nikon, Photography, Quotes, Spider, Tennessee Williams, Thoughts

“(She slowly twists the ring off her finger. Somewhere there is a cry of anguish. She listens attentively till it fades out, then nods with understanding.)

“―Wild things leave skins behind them, they leave clean skins and teeth and white bones behind them, and these are tokens passed from one to another, so that the fugitive kind can always follow their kind…”
―Tennessee Williams, “Orpheus Descending”“I think that hate is a feeling that can only exist where there is no understanding.”
―Tennessee Williams, “Sweet Bird of Youth”“We’re all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.”
―Tennessee Williams

“And funerals are pretty compared to deaths.”
―Tennessee Williams, “A Streetcar Named Desire”

Embracing the Squirrely Kitten Within

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Beauty, Exuberance, Healing, Hope, Inspiration, Introspection, Kitten, Life, Pets, Photography, Quotes, Reflection, Thoughts, Youth

“Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.”
-Victor Hugo

“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
― Franz Kafka

“What happens when people open their hearts?”…
“They get better.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

(Saga captured whilst out kitten-walking amongst a sea of squirrels)

P.S. More of the model, Fyodor Kitten, in Sir’s lovely and charming blog post here:  The Kitten That Rescued Himself)

Many jubilant cheers,

-Smiling Toad

In Afternoon Thought

Tags

Black and White, Hope, Lao Tzu, Light, Nature, Peace, Quotes, Tranquil, Woods

“She does not show herself, and therefore is apparent. She does not affirm herself, and therefore is acknowledged. She does not boast and therefore has merit. She does not strive and therefore is successful. It is exactly because she does not contend, that nobody can contend with her.”

-Lao Tzu

Thrive

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Cocoa Beach, Florida, Gandhi, George Eliot, Hurricane Leslie, Inspiration, Life, Loss, Memory, Mourn, Nature, Photography, Quotes, Rain, Sea, Sebastian Inlet, Surf, Surfing, Waves

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” -Mahatma Gandhi

These moments eternal, abiding with you, to Memory now transformed; but never I, to mourn, knowing, onward shall they thrive, a part of this emerald sea that is the life in me.

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” -George Eliot

Wanderlust

Tags

Colour Photography, Compassion, Coquina, Environment, Inspiration, Life, Lighthouse, Mindfulness, Nature, Photography, Quotes, Sea, Seascape, Sunrise, Sunset, Sustainability

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”

-Douglas Adams

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

-George Bernard Shaw

“The Poetry of Earth is never Dead.”

-John Keats

“Everything you can Imagine is Real.”

-Pablo Picasso

May we have the Desire to cursitate about this splendorous Planet,

and the Courage to embrace the Passions instilled Within,

to Abide in Compassion and Mindfulness,

Dancing this Life of Beauty that is Conscious and Sustainable.

“We shall never understand the natural environment until we see it as a living organism.”

-Paul Brooks

Sunday Quote

Tags

Environment, Global, Mindfulness, Nature, Quotes, Science, Sustainability

“If we are genuinely concerned about the environment and the fellow human beings, and want to end territorial disputes, war, crime, poverty, hunger, and the other problems that confront us today, the intelligent use of science and technology are the tools with which to achieve a new direction – one that will serve all people, and not just a select few.”-Jacque Fresco