Category Archives: Quotes

Nature Therapy

So Beautiful

So if you’re wondering why so many people in the US want to preserve our national heritage of beautiful open spaces and not have oil drilling or fracking allowed in these parks, take a look at some of the US Bureau of Land Managment photos. I plan to browse through their photo albums almost as a meditation. I am starting with these below from Bears Ears National Monument, Utah:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”— Rachel Carson

Sream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill. Images from US Dept of Interior, Bureau of Land Management “Your Public Lands.”

My Own Pace

4 Replies

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Plan on getting back into my own pace of blogging which is usually not every day. But you never know when I will be moved to break with this pattern. Keep posted.

Joy

6 Replies

“Keep knocking and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there.” -Rumi

One Liner Wednesday. Featured image of Door by Life-of-Pix on Pixabay.com. Rumi quote from Mellie O’Brien on Everyday Mindfulness.

Herstory

4 Replies

“I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed … anything that could be counted, I did.” -Katherine Johnson

Really like that a light is shining on women’s history in science. Washington Post had an article by Victoria St. Martin on Katherine Johnson, (now 98), who is one of the mathematicians who worked at NASA and is featured in the film ‘Hidden Figures.’ I found a great video of Ms. Johnson talking about her life and work on The Makers website. It is worth it to click on the link and watch. Here’s another video from PBS about the film.

Here’s a video (below) from the NASA website about Katherine Johnson’s life and career. It’s very inspiring, ‘The Girl Who Loved to Count.’

katherine_johnson_medal-jpeg-via-nasa-on-wikimedia

Katherine Johnson recieves Presidential Medal of Freedom 2015

JustJotItJanuary is hosted by Linda G Hill. And we’re almost through with this blogging challenge but click on the link to see what it’s all about and read some of the other blogs that are participating. Prompt word for today is “history” suggested by K L Caley of New2Writing, https://new2writing.wordpress.com/.Featured image, at top, of Katherine Johnson in 1966 and image of her recieving the Presidential Medal of Freedom via NASA on wikimedia.

Complete

5 Replies

We are often seeking something outside ourselves but we already are complete.

“To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don’t try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

JustJotItJanuary is hosted by Linda G Hill. Today’s prompt word is “incomplete” suggested by Cyn K of That Cynking Feeling, https://cynk.wordpress.com/. I decided to write about the opposite. Featured image is of the beautiful Redwood National Park, California via Pixabay.com.

Laughter

4 Replies

“Laughter is to the soul what sunshine is to a flower.”-Peggy Toney Horton

Reading funny commentary has been a real stress reliever for me lately. Being able to laugh at something is truly healing. Laughter is one of great pleasures of life. Maybe comedians are truly healers.

“Laughter is a powerful weapon for it carries the light. To laugh is to defy the darkness.” -Isobelle Carmody

One Liner Wednesday and JustJotItJanuary.

Compromise

13 Replies

“…Politics is an activity in which you recognize the simultaneous existence of different groups, interests and opinions. You try to find some way to balance or reconcile or compromise those interests, or at least a majority of them. You follow a set of rules, enshrined in a constitution or in custom, to help you reach these compromises in a way everybody considers legitimate.

The downside of politics is that people never really get everything they want. It’s messy, limited and no issue is ever really settled. Politics is a muddled activity in which people have to recognize restraints and settle for less than they want. Disappointment is normal.

But that’s sort of the beauty of politics, too. It involves an endless conversation in which we learn about other people and see things from their vantage point and try to balance their needs against our own. Plus, it’s better than the alternative: rule by some authoritarian tyrant who tries to govern by clobbering everyone in his way….”
― David Brooks

I hope more of our congressmen and congresswomen would follow this advice about what compromise is. It is not that I don’t think people need to question and push back, or feel passionately about their beliefs, but I am tired of the closed minded regidity of some of them, and the authoritarian leanings I see taking sway lately.

JustJotItJanuary is being guest hosted by Judy E. Martin of Edwina’s Episodes the prompt word today is “compromise” suggested by Ritu at But I Smile Anyway (https://butismileanyway.com/) . David Brooks quotes from Goodreads quotes. Featured image photo of detail from Elihu Vedder’s mural ‘Government’ by Carol Highsmith via wikimedia.

Contempt

7 Replies

Elizabeth rejects Darcy’s proposal:

‘I might as well inquire’, replied she, ‘why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings decided against you, had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?’

And a bit later:

‘From the very beginning, from the first moment, I may almost say, of my acquaitance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike: and I had not known you for a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.’

I hold this book in the opposite of contempt, I love it! (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, in case you did not recognize or ever have the pleasure of reading it.) I’m with Elizabeth here in that I have never liked conceit and fat-headedness in anyone. I don’t like braggards or someone “blowing their own horn.”

JustJotItJanuary prompt word “contempt” suggested by Rosemary Carlson at Rosemary Carlson Freelance Writer. Featured image ‘Darcy proposing to Elizabeth’ by George Allen 1894 via wikimedia.

Transcendent

17 Replies

“We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,—a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal.” -John Muir

I have had my transcendent experiences in nature, or in listening to great opera, or even eating great food. How about eating great food in nature while listening to opera. But nature is pretty high on my list. Even enjoying the nature in my small backyard. I agree with John Muir that nature is essential to our well being and our very spirit/soul. It is where we find that we are truly connected to the earth and all its inhabitants and feel awestruck by its beauty.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

JustJotItJanuary blogging challenge hosted by Linda G Hill. Today’s prompt word “transcendent” was suggested by me. 🙂 The Featured Image at the top of the page is called ‘Transcendent Moment’ by Joel Penner on Flickr.