Bloodroot
“Taking joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic.”
Rosalind Russel, 1907-1976
Actress
Monthly Archives: March 2009
Shy Presence
Shy trillium, preparing to bloom
“It is a good idea to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark
so that all its shy presence may haunt you and possess you
in a reverie of suspended thought.”
James Douglas
Regrets
Rue Anemone at Laurel Run Park
“The only causes of regret are laziness, outbursts of temper,
hurting others, prejudice, jealousy, and envy.”
Germaine Greer, b. 1939
Australian writer and scholar
Perspective
“We are all something, but none of us are everything.”
Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662
French mathematician and religious philosopher
Freedom & Control
“To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.”
Virginia Woolf, 1882-1941
English novelist and essayist
Submissive Happiness
Rocky Fork, Unicoi County
“We do not find happiness by being assertive.
We don’t find happiness by running over people
because we see what we want and they are in the way
of that happiness so we either abandon them or we smash them.
The Scriptures don’t teach us to be assertive.
The Scriptures teach us–and this is remarkable–
the Scriptures teach us to be submissive. This is not a popular idea.”
Rich Mullins, 1955-1997
Christian singer and songwriter
Good and Bad Habits
Spring Beauty, waiting for the sun and warmer weather
“The unfortunate thing about this world is that
the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.”
W. Somerset Maugham, 1874-1965
English playwright and novelist
Reckless, Raging Love
“If you’ve ever known the love of God, you know it’s nothing but
reckless and it’s nothing but raging. Sometimes it hurts to be loved,
and if it doesn’t hurt it’s probably not love, may be infatuation.
I think a lot of American people are infatuated with God,
but we don’t really love Him, and they don’t really let Him love them.
Being loved by God is one of the most painful things in the world,
it’s also the only thing that can bring us salvation
and it’s like everything else that is really wonderful,
there’s a little bit of pain in it, little bit of hurt.”
Rich Mullins, 1955-1997
Christian singer and songwriter
Annual Surprise
Dutchman’s Breeches peeking out of the cold, damp earth
“Poor, dear, silly Spring,
preparing her annual surprise!”
Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955
Modernist poet
Receptacle for Emotions
“The artist is a receptacle for the emotions
that come from all over the place:
from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper,
from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.”
Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973
Spanish painter and sculptor
Co-founded Cubism
Quiet
Spring Beauty, taken tonight at Lower Higgins Creek
“Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.”
Lorraine Hansbury, 1930-1965
African-American playwright
Author, A Raisin in the Sun
Tragedy & Comedy
“Keep in mind that the difference between tragedy and comedy
is about three months and five margaritas.”
Karen Salmansohn
Author, radio talk show host
Accomplice to Spring
“When we ask advice we are usually looking for an accomplice.”
Charles Varlet de La Grange
French actor
Who We Are
“It’s where we go,
and what we do when we get there,
that tells us who we are.”
Joyce Carol Oates, b. 1938
Author
Irish Blessing
Trillium
“May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.”
Irish Blessing
Unexpected
“Truly nothing is to be expected but the unexpected.”
Alice James, 1848-1892
U.S. diarist
Daughter of Henry James, Sr. (theologian)
Sister of William James (philosopher) and Henry James (novelist)
Opportunity for Kindness
“You cannot do a kindness too soon,
for you never know how soon it will be too late.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882
Ego and Position
“Avoid having your ego so close to your position
that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.”
Colin Powell, b. 1937
Secretary of State, 2001-05
Let Them Be Who They Are
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves,
and not to twist them to fit our own image.
Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
Thomas Merton, 1915-1968
A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky
Miracles
View from Blue Ridge Parkway, near Grandfather Mountain, NC
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955
Winner of 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics
A Friend Who Cares
Crabtree Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway m. 339.5 near Mt. Mitchell, NC
“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion,
who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement,
who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing…
that is a friend who cares.”
Henri Nouwen, 1932-1996
Intoxicating
Wild Columbine, Roan Mountain
“Flowers really do intoxicate me.”
Vita Sackville-West, 1892-1962
English author and poet
Forgiveness
“Forgiveness does not change the past,
but it does enlarge the future.”
Paul Boese, 1668-1738
Dutch botanist
Pressure
“You will never be the person you can be
if pressure, tension and discipline
are taken out of your life.”
Dr. James G. Bilkey
Tough Times
Sill Branch Falls, Unicoi County
“Every time you meet a situation, though you think at the time
it is an impossibility and you go through the torture of the damned,
once you have met it and lived through it,
you find that forever after you are freer than you were before.”
Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962
American political leader, Civil Rights advocate,
and First Lady from 1933-1945
