
You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint paradise, then in you go. – Nikos Kazantzakis
Weekly Photo Challenge: ROY G. BIV

You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint paradise, then in you go. – Nikos Kazantzakis
Weekly Photo Challenge: ROY G. BIV

And now you ask in your heart,
“How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure
from that which is not good?”
Go to your fields and your gardens,
and you shall learn that it is the pleasure
of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower,
the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.
─ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet


ღ The Tiger Lily is said to mean “I dare you to love me” and can be given to somebody you love, instead of a rose if you want the message to be subliminal. — Wiki ~


“There is nothing holier in this life of ours than the first
consciousness of love, the first fluttering of its silken wings.”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Why do photographers photograph? To make unreality visible.” – Bill Jay
Monochrome Madness will be posted later today for your viewing pleasure on Leanne Cole’s blog.
If you would like to participate and submit a photo in the upcoming weeks, please email your monochrome image to leanne@leannecole.com.au and include a link to your blog or website if you have one. It doesn’t have to be WordPress blogger, it can be a Facebook page, a Flickr page, etc. Include your name or your blog name. The image size should be low resolution, so the largest size should be 1000 pixels or less. The deadline for submission is before 6 p.m. on or before Tuesday, Melbourne Australia time. The earlier the better for Leanne. If you should miss the deadline your photograph will be posted the following week. The complete instructions are posted on Leanne’s blog should you have any questions or need help. The first MM of every month will have a theme. The next theme will be *K* on July 7th. There will be two galleries during the theme week, one for the theme and one like there normally is for those that may choose not to do a theme. ✽
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Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you
discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and,
beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity. — Thomas Merton


“And the wand-like lily which lifted up,
As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup,
Till the fiery star, which is its eye,
Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley


Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? ― W.B. Yeats

I Like You When You Are Quiet
Pablo Neruda
I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent,
and you hear me from far away, and my voice does not touch you.
It looks as though your eyes had flown away
and it looks as if a kiss had sealed your mouth.
Like all things are full of my soul
You emerge from the things, full of my soul.
Dream butterfly, you look like my soul,
and you look like a melancoly word.
I like you when you are quiet and it is as though you are distant.
It is as though you are complaining, butterfly in lullaby.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
let me fall quiet with your own silence.
Let me also speak to you with your silence
Clear like a lamp, simple like a ring.
You are like the night, quiet and constellated.
Your silence is of a star, so far away and solitary.
I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent.
Distant and painful as if you had died.
A word then, a smile is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it is not true.