“Imperfection is beauty,
madness is genius
and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
— Marilyn Monroe
I Sing the Body Electric
(excerpt)
by Walt Whitman
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
“Although most flowers have a multitude of symbolism, the cleome flower only has the one. These flowers have stuck with their old-fashioned expression that asks the recipient to elope, or run away with the giver. Although these flowers can be presented as a proposition between new lovers,
they are also a unique gift that can be traded between long married couples –
asking each other if they would leave the world behind and get married once again.”
“And when you appear all the rivers sound in my body,
bells shake the sky, and a hymn fills the world.” — Pablo Neruda
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts, fading away!
Thou wouldst still be ador’d as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will;
And, around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still!
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan’d by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
Oh! the heart, that has truly lov’d, never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turn’d when he rose!
Thomas Moore
”The dragonfly spiritually embodies the stripping away of negativity that holds us back, helping us to achieve our dreams and goals. Dragonflies are the keepers of dreams, the energy within that sees all of our true potential and ability. Dragonflies inspire spirituality and creativity, they help us on the path of discovery and enlightenment. They reminder us that anything is possible.” – Beauty and the Green
Bartholomew County Veteran’s Memorial
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence. Henry David Thoreau
Beauty, its perception, its feeling, to bathe and revel in beauty, is the most complete human delight of which man is capable; and though some have been marred in this pure faculty of enjoyment, by rough contact with a host of unhandsome beings and circumstances, yet sometimes a ray of beauty will pierce to their benighted heart, and send a thrill of joy through their whole being. The man will sometimes catch a faint glimpse of that divinity, and then again be lost in the vortex of utilitarianism. ~T.C. Henley, “Beauty,” 1851
And the voices in the waves are always whispering to Florence, in their ceaseless murmuring, of love – of love, eternal and illimitable, not bounded by the confines of this world, or by the end of time, but ranging still, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, to the invisible country far away! – Charles Dickens
In a Boat
D. H. Lawrence
See the stars, love,
In the water much clearer and brighter
Than those above us, and whiter,
Like nenuphars.
Star-shadows shine, love,
How many stars in your bowl?
How many shadows in your soul,
Only mine, love, mine?
When I move the oars, love,
See how the stars are tossed,
Distorted, the brightest lost.
—So that bright one of yours, love.
The poor waters spill
The stars, waters broken, forsaken.
—The heavens are not shaken, you say, love,
Its stars stand still.
There, did you see
That spark fly up at us; even
Stars are not safe in heaven.
—What of yours, then, love, yours?
What then, love, if soon
Your light be tossed over a wave?
Will you count the darkness a grave,
And swoon, love, swoon?
Maverick Mist 