MayFlower

From thy fragrant, beauteous bosom,
I accept and clasp the treasure,
To my breast with grateful pleasure,
Dear the gift, and dear the giver,
Whose loving hand is near me ever,
Memory ever fondly clinging,
To the past, before me bringing,
With deepest sweetest fascination,
Past scenes of love and admiration.

Art by: MainLoop
Model: Rivi Madison
Poem (portion): The May Flower
Poet: Janet Hamilton
Poem Provided by: CZ

Broken

Even the rugged

Surface of a cactus
Is soft enough
To bear flowers.

There is still hope
For broken souls with
Hardened shells.

(Noor Shirazie)

Scales Of Perception

Reality is what we take to be true.
What we take to be true is what we believe.
What we believe is based upon our perceptions.
What we perceive depends upon what we look for.
What we look for depends upon what we think.
What we think depends upon what we perceive.
What we perceive determines what we believe.
What we believe determines what we take to be true.
What we take to be true is our reality.

By Hengki24
Note: The title is mine
Original title: Haiku Haiku
Quote by: Gary Zukav
Quote provided by: CZ

Spark Of Love

He’s more myself than I am.
Whatever our souls are made of,
His and mine are the same.

By Adam Lee
(AdamChris1992)
Quote by: Emily Bronte
From: Wuthering Heights
Quote provided by: CZ

A World Full Of Fools

Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever.

(Charles Lamb)

Juvenile Red Kite

A life without purpose is a languid, drifting thing; Every day we ought to review our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let me make a sound beginning, for what we have hitherto done is naught!

Photo by: Jamie MacArthur
Quote by: Thomas A. Kempis
Quote provided by: CZ

8464

It is easy to be pleasant when life flows by like a song, but the man worth while is the one who will smile when everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is trouble, and it always comes with years, and the smile that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through the tears.

By Kari Liimatainen
Quote: Irish Saying
Quote provided by: CZ

SunSet Flight

Man must rise above the Earth—to the top of the atmosphere and beyond—for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.

Art by: Peter From
Quote by: Socrates
Created in: Photoshop CS6.

Purple Mountain Majesty

Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail.

By Zack Schnepf
Taken: January 11, 2013
Location: Mt Bachelor Sunrise, Oregon, USA
Quote by: John Muir
(1838 – 1914)
Quote provided by: CZ

Eclipse

On the day of the new moon, in the month of Hiyar, the Sun was put to shame, and went down in the daytime, with Mars in attendance.

Photo by: Chris Busey Photography
Taken on: December 10, 2011
Quote: One of the earliest written records of an eclipse of the Sun, on 3 May 1375 BC, found in the city of Ugarit in Mesopotamia.
Quote reprinted from: Chasing the Shadow, copyright 1994 by Joel K Harris and Richard L Talcott, by permission of Kalmbach Publishing Co. Also appears in Total Eclipses of the Sun by Zirker. In Guide to the Sun, Phillips says that this might refer to the eclipse of 1223 BC.
Quote provided by: CZ

Los Angeles 1930

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies. A child, or a book, or a painting, or a house, or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way, so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

It doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it, into something that’s like you after you take your hands away.

Art by: Leonid Afremov
Quote by: Ray Bradbury
Quote provided by: CZ

Reflecting Upon Dreams

The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interests upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance. Thus we demand that the world grant us recognition for qualities which we regard as personal possessions: our talent or our beauty. The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life. He feels limited because he has limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy. If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change.

Photo by: Jordan Roberts
Location: San Diego, California
Quote by: C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Quote provided by: CZ

Kananaskis Winter Vista On Christmas Day

Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from holy books and wise people. Everything – even mountains, rivers, plants and trees – should be your teacher.

Photo by: Howard Kilgour
Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Quote by: Morihei Ueshiba
Quote provided by: CZ

UAE National Day Fireworks

Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.

By Daniel Cheong
Taken: Dec 2, 2013
Quote by: Brad Paisley
Quote provided by: CZ

RainBow Over Two Medicine Lake

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.

Photo by: Frank Krahmer
Quote by: John Muir
Quote provided by: CZ
Location: Glacier National Park, Montana, USA

Take Flight

For everything in this journey of life we are on, there is a right wing and a left wing: for the wing of love there is anger; for the wing of destiny there is fear; for the wing of pain there is healing; for the wing of hurt there is forgiveness; for the wing of pride there is humility; for the wing of giving there is taking; for the wing of tears there is joy; for the wing of rejection there is acceptance; for the wing of judgment there is grace; for the wing of honor there is shame; for the wing of letting go there is the wing of keeping. 

We can only fly with two wings and two wings can only stay in the air if there is a balance. Two beautiful wings is perfection. 

There is a generation of people who idealize perfection as the existence of only one of these wings every time. But I see that a bird with one wing is imperfect. An angel with one wing is imperfect. A butterfly with one wing is dead. 

So this generation of people strive to always cut off the other wing in the hopes of embodying their ideal of perfection, and in doing so, have created a crippled race.

Wallpaper

Quote by: C. JoyBell C.

Quote provided by: CZ

The Cold Earth Slept Below

The cold earth slept below;

         Above the cold sky shone;

                And all around,

                With a chilling sound,

From caves of ice and fields of snow

The breath of night like death did flow

                Beneath the sinking moon.

The wintry hedge was black;

         The green grass was not seen;

                The birds did rest

                On the bare thorn’s breast,

Whose roots, beside the pathway track,

Had bound their folds o’er many a crack

                Which the frost had made between.

Thine eyes glow’d in the glare

         Of the moon’s dying light;

                As a fen-fire’s beam

                On a sluggish stream

Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there,

And it yellow’d the strings of thy tangled hair,

                That shook in the wind of night.

The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;

         The wind made thy bosom chill;

                The night did shed

                On thy dear head

Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie

Where the bitter breath of the naked sky

                Might visit thee at will.

Photo by: FramedByNature

Photo title: Deep Blue Blizzard II

Poem title: The Cold Earth Slept Below

Poem by: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Poem provided by: CZ

Location: Spearfish Canyon, Black Hills, South Dakota

Wintery WaterScape

The woods were made for the hunters of dreams,
The brooks for the fishers of song;
To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game
The streams and the woods belong.

Photo by: Alz-Stock
Poem by: Sam Walter Foss
Poem provided by: CZ

Wolf

We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be –the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourselves.

By KargapolovR
Quote by: Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf
Quote provided by: CZ

RainBow Cloud

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.

Photo by: So Bad SO Good
(and yes, this is real)
Location: The Himalayas
Quote by: Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Cloud”
Quote provided by: CZ