I am the Woman

Painting by Soledad Fernández

“I am the woman at the water’s edge,

offering you oranges for the peeling,

knife glistening in the sun.

This is the scent and taste

of my skin: citron and sweet.

Touch me and your life will unfold

before you, easily as this skirt

billows then sinks,

lapping against my legs, my toes

filtering through the rivers silt.

Following the current out to sea,

I am the kind of woman

who will come back to haunt

your dreams, move through your

humid nights the way honey

swirls through a cup of hot tea.”

by Shara McCallum

Past - Present

Art by Patty Maher

"We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past, but by the love we're not extending in the present."

― Marianne Williamson

Flowering Love on a Starry Night

Art by Christian Schloe

 

“She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - The Little Prince

All that is human

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - VenusVerticordia (1868)

I am not interested in enlightenment if it means detachment from the emotional body, the earth plane, the challenges of being human. I'm interested in enrealment, because it means that my most spiritual moments are inclusive, arising right in the heart of a heartfelt immersion in all that is human: agony & ecstasy, laundry list & unity consciousness, earth & sky, joy & sorrow, fresh mangos & stale bread. Its all God, even the dust that falls off my awakening heart.

 

~ Jeff Brown

Voice of Beauty 

Russian Beauty Wearing a Kokoshnik by Konstantin Egorovich Makovsky

“the voice of beauty speaks softly;

it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls”

― Friedrich Nietzsche



Plant me a Tree

Plant me a Tree  by  Catrin Welz-Stein

 

 

"All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost."

 

―  J.R.R. Tolkien

 

 



The Yellow Sail

 

 

The Yellow Sail, 1905, Pastel,  by Odilon Redon

 

"But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."

― Khalil Gibran  

 

 

 

Young Woman with Garland    

 

Young Woman with Garland  by Sir Frank Dicksee

 

“All things truly wicked start from innocence.”

― Ernest Hemingway

 

 

 

 

 

Solitude

 

 

Solitude by Alphonse Maria Mucha

 

“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

Awakening

 

 

Awakening by Christian Schloe

 

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

― Anais Nin

 

 

Dreaming

 

 

Dreaming by Maxfield Parrish

 

 

"We all have futures. We all have pasts. We all have stories. And we all, every single one of us, no matter who we are and no matter what’s been taken from us or what poison we’ve internalized or how hard we’ve had to work to expel it – we all get to dream.”

― N.K. Jemisin