Beautiful Garment Quotes

Take care of your costume and your confidence will take care of itself.

She is so bright and glorious that you cannot look at her face or her garments for the splendor with which she shines. For she is terrible with the terror of the avenging lightning, and gentle with the goodness of the bright sun; and both her terror and her gentleness are incomprehensible to humans.... But she is with everyone and in everyone, and so beautiful is her secret that no person can know the sweetness with which she sustains people, and spares them in inscrutable mercy.

What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed?

She wears it so beautifully doesn’t she, her pain… Always smiling, always positive…. always happy to help… It’s like a garment perfectly tailored to fit the way she carries it… with a touch of grace… and the quietness of that sad smile…. All so you’d never know how heavy it really was.

And yonder sits a maiden, The fairest of the fair, With gold in her garment glittering, And she combs her golden hair.

But if you did, how would you touch me?” she asked, folding the garment neatly before placing it in an open drawer in front of her. I barely had to consider the question before my answer burst forward: “Desperately.

This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Take off your shirt," I said, sitting up and pulling at the hem of the garment. "Why?" he asked, but sat up and obliged. I knelt in front of him, admiring his naked body. "Because I want to look at you," I said. He was beautifully made, with long, graceful bones and flat muscles that flowed smoothly from the curves of chest and shoulder to the slight concavities of belly and thigh. He raised his eyebrows. "Well then, fair's fair. Take off yours, then." He reached out and helped me squirm out of the wrinkled chemise, pushing it down over my hips. Once it was off, he held me by the waist, studying me with intense interest. I grew almost embarrassed as he looked me over. "Haven't you ever seen a naked woman before?" I asked. "Aye, but not one so close." His face broke into a broad grin. "And not one that's mine.

It's about Diana,' sobbed Anne luxuriously. 'I love Diana so, Marilla. I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall I do? I hate her husband — I just hate him furiously. I've been imagining it all out — the wedding and everything — Diana dressed in snowy white garments, and a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the bridesmaid, with a lovely dress, too, and puffed sleeves, but with a breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Diana good-bye-e-e—' Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with increasing bitterness. Marilla turned quickly away to hide her twitching face, but it was no use; she collapsed on the nearest chair and burst into such a hearty and unusual peal of laughter…

With right fashion, every female would be a flame.

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain. Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your rainment. For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind. Some of you say 'It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear.' And I say, 'Ay, it was the north wind, but shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.' And when his work was done he laughed in the forest. Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean. And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind? And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

Fashion doesn't make you perfect, but it makes you pretty.

Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven. Century after century had he toiled, and here was his reward. Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first, shot with colours of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial. And heavenly it had been so long as man could shed it at will and live by the essence that is his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body.

It's time to shop high heels if your fiance kisses you on the forehead.

Any girl with a grin never looks grim.

No garment which distorts the shape and motion of the wearer is beautiful, nor s any garment beautiful which emphasizes more than one or at most two of your sexual characteristics.

You cannot choose your face but you can choose your dress.

Dresses don't look beautiful on hangers.

My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear-a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The “I” in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable. I would not have thee believe in what I say nor trust in what I do-for my words are naught but thy own thoughts in sound and my deeds thy own hopes in action. When thou sayest, “The wind bloweth eastward,” I say, “Aye it doth blow eastward”; for I would not have thee know that my mind doth not dwell upon the wind but upon the sea. Thou canst not understand my seafaring thoughts, nor would I have thee understand. I would be at sea alone. When it is day with thee, my friend, it is night with me; yet even then I speak of the noontide that dances upon the hills and of the purple shadow that steals its way across the valley; for thou canst not hear the songs of my darkness nor see my wings beating against the stars-and I fain would not have thee hear or see. I would be with night alone. When thou ascendest to thy Heaven I descend to my Hell-even then thou callest to me across the unbridgeable gulf, “My companion, my comrade,” and I call back to thee, “My comrade, my companion”-for I would not have thee see my Hell. The flame would burn thy eyesight and the smoke would crowd thy nostrils. And I love my Hell too well to have thee visit it. I would be in Hell alone. Thou lovest Truth and Beauty and Righteousness; and I for thy sake say it is well and seemly to love these things. But in my heart I laughed at thy love. Yet I would not have thee see my laughter. I would laugh alone. My friend, thou art good and cautious and wise; nay, thou art perfect-and I, too, speak with thee wisely and cautiously. And yet I am mad. But I mask my madness. I would be mad alone. My friend, thou art not my friend, but how shall I make thee understand? My path is not thy path, yet together we walk, hand in hand.

Upon Westminster Bridge Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

I… What are you doing " Mircea had run a hand through his waterfall of hair and now he was sliding those beautifully shaped hands down his chest to glide over his nipples. His torso was hairless and perfectly sculpted with toned muscles and a long waist. He followed the lines of his flat stomach to the low-slung border of his only remaining garment. His fingers lingered there sliding along that insubstantial barrier teasingly drawing my eyes to the line of dark hair that started below his navel and disappeared beneath the black silk. It was startling against the pale perfection of his skin and except for the faint pink of his nipples gave the only color to his upper body. "Doing dulceaţă " he asked innocently. "I am trying my best to seduce you.

They wept for humanity, those two, not for themselves. They could not bear that this should be the end. Ere silence was completed their hearts were opened, and they knew what had been important on the earth. Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven. Century after century had he toiled, and here was his reward. Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first, shot with colours of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial. And heavenly it had been so long as man could shed it at will and live by the essence that is his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body. The sin against the body - it was for that they wept in chief; the centuries of wrong against the muscles and the nerves, and those five portals by which we can alone apprehend - glozing it over with talk of evolution, until the body was white pap, the home of ideas as colourless, last sloshy stirrings of a spirit that had grasped the stars.

Dresses won't worn out in the wardrobe, but that is not what dresses are designed for.

Yes, my Master is thorough. He wounds, but He binds up, and His balm of Gilead heals without stinging; it cools, refreshes, and restores in every part. He gives the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, and brings beauty out of our ashes.

Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

The gospel can lift this destroying burden from the mind, give beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.

Put on thy beautiful garments, O daughters of Zion. Live up to the great and magnificent inheritance which the Lord God, your Father in Heaven, has provided for you. Rise above the dust of the world. Know that you are daughters of God, children with a divine birthright. Walk in the sun with your heads high, knowing that you are loved and honored, that you are a part of his kingdom, and that there is for you a great work to be done which cannot be left to others.

In time, Arjuna tires of mere beauty and hearing tales about the valour of princess Chitrangada, he seeks her out. The princess then reveals her true self to Arjuna. Her words are one of the most beautiful declarations of the angst of a woman, ‘I am not beautifully perfect as the flowers with which I worship. I have many flaws and blemishes. I am a traveller in the great world-path, my garments are dirty, and my feet are bleeding with thorns. Where should I achieve flower-beauty, the unsullied loveliness of a moment’s life? The gift that I proudly bring you is the heart of a woman. Here have all pains and joys gathered, the hopes and fears and shames of a daughter of the dust; here love springs up struggling towards immortal life. Herein lies an imperfection which yet is noble and grand.

You lay in wait behind a laurel tree and everything was sweeter women wandering I barely heard darling soul such as I now am you came beautiful in your garments

And who is to say this afterimage is not equally real? Indigo makes its stain not in the dyeing vat, but after the garment has been removed. It is the oxygen of the air that blues it.

At a certain point a totally new garment has to be produced, not only because something more beautiful is required, but also out of regard for the integrity of the aged and venerable tunic.

The sense of wishing to be known only for what one really is is like putting on an old, easy, comfortable garment. You are no longer afraid of anybody or anything. You say to yourself, 'Here I am --- just so ugly, dull, poor, beautiful, rich, interesting, amusing, ridiculous -- take me or leave me.' And how absolutely beautiful it is to be doing only what lies within your own capabilities and is part of your own nature. It is like a great burden rolled off a man's back when he comes to want to appear nothing that he is not, to take out of life only what is truly his own.

Buttons may be tiny. Delicate, even. But they fasten together the fabric of an entire garment. The fabric wear day in and day out, the mundane cotton blouse and the lacy wedding dress. The fabric, the seams, that cover us, warm us, protect us. Binding dream to dream, story to story, but mostly, death to life. With a particular kind of beauty that rises from the dust. The resurrection life of a second story, of the breath that mends us.

Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven.

You see the same plain landscape day after day, and then one day, perhaps it's the play of light or the time of year, you find it beautiful and other landscapes at fault. So it must be with fashion. Ordinary judgement falls into abeyance and something else, some bewitchment, takes over. How else to explain the appeal of garments that in a few years look so ridiculous?

The fourth elf was younger than the others. This showed in the perfection of her skin, the agility and speed of her movements, and in the brightness of her dress. Her long silk garment was yellow and gold and green, and she wore a blue silk choker with a trailing silver scarf at her neck matching another at her waist. There was fire in her dark eyes which added to her overpowering beauty.

The truth is that, for all their talk about social “roots,” conservative intellectuals in the postwar era were often rootless men themselves, and the philosophical mystifications in which they enveloped themselves were frequently the only garments that fit them.

Siddhartha gave his garments to a poor Brahman in the street. He wore nothing more than the loincloth and the earth-coloured, unsown cloak. He ate only once a day, and never something cooked. He fasted for fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh waned from his thighs and cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered from his enlarged eyes, long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers and a dry, shaggy beard grew on his chin. His glance turned to icy when he encountered women; his mouth twitched with contempt, when he walked through a city of nicely dressed people. He saw merchants trading, princes hunting, mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children--and all of this was not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank, it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction. The world tasted bitter. Life was torture. A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal. Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my self, the great secret.

It was almost a mystical experience. I do not know how else to put it. My mind outran time as he neared, and it was as though I had an eternity to ponder the approach of this man who was my brother. His garments were filthy, his face blackened, the stump of his right arm raised, gesturing anywhere. The great beast that he rode was striped, black and red, with a wild red mane and tail. But it really was a horse, and its eyes rolled and there was foam at its mouth and its breathing was painful to hear. I saw then that he wore his blade slung across his back, for its haft protruded high above his right shoulder. Still slowing, eyes fixed upon me, he departed the road, bearing slightly toward my left, jerked the reins once and released them, keeping control of the horse with his knees. His left hand went up in a salute-like movement that passed above his head and seized the hilt of his weapon. It came free without a sound, describing a beautiful arc above him and coming to rest in a lethal position out from his left shoulder and slanting back, like a single wing of dull steel with a minuscule line of edge that gleamed like a filament of mirror. The picture he presented was burned into my mind with a kind of magnificence, a certain splendor that was strangely moving. The blade was a long, scythe like affair that I had seen him use before. Only then we had stood as allies against a mutual foe I had begun to believe unbeatable. Benedict had proved otherwise that night. Now that I saw it raised against me I was overwhelmed with a sense of my own mortality, which I had never experienced before in this fashion. It was as though a layer had been stripped from the world and I had a sudden, full understanding of death itself.

We spend our incomes for paint and paper, for a hundred trifles, I know not what, and not for the things of a man. Our expense is almost all for conformity. It is for cake that we run in debt; 't is not the intellect, not the heart, not beauty, not worship, that costs so much. Why needs any man be rich? Why must he have horses, fine garments, handsome apartments, access to public houses, and places of amusement? Only for want of thought.

Nothing matters more than money to us, the Beautiful Ones who walk down these city streets in pristine gloves and silk-lined garments. You can give yourself the luxury of love because you are not one of us. That is why you are my friend: because despite everything, at heart you remain an innocent.

Call the Sabbath a delight: 13 a delight to the soul and a delight to the body. Since there are so many acts which one must abstain from doing on the seventh day, “you might think I have given you the Sabbath for your displeasure; I have surely given you the Sabbath for your pleasure.” To sanctify the seventh day does not mean: Thou shalt mortify thyself, but, on the contrary: Thou shalt sanctify it with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy senses. “Sanctify the Sabbath by choice meals, by beautiful garments; delight your soul with pleasure and I will reward you for this very pleasure.” 14

The saints are little pieces of mystical Christ, sick of love for union. The wife of youth, that wants her husband some years, and expects he shall return to her from oversea lands, is often on the shore; every ship coming near shore is her new joy; her heart loves the wind that shall bring him home. She asks at every passenger news: "Oh! saw ye my husband? What is he doing? When shall he come? Is he shipped for a return?" Every ship that carrieth not her husband, is the breaking of her heart. What desires hath the Spirit and Bride to hear, when the husband Christ shall say to the mighty angels, "Make you ready for the journey; let us go down and divide the skies, and bow the heaven: I will gather my prisoners of hope unto me; I can want my Rachel and her weeping children no longer. Behold, I come quickly to judge the nations." The bride, the Lamb's wife, blesseth the feet of the messengers that preach such tidings, "Rejoice, O Zion, put on thy beautiful garments; thy King is coming." Yea, she loveth that quarter of the sky, that being rent asunder and cloven, shall yield to her Husband, when he shall put through his glorious hand, and shall come riding on the rainbow and clouds to receive her to himself.

Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still! - Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Slavery in America was perpetuated not merely by human badness but also by human blindness. True, the causal basis for the system of slavery must to a large extent be traced back to the economic factor. Men convinced themselves that a system which was so economically profitable must be morally justifiable. They formulated elaborate theories of racial superiority. Their rationalizations clothed obvious wrongs in the beautiful garments of righteousness. This tragic attempt to give moral sanction to an economically profitable system gave birth to the doctrine of white supremacy. Religion and the Bible were cited to crystallize the status quo.

The fine purple cloaks, the holiday garments, elsewhere signs of gayety of mind, are stained with blood and bordered with black. Throughout a stern discipline, the axe ready for every suspicion of treason; “great men, bishops, a chancellor, princes, the king’s relations, queens, a protector kneeling in the straw, sprinkled the Tower with their blood; one after the other they marched past, stretched out their necks; the Duke of Buckingham, Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Catherine Howard, the Earl of Surrey, Admiral Seymour, the Duke of Somerset, Lady Jane Grey and her husband, the Duke of Northumberland, the Earl of Essex, all on the throne, or on the steps of the throne, in the highest ranks of honor, beauty, youth, genius; of the bright procession nothing is left but senseless trunks, marred by the tender mercies of the executioner.

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain. Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment. For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.

An old fashioned outfit is not a costume, it's a comedy.

He wanted to protect his precious stick from my profane hands, so he brought out his malice without the garments of wit or beauty.

Though her hair was damp and unkempt, face smudged and weary, her garments soggy and splattered with all manner of filth, for a reason he couldn’t explain, she had grown more beautiful and not less.

Born in the East, and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible walks the ways of all the world with familiar feet, and enters land after land to find its own everywhere. It has learned to speak in hundreds of languages to the heart of man. It comes into the palace to tell the monarch that he is the servant of the Most High, and into the cottage to assure the peasant that he is the son of God. Children listen to its stories with wonder and delight, and wisemen ponder them as parables of life. It has a word of peace for the time of peril, the hour of darkness. Its oracles are repeated in the assembly of the people, and its counsels whispered in the ear of the lonely. The wise and the proud tremble at its warnings, but to the wounded and penitent it has a mother's voice. The wilderness and the solitary place have been made glad by it, and the fire on the hearth has lighted the reading of its well-worn pages. It has woven itself into our deepest affections, and colored our dearest dreams; so that love and friendship, sympathy and devotion, memory and hope, put on the beautiful garments of its treasured speech, breathing of frankincense and myrrh. Above the cradle and beside the grave its great words come to us uncalled. They fill our prayers with power larger than we know, and the beauty of them lingers in our ear long after the sermons which they have adorned have been forgotten. They return to us swiftly and quietly, like birds flying from far away. They surprise us with new meanings, like springs of water breaking forth from the mountain beside a long-forgotten path. They grow richer, as pearls do when they are worn near the heart. No man is poor or desolate who has this treasure for his own. When the landscape darkens and the trembling pilgrim comes to the valley named the shadow, he is not afraid to enter; he takes the rod and staff of Scripture in his hand; he says to friend and comrade, "Good-by, we shall meet again"; and comforted by that support, he goes toward the lonely pass as one who climbs through darkness into light.

Being a theomorphic creature, man is himself a work of art. The human soul when purified and dressed in the garment of spiritual virtues is itself the highest kind of beauty in this world, reflecting directly the Divine Beauty.

Before the cremation, Mama and a few of the other older women sewed together a long tunic out of white-spun ramie. We thought it was the prettiest dress, made only more exquisite with Mama’s pink silk embroidery of lotus flowers strewn across the collar. We longed to try it on, to shed our blistered bodies and become women who belonged in such beautiful garments, those women who weaved shards of dawn in their hair and danced with August lightning oiling their calves.

The outer garments of to-day will become the under-clothes of some destined to-morrow, and centuries hence a man found walking on the public highways dressed as you are will be arrested by the police for shocking the sense of propriety of the community, and so on. It will go on and on until you will find human beings everywhere decked out in layer after layer of clothes until he or she has lost all semblance to that beautiful thing that an all-wise Providence has designed us to be.

If I am right, the man of genius then found himself in a situation very different from that of his modern successor. Such a man today often, perhaps usually, feels himself confronted with a reality whose significance he cannot know, or a reality that has no significance; or even a reality such that the very question whether it has a meaning is itself a meaningless question. It is for him, by his own sensibility, to discover a meaning, or, out of his own subjectivity, to give a meaning—or at least a shape—to what in itself had neither. But the Model universe of our ancestors had a built-in significance. And that in two senses; as having ‘significant form’ (it is an admirable design) and as a manifestation of the wisdom and goodness that created it. There was no question of waking it into beauty or life. Ours, most emphatically, was not the wedding garment, nor the shroud. The achieved perfection was already there. The only difficulty was to make an adequate response.

He embraces all things that are lovely: he seals up the sum of all loveliness. Things that shine as single stars with a particular glory, all meet in Christ as a glorious constellation. Col. 1:19, "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." Cast your eyes among all created beings, survey the universe: you will observe strength in one, beauty in a second, faithfulness in a third, wisdom in a fourth; but you shall find none excelling in them all as Christ does. Bread has one quality, water another, raiment another, medicine another; but none has them all in itself as Christ does. He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in him, 1 Cor. 1:30

Homer's Hymn to the Moon Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818. Daughters of Jove, whose voice is melody, Muses, who know and rule all minstrelsy Sing the wide-winged Moon! Around the earth, From her immortal head in Heaven shot forth, Far light is scattered—boundless glory springs; Where'er she spreads her many-beaming wings The lampless air glows round her golden crown. But when the Moon divine from Heaven is gone Under the sea, her beams within abide, Till, bathing her bright limbs in Ocean's tide, Clothing her form in garments glittering far, And having yoked to her immortal car The beam-invested steeds whose necks on high Curve back, she drives to a remoter sky A western Crescent, borne impetuously. Then is made full the circle of her light, And as she grows, her beams more bright and bright Are poured from Heaven, where she is hovering then, A wonder and a sign to mortal men. The Son of Saturn with this glorious Power Mingled in love and sleep—to whom she bore Pandeia, a bright maid of beauty rare Among the Gods, whose lives eternal are. Hail Queen, great Moon, white-armed Divinity, Fair-haired and favourable! thus with thee My song beginning, by its music sweet Shall make immortal many a glorious feat Of demigods, with lovely lips, so well Which minstrels, servants of the Muses, tell.

Spirit of the Sovereign LORD . . . has sent me . . . to comfort all who mourn . . . to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes . . . a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. Isaiah 61:1–3 A garment of praise. What a treasure buried in a long, famous passage from Isaiah.

Everything about her is so beautiful and sweet that I am absolutely carried away by her. No matter what little garment I put on her, it is not equal to the loveliness of her naked body. When we have to get out of the hot water and I have to dress her, I feel a sense of loss. I want to stay right there, hugging her little naked body.

Gran Gran recalled the bloodstained dress she had taken off the girl. It was made of blue silk muslin and finely embroidered, stitched by somebody who knew what they were doing. She hated having to toss the ruined garment into the stove. The smell had sickened her. Since she was a girl, she had never forgotten the odor of beautiful things set afire. Such a waste!

I learned that my new lover was hard, but always good. She did not tease. If you pursued her, she would reveal her sweetest secrets and uncover her hidden places. Yes, she would grant those who came to her by car a measured beauty. There were wonderful things to be seen from the road. Her lesser suitors would jump out of their autos, snapping pictures, trying to save memories before having them, and hurry on. But what can be seen from a road is more enticing than revealing – like a shapely woman whose fleshly mystery cannot be hidden by modest garments but is made more alluring. From the roadside her eyes would invite and challenge: “Will you pursue me?” I did. And though my pursuit cost me a lot – pain, humiliation, hunger and sleepless nights – she was good.

I do not care. During large engagements, all goddesses and celestials wore similar garments on my world. Some flowed well past their feet, others barely touched the ground, but they all shimmered and shined like starlight upon the darkened sky. They were truly beautiful … and so are you. You are a queen and should be draped in the finest fabrics, not the cheap faux material he chose.

The mind of man is the product of live Law; it thinks by law, it dwells in the midst of law, it gathers from law its growth; with law, therefore, can it alone work to any result. Inharmonious, unconsorting ideas will come to a man, but if he try to use one of such, his work will grow dull, and he will drop it from mere lack of interest. Law is the soil in which alone beauty will grow; beauty is the only stuff in which Truth can be clothed; and you may, if you will, call Imagination the tailor that cuts her garments to fit her, and Fancy his journeyman that puts the pieces of them together, or perhaps at most embroiders their button-holes. Obeying law, the maker works like his creator; not obeying law, he is such a fool as heaps a pile of stones and calls it a church.

We let go of all of the unhealthy experiences and perspectives of our past as they diminish the joys of our present and ruin the hope of our future. We thank You for giving us beauty for ashes, joy for grief, and the Spirit of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61:1, 3 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified).

It is natural for a man to desire what he reckons better than that which he has already, and be satisfied with nothing which lacks that special quality which he misses. Thus, if it is for her beauty that he loves his wife, he will cast longing eyes after a fairer woman. If he is clad in a rich garment, he will covet a costlier one; and no matter how rich he may be he will envy a man richer than himself. Do we not see people every day, endowed with vast estates, who keep on joining field to field, dreaming of wider boundaries for their lands? Those who dwell in palaces are ever adding house to house, continually building up and tearing down, remodeling and changing. Men in high places are driven by insatiable ambition to clutch at still greater prizes. And nowhere is there any final satisfaction, because nothing there can be defined as absolutely the best or highest. But it is natural that nothing should content a man's desires but the very best, as he reckons it. Is it not, then, mad folly always to be craving for things which can never quiet our longings, much less satisfy them? No matter how many such things one has, he is always lusting after what he has not; never at peace, he sighs for new possessions.

While I waited for him in the woods, waiting for him before he saw me, I would think of him as dressed in sin. I would think of him as thinking of me as dressed also in sin, he the more beautiful since the garment which he had exchanged for sin was sanctified. I would think of the sin as garments which we would remove in order to shape and coerce the terrible blood to the forlorn echo of the dead word high in the air.

We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be. - May Sarton You see, I am a poet, and not quite right in the head, darling. It's only that. - Edna St. Vincent Millay We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music. - Albert Einstein ————- Eventually soulmates meet, for they have the same hiding place. - Robert Brault Some things arrive on their own mysterious hour, on their own terms and not yours, to be seized or relinquished forever. - Gail Godwin Art makes us exercise the weakest muscle in the human body, the muscle of empathy. - Etgar Keret In the history of old Jewish literature there was never any basic difference between the poet and the prophet. Our ancient poetry often became law and a way of life. - Isaac Bashevis Singer ——————————————————————————— I am not belittling the brave pioneer men but the sunbonnet as well as the sombrero has helped to settle this glorious land of ours. - Edna Ferber You lose in the end unless you know how the wheel is fixed or can fix it yourself. - Edna Ferber What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine. - Susan Sontag ——————————————————————————— There comes a time when suddenly you realize that laughter is something you remember and that you were the one laughing. - Marlene Dietrich We work in the dark, We do what we can, We give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. - Henry James

To grant [consolation and joy] to those who mourn in Zion—to give them an ornament (a garland or diadem) of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, the garment [expressive] of praise instead of a heavy, burdened, and failing spirit—that they may be called oaks of righteousness [lofty, strong, and magnificent, distinguished for uprightness, justice, and right standing with God], the planting of the Lord, that He

Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5) and “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). I shared the divine assurance in Isaiah 61:3: Bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

Things external to her may have their own weight and dimension: but within inside us she gives them such measures as she wills: death is terrifying to Cicero, desirable to Cato, indifferent to Socrates. Health, consciousness, authority, knowledge, beauty and their opposites doff their garments as they enter the soul and receive new vestments, coloured with qualities of her own choosing: brown or green; light or dark; bitter or sweet, deep or shallow, as it pleases each of the individual souls, who have not agreed together on the truth of their practices, rules or ideas. Each soul is Queen in her own state. So let us no longer seek excuses from the external qualities of anything, the responsibility lies within ourselves. Our good or our bad depends on us alone. So let us make our offertories and our vows to ourselves not to Fortune: she has no power over our behaviour, on the contrary our souls drag Fortune in their train and mould her to their own idea.

The sound of the trumpets died away and Orlando stood stark naked. No human being since the world began, has ever looked more ravishing. His form combined in one the strength of a man and a woman’s grace. As he stood there, silver trumpets prolonged their note, as if reluctant to leave the lovely sight which their blast had called forth; and Chastity, Purity, and Modesty, inspired, no doubt, by Curiosity, peeped in at the door and threw a garment like a towel at the naked form which, unfortunately, fell short by several inches. Orlando looked at himself up and down in a long looking-glass, without showing any signs of discompose, and went presumably, to his bath. We many take advantage of this pause in the narrative to make certain statements. Orlando had become a woman - there is no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been. The change in sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity. Their faces remained, as their portraits prove, practically the same. His memory - but in the future we must, for convention’s sake, say ‘her’ for ‘his’, and ‘she’ for ‘he’ - her memory then, went back through all the events of her past life without encountering any obstacle. Some slight haziness there may have been, as if a few dark spots had fallen into the clear pool of memory; certain things had become a little dimmed; but that was all. The change seemed to have been accomplished painlessly and completely and in such a way that Orlando herself showed no surprise at it. Many people, taking this into account, and holding that such a change in sex is against nature, have been at great pains to prove (1) that Orlando has always been a woman, (2) that Orlando is at this moment a man. Let biologists and psychologists determine. It is enough for us to state the simple fact; Orlando was a man till the age of thirty; when he became a woman and has remained so ever since.

MARCH 16 I WILL COVER YOU IN THE GARMENT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS YOU ARE MY beloved child. I have clothed you with garments of salvation and arrayed you in a robe of righteousness. My Holy Spirit has clothed you with power from on high, and you are clothed with My Son, Christ. I have given you My beauty for your ashes, the oil of My joy for your mourning, and My garment of praise for your spirit of heaviness. My righteousness is a breastplate of protection for you, and I have shod your feet with the gospel of My peace. I have made you My ambassador, so that you may speak boldly to explain the mysteries of My gospel. ISAIAH 61:10; EZEKIEL 16:8–13; GALATIANS 3:27; EPHESIANS 6:14 Prayer Declaration I am clothed with the garment of salvation. My God has placed the robe of His righteousness over me and given me the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. He has prepared me for battle by preparing me with armor of defense. His righteousness is my strong and impenetrable breastplate, and His justice protects me like armor.

Always there had been contacts between that sphere and Joseph’s present one; for the darkly beautiful Ishmael had taken to wife a daughter of the black earth, and from the marriage the half-Egyptian Ishmaelites had sprung, called and chosen to bring Joseph down hitherwards. And many like them traded between the rivers to and fro, and apron-skirted messengers had gone about, a thousand years and more, with letters written on bricks carried within their garments’ folds. But if this Naphtali-nature had always been, yet now in Joseph’s time it was as never before a regular, customary, and developed thing; for the land whither he was snatched and where he lived his second life was definitely a land of descendants: no longer piously self-sufficient and strict as Amun would have it be, but worldly and seeking the pleasures of the world; so that if a Come-hither Asiatic lad had but a cunning gift at saying good-night and could add two and two, he could become the body-servant to a great Egyptian and goodness knows what besides!

Yet Britain was still green in 1800, as America was still largely primeval. William Wordsworth, a poet with a private income, would have much to say in other poems about the stifling effect of industrial labor on the body and the soul, but in July 1802 he stood on London’s Westminster Bridge and found A sight . . . touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.4

On August 10, 1984, my plane landed in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. There were no skyscrapers here. The blue domes of the mosques and the faded mountains were the only things rising above the adobe duvals (the houses). The mosques came alive in the evening with multivoiced wailing: the mullahs were calling the faithful to evening prayer. It was such an unusual spectacle that, in the beginning, I used to leave the barracks to listen – the same way that, in Russia, on spring nights, people go outside to listen to the nightingales sing. For me, a nineteen-year-old boy who had lived his whole life in Leningrad, everything about Kabul was exotic: enormous skies – uncommonly starry – occasionally punctured by the blazing lines of tracers. And spread out before you, the mysterious Asian capital where strange people were bustling about like ants on an anthill: bearded men, faces darkend by the sun, in solid-colored wide cotton trousers and long shirts. Their modern jackets, worn over those outfits, looked completely unnatural. And women, hidden under plain dull garments that covered them from head to toe: only their hands visible, holding bulging shopping bags, and their feet, in worn-out shoes or sneakers, sticking out from under the hems. And somewhere between this odd city and the deep black southern sky, the wailing, beautifully incomprehensible songs of the mullahs. The sounds didn't contradict each other, but rather, in a polyphonic echo, melted away among the narrow streets. The only thing missing was Scheherazade with her tales of A Thousand and One Arabian Nights ... A few days later I saw my first missile attack on Kabul. This country was at war.

In the swan-maiden motif we have a hunter who is told of a beautiful woman who first appears as a swan. It is a question of how a man can get hold of his anima: he has to notice moods and half-unconscious thoughts which appear in the background of his consciousness, and hold on to them so that they cannot just disappear again. By writing down the mood or thought, he takes its volatility away and gives it a human quality. But doing it once is not enough. Even a man who has realized what the anima is can let her slip back into her feather garment and fly out of the window.

She was, as always at evening parties, wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut very low at front and back. Her bust, which had always seemed like marble to Pierre, was so close to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but perceive the living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips that he need only have bent his head a little to have touched them. He was conscious of the warmth of her body, the scent of perfume, and the creaking of her corset as she moved. He did not see her marble beauty forming a complete whole with her dress, but all the charm of her body only covered by her garments. And having once seen this he could not help being aware of it, just as we cannot renew an illusion we have once seen through.

Night fell. The full moon shone sweetly and tremulously, bewitching and foreboding with rays which were cold and funereally silent. The heart of the Youth was filled with an apprehensive fear as he went up to his window. His hand, clutching the edge of the yellow curtain, hesitated and vacillated for a long time before he resolved to draw the curtain slowly aside. The yellow linen rustled as it slowly gathered, and its rustle was like the barely audible hissing of a serpent in the forest's undergrowth; and the thin brass rings jingled and scraped against the brass curtain rod. The Beauty stood beneath the window and looked at the window and waited. And the heart of the Youth shuddered, and he could not make out whether his heart was seized by ecstasy or terror. The black braids of the Beauty were undone and fell on her naked shoulders. A sharply outlined shadow lay on the ground beside her. Illuminated from the side by the moon, she stood like some distinct and well-defined spectre. That half of her face which was illuminated by the moon, as well as her shoulders and her arms, were deathly white, as white as her robe. The folds of her white robe were severe and dark. Dark was the azure of her eyes, mysterious her frozen smile. A smooth, burnished clasp, fastened at the shoulder, gleamed dully against the strange tranquility of her body and garments. She began to speak softly, and her words, ringing like the fine silver chains of a lighted censer, gave forth a fragrance of ambergris, musk and lily. ("The Poison Garden

More proof that Lynn is still meant to continue with the government programme occurred during the winter of 2000, when she was sitting at a cafeteria table at the area college. It was later in the afternoon when a few people congregated there with books spread out so they could study while drinking coffee or snacking. Many tables were empty, yet after Lynn had been sitting for a few moments, an elderly man sat down across from her. The old man seemed familiar to Lynn, though, at first, she pretended to ignore him. He said nothing, just sat there as someone might when all the tables are filled and it is necessary to share space with a stranger. His presence made her uncomfortable, yet there was nothing specific that alerted her. A short while later, Mac, the man who had been Lynn's handler in Mexico, came out of the shadows and stopped at the table. He was younger than the old man. His clothes were military casual, the type of garments that veteran students who have military experience might recognise, but not think unusual. He leaned over Lynn and kissed her gently on the forehead, spoke quietly to her, and then said 'Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.' Those were the code words that would start the cover programme of which she was still part. The words led to her being switched from the control of the old man, a researcher she now believes may have been part of Dr Ewen Cameron's staff before coming to the United States for the latter part of his career, to the younger man. The change is like a re-enlistment in an army she never willingly joined. In a very real way, she is a career soldier who has never been paid, never allowed to retire and never given a chance to lead a life free from the fear of what she might do without conscious awareness.

Adira squirmed in Leah’s arms, wanting down. Leah lowered her until her little sneaker-clad feet touched the floor. Adira toddled away, patting the garments that brushed her head and shoulders. Straightening, Leah watched her for a moment, then turned back to Seth. “I guess I’ll get back to work.” Was that disappointment he felt upon hearing her words? He really was enjoying her company. Adira turned around and toddled back. Grasping Leah’s fingers, she reached out, took Seth’s hand, and placed Leah’s in it. Seth instinctively curled his fingers around Leah’s. Satisfied, Adira turned and toddled off once more. “Oh,” Leah said with a surprised chuckle. “Well. Maybe not.” Seth was surprised, too. What was Adira thinking? He glanced at Leah. Should he apologize? “Sorry about that.” “No worries,” she said with another charming smile. Raising their clasped hands, she turned them so his was on top and slid her free hand over it. “Oooh. Look how big your hand is.” How many times had he heard Tracy or one of the other mortal women he frequently encountered think Oooh. Look how big his hands are. You know what they say: big hands, big feet, big package in much the same tone as Leah’s. Seth couldn’t help it. He barked out a laugh. Leah’s eyes widened. “Wait. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” “It sounded as if you like that my hands are so big.” She flushed. “I do, but I didn’t mean it like you think.” “How do I think you meant it?” he asked with exaggerated innocence. Face red, she laughed. “Stop making me blush. I just meant I like that you’re so big. Not just your hands. But all over.” Again her eyes widened. “I mean, not all over, but—” Laughing, he took pity on her. “It’s all right. I understood what you meant the first time.” Smiling, she squinted up at him. “You like to tease, don’t you?” “Guilty as charged.” Many immortals did. It helped lighten what could otherwise be a dark existence. She caressed his hand again, sending little tingles through it. “My hand actually looks small in yours. That’s so cool.” It did. And the sensations her soft touch inspired unnerved him a bit. His pulse even picked up. Seth eyed her curiously. “You really dislike your size so much?” He thought it a shame. She was a beautiful woman. Shrugging, she released his hand and let hers fall to her sides. “When someone gives you a complex in high school, it tends to stick with you.” Adira reappeared as if by magic. Taking Leah’s hand, she again placed it in Seth’s, then moved away. The two looked at each other and smiled. Leah nodded after Adira. “Maybe she’s hoping I’ll distract you so she can take her time looking over the toys she plans to coax you into buying before you leave.” Seth winked. “Or maybe she just heard you say you like my big hands.

The geisha and the temple maiden of the Hindus, Persians, Mayas, or Inca present the sovereignty of idle beauty, completely withdrawn from the world of work. Living in idleness, she preserves those soft and fluid forms of the voice, of the smile, of the whole body, that captivate without resisting what they touch. Her beauty does not triumph in the endurance of stern physical tasks; it does not endure; it is as ephemeral as the flowers that bloom in the night and die when the sun rises. She makes herself an object by covering herself with brilliant and fluid garments, jewels, and perfumes. The working man is stopped in his tracks, contemplating a body set apart, remote from his laborious concerns, ostentatious and alluring. Her sumptuous dress, jewelry of precious stones, plumes of exotic birds, and perfumes made of fields of rare flowers represent values, represent the dissipation of human labor in useless splendor. This intense consumption exerts a dangerous fascination. She tempts the worker to the follies and excesses of passion and dispossession.

Cam awakened slowly as he felt his wife’s voluptuous body snuggling close to his. She always slept in a nightgown made of modest white cambric, with infinite numbers of tucks and tiny ruffles. It never failed to stir him, knowing what splendid curves were concealed beneath the demure garment. The nightgown had ridden up to her knees during the night. One of her bare legs was hooked over his, her knee resting near his groin. The slight roundness of her stomach pressed against his side. Pregnancy had made her feminine form more ample and delicious. There was a glow about her these days, a burgeoning vulnerability that filled him with an overwhelming urge to protect her. And knowing that the changes in her were caused by his seed, a part of him growing inside her … that was undeniably arousing. He wouldn’t have expected to be this enthralled by Amelia’s condition. In the eyes of the Rom, childbirth and all related issues were considered mahrime, polluting events. And since the Irish were notoriously suspicious and prudish when it came to matters of reproduction, there wasn’t much on either side of his lineage to justify his delight in his wife’s pregnancy. But he couldn’t help it. She was the most beautiful and fascinating creature he had ever encountered.

It was also then that the women of Ak&‌ccedil;ah started a new custom. Underneath their garments they wrapped cloth bands around their waists to squeeze them tight. They were so awed by Zekiye's thin waist that, for a while, they ignored Atiye when she reminded them that this waist-thinning method wouldn't work unless they had started very young. But the women kept their waistbands on until the sheep-mating season to see what would happeend. Then they all began to wheeze. They found that in their zeal for having thin waists they had afflicted themselves with shortness of breath, coughing, flushes and sweating. A few had sores on their hands, faces and other parts of their bodies. Three women had problems with their eyes and speech. And when their waists started to swell up like logs, they all took off the cloth bands. "We're well past the age of waist-thinning," they said. All the same, they considered it their duty as mothers to raise their daughters to be as slender as Zekiye. They took lessons in the art of waist-thinning from Atiye and soon discovered that plastic bags were more effective than cloth bands. Thereafter, whenever they had girl babies, they would wash them with three bowls of water as soon as the umbilical cord was cut and then wrap plastic bags around their waists, blowing prayers on them all the while.

A drone is often preferred for missions that are too "dull, dirty, or dangerous" for manned aircraft.” PROLOGUE The graffiti was in Spanish, neon colors highlighting the varicose cracks in the wall. It smelled of urine and pot. The front door was metal with four bolt locks and the windows were frosted glass, embedded with chicken wire. They swung out and up like big fake eye-lashes held up with a notched adjustment bar. This was a factory building on the near west side of Cleveland in an industrial area on the Cuyahoga River known in Ohio as The Flats. First a sweatshop garment factory, then a warehouse for imported cheeses then a crack den for teenage potheads. It was now headquarters for Magic Slim, the only pimp in Cleveland with his own film studio and training facility. Her name was Cosita, she was eighteen looking like fourteen. One of nine children from El Chorillo. a dangerous poverty stricken barrio on the outskirts of Panama City. Her brother, Javier, had been snatched from the streets six months ago, he was thirteen and beautiful. Cosita had a high school education but earned here degree on the streets of Panama. Interpol, the world's largest international police organization, had recruited Cosita at seventeen. She was smart, street savvy, motivated and very pretty. Just what Interpol was looking for. Cosita would become a Drone!

We approached the long, heavily guarded causeway. There were soldiers at the entrance. Our names were taken, and our permissions scrutinized, and then a bell rang and a military escort went with us through the gate. We didn’t go to the side where the government offices are. We walked inside the huge place, past the old cathedrals which have been there for so long, and we went through the museums in the giant palace which was used by so many czars, from Ivan the Terrible on. We went into the tiny bedroom that Ivan used, and into the little withdrawing rooms, and the private chapels. And they are very beautiful, and strange, and ancient, and they are kept just as they were. And we saw the museum where the armor, the plate, the weapons, the china services, the costumes, and the royal gifts for five hundred years are stored. There were huge crowns covered with diamonds and emeralds, there was the big sledge of Catherine the Great. We saw the fur garments and the fantastic armor of the old boyars. There were the gifts sent by other royal houses to the czars—a great silver dog sent by Queen Elizabeth, presents of German silver and china from Frederick the Great to Catherine, the swords of honor, the incredible claptrap of monarchy. It became apparent, after looking at a royal museum, that bad taste, far from being undesirable in royalty, is an absolute necessity.

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.” Here He, the holy One, is in contrast to every good man in all past ages. It was never known that God forsook a righteous man. There He is on that Cross, the absolutely righteous One, dying, forsaken of God. Oh, He says, I have gone down lower than any man ever went before, “I am a worm, and no man.” The word He used for worm is the word “tola,” and the tola of the orient is a little worm something like the cochineal of Mexico which feeds on a certain kind of cactus. The people beat these plants until the cochineal fall into a basin and then they crush those little insects and the blood is that brilliant crimson dye that makes those bright Mexican garments. In Palestine and Syria they use the tola in the same way and it makes the beautiful permanent scarlet dye of the orient It was very expensive and was worn only by the great and the rich and the noble. It is referred to again and again in Scripture. Solomon is said to have clothed the maidens of Israel in scarlet. Daniel was to be clothed in scarlet by Belshazzar. And that word “scarlet” is literally “the splendor of a worm.” “They shall be clothed in the splendor of a worm.” Now the Lord Jesus Christ says, “I am a worm; I am the tola,” and He had to be crushed in death that you and I might be clothed in glory. The glorious garments of our salvation are the garments that have been procured as a result of His death and His suffering.

She hadn’t always been obsessed with babies. There was a time she believed she would change the world, lead a movement, follow Dolores Huerta and Sylvia Mendez, Ellen Ochoa and Sonia Sotomayor. Where her bisabuela had picked pecans and oranges in the orchards, climbing the tallest trees with her small girlbody, dropping the fruit to the baskets below where her tías and tíos and primos stooped to pick those that had fallen on the ground, where her abuela had sewn in the garment district in downtown Los Angeles with her bisabuela, both women taking the bus each morning and evening, making the beautiful dresses to be sold in Beverly Hills and maybe worn by a movie star, and where her mother had cared for the ill, had gone to their crumbling homes, those diabetic elderly dying in the heat in the Valley—Bianca would grow and tend to the broken world, would find where it ached and heal it, would locate its source of ugliness and make it beautiful. Only, since she’d met Gabe and become La Llorona, she’d been growing the ugliness inside her. She could sense it warping the roots from within. The cactus flower had dropped from her when she should have been having a quinceañera, blooming across the dance floor in a bright, sequined dress, not spending the night at her boyfriend’s nana’s across town so that her mama wouldn’t know what she’d done, not taking a Tylenol for the cramping and eating the caldo de rez they’d made for her. They’d taken such good care of her. Had they done it for her? Or for their son’s chance at a football scholarship? She’d never know. What she did know: She was blessed with a safe procedure. She was blessed with women to check her for bleeding. She was blessed with choice. Only, she hadn’t chosen for herself. She hadn’t. Awareness must come. And it did. Too late. If she’d chosen for herself, she would have chosen the cactus spines. She would’ve chosen the one night a year the night-blooming cereus uncoils its moon-white skirt, opens its opalescent throat, and allows the bats who’ve flown hundreds of miles with their young clutching to their fur as they swim through the air, half-starved from waiting, to drink their fill and feed their next generation of creatures who can see through the dark. She’d have been a Queen of the Night and taught her daughter to give her body to no Gabe. She knew that, deep inside. Where Anzaldúa and Castillo dwelled, where she fed on the nectar of their toughest blossoms. These truths would moonstone in her palm and she would grasp her hand shut, hold it tight to her heart, and try to carry it with her toward the front door, out onto the walkway, into the world. Until Gabe would bend her over. And call her gordita or cochina. Chubby girl. Dirty girl. She’d open her palm, and the stone had turned to dust. She swept it away on her jeans. A daughter doesn’t solve anything; she needed her mama to tell her this. But she makes the world a lot less lonely. A lot less ugly.  

I could look at you forever,” he admitted roughly as the gown joined her wrapper on the floor. “Looking is very good,” she replied, kicking the garments aside with a flick of a slender foot. “But I would much rather you touch.” There was no artifice in her tone, no knowingly seductive tones-only an honesty that shook him to his soul. He picked her up and carried her the few steps to his bed. He placed her naked body on the sheets and stood back. He took his time studying the lush splendor of her as he opened his trousers and pushed them over his hips and thighs. When he straightened, the full length of his arousal jutted in front of him, revealed to her bright gaze as her nakedness was to his. “Are all men as beautiful as you are naked?” she asked with a hint of a smile. Grey grinned back. “No,” he replied. “I am an exceptional specimen of manly perfection-how the hell should i know what other men look like naked?” Rose shrugged as she chuckled. “You stand a better chance of knowing than I would.” He climbed on the bed, easing his body onto the sheets beside her. “I cannot tell you. All I know is that I’ve never seen a woman as beautiful as you.” He kissed the tip of her adorable nose as he placed his palm on the gentle curve of her stomach. Soft pink suffused her cheeks. “You lie.” He shook his head, solemn as the grave. “Not about this.” And then he kissed her again, because he didn’t want to risk ruining the moment with silly chatter. Or risk saying something better left unsaid.

HEXAGON Snowflakes descend purposefully or wistfully but, surrounded by their tiny peers, each is confident they together will soon hide the meadows, driveways, roofs, fences, the stripped gardens. A speck of dust or pollen lofted to the top of the sky encountered a water drop that in the celestial cold adhered and froze, forming an ice crystal which, now weightier than the air it floated on, began to waft downwards, adding water particles as it traveled, six spikes or arms creating a filigree all its own as it passed through differing temperatures and amounts of dampness. Its delicate white intricacy, though, contains an inner space also unique. One offers a forest of snowy evergreens where, as afternoon light dims, a man wearing a homespun hooded garment and bent under a sack thrown over a shoulder plods along a footpath winding uphill between firs and pines. With each step, his breath appears like smoke until he and his burden are lost from view, and a chill wind sways the thin twigs of bushes emerging from drifts beside the track. In that flake is preserved an era in which the body endures and welcomes the simple opposites: icy cold against face skin and eventually a fire’s warmth, sodden feet and, at last, these dried once more, while the eye registers an omnipresent starkness —white fields, white roads, white trees— which, like a minor key, can please the mind. Here is the past returned to Earth by the water that changes form but does not die. In this vision, each frozen tuft among the millions that lower to the ground is a memento mori that affirms: No life is useless or pointless, since each in its turn advances the future. Yet all are swiftly forgotten in the beauty of the falling snow.

Beauty Void lay the world, in nothingness concealed, Without a trace of light or life revealed, Save one existence which second knew- Unknown the pleasant words of We and You. Then Beauty shone, from stranger glances free, Seen of herself, with naught beside to see, With garments pure of stain, the fairest flower Of virgin loveliness in bridal bower. No combing hand had smoothed a flowing tress, No mirror shown her eyes their loveliness No surma dust those cloudless orbs had known, To the bright rose her cheek no bulbul flown. No heightening hand had decked the rose with green, No patch or spot upon that cheek was seen. No zephyr from her brow had fliched a hair, No eye in thought had seen the splendour there. Her witching snares in solitude she laid, And love's sweet game without a partner played. But when bright Beauty reigns and knows her power She springs indignant from her curtained bower. She scorns seclusion and eludes the guard, And from the window looks if doors be barred. See how the tulip on the mountain grown Soon as the breath of genial Spring has blown, Bursts from the rock, impatient to display Her nascent beauty to the eye of day. When sudden to thy soul reflection brings The precious meaning of mysterious things, Thou canst not drive the thought from out thy brain; Speak, hear thou must, for silence is such pain. So beauty ne'er will quit the urgent claim Whose motive first from heavenly beauty came When from her blessed bower she fondly strayed, And to the world and man her charms displayed. In every mirror then her face was shown, Her praise in every place was heard and known. Touched by her light, the hearts of angels burned, And, like the circling spheres, their heads were turned, While saintly bands, whom purest at the sight of her, And those who bathe them in the ocean sky Cries out enraptured, "Laud to God on high!" Rays of her splendour lit the rose's breast And stirred the bulbul's heart with sweet unrest. From her bright glow its cheek the flambeau fired, And myriad moths around the flame expired. Her glory lent the very sun the ray Which wakes the lotus on the flood to-day. Her loveliness made Laila's face look fair To Majnún, fettered by her every hair. She opened Shírín's sugared lips, and stole From Parvíz' breast and brave Farhád's the soul. Through her his head the Moon of Canaan raised, And fond Zulaikha perished as she gazed. Yes, though she shrinks from earthly lovers' call, Eternal Beauty is the queen of all; In every curtained bower the screen she holds, About each captured heart her bonds enfolds. Through her sweet love the heart its life retains, The soul through love of her its object gains. The heart which maidens' gentle witcheries stir Is, though unconscious, fired with love of her. Refrain from idle speech; mistake no more: She brings her chains and we, her slaves, adore. Fair and approved of Love, thou still must own That gift of beauty comes from her alone. Thou art concealed: she meets all lifted eyes; Thou art the mirror which she beautifies. She is that mirror, if we closely view The truth- the treasure and the treasury too. But thou and I- our serious work is naught; We waste our days unmoved by earnest thought. Cease, or my task will never end, for her Sweet beauties lack a meet interpreter. Then let us still the slaves of love remain For without love we live in vain, in vain. Jámí, "Yúsuf and Zulaikha". trans. Ralph T. H. Griffith. Ballantyne Press 1882. London. p.19-22

Do you like what you doth see . . . ?” said the voluptuous elf-maiden as she provocatively parted the folds of her robe to reveal the rounded, shadowy glories within. Frito’s throat was dry, though his head reeled with desire and ale. She slipped off the flimsy garment and strode toward the fascinated boggie unashamed of her nakedness. She ran a perfect hand along his hairy toes, and he helplessly watched them curl with the fierce insistent wanting of her. “Let me make thee more comfortable,” she whispered hoarsely, fiddling with the clasps of his jerkin, loosening his sword belt with a laugh. “Touch me, oh touch me,” she crooned. Frito’s hand, as though of its own will, reached out and traced the delicate swelling of her elf-breast, while the other slowly crept around her tiny, flawless waist, crushing her to his barrel chest. “Toes, I love hairy toes,” she moaned, forcing him down on the silvered carpet. Her tiny, pink toes caressed the luxuriant fur of his instep while Frito’s nose sought out the warmth of her precious elf-navel. “But I’m so small and hairy, and . . . and you’re so beautiful,” Frito whimpered, slipping clumsily out of his crossed garters. The elf-maiden said nothing, but only sighed deep in her throat and held him more firmly to her faunlike body. “There is one thing you must do for me first,” she whispered into one tufted ear. “Anything,” sobbed Frito, growing frantic with his need. “Anything!” She closed her eyes and then opened them to the ceiling. “The Ring,” she said. “I must have your Ring.” Frito’s whole body tensed. “Oh no,” he cried, “not that! Anything but . . . that.” “I must have it,” she said both tenderly and fiercely. “I must have the Ring!” Frito’s eyes blurred with tears and confusion. “I can’t,” he said. “I mustn’t!” But he knew resolve was no longer strong in him. Slowly, the elf-maiden’s hand inched toward the chain in his vest pocket, closer and closer it came to the Ring Frito had guarded so faithfully . .

Gray froze as Miss Turner emerged from the hold. For weeks, she’d plagued him-by day, he suffered glimpses of her beauty; by night, he was haunted by memories of her touch. And just when he thought he’d finally wrangled his desire into submission, today she’d ruined everything. She’d gone and changed her dress. Gone was that serge shroud, that forbidding thundercloud of a garment that had loomed in his peripheral vision for weeks. Today, she wore a cap-sleeved frock of sprigged muslin. She stepped onto the deck, smiling face tilted to the wind. A flower opening to greet the sun. She bobbed on her toes, as though resisting the urge to make a girlish twirl. The pale, sheer fabric of her dress billowed and swelled in the breeze, pulling the undulating contour of calf, thigh, hip into relief. Gray thought she just might be the loveliest creature he’d ever seen. Therefore, he knew he ought to look away. He did, for a moment. He made an honest attempt to scan the horizon for clouds. He checked the hour on his pocket watch, wound the small knob one, two, three, four times. He wiped a bit of salt spray from its glass face. He thought of England. And France, and Cuba, and Spain. He remembered his brother, his sister, and his singularly ugly Aunt Rosamond, on whom he hadn’t clapped eyes in decades. And all this Herculean effort resulting in nothing but a fine sheen of sweat on his brow and precisely thirty seconds’ delay in the inevitable. He looked at her again. Desire swept through his body with starling intensity. And beneath that hot surge of lust, a deeper emotion swelled. It wasn’t something Gray wished to examine. He preferred to let it sink back into the murky depths of his being. An unnamed creature of the deep, let for a more intrepid adventurer to catalog. Instead, he examined Miss Turner’s new frock. The fabric was of fine quality, the sprig pattern evenly stamped, without variations in shape or hue. The dressmaker had taken great pains to match the pattern at the seams. The sleeves of the frock fit perfectly square with her shoulders, in a moment of calm, the skirt’s single flounce lapped the laces of her boots. Unlike that gray serge abomination, this dress was expensive, and it had been fashioned for her alone. But it no longer fit. As she turned, Gray noted how the neckline gaped slightly, and the column of her skirt that ought to have skimmed the swell of her hip instead caught on nothing but air. He frowned. And in that instant, she turned to face him. Their gazes caught and held. Her own smile faded to a quizzical expression. And because Gray didn’t know how to answer the unspoken question in her eyes, and because he hated the fact that he’d banished the giddy delight from her face, he gave her a curt nod and a churlish, “Good morning.” And then he walked away.

It is natural for a man to desire what he reckons better than that which he has already, and be satisfied with nothing which lacks that special quality which he misses. Thus, if it is for her beauty that he loves his wife, he will cast longing eyes after a fairer woman. If he is clad in a rich garment, he will covet a costlier one; and no matter how rich he may be he will envy a man richer than himself. Do we not see people every day, endowed with vast estates, who keep on joining field to field, dreaming of wider boundaries for their lands? Those who dwell in palaces are ever adding house to house, continually building up and tearing down, remodeling and changing. Men in high places are driven by insatiable ambition to clutch at still greater prizes. And nowhere is there any final satisfaction, because nothing there can be defined as absolutely the best or highest. But it is natural that nothing should content a man's desires but the very best, as he reckons it. Is it not, then, mad folly always to be craving for things which can never quiet our longings, much less satisfy them? No matter how many such things one has, he is always lusting after what he has not; never at peace, he sighs for new possessions. Discontented, he spends himself in fruitless toil, and finds only weariness in the evanescent and unreal pleasures of the world. In his greediness, he counts all that he has clutched as nothing in comparison with what is beyond his grasp, and loses all pleasure in his actual possessions by longing after what he has not, yet covets. No man can ever hope to own all things. Even the little one does possess is got only with toil and is held in fear; since each is certain to lose what he hath when God's day, appointed though unrevealed. shall come. But the perverted will struggles towards the ultimate good by devious ways, yearning after satisfaction, yet led astray by vanity and deceived by wickedness. Ah, if you wish to attain to the consummation of all desire, so that nothing unfulfilled will be left, why weary yourself with fruitless efforts, running hither and thither, only to die long before the goal is reached? It is so that these impious ones wander in a circle, longing after something to gratify their yearnings, yet madly rejecting that which alone can bring them to their desired end, not by exhaustion but by attainment. They wear themselves out in vain travail, without reaching their blessed consummation, because they delight in creatures, not in the Creator. They want to traverse creation, trying all things one by one, rather than think of coming to him who is Lord of all. And if their utmost longing were realized, so that they should have all the world for their own, yet without possessing him who is the Author of all being, then the same law of their desires would make them contemn what they had and restlessly seek him whom they still lacked, that is, God himself.

THE NIGHTGOWN was only the first of the garments in the box. There were seven nightgowns, in fact—one for each day of the week—of delicate silk, lovely georgette, and beautiful tiffany. As Alexandra pulled them out, she draped them on the bed. She’d never seen a nightgown that wasn’t white, but these were almond and pale blush pink, powder blue and soft peach, with delicate edgings of lace and intricate, exquisite embroidery. “They’re stunning,” she said. “Madame Rodale has nothing like them in her book of fashion plates.” Tris just grinned. He seemed different tonight. More relaxed, less worried. She didn’t know what had prompted his sudden good humor, but she didn’t want to question it. She’d rather enjoy it instead. After the afternoon she’d had—starting with Elizabeth’s letter and ending with three fruitless interviews—she wasn’t about to risk the one thing that seemed to be going right. “Are you going to try one on for me?” he asked. Her face heated. He chose a nightgown off the bed, palest lavender with black lace and violet embroidery. “This one,” he said, handing it to her. “Do you require assistance with your dress?” “Just the buttons,” she said, and turned to let him unfasten them. She shifted the nightgown in her hands. It felt so light. “There,” he said when the back of her green dress gaped open. He kissed her softly on the nape of her neck, then settled on one of the striped chairs, sipping from the glass of port he’d brought upstairs with him. “Use the dressing room. I’ll be waiting.” In the dressing room, she shakily stripped out of her frock, chemise, shoes, and stockings, then dropped the nightgown over her head and smoothed it down over her hips. The fabric whispered against her legs. She turned to see herself in the looking glass. Sweet heaven. She’d never imagined nightgowns like this existed. Her nightgowns all had high collars that tied at the throat. This one had a wide, low neckline. Her nightgowns all had long, full sleeves. This one had tiny puffed sleeves that began halfway off her shoulders. Her nightgowns were made of yards and yards of thick, billowing fabric. This one was a slender column that left no curve to the imagination. It was wicked. “Are you ready yet?” Tris called. Alexandra swallowed hard, reminding herself that he’d seen her in less clothing. And he was her husband. Still, wearing the nightgown for him somehow felt more intimate than wearing nothing at all. She was as ready as she’d ever be. Drawing a deep breath, she exited the dressing room, walked quickly through the sitting room, and paused in the bedroom’s doorway. She dropped her gaze, then raised her lashes, giving him the look—the one Juliana had said would make men fall at her feet. Judging from the expression on Tris’s face, it was a good thing he was sitting. The way he looked at her made her heartbeat accelerate. He rose and moved toward her. She met him halfway, licking suddenly dry lips. “Will you kiss me?” she asked softly, reaching up to sweep that always unruly lock off his forehead. It worked this time. He kissed her but good.

I took a shower after dinner and changed into comfortable Christmas Eve pajamas, ready to settle in for a couple of movies on the couch. I remembered all the Christmas Eves throughout my life--the dinners and wrapping presents and midnight mass at my Episcopal church. It all seemed so very long ago. Walking into the living room, I noticed a stack of beautifully wrapped rectangular boxes next to the tiny evergreen tree, which glowed with little white lights. Boxes that hadn’t been there minutes before. “What…,” I said. We’d promised we wouldn’t get each other any gifts that year. “What?” I demanded. Marlboro Man smiled, taking pleasure in the surprise. “You’re in trouble,” I said, glaring at him as I sat down on the beige Berber carpet next to the tree. “I didn’t get you anything…you told me not to.” “I know,” he said, sitting down next to me. “But I don’t really want anything…except a backhoe.” I cracked up. I didn’t even know what a backhoe was. I ran my hand over the box on the top of the stack. It was wrapped in brown paper and twine--so unadorned, so simple, I imagined that Marlboro Man could have wrapped it himself. Untying the twine, I opened the first package. Inside was a pair of boot-cut jeans. The wide navy elastic waistband was a dead giveaway: they were made especially for pregnancy. “Oh my,” I said, removing the jeans from the box and laying them out on the floor in front of me. “I love them.” “I didn’t want you to have to rig your jeans for the next few months,” Marlboro Man said. I opened the second box, and then the third. By the seventh box, I was the proud owner of a complete maternity wardrobe, which Marlboro Man and his mother had secretly assembled together over the previous couple of weeks. There were maternity jeans and leggings, maternity T-shirts and darling jackets. Maternity pajamas. Maternity sweats. I caressed each garment, smiling as I imagined the time it must have taken for them to put the whole collection together. “Thank you…,” I began. My nose stung as tears formed in my eyes. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect gift. Marlboro Man reached for my hand and pulled me over toward him. Our arms enveloped each other as they had on his porch the first time he’d professed his love for me. In the grand scheme of things, so little time had passed since that first night under the stars. But so much had changed. My parents. My belly. My wardrobe. Nothing about my life on this Christmas Eve resembled my life on that night, when I was still blissfully unaware of the brewing thunderstorm in my childhood home and was packing for Chicago…nothing except Marlboro Man, who was the only thing, amidst all the conflict and upheaval, that made any sense to me anymore. “Are you crying?” he asked. “No,” I said, my lip quivering. “Yep, you’re crying,” he said, laughing. It was something he’d gotten used to. “I’m not crying,” I said, snorting and wiping snot from my nose. “I’m not.” We didn’t watch movies that night. Instead, he picked me up and carried me to our cozy bedroom, where my tears--a mixture of happiness, melancholy, and holiday nostalgia--would disappear completely.

The Monk in the Kitchen I ORDER is a lovely thing; On disarray it lays its wing, Teaching simplicity to sing. It has a meek and lowly grace, Quiet as a nun's face. Lo—I will have thee in this place! Tranquil well of deep delight, All things that shine through thee appear As stones through water, sweetly clear. Thou clarity, That with angelic charity Revealest beauty where thou art, Spread thyself like a clean pool. Then all the things that in thee are, Shall seem more spiritual and fair, Reflection from serener air— Sunken shapes of many a star In the high heavens set afar. II Ye stolid, homely, visible things, Above you all brood glorious wings Of your deep entities, set high, Like slow moons in a hidden sky. But you, their likenesses, are spent Upon another element. Truly ye are but seemings— The shadowy cast-oft gleamings Of bright solidities. Ye seem Soft as water, vague as dream; Image, cast in a shifting stream. III What are ye? I know not. Brazen pan and iron pot, Yellow brick and gray flag-stone That my feet have trod upon— Ye seem to me Vessels of bright mystery. For ye do bear a shape, and so Though ye were made by man, I know An inner Spirit also made, And ye his breathings have obeyed. IV Shape, the strong and awful Spirit, Laid his ancient hand on you. He waste chaos doth inherit; He can alter and subdue. Verily, he doth lift up Matter, like a sacred cup. Into deep substance he reached, and lo Where ye were not, ye were; and so Out of useless nothing, ye Groaned and laughed and came to be. And I use you, as I can, Wonderful uses, made for man, Iron pot and brazen pan. V What are ye? I know not; Nor what I really do When I move and govern you. There is no small work unto God. He required of us greatness; Of his least creature A high angelic nature, Stature superb and bright completeness. He sets to us no humble duty. Each act that he would have us do Is haloed round with strangest beauty; Terrific deeds and cosmic tasks Of his plainest child he asks. When I polish the brazen pan I hear a creature laugh afar In the gardens of a star, And from his burning presence run Flaming wheels of many a sun. Whoever makes a thing more bright, He is an angel of all light. When I cleanse this earthen floor My spirit leaps to see Bright garments trailing over it, A cleanness made by me. Purger of all men's thoughts and ways, With labor do I sound Thy praise, My work is done for Thee. Whoever makes a thing more bright, He is an angel of all light. Therefore let me spread abroad The beautiful cleanness of my God. VI One time in the cool of dawn Angels came and worked with me. The air was soft with many a wing. They laughed amid my solitude And cast bright looks on everything. Sweetly of me did they ask That they might do my common task And all were beautiful—but one With garments whiter than the sun Had such a face Of deep, remembered grace; That when I saw I cried—"Thou art The great Blood-Brother of my heart. Where have I seen thee?"—And he said, "When we are dancing round God's throne, How often thou art there. Beauties from thy hands have flown Like white doves wheeling in mid air. Nay—thy soul remembers not? Work on, and cleanse thy iron pot.

The fact is,” said Van Gogh, “the fact is that we are painters in real life, and the important thing is to breathe as hard as ever we can breathe.” So I breathe. I breathe at the open window above my desk, and a moist fragrance assails me from the gnawed leaves of the growing mock orange. This air is as intricate as the light that filters through forested mountain ridges and into my kitchen window; this sweet air is the breath of leafy lungs more rotted than mine; it has sifted through the serrations of many teeth. I have to love these tatters. And I must confess that the thought of this old yard breathing alone in the dark turns my mind to something else. I cannot in all honesty call the world old when I’ve seen it new. On the other hand, neither will honesty permit me suddenly to invoke certain experiences of newness and beauty as binding, sweeping away all knowledge. But I am thinking now of the tree with the lights in it, the cedar in the yard by the creek I saw transfigured. That the world is old and frayed is no surprise; that the world could ever become new and whole beyond uncertainty was, and is, such a surprise that I find myself referring all subsequent kinds of knowledge to it. And it suddenly occurs to me to wonder: were the twigs of the cedar I saw really bloated with galls? They probably were; they almost surely were. I have seen these “cedar apples” swell from that cedar’s green before and since: reddish gray, rank, malignant. All right then. But knowledge does not vanquish mystery, or obscure its distant lights. I still now and will tomorrow steer by what happened that day, when some undeniably new spirit roared down the air, bowled me over, and turned on the lights. I stood on grass like air, air like lightning coursed in my blood, floated my bones, swam in my teeth. I’ve been there, seen it, been done by it. I know what happened to the cedar tree, I saw the cells in the cedar tree pulse charged like wings beating praise. Now, it would be too facile to pull everything out of the hat and say that mystery vanquishes knowledge. Although my vision of the world of the spirit would not be altered a jot if the cedar had been purulent with galls, those galls actually do matter to my understanding of this world. Can I say then that corruption is one of beauty’s deep-blue speckles, that the frayed and nibbled fringe of the world is a tallith, a prayer shawl, the intricate garment of beauty? It is very tempting, but I cannot. But I can, however, affirm that corruption is not beauty’s very heart and I can I think call the vision of the cedar and the knowledge of these wormy quarryings twin fjords cutting into the granite cliffs of mystery and say the new is always present simultaneously with the old, however hidden. The tree with the lights in it does not go out; that light still shines on an old world, now feebly, now bright. I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down.

The princess was dressed in one of the girl’s modest gray frocks, a leather belt secured snugly at her waist. Somehow, the lady managed to make even the simple garment look regal.

She saw a great hall, whose lofty ceiling was upheld by stone columns marching in even rows along the massive walls. Among these pillars fluttered great green and scarlet parrots, and the hall was thronged with black-skinned, hawk-faced warriors. They were not negroes. Neither they nor their garments nor weapons resembled anything of the world the dreamer knew. They were pressing about one bound to a pillar: a slender white-skinned youth, with a cluster of golden curls about his alabaster brow. His beauty was not altogether human—like the dream of a god, chiseled out of living marble.

She is not merely beautiful, but “altogether beautiful.” He views her in Himself, washed in His sin-atoning blood and clothed in His meritorious righteousness, and He considers her to be full of attraction and beauty. No wonder that this is the case, since it is simply His own perfect excellency that He admires; for the holiness, glory, and perfection of His Church are His own glorious garments worn by His well-beloved spouse.

A Wife of Noble Character 10[*]Who can find a virtuous and capable wife?        She is more precious than rubies. 11 Her husband can trust her,        and she will greatly enrich his life. 12 She brings him good, not harm,        all the days of her life. 13 She finds wool and flax        and busily spins it. 14 She is like a merchant’s ship,        bringing her food from afar. 15 She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household        and plan the day’s work for her servant girls. 16 She goes to inspect a field and buys it;        with her earnings she plants a vineyard. 17 She is energetic and strong,        a hard worker. 18 She makes sure her dealings are profitable;        her lamp burns late into the night. 19 Her hands are busy spinning thread,        her fingers twisting fiber. 20 She extends a helping hand to the poor        and opens her arms to the needy. 21 She has no fear of winter for her household,        for everyone has warm[*] clothes. 22 She makes her own bedspreads.        She dresses in fine linen and purple gowns. 23 Her husband is well known at the city gates,        where he sits with the other civic leaders. 24 She makes belted linen garments        and sashes to sell to the merchants. 25 She is clothed with strength and dignity,        and she laughs without fear of the future. 26 When she speaks, her words are wise,        and she gives instructions with kindness. 27 She carefully watches everything in her household        and suffers nothing from laziness. 28 Her children stand and bless her.        Her husband praises her: 29 “There are many virtuous and capable women in the world,        but you surpass them all!” 30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last;        but a woman who fears the LORD will be greatly praised. 31 Reward her for all she has done.        Let her deeds publicly declare her praise. Ecclesiastes 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12

There is peace and healing in knowing that our cuts aren't deeper than the calvary's nail-piercings, There is peace and healing when God's Grace reign in our sick souls and lay our pain and fears to rest. There is peace, healing and rebirth of our spirits in knowing that will no longer be Judged by our mistakes but by our hearts because "God has bestowed on us a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. We will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of His splendor". Isa 61:3

Do you like horses?" "Truth be told, the only thing I love more is dragons." Wren whistles, and a whinny resounds throughout the air. I spin around, marveling as a horse gallops through the field of jasmine. She's like a bolt of obsidian in a blanket of white, her breaths like little gusts of wind. She rears several times once she's next to Wren, stomping her front hooves until he reaches out to pet her. "This is Nerra. She will take us where we must go." Like an acrobat performing a trick for the umpteenth time, Wren hops onto Nerra's back effortlessly. He reaches a hand out to me, and I climb on. He places my hands around his waist, and I swallow hard. "Hold on tight. You're in for a treat," he says. On the count of three, he kicks Nerra into a gallop. The horse is like a dragon bound to the earth. Her gait is smooth, her gallop so strong it practically feels like she's trying to take flight with each stride. I hold on tightly to Wren. We head north. Dressed in bright garments that appear to be dipped in a ray of sunlight, Emerald flitters around as we enter a field of daisies. "Hi," Wren says. "We're on our way to see Omniscius." Emerald gives a graceful nod, following behind Nerra with several other fairies. Much to my delight, as we exit the field of daisies and encroach on a field of red roses, the fairies' beautiful yellow garments turn red. Wren's shirt and my dress do the same.

Intriguingly, his robe on that day is never described as white. Many of us imagine Jesus returning in white garments, because it seems like the sort of color that the triumphant Son of God might wear. But Revelation doesn’t say that. Instead it describes Jesus’ garments as “dipped in blood,” whether that refers to his blood, ours, or that of his enemies (19:13). At the same time, John insists that the people wearing white robes are actually the church, pure and spotless and stain free, like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband (Rev. 3:5, 18; 6:11; 7:9; 21:2). Our filthy garments have been replaced by fresh ones (Zech. 3:1–5), and in Christ our characters are as clean as our clothes. In a glorious exchange of wardrobes, Jesus’ sacrifice has made his robes crimson. But it has made ours white.

And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty.

Yet the whole life of Christ—so entirely may sorrow and beauty be made one in their meaning and manifestation—is really an idyll, though it ends with the veil of the temple being rent, and the darkness coming over the face of the earth, and the stone rolled to the door of the sepulchre. One always thinks of him as a young bridegroom with his companions, as indeed he somewhere describes himself; as a shepherd straying through a valley with his sheep in search of green meadow or cool stream; as a singer trying to build out of the music the walls of the City of God; or as a lover for whose love the whole world was too small. His miracles seem to me to be as exquisite as the coming of spring, and quite as natural. I see no difficulty at all in believing that such was the charm of his personality that his mere presence could bring peace to souls in anguish, and that those who touched his garments or his hands forgot their pain; or that as he passed by on the highway of life people who had seen nothing of life’s mystery, saw it clearly, and others who had been deaf to every voice but that of pleasure heard for the first time the voice of love and found it as ‘musical as Apollo’s lute’; or that evil passions fled at his approach, and men whose dull unimaginative lives had been but a mode of death rose as it were from the grave when he called them; or that when he taught on the hillside the multitude forgot their hunger and thirst and the cares of this world, and that to his friends who listened to him as he sat at meat the coarse food seemed delicate, and the water had the taste of good wine, and the whole house became full of the odour and sweetness of nard.

The fact is that she is addicted to Nate’s version of her. Sometimes, when he touches her, she feels not naked but clothed, in some long unspecified garment that spreads around her like a shimmering cloud. She’s realized with something close to panic that the picture he’s devised of her is untrue. He expects her to be serene, a refuge; he expects her to be kind. He really thinks she is, underneath, and that if he can dig into her far enough this is what he’ll unearth. He ought to be able to tell by now that she isn’t like that at all. Nevertheless she wants to be; she wants to be this beautiful phantom, this boneless wraith he’s conjured up. Sometimes she really does want it.

AKKA MAHADEVI Around nine hundred years ago in southern India, there lived a female mystic called Akka Mahadevi. Akka was a devotee of Shiva. Ever since her childhood, she had regarded Shiva as her beloved, her husband. It was not just a belief; for her it was a living reality. The king saw this beautiful young woman one day, and decided he wanted her as his wife. She refused. But the king was adamant and threatened her parents, so she yielded. She married the man, but she kept him at a physical distance. He tried to woo her, but her constant refrain was, “Shiva is my husband.” Time passed and the king’s patience wore thin. Infuriated, he tried to lay his hands upon her. She refused. “I have another husband. His name is Shiva. He visits me, and I am with him. I cannot be with you.” Because she claimed to have another husband, she was brought to court for prosecution. Akka is said to have announced to all present, “Being a queen doesn’t mean a thing to me. I will leave.” When the king saw the ease with which she was walking away from everything, he made a last futile effort to salvage his dignity. He said, “Everything on your person—your jewels, your garments—belongs to me. Leave it all here and go.” So, in the full assembly, Akka just dropped her jewelry, all her clothes, and walked away naked. From that day on, she refused to wear clothes even though many tried to convince her otherwise. It was unbelievable for a woman to be walking naked on the streets of India at the time—and this was a beautiful young woman. She lived out her life as a wandering mendicant and composed some exquisite poetry that lives on to this very day. In a poem (translated by A. K. Ramanujan), she says: People, male and female, blush when a cloth covering their shame comes loose. When the lord of lives lives drowned without a face in the world, how can you be modest? When all the world is the eye of the lord, onlooking everywhere, what can you cover and conceal? Devotees of this kind may be in this world but not of it. The power and passion with which they lived their lives make them inspirations for generations of humanity. Akka continues to be a living presence in the Indian collective consciousness, and her lyrical poems remain among the most prized works of South Indian literature to this very day. Embracing

We see the mortal form of the immortal healer climbing along the jutting cornice of some cliff, in search for the simples of life; and as the zephyrs waft his long ashen locks around his furrowed brow, his trembling hand clutches some rugged crag, more perhaps from joy than fear. And so, as we now open the works of Aleister Crowley, we are filled with an exhilarating chain of pangs; mortal-like we are never sated, and as our lips taste the nectar of true poetry we tremblingly clutch the crags of Parnassus in search for the Asphodel of Love, Wisdom, and Beauty. Here, as we turn some beetling height, the dying rays of the Swinburnian sun sink, those rays that ruffled the vestal purity of the clouds to the rosy blush of a lover’s kiss, and in the departing light we again find the mystic Trinity midst the hellebore and thistles of existence, enthroned, eternal. The sun sinks, and the last notes of the nightingale die into the stillness of falling night. The emerald sky like the robe of some car-borne Astarté, slashed with an infinite orange and red, fades into the sombre garment of night; and above silently breaks a primal sea gemmed with all the colours of the opal, deepening into a limitless amethyst, darkens, and the sun goes out. The spangled pall of Night is drawn, and the lull of death is o’er us; but no, hark! the distant boom of a beetle is carried across the still glowing welkin, it is the signal drum announcing the marriage of Night and Day. The crescent moon rises, diaphanous and fair, and the world wakes to a chant.

ECAPE OF THE LOVELY LADY JULIA DE GONZAGA Stories that he heard on his progress of the lovely Julia Gonzaga, Duchess of Trajetto and Countess of Fondi, next tempted him to an exploit of a somewhat different character. The young widow was the most famous beauty in Italy; no fewer than two hundred and eight Italian poets had written verses in her honour and the device emblazoned on her shield was the Flower of Love. It occurred to the corsair that she would make an excellent token of his devotion to his new lord, Suleyman the Magnificent. The lady was at Fondi. Thither the pirate travelled, swiftly and by night. But the fame of his presence preceded him and the lady had just time to leap from her bed and gallop off on horseback dressed in the flimsiest of night garments and accompanied by one male attendant. She managed to escape, and afterwards condemned the attendant to death because, she alleged, he had been unduly familiar during that desperate nocturnal ride. Kheyr-ed-din, annoyed at the escape of his sultan’s fair prize, gave over the town of Fondi to a terrible four hours’ punishment at the hands of his men.

The joyous meaning of merry was a beautiful demonstration of the element of chance in how words’ meanings move along. The earliest rendition we can get a sense of for merry is that on the Ukrainian steppes several thousand years ago, in Proto-Indo-European, it was mregh. In Greece, this word for “short” morphed not into merriment but into the word for upper arm, brakhion. The sounds in mregh and brakh match better than it looks on paper: for one thing, both m and b are produced by putting your lips together, and so it’s easy for one to change into the other. As to meaning, it was a matter of implications, this time in one of the things the word was applied to rather than the word itself. The upper arm is shorter than the lower, and hence one might start referring to the upper arm as the “shorter,” and the rest was history. Calling your upper arm your “shorter” is not appreciably odder than calling cutoff pants shorts, after all. The process never stops. It seems that in Latin this brakh ended up, among other places, in a pastry, namely, one resembling folded arms, called a brachitella. Old High German picked that up as brezitella; by Middle High German people were saying brezel. Today, brezel is pretzel—from that same word that meant short and now connotes joyousness in English. In France, that brach root drifted into a word referring to shoulder straps or, by extension, a child’s little chemise undershirt. Women can wear chemises, too, but garments, like words, have a way of changing over the centuries, and after a while the brassière had evolved into a more specific anatomical dedication than a chemise’s. The modern word bra, then, is what happens when a word for “short” drifts step by step into new realms. Merry, pretzel, and bra are, in a sense, all the same word—yet contests could be held challenging people to even use all three in a sentence (or at least one that made any sense).

I think of the Muslims wrapped in blankets accumulated through the centuries. Have they finally found their peace and security? I hear from a corner two simultaneous verses combining in rhythmic tones: “You who is folded in garments, rise by night…” (73:1-2), and the second verse joins in, “You who is wrapped in his mantle, arise and deliver…” (74:1). The call always comes in the night; you just have to choose to listen.

Purification of the soul. — First origin of higher and lower. The aesthetically offensive thing about the inner person without skin - bloody masses, feces, entrails, all those sucking, pumping monsters - shapeless or ugly or grotesque, and embarrassing for the smell. So thought away! What comes out of it arouses shame (feces, urine, saliva, seed) Women do not like to hear about digestion. Byron not seeing a woman eat (so the ulterior motives go their way). This skin- covered body that seems to be ashamed! The garment on the parts where its essence emerges: or hold the hand over the mouth while spitting out saliva. So: there are disgusting things; the more ignorant a person is about the organism, the more he thinks of raw meat, putrefaction, stench, maggots. Man, unless it is shape, is located disgusting — he does everything to not mind to think. —The pleasure that is evidently connected with this inner man is considered to be a lower — after-effect of the aesthetic judgment. The idealists of love are enthusiasts of beautiful forms, they want to deceive themselves and are often outraged at the idea of coitus and semen. Man has ascribed everything painful, tormenting, excessive force to this inner body: the higher he raised seeing, hearing, the form, and thinking. The disgusting should be the source of misfortune! — We learn the disgust around! Second origin of the distinction between higher and lower. Everything that is terrifying is considered to be higher than that which is more powerful; anything but lower or even contemptible. As the highest — fear and yet do good and good will!

But what’s Mock Turtle about?” inquired Harriet. On this point the authors were for the most part vague; but a young man who wrote humorous magazine stories, and could therefore afford to be wide-minded about novels, said he had read it and thought it rather interesting, only a bit long. It was about a swimming instructor at a watering-place, who had contracted such an unfortunate anti-nudity complex through watching so many bathing-beauties that it completely inhibited all his natural emotions. So he got a job on a whaler and fell in love at first sight with an Eskimo, because she was such a beautiful bundle of garments. So he married her and brought her back to live in a suburb, where she fell in love with a vegetarian nudist. So then the husband went slightly mad and contracted a complex about giant turtles, and spent all his spare time staring into the turtle-tank at the Aquarium, and watching the strange, slow monsters swimming significantly round in their encasing shells. But of course a lot of things came into it—it was one of those books that reflect the author’s reactions to Things in General.

But God wants something better than fig leaves for us. God wants us to be aware of our helplessness so we can know that we need Divine help. God’s deepest desire for us is to replace our fig leaves with garments of durability and beauty (Genesis 3:21).

My sister is the beautiful day. Oh beautiful day, my sister, wipe my nose, swaddle me in fresh-smelling garments. I nurse at the adamantine nipple of the beautiful day, I quaff the milk of the beautiful day, and for the first time since 1956, I cheese on the shoulder of the beautiful day. Oh beautiful day, wash me in your lake of cloudless azure. I have overdosed on television, I am unresponsive and cyanotic, revive me in your shower of gelid light and walk me through your piazza which is made of elegant slabs of time. Oh beautiful day, kiss me. Your mouth is like Columbus Day. You are the menthol of autumn. My lungs cannot quench their thirst for you. Resuscitate me—I will never exhale your tonic gasses. Inflate me so that I may rise into the sky and mourn the monotonous topography of my life. Oh beautiful day, my sister, wipe my nose and adorn me in your finery. Let us lunch alfresco. Your club sandwiches are made of mulch and wind perfumed with newsprint. Your frilly toothpicks are the deciduous trees of school days.

Then bring near to you Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the people of Israel, to serve me as priests—Aaron and Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty. You shall speak to all the skillful, whom I have filled with a spirit of skill, that they make Aaron’s garments to consecrate him for my priesthood.” (Exodus 28:1–3, emphasis mine) The war against shame is on. God puts shame in the crosshairs as he gives glory and beauty to his people. Glory, beauty, and consecrate are all words that identify things that are holy. They belong to God, and everything that belongs to him is made beautiful by association.

January 28 MORNING “Perfect in Christ Jesus.” — Colossians 1:28 DO you not feel in your own soul that perfection is not in you? Does not every day teach you that? Every tear which trickles from your eye, weeps “imperfection;” every sigh which bursts from your heart, cries “imperfection;” every harsh word which proceeds from your lip, mutters “imperfection.” You have too frequently had a view of your own heart to dream for a moment of any perfection in yourself. But amidst this sad consciousness of imperfection, here is comfort for you — you are “perfect in Christ Jesus.” In God’s sight, you are “complete in Him;” even now you are “accepted in the Beloved.” But there is a second perfection, yet to be realized, which is sure to all the seed. Is it not delightful to look forward to the time when every stain of sin shall be removed from the believer, and he shall be presented faultless before the throne, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing? The Church of Christ then will be so pure, that not even the eye of Omniscience will see a spot or blemish in her; so holy and so glorious, that Hart did not go beyond the truth when he said — With my Saviour’s garments on, Holy as the Holy One.” Then shall we know, and taste, and feel the happiness of this vast but short sentence, “Complete in Christ.” Not till then shall we fully comprehend the heights and depths of the salvation of Jesus. Doth not thy heart leap for joy at the thought of it? Black as thou art, thou shalt be white one day; filthy as thou art, thou shalt be clean. Oh, it is a marvellous salvation this! Christ takes a worm and transforms it into an angel; Christ takes a black and deformed thing and makes it clean and matchless in His glory, peerless in His beauty, and fit to be the companion of seraphs. O my soul, stand and admire this blessed truth of perfection in Christ.

David Sassoon For several decades, British designer David Sassoon has provided the best in evening wear for fashionable and famous customers from his high-profile store in London. His work has been featured in many international fashion shows and museums throughout the world, and his garments are in high demand at such notable stores as Sak’s Fifth Avenue, Harrods, and Neiman Marcus. The Princess of Wales would often make surprise visits to my shop, as I had made her going-away dress and many other outfits for her trousseau. In August 1982, Diana came to my shop with Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, the daughter of Princess Margaret, who had been a bridesmaid at Diana’s wedding. The Princess was wearing a blue-and-white-striped sailor-style two-piece outfit; Sarah wore a white shirt and a cotton skirt, as it was a very hot day. Diana said that she would like to choose a long evening dress for Sarah as a present. The dress was to be worn at a ball at Balmoral Castle. This was Sarah’s first long dress, and Diana wanted her to have her dream dress. There were lots of giggles and excitement as Diana helped Sarah try on some of the dresses, and the dressing room was full of laughter. Finally, Sarah chose a bright red strapless taffeta ball dress, which made her feel very grown up. We brought them tea while the dress was being fitted, and Sarah, who obviously adored Diana, listened to her advice about what accessories would complement the dress. Sarah was so excited about her beautiful and glamorous present when they left the shop. Diana had made a young girl’s dream come true.

Zandra Rhodes Zandra Rhodes is a British fashion designer who specializes in innovative textile design. Internationally recognized for her glamorous and dramatic style, she was honored by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997 and made a Commander of the British Empire. Currently in high demand by the rich and famous worldwide, Zandra designed many garments for Diana during the nineties. Princess Diana married very young. She was a perfect, unspoiled flower with a strong, generous inner spirit, which she was probably unaware of when she married Prince Charles. She was thrust unprepared into the position of future queen of England. She had to grow up and mature in front of the public eye. That public eye was hard, judgmental, and unforgiving. Her strong inner spirit guided her to do things that normally someone in her position would not do--it would have been suppressed. Diana acted in a very genuine, caring, and natural way. I was bicycling to work in London along the leafy Bayswater Road in very casual working clothes when a huge official limousine passed me. Against the rear window were two beautiful hats; the car was obviously going to Ascot. The two young girls in the car were waving at me (very enthusiastically), one with golden corn-colored hair and the other one blond. They looked exactly like Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. I thought, “It cannot be them, they would not be so friendly, casual, and outgoing, and anyway, it’s the wrong side of Kensington Palace, and cars going to Ascot do not come along this road.” I pretended I had not seen them and carried on cycling. A few weeks later, I was fitting the Princess in Kensington Palace and she said to me, “Are you still riding your bike?” “Yes,” I replied. It was not until I left and drove my car out of the palace grounds that I realized the route took me exactly to the Bayswater Road, where I had seen the two waving girls! Princess Diana always tried to make me feel at home when I was fitting her. She would talk about the problems of being recognized: how she came out of her gym in Kensington High Street in the pouring rain and bumped into a famous actor. As he entered the street, he hunched his shoulders and put on dark glasses. Princess Diana said to him, “I hope they disguise you more than they do me!

Of course, about a dozen steps from the Stall I was regretting my nobility, but I refused to go back and ask for the rain gear. I could be petty that way. And hey, no objection to seeing Karish with his shirt soaked through. It was clingy while in the Stall, but a few drops of rain had it completely plastered to his shoulders, chest, back and stomach. His black hair was slicked close to his head. Rain streamed over his face and throat and clung to his eyelashes. He made a beautiful drowned rat. Unfortunately, Karish’s shirt wasn’t the only garment to be quickly soaked through. I couldn’t carry off the look with the same panache.

Beth changed her ensemble five times that morning, switching out her shoes, her necklaces, her earrings. I understood. Had I owned more than one suit, I would have done the same thing. As it was, I just sat in a battered old chair in our bedroom and watched her. She was beautiful to me. I could see that she had shaved her legs, supple and taut above the easy grip of her heels. She mussed her hair and pursed her lips at the mirror. “What do you think?” she said finally, turning to me. I stood and went to her, understanding right then that we were already growing older, that we would grow old together. “I think you’re beautiful,” I said. I kissed her. “Hey—watch the lipstick,” she said, swatting me away playfully before pulling me in close again. She set her chin on my shoulder and we slow danced that way, there in our bedroom, the worn carpeting beneath our best scuffed shoes. “I love you,” she said, “even if you’re not a rock star.” “I love you,” I said, “even though you’re not a movie star.” We kissed again and held hands as we walked downstairs, our garments good enough. The

Earth has not any thing to shew more fair:   Dull would he be of soul who could pass by   A sight so touching in it’s majesty:   This City now doth like a garment wear   The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,   Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie   Open unto the fields, and to the sky;   All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.   Never did sun more beautifully steep   In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill;   Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!   The river glideth at his own sweet will:   Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;   And all that mighty heart is lying still!

And aawake, and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem; yea, and put on thy beautiful garments, O daughter of bZion; and cstrengthen thy dstakes and enlarge thy borders forever, that thou mayest eno more be confounded, that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee, O house of Israel, may be fulfilled.

The Church and the World walked far apart on the changing shore of time; The World was singing a giddy song, the Church a hymn sublime. "Come give me your hand," said the merry World, "and walk with me this way," But the good Church hid her snowy hand, and solemnly answered, "Nay; I will not give you my hand at all, and I will not walk with you; Your way is the way of eternal death, and your words are all untrue." "Nay, walk with me a little space," said the World with a kindly air, The road I walk is a pleasant road, and the sun shines always there. Your way is narrow and thorny and rough, while mine is flowery and smooth; Your lot is sad with reproach and toil, but in rounds of joy I move. My way, you can see, is a broad, fair one, and my gate is high and wide; There is room enough for you and me, and we'll travel side by side." Half shyly the Church approached the World, and gave him her hand of snow; And the false World grasped it, and walked along, and whispered in accents low, "Your dress is too simple to please my taste; I have gold and pearls to wear; Rich velvets and silks for your graceful form, and diamonds to deck your hair." The Church looked down at her plain white robes, and then at the dazzling World, And blushed as she saw his handsome lip with a smile contemptuous curled; "I will change my dress for a costlier one," said the Church with a smile of grace; Then her pure white garments drifted away, and the World gave in their place Beautiful satins, and fashionable silks, and roses and gems and pearls; And over her forehead her bright hair fell, and waved in a thousand curls. So they of the Church and they of the World . journeyed closely, hand and heart, And none but the Master, who knows all, could discern the two apart. Then the Church sat down at her ease and said, "I am rich and in goods increased; I have need of nothing, and naught to do, But to laugh and dance and feast.

But with the Victorian era came a principle which conceived men not as comparatively, but as positively, mean and commonplace. A man of any station was represented as being by nature a dingy and trivial person--a person born, as it were, in a black hat. It began to be thought that it was ridiculous for a man to wear beautiful garments, instead of it being--as, of course, it is--ridiculous for him to deliberately wear ugly ones. It was considered affected for a man to speak bold and heroic words, whereas, of course, it is emotional speech which is natural, and ordinary civil speech which is affected. The whole relations of beauty and ugliness, of dignity and ignominy were turned upside down. Beauty became an extravagance, as if top-hats and umbrellas were not the real extravagance--a landscape from the land of the goblins. Dignity became a form of foolery and shamelessness, as if the very essence of a fool were not a lack of dignity. And the consequence is that it is practically most difficult to propose any decoration or public dignity for modern men without making them laugh. They laugh at the idea of carrying crests and coats-of-arms instead of laughing at their own boots and neckties. We are forbidden to say that tradesmen should have a poetry of their own, although there is nothing so poetical as trade. A grocer should have a coat-of-arms worthy of his strange merchandise gathered from distant and fantastic lands; a postman should have a coat-of-arms capable of expressing the strange honour and responsibility of the man who carries men's souls in a bag; the chemist should have a coat-of-arms symbolizing something of the mysteries of the house of healing, the cavern of a merciful witchcraft. There

Although the garment was beautifully designed and well made, the color, a dark velvet that captured the intense tones of a ripe plum or black cherries, would prove a jarring clash with her hair. She added ruefully, "Not with this carrot top. I'll look a fright.

It is a good thing to be stripped of vile and filthy rags, but it is far better to be clothed with garments of glory and beauty. In forgiveness we are stripped of the vile and stinking rags of our sins; in justification we are clothed upon with the glory and beauty of Christ. It is the power of the blood which secures this.

Are these magic cloaks?” asked Pippin, looking at them with wonder. “I do not know what you mean by that,” answered the leader of the Elves. “They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that love into all that we make.

Who among us is greater? True humility and servant leadership is a rare and elusive attribute these days however the greatest example of this spirit is beautifully documented in John 13, verses 3-5 “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.” Just moments before this humble undertaking His disciples were arguing with each other about who among them was greater. This simple but powerful example of strength in humility should be our pattern in how we treat and consider others. Regardless of our stature, our positions in our communities and within our own families, true greatness begins and ends with a servant’s heart and a humble spirit. I submit to you, the greatest among us are those who are willing to put others before themselves. ~Jason Versey

Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

It also explains why the gospel of the kingdom has such transforming power in human life. For that gospel opens the kingdom to everyone, no matter their classification, and it enables us really to become a different kind of person, beyond all condemnation, blame, and shame, and to know it. Those who mourn, when they step into the kingdom of the heavens, are “given beauty in place of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of grief, and garments of praise in place of a spirit of despair” (Isa. 61:3).

[Twofold sanctification reached by twofold faith] [By faith . . . Heb. 11:1] Faith is the evidence of things not seen, though now actually existing [upon salvation], the substance of things hoped for, but not yet present. [progressive] It deals with the unseen present, as well as with the unseen future. [. . .] Faith is the eye of the soul: the power by which we discern the presence of the Unseen One, as He comes to give Himself to us. [. . .] And we shall understand how simple, to do the single-hearted, is the secret of holiness: just Jesus. Let us remember that it is not only the faith that is dealing specially with Christ for sanctification, but all living faith, that has the power to sanctify. Anything that casts the soul wholly on Jesus, that calls forth intense and simple trust, be it the trial of faith, or the prayer of faith, or the work of faith, helps to make us holy, because it brings us into living contact with the Holy One. [. . .] [F]aith is the impression God makes on the soul when He draws nigh. [. . .] As long as the believer is living the mixed life, part in the flesh and part in the spirit, with some of self and some of Christ, he seeks in vain for holiness. It is the New Life that is the holy life: the full apprehension of it in faith, the full surrender to it in conduct, will be the highway of holiness. [. . .] It is out of the grave of the flesh and the will of self that the Spirit of holiness breaks out in resurrection power. [. . .] The life of Christ is the holiness of Christ. The reason we so often fail in the pursuit of holiness is that the old life, the flesh, in its own strength seeks for holiness as a beautiful garment to wear and enter heaven with. It is the daily death to self out of which the life of Christ rises up.

The bride, the beautiful princess, a royal daughter is glorious. She waits within her chamber, dressed in a gown woven with gold. Wearing the finest garments, she is brought to the King. Her friends, her companions, follow her into the royal palace. What a joyful, enthusiastic, excited procession as they enter the palace! She comes before her King, who is wild for her! -OLD TESTAMENT, PSALM 45

There is no happiness like this: quiet mornings, light from the river, the weekend ahead. They lived a Russian life, a rich life, interwoven, in which the misfortune of one would stagger them all. It was a garment, this life. Its beauty outside, its warmth within.

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,      because the LORD has anointed me      to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,      to proclaim freedom for the captives      and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD'S favor      and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,      and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty      instead of ashes, the oil of gladness      instead of mourning, and a garment of praise      instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness,      a planting of the LORD      for the display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins      and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities      that have been devastated for generations. (Isa. 61:1–4)

The class of dishonest bees which I have been describing, may be termed the "Jerry Sneaks" of their profession, and after they have followed it for some time, they lose all disposition for honest pursuits, and assume a hang-dog sort of look, which is very peculiar. Constantly employed in creeping into small holes, and daubing themselves with honey, they often lose all the bright feathers and silky plumes which once so beautifully adorned their bodies, and assume a smooth and almost black appearance; just as the hat of the thievish loafer, acquires a "seedy" aspect, and his garments, a shining and threadbare look.

I am not beautifully perfect as the flowers with which I worship. I have many flaws and blemishes. I am a traveller in the great world-path, my garments are dirty, and my feet are bleeding with thorns. Where should I achieve flower-beauty, the unsullied loveliness of a moment’s life? The gift that I proudly bring you is the heart of a woman. Here have all pains and joys gathered, the hopes and fears and shames of a daughter of the dust; here love springs up struggling towards immortal life. Herein lies an imperfection which yet is noble and grand.

It’s the longing that escapes in quiet sighs from so many church pews. We know there is more. We yearn for good news that’s really good. Without realizing it, it was what I had been waiting my whole nine-year-old life to see—and then I knew, in a sudden burst of childish tears, that this was what I wanted to keep seeing for the rest of my life. This is what the poetry and the power of God’s Kingdom is all about. Eight hundred years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah wrote to the insignificant, struggling, almost decimated nation of Israel about something that was coming, someone who was coming, who would change everything. In Isaiah 61, he described this man—the Christ—on whom the Spirit of the Lord rested, and who had come to do the following: to proclaim good news to the poor. . . . to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor . . . to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. Isaiah

These elements of the high priest’s garments, as well as the other Levites’ wardrobe were for the purpose of glory and beauty. But on this Day of Atonement, there was yet more glory and beauty at work. Eleazer first washed himself at the brazen laver that stood before the Tent of Meeting to cleanse himself for the ritual.

From Rotting [God will] bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. ISAIAH 61:3 NIV Sometime in August, after weeks of busy work schedules by day (and sometimes night) and a bathroom tiling project by night (and into the wee morning hours), Mary walked down her front porch steps and took a deep breath. When she looked around, she was shocked to realize how neglected her landscaping was. There were massive broad-leaf weeds taking over the ground. A closer look revealed that the “weeds” were actually pumpkin plants that last year’s rotting pumpkin display had inadvertently provided. She thought about ripping out the vines, since there wasn’t much growing on them yet, but she decided to let what was alive and well continue to grow. Before long, three large, bright orange volunteer pumpkins had pushed past red (now barely visible) mums. Mary started thinking how many things volunteer themselves right into her life—and end up being beautiful additions to her days. God, thank You for taking the rotten things of life and turning them into bountiful blessings. Amen.

10Who can find350 a woman of worth?a Far beyond jewels is her value. 11Her husband trusts her judgment; he does not lack income. 12She brings him profit, not loss,351 all the days of her life. 13She seeks out wool and flax and weaves with skillful hands. 14Like a merchant fleet,352 she secures her provisions from afar. 15She rises while it is still night, and distributes food to her household, a portion to her maidservants. 16She picks out a field and acquires it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard. 17She girds herself with strength; she exerts her arms with vigor.353 18She enjoys the profit from her dealings; her lamp is never extinguished at night.354 19She puts her hands to the distaff, and her fingers ply the spindle.355 20She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy. 21She is not concerned for her household when it snows— all her charges are doubly clothed. 22She makes her own coverlets; fine linen and purple are her clothing. 23Her husband is prominent at the city gates as he sits with the elders of the land.356 24She makes garments and sells them, and stocks the merchants with belts. 25She is clothed with strength and dignity, and laughs at the days to come.357 26She opens her mouth in wisdom; kindly instruction is on her tongue. 27She watches over358 the affairs of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. 28Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband, too, praises her: 29“Many are the women of proven worth, but you have excelled them all.” 30Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.359 31Acclaim her for the work of her hands, and let her deeds praise her at the city gates.

While Loveliness Goes By SOMETIMES when all the world seems grey and dun And nothing beautiful, a voice will cry, "Look out, look out! Angels are drawing nigh!" Then my slow burdens leave me one by one, And swiftly does my heart arise and run Even like a child while loveliness goes by— And common folk seem children of the sky, And common things seem shapèd of the sun. Oh, pitiful! that I who love them, must So soon perceive their shining garments fade! And slowly, slowly, from my eyes of trust Their flaming banners sink into a shade! While this earth's sunshine seems the golden dust Slow settling from that radiant cavalcade.

Oh, it’s mysterious lamplit evenings, here in the galaxy, one after the other. It’s one of those nights when I wander from window to window, looking for a sign. But I can’t see. Terror and a beauty insoluble are a ribband of blue woven into the fringes of garments of things both great and small. No culture explains, no bivouac offers real haven or rest. But it could be that we are not seeing something. Galileo thought that comets were an optical illusion. This is fertile ground: since we are certain that they’re not, we can look at what scientists are saying with fresh hope. What if there are really gleaming castellated cities hung upside-down over the desert sand? What limpid lakes and cool date palms have our caravans passed untried? Until, one by one, by the blindest of leaps, we light on the road to these places, we must stumble in darkness and hunger.

Thou seekest Lailâ. Yet she manifesteth herself within thee. Thou deemest her to be elsewhere, but elsewhere existeth not. That is a madness, well-known to lovers. So be on your guard, for otherness is the epitome of separation. Seest thou not, how her beauty enfoldeth thee. She disappeareth only if thou refusest part of thee. Come close to me, thou sayst to her, to her who is thine All. And when she loveth thee, she leadeth thee to thyself. Bliss ineffable is the meeting with her. No one reacheth her, who knoweth not essence without form. I have dissimulated about her, After I had truly displayed her through my veil. I hid her from myself, with the garment of mine own existence, And, out of jealousy, I hid her from the envier. Dazzling beauty! Should the light of thy countenance Touch the eyes of a blind man, he would see each particle of dust. She is adorned with every grace pertaining unto beauty. And wherever she appeareth, she is desired by those who love. (Diwân)

There is another duty of strict Justice which regards children; they are obliged to pray for their deceased parents. Reciprocally in their turn parents are bound by natural right not to forget before God those of their children who have preceded them into eternity. Alas! there are parents who are inconsolable at the loss of a son or of a dearly beloved daughter, and who, instead of praying for them, bestow upon them nothing but a few fruitless tears. Let us hear what Thomas of Cantimpré relates on this subject; the incident happened in his own family. The grandmother of Thomas had lost a son in whom she had centred her fondest hopes. Day and night she wept for him and refused all consolation. In the excess of her grief she forgot the great duty of Christian love, and did not think of praying for that soul so dear to her. The unfortunate object of this barren tenderness languished amid the flames of Purgatory, receiving no alleviation in his sufferings. Finally God took pity on him. One day, whilst plunged in the depths of her grief, this woman had a miraculous vision. She saw on a beautiful road a procession of young men, as graceful as angels, advancing full of joy towards a magnificent city. She understood that they were souls from Purgatory making their triumphal entry into Heaven. She looked eagerly to see if among their ranks she could not discover her son. Alas! the child was not there; but she perceived him approaching far behind the others, sad, suffering, and fatigued, his garments drenched with water. “Oh, dear object of my grief,” she cried out to him, “how is it that you remain behind that brilliant band? I should wish to see you at the head of your companions.” “Mother,” replied the child in a plaintive tone, “it is you, it is these tears which you shed over me that moisten and soil my garments, and retard my entrance into the glory of Heaven. Cease to abandon yourself to a blind and useless grief. Open your heart to more Christian sentiments. If you truly love me, relieve me in my sufferings; apply some indulgences to me, say prayers, give alms, obtain for me the fruits of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is by this means that you will prove your love; for by so doing you will deliver me from prison where languish, and bring me forth to eternal life, which is far more desirable than the life terrestrial which you have given me.” Then the vision disappeared, and that mother, thus admonished and brought back to true Christian sentiments, instead of giving way to immoderate grief, applied to the practice of every good work which could give relief to the soul of her son. The

On the great Day of Atonement when Aaron took the blood into the Holy of Holies, he laid aside all of his garments of beauty and glory and wore only the simple linen garments that the other priests wore.

You look beautiful, Alex. All grown up.” Blackmoor’s grey eyes darkened, narrowing on the garment in question, then rising to meet her gaze. The look in his eyes was one she’d never seen before, and it sent a tremor of excitement through her as she felt heat rising in her cheeks again. He looked away, then back again, and the emotion she had seen there was gone, so quickly that she couldn’t be certain it was ever there to begin with. She forced a smile, attempting to bring the conversation back to the realm of the comfortable. “Thank you, my lord.” “If I may speak frankly?” “Certainly.” “I know you want to try out all your lessons, but take care with whom you test your skills. I noticed how Stanhope was looking at you earlier.” “Lord Stanhope was a charming partner.” Alex met Blackmoor’s eyes, daring him to disagree. “I’m certain I don’t know to what you are referring.” “I think you know all too well to what I’m referring. Any man would have to be blind not to notice you. This dress is designed to lure a lion. I assure you that particular lion will bite.” “What are you saying?” “Simply that I would prefer not to have to play protector tonight. I merely caution you to think twice before getting wrapped up with Stanhope, or any like him.” Alex’s spine stiffened in response. Her tone turned frosty. “As usual, my lord, your caution—or shall I say interference?—is unnecessary. Need I remind you that I’ve been managing Freddie Stanhope since he was in short pants?” His chuckle held no humor. “Take my advice, Alex. Your ‘Freddie’ is no longer in the schoolroom. And you’re out of your league if you think you can, as you say, ‘manage’ him. Just because you wear a gown that marks you as all grown up doesn’t mean you are prepared to take him on.” Alex’s temper flared. “I require neither your advice, nor your opinion, my lord. I would thank you to remember that, besides the fact that you’re not that much older than I am, I already have a father—and three brothers. I hardly need another overbearing male telling me what to do and with whom to do it.” “More like what not to do. And with whom not to do it.” She inhaled in a sharp intake of air, eyes narrowing, and made a move to leave him mid-waltz. To an outside observer, nothing changed about their movements—but Alex felt Blackmoor’s arms turn to stone around her. He held her fast, and tight, and his voice lowered. “You will finish this waltz with me, Alexandra. I will not allow you the pleasure of giving me a set-down at your first ball.” Recognizing

March 9 MORNING “Yea, He is altogether lovely.” — Song of Solomon 5:16 THE superlative beauty of Jesus is allattracting; it is not so much to be admired as to be loved. He is more than pleasant and fair, He is lovely. Surely the people of God can fully justify the use of this golden word, for He is the object of their warmest love, a love founded on the intrinsic excellence of His person, the complete perfection of His charms. Look, O disciples of Jesus, to your Master’s lips, and say, “Are they not most sweet?” Do not His words cause your hearts to burn within you as He talks with you by the way? Ye worshippers of Immanuel, look up to His head of much fine gold, and tell me, are not His thoughts precious unto you? Is not your adoration sweetened with affection as ye humbly bow before that countenance which is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars? Is there not a charm in His every feature, and is not His whole person fragrant with such a savour of His good ointments, that therefore the virgins love Him? Is there one member of His glorious body which is not attractive? — one portion of His person which is not a fresh loadstone to our souls? — one office which is not a strong cord to bind your heart? Our love is not as a seal set upon His heart of love alone; it is fastened upon His arm of power also; nor is there a single part of Him upon which it does not fix itself. We anoint His whole person with the sweet spikenard of our fervent love. His whole life we would imitate; His whole character we would transcribe. In all other beings we see some lack, in Him there is all perfection. The best even of His favoured saints have had blots upon their garments and wrinkles upon their brows; He is nothing but loveliness. All earthly suns have their spots: the fair world itself hath its wilderness; we cannot love the whole of the most lovely thing; but Christ Jesus is gold without alloy — light without darkness — glory without cloud — “Yea, He is altogether lovely.

For me, living well is if you are able to sit here in such a way that nothing matters; whether you have something or not, even whether there is food to eat or not, it does not matter to you. You are just fine. It is not that you are incapable of earning your food and other things, but that does not decide who you are right now. What kind of garment you are wearing does not decide who you are right now. What kind of house you are living in does not decide who you are right now. How someone else treats you does not decide who you are right now. What someone says to you does not decide who you are right now. How you are looked up to or looked down upon does not decide who you are right now. If you are like this, you are living well for sure. Wherever you sit, your experience of life will be beautiful. I

Happy Birthday to my beautiful twins granddaughters, my super heroes forever. May God bless you and cover you with His divine garment of protection all the days of lives.Grandma loves you and misses you so much.

Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labour; confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he dreams of better things; he thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life; the vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources. Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and, with the growth of opportunities, which fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever. Years later we see this youth as a full- grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of the mind, which he wields with worldwide influence and almost unequalled power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities; he speaks, and lo, lives are changed; men and women hang upon his words and remould their characters, and, sunlike, he becomes the fixed and luminous centre round which innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the Vision of his youth. He has become one with his Ideal.

True beauty is in how others see you, not in a garment you wear.

When we die, our interior light in departing follows the attraction of its star, and thus it is that we live in other universes, where the soul makes for itself a new garment, analogous to the development or diminution of its beauty; for our souls, when separated from our bodies, resemble revolving stars; they are globules of animated light which always seek their centre for the recovery of their equilibrium and their true movement. Before all things, however, they must liberate themselves from the folds of the serpent, that is, the unpurified Astral Light (physical realm) which envelops and imprisons them, unless the strength of their will can lift them beyond its reach.

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy, you may find in them a harness and a drain. Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your body and less of your raiment.

When he stood close to the middle window and looked straight up, he could see the top of the Empire State Building, lit tonight in red and gold. This wedge of view had been a selling point back when Rebecca’s parents had bought her the Garment District one-bedroom many years ago, right after the crash. Alex and Rebecca had planned to sell the apartment when she got pregnant, then learned that the squat building their own overlooked had been bought by a developer who planned to raze it and build a skyscraper that would seal off their air and light. The apartment became impossible to sell. And now, two years later, the skyscraper had at last begun to rise, a fact that filled Alex with dread and doom but also a vertiginous sweetness—every instant of warm sunlight through their three east-facing windows felt delicious, and this sliver of sparkling night, which for years he’d watched from a cushion propped against the sill, often while smoking a joint, now appeared agonizingly beautiful, a mirage.

Southern resistance, had made the contest an “Abolition war.” Northern Democrats and white Southerners denounced “abolition war” as the inhumane path to sanguinary race war. Both sides felt something deeply sacred at stake, and no one more than Douglass. Yes, he acknowledged, the war was for Union and for the Constitution, but it must be a wholly new Union, and a new Constitution to replace the old one now torn and tattered. The country must not “put old wine in new bottles,” he argued, nor make “new cloth into old garments.” Douglass warned that liberal and open-minded people such as abolitionists themselves were rarely as unified as the forces of reaction and darkness. But in this historic moment, they had to be. “That old union,” he shouted, “whose canonized bones we saw hearsed in death and inurned under the frowning battlements of Sumter, we shall never see again while the world standeth.” Stop fighting for a “dead past,” Douglass urged his auditors, and instead fight “for the living present.”9 Here flowed a set of rebirth metaphors flaming, bloody, and much bolder than the succinct, if beautiful, suggestion in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. “Mission of the War” stood as Douglass’s radical

Your version has all the appeal of a skimpy garment on a beautiful woman, Radford — eye-catching, but not much use in bad weather.

Resilient aesthetics and resilient beauty are terms that immediately sound like oxymorons, as beauty and aesthetically pleasing experiences and objects tend to con- note something fleeting, transient, and/or volatile. We are used to viewing beauty as something that fades, being synonymous with newness, youth, unwrinkled faces and garments, fresh flowers, polished tables, newly painted walls, and with undented floors—all of which diminish with age, usage, and wear. We are used to aesthetics and beauty being linked to the visual impression of an object.

Arise! Arise! Put on your strength, O Zion! Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city; for the uncircumcised and the unclean shall never again enter you. Shake off the dust from yourself, stand up, O captive Jerusalem; release the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

…remember that beauty works from within, it cannot be put on and off like a garment.

All, however, are woven by these three Sisters-thought, action and desire- with which the ignorant build walls of mud and bricks of slime between themselves and truth; while the pure of heart weave from these radiant threads garments of celestial beauty.

All, however, are woven by these three Sisters-All, however, are woven by these three Sisters-thought, action and desire- with which the ignorant build walls of mud and bricks of slime between themselves and truth; while the pure of heart weave from these radiant threads garments of celestial beauty. thought, action and desire- with which the All, however, are woven by these three Sisters-thought, action and desire- with which the ignorant build walls of mud and bricks of slime between themselves and truth; while the pure of heart weave from these radiant threads garments of celestial beauty. build walls of mud and bricks of slime between themselves and truth; while the pure of heart weave from these radiant threads garments of celestial beauty.

Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven. —E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops (1909)

A poem is lines and verses.” “Oh dear me, no.” Anne shook her head with its fluffy wild-cherry coronal positively. “The lines and verses are only the outward garments of the poem and are no more really it than your ruffles and flounces are you, Jane. The real poem is the soul within them . . . and that beautiful bit is the soul of an unwritten poem. It is not every day one sees a soul . . . even of a poem.

The Gwragedd of Annwn are somewhere between being grey faeries who follow the pattern of emerging from water to comb their hair or remove a garment, and the more archaic faeries who unite the characteristics of many realms. It is often in the outposts of Europe where you find this, around its edges. One begins to wonder if this itself is “the fall” that later became Christianised into an angelic story? The loss of the archaic faerie who could be almost everything, beautiful woman and beast, and who fell into differentiation, into black, white, green, and grey, becoming linked with separate parts of nature. Could the story of the fall into the realms described in the Celtic stories be a folk memory of this division of the once integral nature of the fae?

THE SEA OF BEING IN Being's silver sea Lustrous pearls of knowledge are washed up On the shore of speech, And dainty shells bring poems in their curving forms To strew the beach with beauty. Each wave that breaks in foaming arcs Casts up a thousand royal pearls That hold strange murmuring voices, Gems of devotion, joy, and love. Yet though a thousand waves At every moment rise and fall, Scattering pearls and shells, Yet are there ever more and more to come, Nor is that sea of Being less by one sheer drop. PEARLS OF KNOWLEDGE IN the sea of ’Uman, the pearl oysters Rise to the surface from the lowest depths, And wait with opened mouths. Then arises from the sea a mist, Which falls again in raindrops Into the mouths of the shells (At the command of the Truth). Straightway is each closed as by a hundred bonds, And the shells sink back again Into the ocean's depths, Bearing in their hearts the pearl drops Which the divers seek and find. The sea is Being, the shore the body; The mist, grace, and the rain, knowledge of the Name; Human Wisdom is the diver Who holds enwrapped in his garment A hundred pearls; The soul in a swift lightning's flash Bears to the listening ear voices and messages

Holy Father, Thy wisdom excites our admiration, Thy power fills us with fear, Thy omnipresence turns every spot of earth into holy ground; but how shall we thank Thee enough for Thy mercy which comes down to the lowest part of our need to give us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and for the spirit of heaviness a garment of praise? We bless and magnify Thy mercy, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

However, toward the end of it, and on hearing some slight rustle behind me, I half-turned, discreetly, and caught a glimpse of another mourner, a woman, who must have slipped into the church after we of the funeral party had taken our places and who stood several rows behind and quite alone, very erect and still, and not holding a prayer book. She was dressed in deepest black, in the style of full mourning that had rather gone out of fashion except, I imagined, in court circles on the most formal of occasions. Indeed, it had clearly been dug out of some old trunk or wardrobe, for its blackness was a little rusty looking. A bonnet-type hat covered her head and shaded her face, but, although I did not stare, even the swift glance I took of the woman showed me enough to recognize that she was suffering from some terrible wasting disease, for not only was she extremely pale, even more than a contrast with the blackness of her garments could account for, but the skin and, it seemed, only the thinnest layer of flesh was tautly stretched and strained across her bones, so that it gleamed with a curious, blue-white sheen, and her eyes seemed sunken back into her head. Her hands that rested on the pew before her were in a similar state, as though she had been a victim of starvation. Though not any medical expert, I had heard of certain conditions which caused such terrible wasting, such ravages of the flesh, and knew that they were generally regarded as incurable, and it seemed poignant that a woman, who was perhaps only a short time away from her own death, should drag herself to the funeral of another. Nor did she look old. The effect of the illness made her age hard to guess, but she was quite possibly no more than thirty. Before I turned back, I vowed to speak to her and see if I could be of any assistance after the funeral was over, but just as we were making ready to move away, following the parson and the coffin out of the church, I heard the slight rustle of clothing once more and realized that the unknown woman had already slipped quickly away, and gone out to the waiting, open grave, though to stand some yards back, beside another headstone, that was overgrown with moss and upon which she leaned slightly. Her appearance, even in the limpid sunshine and comparative warmth and brightness outdoors, was so pathetically wasted, so pale and gaunt with disease, that it would not have been a kindness to gaze upon her; for there was still some faint trace on her features, some lingering hint, of a not inconsiderable former beauty, which must make her feel her present condition all the more keenly, as would the victim of a smallpox, or of some dreadful disfigurement of burning.

Celebrate the festival in a joyous way, prepare yourself for Eid In a heartwarming, special way Stems not made of weft, Nor designed to show off. Wear the garments of kindness, Woven from love, never to take off Use the fragrance that's rich with care Scent yourself with the perfume of love and spread it everywhere. Let your words and actions be soft as a breeze, Be aware they cause no hurt, no unease Keep kindness sweet upon your tongue And share it with the world, old or young The only action of affection that's right, Open your arms wide, hug everyone tight Ego, anger, and superiority— Release them, set your spirit free in all To friends, to relatives, to strangers, gift Beautiful feelings to all Celebrate the festival in a joyous way, prepare yourself for Eid In a heartwarming, special way prepare yourself for Eid In a heartwarming, special way © 2019 Mohammed zaki ansari

Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labor; confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement. But he dreams of better things; he thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life; the vision of a wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources. Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and, with the growth of opportunities, which fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever. Years later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of the mind, which he wields with worldwide influence and almost unequalled power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities; he speaks, and lo, lives are changed; men and women hang upon his words and remould their characters, and, sunlike, he becomes the fixed and luminous center round which innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the Vision of his youth. He has become one with his Ideal.

Provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor (Isa. 61:3).

After agreeing to meet in an hour’s time, I returned to my quarters, then sent for Sahdienne. Too exhilarated to wait for her, I entered my bedroom and threw wide my wardrobe, hunting for a gown to suit the occasion. I hesitated before coming to a decision, my hand clutched around the fabric of the garment I was considering. It was my most beautiful gown--the one Steldor had given me for my sister’s seventeenth birthday party. In cream-and-gold fabric that matched my gold-and-pearl tiara, it was striking, with bell sleeves and a daringly cut neckline. It was the obvious choice--just as Steldor had been to be King. Sahdienne arrived at that moment, pulling me from my muddled memories. She had always loved the particular gown I’d chosen and had been enamored with my husband’s extraordinary taste. Now she eagerly assisted with my preparations, draping the beautiful gold-and-pearl necklace Steldor had given me to wear with the dress around my neck and styling my hair into an elegant roll at the back before fixing my tiara in place. With a quick curtsey, she departed and I walked into the parlor where my mother was waiting for me. I had not been informed of her arrival and immediately began to apologize. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but…” I hesitated, for she was studying me with the strangest light in her blue eyes, and I wondered if I were overdressed. “Should I--? I mean, I can change into something else.” “No,” she said, approaching me to smooth my dark hair. “You’re perfect, dear. You’ve grown into such a beautiful woman.” I blushed, slightly embarrassed, but she candidly continued. “Since you and Steldor parted ways, I’ve often wondered if you’re lonely. No person has a whole heart until they find their match.

she took off the garment of her widowhood To exalt those afflicted in Israel, And anointed her face with perfume, 8 And bound her hair with a headband, And put on a linen garment to entice him. 9 Her sandals caught his eyes, Her beauty captured his mind, And the sword slashed his neck.

...I argue that what the Qur'an is offering us is a description of the durable dangers to be found for women in the public arena. Covering for women is argued for more as a strategy than as a statement of essentialized female/male identity. After all, older women are allowed to uncover: "Such elderly women as are past the prospect of marriage -- there is no blame on them if they lay aside their [outer] garments, provided they make not a wanton display of their beauty, but it is best for them to be modest: and God is One Who sees and knows all things" (24:60). In contrast to the liberal/postmodern position which hopes that socialization will eventually eliminate male harassment of women, the Qur'an suggests that this is an enduring feature of human existence. This need not imply biological determinism, XY chromosomes means harasser of woman: most men treat women well. It is rather that socialization makes this kind of male behavior constantly replicated and replicable: following Bordo: "it is blindness created by [men's] privileges [and insecurities] of being male in a patriarchal culture. " The Qur'anic position implies that patriarchal male socialization is going to be a stronger force than any counterforce can be. Accepting the continued salience of 'femaleness' and 'maleness' in society is a persuasive and legitimate understanding of relations between the sexes, not a backward nor suppressive view of women's status in society. Those who criticize hijab for accepting the locatedness of the body as proof of women's acceptance, accommodation, or acquiescence in their own subjugation under patriarchy are missing the point.

I have to see you in daylight.” His mouth chased lightly, hungrily over her throat and shoulder. “Monisha, you are the most beautiful woman, the most…” His hands moved with increasing impatience, pulling hard at her clothes until a few stitches popped. “Don’t, this dress doesn’t belong to me,” Amelia said anxiously, fumbling to unfasten the borrowed garments herself rather than have them torn. She froze at the sound of footsteps coming along the hallway, passing the closed door without stopping. Most likely it was a servant. But what if someone had seen her entering Cam’s room?… What if someone were searching for her at this very moment? “Cam, please, not now.” “I’ll be gentle.” He lifted her from the circle of discarded clothes. “I know it’s soon after your first time.” She shook her head as he laid her on the bed. Clenching the fabric of her chemise with both hands to keep it in place, she whispered, “No, it’s not that. Someone will find out. Someone will hear. Someone will—” “Let go, hummingbird, so I can take this off you.” There was a flick of devil’s fire in his eyes as he said mildly, “Let go, or I’ll rip it.” “Cam, don’t—” She was interrupted by the sound of rending linen. He had torn it completely down the front, the fragile material drooping on either side of her. “You’ve ruined it,” she said in disbelief. “How am I to explain this to the maid? And how am I to put my corset back on?” Cam didn’t look at all apologetic as he pulled the remnants of the chemise away from her body. “Take off your drawers. Or I’ll have to rip those, too.” “Oh, God.” Seeing no way to stop him, Amelia pulled the drawers down over her hips. “Lock the door,” she whispered with a scarlet face. “Please, please lock it.” A quick smile passed over Cam’s mouth. He left the bed and went to the door, stripping off his jerkin and shirt along the way. After turning the key in the lock, he took his time about returning to the bed, seeming to enjoy the sight of her burrowing beneath the bed linens. He stood before her half-naked, the breeches riding low on his hips. Amelia dragged her gaze away from the sleek, tightly muscled surface of his torso, and shivered between the cold layers of the bedclothes. “You’re putting me in a terrible position.” Cam finished undressing and joined her beneath the covers. “I know other positions you’ll like much better.

I’m beginning to realize I shouldn’t have stayed away from Eversby Priory for so long,” she heard him say grimly. “The entire household is running amok.” Unable to restrain herself any longer, Kathleen went to the open gap in the doorway and glared at him. “You were the one who hired the plumbers!” she hissed. “The plumbers are the least of it. Someone needs to take the situation in hand.” “If you’re foolish enough to imagine you could take me in hand--” “Oh, I’d begin with you,” he assured her feelingly. Kathleen would have delivered a scathing reply, but her teeth had begun to chatter. Although the Turkish towel had absorbed some of the moisture from her clothes, they were clammy. Seeing her discomfort, Devon turned and surveyed the room, obviously hunting for something to cover her. Although his back was turned, she knew the precise moment that he spotted the shawl on the fireplace chair. When he spoke, his tone had changed. “You didn’t dye it.” “Give that to me.” Kathleen thrust her arm through the doorway. Devon picked it up. A slow smile crossed his face. “Do you wear it often?” “Hand me my shawl, please.” Devon brought it to her, deliberately taking his time. He should have been mortified by his indecent state of undress, but he seemed entirely comfortable, the great shameless peacock. As soon as the shawl was within reach, Kathleen snatched it from him. Casting aside her damp towel, she pulled the shawl around herself. The garment was comforting and familiar, the soft wool warming her instantly. “I couldn’t bring myself to ruin it,” she said grudgingly. She was tempted to tell him that even though the gift had been inappropriate…the truth was, she loved it. There were days when she wasn’t certain whether the gloomy widow’s weeds were reflecting her melancholy mood or causing it, and when she pulled the brilliant shawl over her shoulders, she felt instantly better. No gift had ever pleased her as much. She couldn’t tell him that, but she wanted to. “You look beautiful in those colors, Kathleen.” His voice was low and soft. She felt her face prickle. “Don’t use my first name.” “By all means,” Devon mocked, glancing down at his towel-clad form, “let’s be formal.

Make holy garments b for your brother Aaron, for glory and beauty.

Our feast, our wedding Will be auspicious to the world. God fit the feast and wedding To our length like a proper garment. Venus and the moon Will be matched to each other, The parrot with sugar. The most beautifully-faced Beloved Makes a different kind of wedding every night. With the favor of our Sultan's prosperity, Hearts become spacious And men pair up with each other. Troubles and anxieties are all gone. Here tonight, You go again To the wedding and feasting. O beauty who adorned our city, You will be groom to the beauties. How nicely You walk in our neighborhood, Coming to us so beautifully. O our river, O One Who is searching for us, How nicely You flow in our stream. How nicely You flow with our desires, Unfastening the binding of our feet. You make us walk so nicely, holding our hand, O Joseph of our world. Cruelty suits You well. It's a mistake for us to expect Your loyalty. Step as You wish on our bloody Soul. O Soul of my Soul, pull our Souls To our Beloved's temple. Take this piece of bone. Give it as a gift to our Huma*. O wise ones, give thanks To our Sultan's kindness, who adds Souls to Soul, Keep dancing, O considerate ones. Keep whirling and dancing. At the wedding night of rose and Nasrin* I hang the drum on my neck. Tonight, the tambourine and small drum Will become our clothes. Be silent! Venus becomes the Cupbearer tonight And offers glasses to our sweetheart, Whose skin is fair and rosy, Who takes a glass and drinks. For the sake of God, because of our praying, Now Sufis become exuberant At the assembly of God's Absence. They put the belt of zeal on their waists And start Sama'*. One group of people froth like the sea, Prostrating like waves. The other group battles like swords, Drinking the blood of our glasses. Be silent! Tonight, the Sultan Went to the kitchen. He is cooking with joy. But a most unusual thing, Tonight, the Beloved is cooking our Halva

Linnaeus divided the genus Homo into two species, Homo sapiens (man) and Homo troglodytes (ape), and divided Homo sapiens into four natural varieties—H. sapiens americanus, H. sapiens europaeus, H. sapiens asiaticus, and H. sapiens afer—linked to the four known regions of the world, America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. He color-coded the subspecies red, white, yellow, and black and assigned each a set of physical, personality, cultural, and social traits. Linnaeus was influenced by the classical concept of the Great Chain of Being described by Saint Thomas Aquinas, which placed everything in the universe—from stones to angels—in a grand hierarchy established by God. At the pinnacle of beauty and intelligence Linnaeus placed H. sapiens europaeus: “Vigorous, muscular. Flowing blond hair. Blue eyes. Very smart, inventive. Covered by tight clothing. Ruled by law.” H. sapiens americanus, according to Linnaeus, was “Ill-tempered, impassive. Thick straight black hair; wide nostrils; harsh face; beardless. Stubborn, contented, free. Paints himself with red lines. Ruled by custom.” Linnaeus described H. sapiens asiaticus as “Melancholy, stern. Black hair; dark eyes. Strict, haughty, greedy. Covered by loose garments. Ruled by opinion.” And at the bottom, he placed H. sapiens afer: “Sluggish, lazy. Black kinky hair; silky skin; flat nose; thick lips; females with genital flap and elongated breasts. Crafty, slow, careless. Covered by grease. Ruled by caprice.” Here lies the origin of the color scheme for mankind American children still sing about in Sunday school: red, yellow, black, and white.

After you have bathed and oiled her with the faintest hint of frankincense, use no other perfume. Apply only the lightest of the cosmetics. She is beautiful without them, so let us not mar her beauty." He studied her. "Dress her in a simple white, semi-sheer tunic. The king will enjoy the ability to see her well. But cover the tunic with a pale blue robe trimmed with purple." Parisa hurried to the garment room and returned with clothing that matched Hegai's description. "Do these suffice, my lord?" Hegai took the tunic and robe and nodded. "Soft and beautiful. Yes. This is perfect. Tie the robe with a purple sash. Place a golden pendant around her neck and hang golden earrings from her ears. Let me see her choice of sandals." Parisa hurried back to the room after laying the garments flat on the bed, which had already been stripped of its linens. She returned with an armful of sandals and set them on a chair. Heegai bent to examine them and pulled a pair of intricately carved leather devoid of jewels from the pile. "You will go as a virgin with hints of wealth to show off your character and your beauty. You may wear your mother's ring, but do not wear bracelets. The less distraction you give him, the better. The king, you shall see, likes simple pleasures, despite the ornate designs you find throughout the palace." "And my hair?" Esther's head spun with his quick choices. She sensed by his look that Hegai had planned this for some time, probably in the hopes that she would ask for his help. She breathed a silent prayer of thanks to Adonai, for she knew she could never have decided on her own. Hegai rubbed his chin and had her turn about. Her long dark hair fell to the middle of her back. To wear it down would be scandalous. Her heart beat faster at the thought, for she had no idea what Hegai would suggest or what the king would desire. "Wear it up. Hold it in place with combs that are easily removed. The king will enjoy removing them.

He will ‘give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.

Tell her what you want to tell her then, Cass.” Cass gave Siena a quick summary of what she and Falco had discovered at the graveyard. The maid’s eyes got bigger and bigger as Cass relayed finding the open crypt door and the body, and then receiving the note. “But Signorina Cass, you might be in danger!” “That’s why we’re going to figure out who’s responsible,” Cass said, with more confidence than she felt. “Speaking of which…” Falco nodded at the costume bag, which Cass had completely forgotten. A silky garment, trimmed with lace and beaded elaborately, had fallen out during the scuffle. Siena looked down, and even in the flickering light, Cass could see that her pale skin went bright pink. The lady’s maid knelt to retrieve the outfit, a low-cut satin chemise. She pressed the clothing into Cass’s hands without meeting her eyes. Cass felt her own face get red. “It’s--it’s just a costume. We’re going to try to locate some of the dead girl’s patrons.” “You mean you’re going to masquerade as a…” The shy maid couldn’t choke out the rest. “Hired woman,” Cass confirmed, wondering if it would have been easier just to let Siena believe that she and Falco had met up for a tryst. She wasn’t sure which would have been more scandalizing. “I know it’s dangerous, but it’s more dangerous to do nothing while a madman plots against me. And Falco will be by my side the whole time. Please don’t tell my aunt.” Siena didn’t say anything for a minute. She looked back and forth from Cass to Falco. Finally, she nodded. And then, to Cass’s amazement, her red face lit up with a huge smile. “You’ll need me to do your hair, Signorina.” “Hair?” Cass wasn’t sure she had heard correctly. “What are you talking about?” “Your hair and your makeup.” Siena reached out to stroke Cass’s thick hair. “Otherwise, no one will believe you are anything other than a noblewoman. I’ll put the sides in braids, and twist the back into a knot.” Falco nodded approvingly at Siena. “Excellent idea. We want to make sure everyone can see that beautiful face tonight.” Cass thought her skin might turn permanently red if she continued blushing.

As we begin a New Year, let’s discard what was jaded. Let’s put on in its place, the beautiful garments of Faith, Hope and Love.

Under the guise of being a showpiece for the world where prosperity is as easily found as water in a stream, America, for all her ostensible beauty, has an ugly scar across her belly that she has tried repeatedly to suppress and keep hidden from curious onlookers. More than a few times she has almost been exposed, and this ugliness brought to light, but always another garment would quickly be thrown over the rough spot and all the turmoil and ugliness again blanketed. But not this time.

Isaiah 61. “‘The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

Her name had come to her in a dream the night before, and she felt comfortable with it. It fit better than her old name, the one she had already forgotten. She had always known she wanted to be a falconer, not a seamstress. For years, she had honed her skills, making beautiful garments for those who barely acknowledged her. Now it was time she lived her dream. The falconer. But before taking on the responsibility and honor of being the protector and companion to her falcon, she had to live and be the falcon. That night, she gathered the remnants of the beautiful silks and threads she had saved and made herself a beautiful dress. At the break of dawn, she put it on and flew.

I paid $7.00 for my prom gown. The summer before prom, I coveted an upscale boutique's $350.00 window-displayed couture gown, however realistically I knew I could never afford to purchase it. I watched and patiently waited as the dress was repeatedly marked down. The sales clerks told me they were planning to chuck the dress in the dumpster solely because the dress had loose threads in a seam, and no one at the boutique could sew. (What a shame!) Not only could I sew the seam, but also I could customize the gown for the perfect fit. I was both elated at my beautiful find and shocked at how my purchase prevented yet another unwanted garment from being added to a landfill." (Excerpt from Lisa’s diary)

Celebrate the festival in a joyous way, repare yourself for Eid In a heartwarming, special way Stems not made of weft, Nor designed to show off. Wear the garments of kindness, Woven from love, never to take off Use the fragrance that's rich with care Scent yourself with the perfume of love and spread it everywhere. Let your words and actions be soft as a breeze, Be aware they cause no hurt, no unease Keep kindness sweet upon your tongue And share it with the world, old or young The only action of affection that's right, Open your arms wide, hug everyone tight Ego, anger, and superiority— Release them, set your spirit free in all To friends, to relatives, to strangers, gift Beautiful feelings to all Celebrate the festival in a joyous way, repare yourself for Eid In a heartwarming, special way repare yourself for Eid In a heartwarming, special way

God has not promised to heal our temporary brokenness, although He can and sometimes does. What He does promise is to redeem completely those things that are everlasting: our hearts, souls, and spirits. Isaiah beautifully summarized our Healer’s intention with these prophetic words about the Redeemer: The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and to provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. (61:1–3)

He was the sort to scare errant young souls with stories of a shadowy creature lurking in darkened alcoves. But I was also intrigued, for I possess an errant young soul of my own. From childhood, I hid it beneath pressed garments and polished words, but it persisted in plaguing me. It called to me like a Siren, driving me to dash all pretense against the rocks and surrender to my true nature.

Be faithful, he warned. For the faithless are alone in death, blind and terrified. I feigned shock at his words. In truth, I found him amusing. He was the sort to scare errant young souls with stories of a shadowy creature lurking in darkened alcoves. But I was also intrigued, for I possess an errant young soul of my own. From childhood, I hid it beneath pressed garments and polished words, but it persisted in plaguing me.

They wept for humanity, those two, not for themselves. They could not bear that this should be the end. Ere silence was completed their hearts were opened, and they knew what had been important on the earth. Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven. Century after century had he toiled, and here was his reward. Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first, shot with the colours of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial. And heavenly it had been so long as it was a garment and no more, so long as man could shed it at will and live by the essence that is his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body. The sin against the body - it was for that they wept in chief; the centuries of wrong agains the muscles and the nerves, and those five portals by which we can alone apprehend - glozing it over with talk of evolution, until the body was white pap, the home of ideas as colourless, last sloshy stirrings of a spirit that had grasped the stars.

They wept for humanity, those two, not for themselves. They could not bear that this should be the end. Ere silence was completed their hearts were opened, and they knew what had been iportant on the earth. Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven. Century after century had he toiled, and here was his reward. Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first, shot with the colours of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial. And heavenly it had been so long as it was a garment and no more, so long as man could shed it at will and live by the essence that is his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body. The sin against the body - it was for that they wept in chief; the centuries of wrong agains the muscles and the nerves, and those five portals by which we can alone apprehend - glozing it over with talk of evolution, until the body was white pap, the home of ideas as colourless, last sloshy stirrings of a spirit that had grasped the stars.

This old man [Theo] will someday leave the world, knowing that, at least for one short season, he was an agent for good and that he used art not for his personal fame or advancement, but for its highest ends “to bestow… a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness, instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

She felt her body disperse, her structure release into elemental and shifting from fire to air, to water to earth. And then there was no Earth, and it was far beyond the Sun’s keeping of years. And all was a matrix of sound. Lahana lost hold of time and became as a song lilting upon breath. Then a great longing, a longing to transfigure. The song became a dance, and touch was like a celebration of life. And life opened to a richer song. A longing for the intensification of elemental division. For the beauty of division in symphonic harmony. Lahana felt pulled with the others in her dance, gathering matter and weight and solidity. She felt time catch hold of her and an emergent cosmos. Time awakening her as she submerged into the fabric of this still young cosmos. Becoming fire shifting to air, to water to earth. Her spirit dancing with the Earthlight that began to reach through the tumult of the elements. Earthlight pouring into the spinning particles of matter and seeking harmony of flesh with spirit – with as much longing as Lahana felt. Lahana saw time awaken the evolving awareness of the Earth Spirit – embraced within the evolving awareness of the Universe. And both these, Earth and Cosmos, embracing Lahana’s own journey, offering her the garments of their flesh, offering her the sustenance of their bodies. Then a deep breath ran through her, slow and complete. And she woke . . .

Let always flow into you, your memory of where you are from. Feel the awesome power that called you into being when your soul first awoke and cried out your true and only name. All other names are garments. All other lives are garments. We put them on, and sometimes they bind with stays and ties of hard cord. And other times they flow like silk around us, and we dance freely moving our souls in beautiful harmony with the flesh.