Filtered Beauty Quotes

Get immersed in the beauty that surrounds you. No filters, edits, or adjustments. Experience the colors, sounds, textures and smells within your reach. Live.

As beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we must make sure to heal our impaired vision, filter our perception, and sharpen the focus of our attention because willful blindness can never empower inspiriting vibrations or awaken the twinkles of enlightenment. ("Absence of beauty was like hell")

Are you missing your filter, or is it an Aussie thing to blurt out every inappropriate thought you have?

Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much? Have you practis'd so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,) You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

There’s something heroic in a woman–-Brigitte Bardot, Anita Ekberg, Marianne Faithfull–-who takes great beauty, smokes it down to the filter and grinds it out under her sole.

I am not pretty. I have never been pure or soft or sweet. I am beautiful. Dirt still on my shoulder as I rise from the ground. Scars forming and healing like galaxies over my skin. I am beautiful in the way I fought back when I was buried. I turned the dirt and mud into soil, and grew.

Youth, Rin thought, was an amplification of beauty. It was a filter; it could mask what one was lacking, enhance even the most average features. But beauty without youth was dangerous. The Empress’s beauty did not require the soft fullness of young lips, the rosy red of young cheeks, the tenderness of young skin. This beauty cut deep, like a sharpened crystal. This beauty was immortal.

We are Trailblazers! Our Shero’s used their brains to spark the flame. We, as women, have to learn we cannot always do everything alone; coming together as one produces greatness as we lay the foundation together. All women are Trailblazers who’ve put in the work, and as we all know, nothing comes easy. Therefore, the time and hard work we’ve invested is ours that we earned; because it most definitely wasn’t given. Trailblazers, we must own our lives, filter out what doesn’t serve us, and stand firm for what we believe in. Our voices are beautiful and powerful!

...like the roses and begonias they seemed to take and hold the richly filtered evening light.

It takes a deep and abiding love for yourself to have the patience to wait for the companion who is mentally healthy enough to see the beauty in your heart. No filters required.

Who are we after we’re gone? I wonder. It’s a good question to ponder. Most people can’t come up with an answer right away. They frown, consider it for a minute. Maybe even sleep on it. Then the answers start to come. We’re our children. Our grandchildren. Our great-grandchildren. We’re all the people who will go on to live, because we lived. We are our wisdom, our intellect, our beauty, filtered through generations, continuing to spill into the world and make a difference.

Life shouldn’t be reduced to filtered images and captions, should it? It’s about birth and death and that beautiful, brutal stretch of time between.

I like it when it's sunny, when it rains, when it snows. I like it when it gets dark early, when it stays light late. There's something beautiful about every moment of every day. All you have to do is make the decision to see the positive, to filter the world.

We fit beautifully together like this. Sex with her shattered me down to my deepest levels of complexity; even if Brynne wasn’t aware, I was. I don’t even know what I said to her during the heat of it. I say all kinds of things to her because she likes my filthy mouth. She told me so. It’s a damn good thing too because I cannot help it. The filter between my brain and my mouth is pretty much nonexistent.

To her lover a beautiful woman is a delight; / To a monk she’s a distraction; / To a mosquito, a good meal. It makes the point well: how things seem depends on the lens or filter through which we look at them.

I am quite scandalous, you see. I come packaged with unpredictable moments, brutal honesty, calamitous outbursts, the ghastly need for love, a fiendish lack of filter, the horrific need to question everything, nauseating affection, offensive kindness, indecent spirituality, obscene beauty, monstrous creativity, barbaric embellishments, contemptuous passion, sinful childhood traumas, unscrupulous hobbies, vexatious caring, abominable sensitivity, reprehensible humor, hideous sarcasm, displeasing feelings, unpalatable confidence, offensive compassion, villainous inspiration and a devilish wit. I am quite grotesque in my imperfectness and I am not ashamed to admit it.

Every day we’re bombarded with information and images—with adolescents in heavy makeup pretending to be grown women as they advertise miraculous creams promising eternal beauty; with the story of an aging couple who climbed Mount Everest to celebrate their wedding anniversary; with new massage gizmos, and pharmacy windows that are chockablock with slimming products; with movies that give an entirely false impression of reality, and books promising fantastic results; with specialists who give advice about how to succeed in life or find inner peace. And all these things make us feel old, make us feel that we’re leading dull, unadventurous lives as our skin grows ever more flaccid, and the pounds pile on irrevocably. And yet we feel obliged to repress our emotions and our desires, because they don’t fit with what we call “maturity.” Choose what information you listen to. Place a filter over your eyes and ears and allow in only things that won’t bring you down, because we have our day-to-day life to do that.

We’re our children. Our grandchildren. Our great-grandchildren. We’re all the people who will go on to live, because we lived. We are our wisdom, our intellect, our beauty, filtered through generations, continuing to spill into the world and make a difference.

She was astonished at how lies had entirely filtered her vision for the last several weeks. Years, even.

And What Good Will Your Vanity Be When The Rapture Comes” says the man with a cart of empty bottles at the corner of church and lincoln while I stare into my phone and I say I know oh I know while trying to find the specific filter that will make the sun’s near-flawless descent look the way I might describe it in a poem and the man says the moment is already right in front of you and I say I know but everyone I love is not here and I mean here like on this street corner with me while I turn the sky a darker shade of red on my phone and I mean here like everyone I love who I can still touch and not pass my fingers through like the wind in a dream but I look up at the man and he is a kaleidoscope of shadows I mean his shadows have shadows and they are small and trailing behind him and I know then that everyone he loves is also not here and the man doesn’t ask but I still say hey man I’ve got nothing I’ve got nothing even though I have plenty to go home to and the sun is still hot even in its endless flirt with submission and the man’s palm has a small river inside I mean he has taken my hand now and here we are tethered and unmoving and the man says what color are you making the sky and I say what I might say in a poem I say all surrender ends in blood and he says what color are you making the sky and I say something bright enough to make people wish they were here and he squints towards the dancing shrapnel of dying light along a rooftop and he says I love things only as they are and I’m sure I did once too but I can’t prove it to anyone these days and he says the end isn’t always about what dies and I know I know or I knew once and now I write about beautiful things like I will never touch a beautiful thing again and the man looks me in the eyes and he points to the blue-orange vault over heaven’s gates and he says the face of everyone you miss is up there and I know I know I can’t see them but I know and he turns my face to the horizon and he says we don’t have much time left and I get that he means the time before the sun is finally through with its daily work or I think I get that but I still can’t stop trembling and I close my eyes and I am sobbing on the corner of church and lincoln and when I open my eyes the sun is plucking everyone who has chosen to love me from the clouds and carrying them into the light-drunk horizon and I am seeing this and I know I am seeing this the girl who kissed me as a boy in the dairy aisle of meijer while our parents shopped and the older boy on the basketball team who taught me how to make a good fist and swing it into the jaw of a bully and the friends who crawled to my porch in the summer of any year I have been alive they were all there I saw their faces and it was like I was given the eyes of a newborn again and once you know what it is to be lonely it is hard to unsee that which serves as a reminder that you were not always empty and I am gasping into the now-dark air and I pull my shirt up to wipe whatever tears are left and I see the man walking in the other direction and I chase him down and tap his arm and I say did you see it did you see it like I did and he turns and leans into the glow of a streetlamp and he is anchored by a single shadow now and he sneers and he says have we met and he scoffs and pushes his cart off into the night and I can hear the glass rattling even as I watch him become small and vanish and I look down at my phone and the sky on the screen is still blood red.

right now, I am a rough draft; I am here to be revisited and revised. hard as I try, I am not the girl poets speak of. I am not made up of ocean tides and my heart is not a crystal drum; it will always be a weapon more than anything. I am an incomplete masterpiece, full of crossed-out words and changes. no one ever calls the first draft beautiful, and I will never be the final piece.

The first mile was always the hardest. By the second, the world grew fuzzy at the edges and only the muffled sound of feet on the trail and the blood pumping in my ears filtered through the haze.

The sun is origin of both the dawn’s light and birds’ morning songs. The glow on the horizon is light filtered through our atmosphere; the music in the air is the sun’s energy filtered through the plants and animals that powered the singing birds. The enchantment of an April sunrise is a web of flowing energy. The web is anchored at one end by matter turned to energy in the sun and at the other end by energy turned to beauty in our consciousness. April 22nd—Walking Seeds The springtime flush of flowers is over.

Nor would I even begin to try to describe what she looks like as she’s telling the story, reliving it, she’s naked, hair spilling all down her back, sitting meditatively cross-legged amid the wrecked bedding and smoking ultralight Merits from which she keeps removing the filters because she claims they’re full of additives and unsafe—unsafe as she’s sitting there chain-smoking, which was so patently irrational that I couldn’t even bring—yes and some kind of blister on her Achilles tendon, from the sandals, leaning with her upper body to follow the oscillation of the fan so she’s moving in and out of a wash of moon from the window whose angle of incidence itself alters as the moon moves up and across the window—all I can tell you is she was lovely. The bottoms of her feet dirty, almost black. The moon so full it looks engorged.

Rich Indians typically tried to work around a dysfunctional government. Private security was hired, city water was filtered, private school tuitions were paid. Such choices had evolved over the years into a principle: The best government is the one that gets out of the way. The attacks on the Taj and the Oberoi, in which executives and socialites died, had served as a blunt correction. The wealthy now saw that their security could not be requisitioned privately. They were dependent on the same public safety system that ill served the poor.

Before they crossed the bridge, they went down to have a look at the chalk stream, which was fringed with reeds, watercress, and yellow flag irises. The water flowing gently over the pebbled bed was gin clear, having been filtered through the Hampshire chalk hills.

This point must be heard: the Gospels are first-century narrations based on first-century interpretations. Therefore they are a first-century filtering of the experience of Jesus. They have never been other than that. We must read them today not to discover the literal truth about Jesus, but rather to be led into the Jesus experience they were seeking to convey. That experience always lies behind the distortions, which are inevitable since words are limited. If the Gospels are to be for us revelations of truth, we must enter these texts, go beneath the words, discover the experience that made the words necessary, and in this manner seek the meaning to which the words point. One must never identify the text with the revelation or the messenger with the message. That has been the major error in our two thousand years of Christian history. It is an insight that today is still feared and resisted. But let it be clearly stated, the Gospels are not in any literal sense holy, they are not accurate, and they are not to be confused with reality. They are rather beautiful portraits painted by first-century Jewish artists, designed to point the reader toward that which is in fact holy, accurate, and real. The Gospels represent that stage in the development of the faith story in which ecstatic exclamation begins to be placed into narrative form.

Look everywhere. There are miracles and curiosities to fascinate and intrigue for many lifetimes: the intricacies of nature and everything in the world and universe around us from the miniscule to the infinite; physical, chemical and biological functionality; consciousness, intelligence and the ability to learn; evolution, and the imperative for life; beauty and other abstract interpretations; language and other forms of communication; how we make our way here and develop social patterns of culture and meaningfulness; how we organise ourselves and others; moral imperatives; the practicalities of survival and all the embellishments we pile on top; thought, beliefs, logic, intuition, ideas; inventing, creating, information, knowledge; emotions, sensations, experience, behaviour. We are each unique individuals arising from a combination of genetic, inherited, and learned information, all of which can be extremely fallible. Things taught to us when we are young are quite deeply ingrained. Obviously some of it (like don’t stick your finger in a wall socket) is very useful, but some of it is only opinion – an amalgamation of views from people you just happen to have had contact with. A bit later on we have access to lots of other information via books, media, internet etc, but it is important to remember that most of this is still just opinion, and often biased. Even subjects such as history are presented according to the presenter’s or author’s viewpoint, and science is continually changing. Newspapers and TV tend to cover news in the way that is most useful to them (and their funders/advisors), Research is also subject to the decisions of funders and can be distorted by business interests. Pretty much anyone can say what they want on the internet, so our powers of discernment need to be used to a great degree there too. Not one of us can have a completely objective view as we cannot possibly have access to, and filter, all knowledge available, so we must accept that our views are bound to be subjective. Our understanding and responses are all very personal, and our views extremely varied. We tend to make each new thing fit in with the picture we have already started in our heads, but we often have to go back and adjust the picture if we want to be honest about our view of reality as we continually expand it. We are taking in vast amounts of information from others all the time, so need to ensure we are processing that to develop our own true reflection of who we are.

...God knew that I had some fine-tuning to do and obstacles to overcome before things could flow. I had to first walk through the forest, which had its periods of dense brush as well as wonderful moments where life filtered beautifully through the trees, before I could get to the meadow where I had a much clearer understanding of God.

His last night, the sky was cloudless with a full moon lighting the snowy terrain in an opalescent blue light. He remembered Yasmin telling him that the moonlight that reaches Earth is mainly the reflected light from the sun with some starlight and Earthlight thrown in. She'd told him that the light wasn't really blue, it was because of the Purkinje effect, a flaw in the human eye, that made it so. And he'd thought that what we know is filtered by our flaws, and sometimes turned more beautiful by them.

Having released the wartime images he was carrying in his unconscious, he became worried that he would now be at their mercy, plagued by them in day as well as by night. But what he found was just the opposite. While he did retrieve the horrible images, he rediscovered a lost innocence as well. The beauty of the jungle, the glistening white sands of the Vietnamese beaches, and the intense greens of the rice paddies at dawn all filtered back to him. Not only did he remember his trauma, he remembered himself before his trauma.

Photographs used to present us as we actually were. Now days our photographs have nothing to do with the way we really look like.

I've been staring at him with a filter over my vision.

In your eyes the stars align like sand filtered in the hour glass of your perfect figure and I lose all reason as this moment becomes forever.

and having a good time filtering though. Olivia quickly scanned the huge room in order to locate her co-workers. “You workout, like, all day long at work. You should take the weekend

The very concept of trying to “teach” a lover things feels patronizing, incongruous, and plain sinister. If we truly loved someone, there could be no talk of wanting him or her to change. Romanticism is clear on this score: true love should involve an acceptance of a partner’s whole being. It is this fundamental commitment to benevolence that makes the early months of love so moving. Within the new relationship, our vulnerabilities are treated with generosity. Our shyness, awkwardness, and confusion endear (as they did when we were children) rather than generate sarcasm or complaint; the trickier sides of us are interpreted solely through the filter of compassion. From these moments, a beautiful yet challenging and even reckless conviction develops: that to be properly loved must always mean being endorsed for all that one is. Marriage

As the rest of the modern world develops into what Seoul already has been for years—an image-laden, social-media-driven landscape, where digital representations of us can be automatically filtered to have longer lashes or poreless skin, and digital makeup can be instantly applied before we show up on our video meetings—it makes clear Korea’s looks-obsessed culture, where appearance norms inch further and further out of reach, isn’t some anomaly.

There are people out there who have x-ray vision. They can see through my walls, armor and scrims and filters right down to the real me. And the saddest thing in the world? I haven't forgotten who that person is. She's on there and waiting. Like sleeping beauty locked high in a tower, she's been patient and aware of the coma I've been in all these years. I realise the one hitch in having x-ray glasses is that I'm utterly exposed to him. It's one thing to want someone to keep looking, to swim over moats and dodge flaming arrows to find you. It's quite another when you ask yourself, really ask yourself, if you're finally ready to come out into the open. No matter what.

In a valley shaded with rhododendrons, close to the snow line, where a stream milky with meltwater splashed and where doves and linnets flew among the immense pines, lay a cave, half, hidden by the crag above and the stiff heavy leaves that clustered below. The woods were full of sound: the stream between the rocks, the wind among the needles of the pine branches, the chitter of insects and the cries of small arboreal mammals, as well as the birdsong; and from time to time a stronger gust of wind would make one of the branches of a cedar or a fir move against another and groan like a cello. It was a place of brilliant sunlight, never undappled. Shafts of lemon-gold brilliance lanced down to the forest floor between bars and pools of brown-green shade; and the light was never still, never constant, because drifting mist would often float among the treetops, filtering all the sunlight to a pearly sheen and brushing every pine cone with moisture that glistened when the mist lifted. Sometimes the wetness in the clouds condensed into tiny drops half mist and half rain, which floated downward rather than fell, making a soft rustling patter among the millions of needles. There was a narrow path beside the stream, which led from a village-little more than a cluster of herdsmen's dwellings - at the foot of the valley to a half-ruined shrine near the glacier at its head, a place where faded silken flags streamed out in the Perpetual winds from the high mountains, and offerings of barley cakes and dried tea were placed by pious villagers. An odd effect of the light, the ice, and the vapor enveloped the head of the valley in perpetual rainbows.

How can you compare the flower buds of a tree in spring to the amazing lush greenery of summer, to the fiery leaves of autumn, to the stark chiaroscuro of winter? We understand those changes are irrevocable, and each one delights in its own way.

We’re our children. Our grandchildren. Our great-grandchildren. We’re all the people who will go on to live, because we lived. We are our wisdom, our intellect, our beauty, filtered through generations, continuing to spill into the world and make a difference. Most

beautiful, of course; I couldn’t deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves. It was too green—an alien planet.

Solitude To experience real solitude, the sound of you inner voice must become louder than any other. The narrative carried by your inner voice will determine whether your solitude manifests as punishment or reward. Wisdom filters bitterness out of the narrative, dwelling upon beauty, gratitude and love.

And they would avoid posting anything that perpetuated some of the new unhealthy trends on the app. They would never post a photo of anybody near a cliff, no matter how beautiful, because they knew that gaining a following on Instagram was becoming so desirable that people were risking their lives for perfect shots.

There were so many little, beautiful things. The feel of the late-afternoon sun filtering through the windows after school as I did my homework. Fresh coffee to my lips. The smell of my mom’s hair when she gave me a hug. Things I’d taken in stride as part of my day. Let alone the things I’d never get to experience now.

I do understand. Every day we’re bombarded with information and images—with adolescents in heavy makeup pretending to be grown women as they advertise miraculous creams promising eternal beauty; with the story of an aging couple who climbed Mount Everest to celebrate their wedding anniversary; with new massage gizmos, and pharmacy windows that are chockablock with slimming products; with movies that give an entirely false impression of reality, and books promising fantastic results; with specialists who give advice about how to succeed in life or find inner peace. And all these things make us feel old, make us feel that we’re leading dull, unadventurous lives as our skin grows ever more flaccid, and the pounds pile on irrevocably. And yet we feel obliged to repress our emotions and our desires, because they don’t fit with what we call “maturity.” Choose what information you listen to. Place a filter over your eyes and ears and allow in only things that won’t bring you down, because we have our day-to-day life to do that. Do you think I don’t get judged and criticized at work? Well, I do—a lot! But I’ve decided to hear only the things that encourage me to improve, the things that help me correct my mistakes. Otherwise, I will just pretend I can’t hear the other stuff or block it out.

T is the perception of the beautiful, A fine extension of the faculties, Platonic, universal, wonderful, Drawn from the stars, and filter'd through the skies, Without which life would be extremely dull; In short, it is the use of our own eyes, With one or two small senses added, just To hint that flesh is form'd of fiery dust.

When we connect with others with their humanity, without the filters of race, nationality, gender, religion and so many other artificially constructed division, most of the world’s problem will be resolved. After all, we are all the same humans who have evolved through millions of years of evolution on this earth. All I am doing through my activism is showing the world that how we all share the same humanity regardless of our skin color, nationality or religion. Division only creates more division and inclusion is the only way we can move forward as a civilization. It is time to include North Koreans to join our beautiful and compassionate free world.

Kiss me,” I say in a hushed voice. His arm snakes around my back as he draws me near. My breathing gets shallow as I realize what is going to happen. I’m going to let him kiss me. I’m going to kiss him because that’s all I can think about. We’ve shared two very different moments, now I want this. Zach’s eyes melt into pools of indigo. The pinks, oranges, and reds filter around him as the sun sets behind him. Everything is warm and beautiful around us. “Are you sure, darlin’?” “I’ve loved you since I was twelve years old, Zachary Hennington. You were my first kiss, my first love, the first man to touch me. I want you to kiss me, and I need to kiss you.

In less than an hour, Sophia had efficiently arranged and copied the notes in a neat hand that would delight the printer to no end. She was so quiet and economical in her movements that Ross would have forgotten she was there, except that her scent filtered through the air. It was a tantalizing distraction that he could not dismiss. Breathing deeply, he tried to identify the fragrance. He detected tea and vanilla, blended with the elixir of warm female skin. Stealing glances at her delicate profile, he was fascinated by the way the light moved over her hair. She had small ears, a sharply defined chin, a soft snippet of a nose, and eyelashes that cast spiky shadows on her cheeks.

It was a place of brilliant sunlight, never undappled. Shafts of lemon-gold brilliance lanced down to the forest floor between bars and pools of brown-green shade; and the light was never still, never constant, because drifting mist would often float among the treetops, filtering all the sunlight to a pearly sheen and brushing every pine cone with moisture that glistened when the mist lifted. Sometimes the wetness in the clouds condensed into tiny drops half mist and half rain, which floated downward rather than fell, making a soft rustling patter among the millions of needles. There was a narrow path beside the stream, which led from a village-little more than a cluster of herdsmen's dwellings - at the foot of the valley to a half-ruined shrine near the glacier at its head, a place where faded silken flags streamed out in the Perpetual winds from the high mountains, and offerings of barley cakes and dried tea were placed by pious villagers. An odd effect of the light, the ice, and the vapor enveloped the head of the valley in perpetual rainbows.

… everything was fresh, green and particularly beautiful. Afternoon light, filtering between remnants of monsoon clouds, picked out gullies and spot-lit patches of forest and scrub on the convoluted ridges of the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. Or, after a rainstorm, wisps of clouds clung to the trees as if scared to let go. Behind, himals peeked out shyly between the clouds.

The first thing anybody tells you about this business is to say what makes you unique and different, but I couldn’t and the very idea of it never sat well with me and after much deliberation, I finally realized why. Because, I’m not unique or different–I’m exactly like you and I love that. We each have a unique filter through which we interpret the world, and with this filter in place, I write stories and songs and you might find them surprising or intriguing or confronting, you may relate or you may not. They may make you laugh and sometimes, even cry. You may or may not understand what I’m trying to say and you may not understand me, however, rest assured, once we get past the filters, at our core, we are wonderfully and beautifully, exactly the same.

Youth, Rin thought, was an amplification of beauty. It was a filter, it could mask what one was lacking, enhance even the most average features. But beauty without youth was dangerous. The Empress' beauty did not require the soft fullness of young lips, the rosy red of young cheeks, the tenderness of young skin. This beauty cut deep, like a sharpened crystal. This beauty was immortal.

Youth, Rin thought, was an amplification of beauty. It was a filter; it could mask what one was lacking, enhance even the most average features. But beauty without youth was dangerous. The Empress's beauty did not require the soft fullness of young lips, the rosy red of young cheeks, the tenderness of young skin. This beauty cut deep, like a sharpened crystal. This beauty was immortal.

The beauty of our mind lies in its resources as our creative organizer toward our higher hopes and dreams. On the one hand it is the home of our rational and logical thought, yet on the other it is the birthplace of our creativity, where our imagination floats freely in limitless lands. When you can filter your thoughts through a lens of possibility rather than certainty, freedom instead of fear, belief over doubt, then a powerful inner magic is born.

Late afternoon light filters in through his pale curtains, and it casts the room in a dreamy kind of filter. If I were going to name it, I would call it “summer in the suburbs.” Peter looks beautiful in this light. He looks beautiful in any light, but especially this one. I take a picture of him in my mind, just like this. Any annoyance I felt over him forgetting my yearbook melts away when he snuggles closer to me, rests his head on my chest, and says, “I can feel your heart beating.” I start playing with his hair, which I know he likes. It’s so soft for a boy. I love the smell of his detergent, his soap, everything. He looks up at me and traces the bow of my lip. “I like this part the best,” he says. Then he moves up and brushes his lips against mine, teasing me. He bites on my bottom lip playfully. I like all his different kinds of kisses, but maybe this kind best. Then he’s kissing me with urgency, like he is utterly consumed, his hands in my hair, and I think, no, these are the best. Between kisses he asks me, “How come you only ever want to hook up when we’re at my house?” “I--I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it before.” It’s true we only ever make out at Peter’s house. It feels weird to be romantic in the same bed I’ve slept in since I was a little girl. But when I’m in Peter’s bed, or in his car, I forget all about that and I’m just lost in the moment.

They both glared at each other, her pink eyes clashing with his ice-cold blue ones. Even when he was annoyed—and being annoying—he was wickedly handsome. His tousled black hair and the shadows of night only added to his charm. The smooth planes of his angular face, the irritated wedge between his brows, and the long lashes framing his tundra-like eyes —he was beautiful even in the dead of night with only moonlight filtering through the thickening snow-laden air.

It was dim inside, the only light filtering in through small windows. For a moment I hesitated, and said a prayer, inaudible, inarticulate, yet real. Then I looked around. That scene will remain with me forever. Each casket was draped with a beautiful American flag. Never before had the flag seemed to have such sublime significance and beauty. About the walls were other flags, American and French; flower petals had been scattered over the floor, and outside I could hear the band playing a hymn.

He was beautiful. Whatever else he was, Sage was by far the most magnetic man I had ever seen. I had felt it in my dreams, and it was even more true in real life. I welcomed the chance to study him without his knowledge. He glanced up, and I quickly closed my eyes, feigning sleep. Had he seen me? The scratching stopped. He was looking at me, I knew it. I held my breath and willed my eyes not to pop open and see if he was staring. Finally the scratching started up again. I forced myself to slowly count to ten before I opened my eyelids the tiniest bit and peeked through my lashes. Good-he wasn’t looking at me. I opened my eyes a little wider. What was he doing? Moving only my eyes, I glanced down at the dirt floor in front of him… …and saw a picture of me, fast asleep. It was incredible. I could see his tools laid out beside the picture: rocks in several sizes and shapes, a couple of twigs…the most rudimentary materials, and yet what he was etching into the floor wouldn’t look out of place on an art gallery wall. It was beautiful…far more beautiful than I thought I actually looked in my sleep. Is that how he saw me? Sage lifted his head again, and I shut my eyes. I imagined him studying me, taking careful note of my features and filtering them through his own senses. My heartbeat quickened, and it took all my willpower to remain still. “You can keep pretending to be asleep if you’d like, but I don’t see a career for you as an actress,” he teased. My eyes sprang open. Sage’s head was again bent over his etching, but a grin played on his face as he worked. “You knew?” I asked, mortified. Sage put a finger to his lips, glancing toward Ben. “About two minutes before you woke up, I knew,” he whispered. “Your breathing hanged.” He bent back over the drawing, then impishly asked, “Pleasant dreams?” My heart stopped, and I felt myself blush bright crimson as I remembered our encounter in the bottom of the rowboat. I sent a quick prayer to whoever or whatever might be listening that I hadn’t re-enacted any of it in my sleep, then said as nonchalantly as possible, “I don’t know, I can’t remember what I dreamed about. Why?” He swapped out the rock in his hand for one with a thinner edge and worked for another moment. “No reason…just heard my name.” I hoped the dim moonlight shadowed the worst of my blush. “Your name,” I reiterated. “That’s…interesting. They say dreams sort out things that happen when we’re awake.” “Hmm. Did you sort anything out?” he asked. “Like I said, I can’t remember.” I knew he didn’t believe me. Time to change the subject. I nodded to the etching. “Can I come look?

This is the age of science, of steel -- of speed and the cement road. The age of hard faces and hard highways. Science and steel demand the medium of prose. Speed requires only the look -- the gesture. What need then, for poetry? Great need! There are souls, in these noise-tired times, that turn aside into unfrequented lanes, where the deep woods have harbored the fragrances of many a blossoming season. Here the light, filtering through perfect forms, arranges itself in lovely patterns for those who perceive beauty...

Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else’s life. One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live. ‘I cannot live with myself any longer.’ This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. ‘Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.’ ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘only one of them is real.’ I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words ‘resist nothing,’ as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that. I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marvelling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.

I’ve never run this far before," he said at one point. "Or this fast for so long. It’s better than sticking your head out a car window, that’s for sure." My theory is that Oberon might be a master of Tao. He always sees what we filter out. The wind and the grass and something in the sky, sun or moon, shining on our backs as we run: They are gifts that humans toss away like socks on Christmas morning, because we see them every day and don’t think of them as gifts anymore. But new socks are always better than old socks. And the wind and grass and sky, I think, are better seen with new eyes than jaded ones. I hope my eyes will never grow old.

What's your favourite painting?' 'Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,' Win says without hesitation. 'By Georges Seurat.' 'Isn't that the one made up of dots?' 'Pointillism. Yeah. It represents the two sides of art that I love-on one habd, it's just beautifully rendered because the artist made sure every inch of the canvas was pulsing with life. But there's a whole other side of it - pointillism is a metaphor for society and politics. Painting dot by dot stands in for the industrial revolution and how it was filtering into leisure time in society. I could write a whoe paper on it.' She smiles. 'I did.' 'Sounds like a perfect marriage of skill and significance, 'I say. 'A perect marriage, ' Win repeats. 'Yes.

The boy wasn't beautiful. Not even handsome in this gentle, dusky light. It was only that they were the same age, and that they worked there, shoulder touching through the steaming, aching hours, passing cigarettes back and forth in this lot, the filter's taste changing: slick and slightly sweeter from the blue Gatorade Russia sipped through his shift. Can camaraderie - the bond of working in unison - be eno0ught to make you want to put your mouth to a kid with a busted face, to find him somehow more complete despite his unrecognizable beauty, the smell of his armpits seeping through his work polo, that garlicky, vinegary scent of humanness canceling the drugstore deodorant he wore to hide it? Yes, Hai realized now - it was.

Moving on, while he wondered, the dark through which Mr. Lecky's light cut grew more beautiful with scents. Particles of solid matter so minute, gases so subtle, that they filtered through stopping and sealing, hung on the unstirred air. Drawn in with Mr. Lecky's breath came impalpable dews cooked out of disintegrating coal. Distilled, chemically split and reformed, they ended in flawless simulation of the aromas of gums, the scent of woods and the world's flowers. The chemists who made them could do more than that. Loose on the gloom were perfumes of flowers which might possibly have bloomed but never had, and the strong-smelling saps of trees either lost or not yet evolved. Mixed in the mucus of the pituitary membrane, these volatile essences meant more than synthetic chemistry to Mr. Lecky. Their microscopic slime coated the bushed-out ends of the olfactory nerve; their presence was signaled to the anterior of the brain's temporal lobe. At once, thought waited on them, tossing down from the great storehouse of old images, neglected ideas - sandalwood and roses, musk and lavender. Mr. Lecky stood still, wrung by pangs as insistent and unanswerable as hunger. He was prodded by the unrest of things desired, not had; the surfeit of things had, not desired. More than anything he could see, or words, or sounds, these odors made him stupidly aware of the past. Unable to remember it, whence he was, or where he had previously been, all that was sweet, impermanent and gone came back not spoiled by too much truth or exact memory. Volatile as the perfumes, the past stirred him with longing for what was not - the only beloved beauty which you will have to see but which you may not keep. Mr. Lecky's beam of light went through glass top and side of a counter, displayed bottles of colored liquid - straw, amber, topaz - threw shadows behind their diverse shapes. He had no use for perfume. All the distraction, all the sense of loss and implausible sweetness which he felt was in memory of women. Behind the counter, Mr. Lecky, curious, took out bottles, sniffed them, examined their elaborately varied forms - transparent squares, triangles, cones, flattened ovals. Some were opaque, jet or blue, rough with embedded metals in intricate design. This great and needless decoration of the flasks which contained it was one strange way to express the inexpressible. Another way was tried in the names put on the bottles. Here words ran the suggestive or symbolic gamut of idealized passion, or festive night, of desired caresses, or of abstractions of the painful allure yet farther fetched. Not even in the hopeful, miracle-raving fancy of those who used the perfumes could a bottle of liquid have any actual magic. Since the buyers at the counters must be human beings, nine of every ten were beyond this or other help. Women, young, but unlovely and unloved, women, whatever they had been, now at the end of it and ruined by years or thickened to caricature by fat, ought to be the ones called to mind by perfume. But they were not. Mr. Lecky held the bottle in his hand a long while, aware of the tenth woman.

It is quiet in the clearing, though gradually Lillian's ears attune to the soft rustling of insects and birds moving through the undergrowth, the faraway tapping of a woodpecker high in a tree. Down on the ground, a bronze-colored beetle tries to scale the side of her shoe. It slips on the smooth leather and tumbles back into the dry leaves, waggling its legs in the air. She shifts slightly on the tree trunk then watches as Jack pulls a strand of grass from a clump growing nearby and sucks on one end, looking about at the canopy overhead. "Wonderful light," he murmurs. "I wish I hadn't left my sketchbook at the house." She knows she must say something. But the moment stretches and she can't find the words so instead she looks about, trying to see the clearing as he might, trying to view the world through an artist's eyes. What details would he pull from this scene, what elements would he commit to memory to reproduce on paper? A cathedral, he'd said; and she supposes there is something rather celestial and awe-inspiring about the tall, arched trees and the light streaming in golden shafts through the soft green branches, filtered as though through stained glass.

It seems to me that angels and bodhisattvas are everywhere available for consultation if only we can see them clear; they are unadorned, and joyous, and patient, and radiant, and luminous, and not disguised or hidden or filtered in any way whatsoever, so that if you see them clearly, which happens occasionally even to the most blinkered and frightened of us, you realize immediately who they are, beings of great and humble illumination dressed in the skins of new and dewy beings, and you realize, with a catch in your throat, that they are your teachers, and they are agents of an unimaginable love, and they are your cousins and companions in awe, and they are miracles and prayers and songs of inexplicable beauty whom no one can explain and no one own or claim or trammel, and that simply to perceive them is to be blessed beyond the reach of language, and that to be the one appointed to tow them along a beach, or a crowd, or home through the brilliant morning from the muddy hilarious peewee soccer game is to be graced beyond measure or understanding; which is what I was, and I am, and I will be, until the day I die, and change form from this one to another, in ways miraculous and mysterious, never to be plumbed by the mind or measures of man.

I hate inconstancy—I loathe, detest, Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast No permanent foundation can be laid; Love, constant love, has been my constant guest, And yet last night, being at a masquerade, I saw the prettiest creature, fresh from Milan, Which gave me some sensations like a villain. But soon Philosophy came to my aid, And whisper’d, ‘Think of every sacred tie!’ ‘I will, my dear Philosophy!’ I said, ‘But then her teeth, and then, oh, Heaven! her eye! I’ll just inquire if she be wife or maid, Or neither—out of curiosity.’ ‘Stop!’ cried Philosophy, with air so Grecian (Though she was masqued then as a fair Venetian); ‘Stop!’ so I stopp’d.—But to return: that which Men call inconstancy is nothing more Than admiration due where nature’s rich Profusion with young beauty covers o’er Some favour’d object; and as in the niche A lovely statue we almost adore, This sort of adoration of the real Is but a heightening of the ‘beau ideal.’ ’Tis the perception of the beautiful, A fine extension of the faculties, Platonic, universal, wonderful, Drawn from the stars, and filter’d through the skies, Without which life would be extremely dull; In short, it is the use of our own eyes, With one or two small senses added, just To hint that flesh is form’d of fiery dust. Yet ’tis a painful feeling, and unwilling, For surely if we always could perceive In the same object graces quite as killing As when she rose upon us like an Eve, ’Twould save us many a heartache, many a shilling (For we must get them any how or grieve), Whereas if one sole lady pleased for ever, How pleasant for the heart as well as liver! The heart is like the sky, a part of heaven, But changes night and day, too, like the sky; Now o’er it clouds and thunder must be driven, And darkness and destruction as on high: But when it hath been scorch’d, and pierced, and riven, Its storms expire in water-drops; the eye Pours forth at last the heart’s blood turn’d to tears, Which make the English climate of our years.

No teacher of RE ever said to me: “Beyond the limited realm of the senses, the shallow pool of the known, is a great untamable ocean, and we don’t have a fucking clue what goes on in there.” What we receive through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch is all we know. We have tools that can enhance that information, we have theories for things that we suspect lie beyond that information, filtered through an apparatus limited once more to those senses. Those senses are limited; the light range we detect is within a narrow spectrum, between infrared light and ultraviolet light; other species see light that we can’t see. In the auditory realm, we hear but a fraction of the sound vibrations; we don’t hear high-pitched frequencies, like dog whistles, and we don’t hear low frequencies like whale song. The world is awash with colors unseen and abuzz with unheard frequencies. Undetected and disregarded. The wise have always known that these inaccessible realms, these dimensions that cannot be breached by our beautifully blunt senses, hold the very codes to our existence, the invisible, electromagnetic foundations upon which our gross reality clumsily rests. Expressible only through symbol and story, as it can never be known by the innocent mind. The stories are formulas, poems, tools for reflection through which we may access the realm behind the thinking mind, the consciousness beyond knowing and known, the awareness that is not connected to the haphazard data of biography. The awareness that is not prickled and tugged by capricious emotion. The awareness that is aware that it is aware. In meditation I access it; in yoga I feel it; on drugs it hit me like a hammer—at sixteen, staring into a bathroom mirror on LSD, contrary to instruction (“Don’t look in the mirror, Russ, it’ll fuck your head up.” Mental note: “Look in mirror.”). I saw that my face wasn’t my face at all but a face that I lived behind and was welded to by a billion nerves. I looked into my eyes and saw that there was something looking back at me that was not me, not what I’d taken to be me. The unrefined ocean beyond the shallow pool was cascading through the mirror back at me. Nature looking at nature.

I’d known him just ten days, and it had just left his mouth in an unexpected whisper. It had been purely instinctive, it seemed--something entirely unplanned. He clearly hadn’t planned to say those words to me that night; that wasn’t the way he operated. He was a man who had a thought and acted on it immediately, as evidenced by his sweet, whispery phone calls right after our dates. He spent no time at all calculating moves; he had better things to do with his time. When we held each other on that chilly spring night and his feelings had come rushing to the surface, he’d felt no need to slap a filter over his mouth. It had come out in a breath: I love you. It was as if he had to say it, in the same way air has to escape a person’s longs. It was involuntary. Necessary. Natural. But as beautiful and warm a moment as it was, I froze on the spot. Once I realized it had been real--that he’d actually said the words--it seemed too late to respond; the window had closed, the shutters had clapped shut. I responded in the only way my cowardice would allow: by holding him tighter, burying my face deeper into his neck, feeling equal parts stupid and awkward. What is your problem? I asked myself. I was in the midst of what was possibly the most romantic, emotionally charged moment of my life, in the embrace of a man who embodied not only everything I’d ever understood about the textbook definition of lust, but everything I’d ever dreamed about in a man. He was a specimen--tall, strong, masculine, quiet. But it was much more than that. He was honest. Real. And affectionate and accessible, quite unlike J and most of the men I’d casually dated since I’d returned home from Los Angeles months earlier. I was in a foreign land. I didn’t know what to do. I love you. He’d said it. And I knew his words had been sincere. I knew, because I felt it, too, even though I couldn’t say it. Marlboro Man continued to hold me tightly on that patio chair, undeterred by my silence, likely resting easily in the knowledge that at least he’d been able to say what he felt. “I’d better go home,” I whispered, suddenly feeling pulled away by some imaginary force. Marlboro Man nodded, helping me to my feet. Holding hands, we walked around his house to my car, where we stopped for a final hug and a kiss or two. Or eight. “Thanks for having me over,” I managed. Man, I was smooth. “Any time,” he replied, locking his arms around my waist during the final kiss. This was the stuff that dreams were made of. I was glad my eyes were closed, because they were rolled all the way into the back of my head. It wouldn’t have been an attractive sight. He opened the door to my car, and I climbed inside. As I backed out of his driveway, he walked toward his front door and turned around, giving me his characteristic wave in his characteristic Wranglers. Driving away, I felt strange, flushed, tingly. Burdened. Confused. Tortured. Thirty minutes into my drive home, he called. I’d almost grown to need it. “Hey,” he said. His voice. Help me. “Oh, hi,” I replied, pretending to be surprised. Even though I wasn’t. “Hey, I…,” Marlboro Man began. “I really don’t want you to go.” I giggled. How cute. “Well…I’m already halfway home!” I replied, a playful lilt to my voice. A long pause followed. Then, his voice serious, he continued, “That’s not what I’m talking about.

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.

He has told me that he believed I had always loved an idea of him and that I’d never really seen the true person there. Just my memories and my dream of him. I suppose he’s right. Isn’t that so often true with family, that we see them through the filters of our own fears, expectations, and desire to control? He’s struggling with this thing. I don’t know if he’ll succeed, but I know now that I can’t help him. Only be present for him, be honest with him, and love him for who he is rather than who I want him to be.

Who are we after we’re gone? I wonder. It’s a good question to ponder. Most people can’t come up with an answer right away. They frown, consider it for a minute. Maybe even sleep on it. Then the answers start to come. We’re our children, of course. Our grandchildren. Our great-grandchildren. We’re all the people who will go on to live because we lived. We are our wisdom, our intellect, our beauty filtered through generations, continuing to spill into the world and make a difference.

You and I “It should be filtered”, said she, Every feeling that you wish to share with me, “It should be just for me”, said she, Every kiss and every sweet memory, “It should always be near and never too far”, said she, Every echo of your heart beat, that only beats for me, “It should never end once it begins”, said she, Every moment of romance between you and me, “It should not conceal me”, said she, Every shadow of your love, your veil of feelings that falls over me, “It should brighten me to create a happy me”, said she, Every breath of yours should only sing of me and confess about me, “It should remind you how much I need you”, said she, Every day, every night, every lifetime, it has to be just me, only me, “It shall be so, my love!” , said I, Every moment, every day, and always just you and I, “It is a feeling I felt when I first realised how endless the sky is”, said I, And ever since then I have longed to tell you, it is forever you and I, “It is only then I like the stars and the beautiful blue sky”, said I, Now every day, she holds my hand and we witness the endless beauty of the endless sky!

You and I “It should be filtered”, said she, Every feeling that you wish to share with me, “It should be just for me”, said she, Every kiss and every sweet memory, “It should always be near and never too far”, said she, Every echo of your heart beat, that only beats for me, “It should never end once it begins”, said she, Every moment of romance between you and me, “It should not conceal me”, said she, Every shadow of your love, your veil of feelings that falls over me, “It should brighten me to create a happy me”, said she, Every breath of yours should only sing of me and confess about me, “It should remind you how much I need you”, said she, Every day, every night, every lifetime, it has to be just me, only me, “It shall be so, my love!” , said I, Every moment, every day, and always just you and I, “It is a feeling I felt when I first realised how endless the sky is”, said I, And ever since then I have longed to tell you, it is forever you and I, “It is only then Irma, I like the stars and the beautiful blue sky”, said I, Now every day, she holds my hand and we witness the endless beauty of the endless sky!

We are our wisdom, our intellect, our beauty, filtered through generations, continuing to spill into the world and make a difference.

She watched the early-morning sun filter out from the trees still glistening from frost, and imagined the way here perennial beds would be thick and wild with beauty in just a few months. And her zinnias and sunflowers and trumpet vine would cover the fence and keep Patsy out. The messy look. That is just how Patsy described it last summer. After Elizabeth dug up the boxwoods and hollies with their geometric precision, their obedient square ugliness, she planted daisies, black-eyed Susans, coneflowers, and phlox. She planted zinnias and cosmos that she had grown from seed. The border had exploded in color and texture. The plants had flowered wild and strong and generous. Every morning, Elizabeth had fingered the velvety petals.

A pithy Zen aphorism goes like this: To her lover a beautiful woman is a delight; / To a monk she’s a distraction; / To a mosquito, a good meal. It makes the point well: how things seem depends on the lens or filter through which we look at them.

When she straightened, I had to suppress a curse. This girl didn’t need a filter. She wore a red summer dress that accentuated her narrow waist and round butt and made her legs look miles-long, even though she was a petite woman. I forced myself to keep checking the shop displays because I’d frozen in my tracks upon spotting the Vitiello princess. Her gait spoke of unwavering confidence. She never once swayed despite her ridiculously high heels. She walked the streets as if she owned them—her head held high, her expression cold and painfully beautiful. There were girls that were pretty, there were girls that were beautiful, and there were girls that had men and women alike stop in their tracks to admire them slack-jawed. Marcella was the latter.

Secular materialism dismisses belief in spiritual reality and the use of imagination as false; it sees beauty as dispensable and subjective, emotion as chemical, imagination (and with it, religion) as fantasy. Ironically, this view increasingly influences the way we live out our faith and speak about God, as apologists seek to argue God's existence on materialism's own terms, using scientific proof–style reasoning, and analytical debate to "prove" the reality of the spiritual world. It filters down to us in a thousand ordinary ways, shaping our models of spiritual growth, lines of productivity or casting faith as an assent to a list of doctrinal statements rather than the renewal of ourselves and stories. It makes us doubt the "usefulness" of beauty or the spiritual purpose of imagination, but this is a profoundly un-Christian view of faith and personhood. To reject image, emotion, and story as peripheral to faith is to ignore the way God created us – as being made in his image to create in our turn, as souls capable of both reason and analysis, but also equally capable of imagination, creativity, and emotion.

Is this how it works in your books? Someone comes in hot with a grand gesture and then walks away? They just give up? What happened to the guaranteed happily ever after? I feel kinda cheated out of mine.” One of her eyebrows rose. “You want the happy ending?” “Baby, I’ve lived my life without you by my side, and let me tell you, it’s not a life I wanna live. I’m no longer naïve enough to believe the beautiful boy-meets-girl-falls-in-love-and-everything-is-perfect-for-the-rest-of-their-lives kinda reality.” Her sweet laugh filtered through the air. “Now that sounds more like a romance novel.” “I know not every love story gets a happy ending. And that ours might end someday. But know that I’d rather have a handful of amazing days with you than close the door now, for fear that it won’t work out.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I’ve missed you so much.

Halfway through the day, Megan started dicking around on the internet. She made her browser window as small as she could, paused for a second, and then looked up “Carrie Wilkins.” She found Carrie’s website, and on it, this bio: Hi, my name’s Carrie. I’m 26. I make things. I paint and I write, but mostly I design. I like to make things beautiful, or creative. I make my own food and I’m trying to grow my own beets. A lot of people around me seem unhappy and I don’t understand why. I freelance because I know I’d go insane if I couldn’t make my own schedule—I believe variety is the zest of life. I know I want a dog someday soon, and sometimes I make lunch at 3 a.m. I believe in the power of collaboration, and I’d love to work with you! What a total asshole. What does she have, some kind of a pact with Satan? The picture next to Carrie’s bio had some kind of heavy filter on it that made it look vintage, and she had a friendly but aloof look on her face. She was flanked on both sides by plants and was wearing an oxford shirt with fancy shorts and had a cool necklace. It was an outfit, for sure, like all of Carrie’s clothes were outfits, which Megan always thought of as outdated or something only children did. The website linked to a blog, which was mostly photos of Carrie doing different things. It didn’t take too long to find the picture of her with the llama with a caption about how she and her boss got it from a homeless guy. And then just products. Pictures and pictures of products, and then little captions about how the products inspired her. Motherfucker, thought Megan. She doesn’t get it at all. It was like looking at an ad for deodorant or laundry soap that made you feel smelly and like you’d been doing something wrong that the person in the ad had already figured out, but since it was an ad, there was no real way to smell the person and judge for yourself whether or not the person stank, and that was what she hated, hated, hated most of all. I make things, gee-wow. You think you’re an artist? Do you really thing this blog is a representation of art, that great universalizer? That great transmigrator? This isolating schlock that makes me feel like I have to buy into you and your formula for happiness? Work as a freelance designer, grow beets, travel, have lots of people who like you, and above all have funsies! “Everything okay?” asked Jillian. “Yeah, what?” “Breathing kind of heavy over there, just making sure you were okay and everything.” “Oh, uh-huh, I’m fine,” said Megan. “It’s not . . . something I’m doing, is it?” “What? No. No, I’m fine,” said Megan. How could someone not understand that other people could be unhappy? What kind of callous, horrible bullshit was that to say to a bunch of twenty-yearolds, particularly, when this was the time in life when things were even more acutely painful than they were in high school, that nightmare fuck, because now there were actual stakes and everyone was coming to grips with the fact that they’re going to die and that life might be empty and unrewarding. Why even bring it up? Why even make it part of your mini-bio?

Things in the kitchen were, thankfully, going according to plan. Ginny's hands moved at a gratifying pace over the stove. She deftly controlled the four burners to simmer sauces with ease. A pair of solid wooden cutting boards were positioned at her elbow, piled with minced garlic, leafy herbs, and fresh root vegetables. A beautiful cut of Angus beef rested on the counter, coming to room temperature and marinating in rich juices. An elevated twist on a white chocolate cheesecake chilled on the packed refrigerator shelf. All in all, she had planned a fabulous meal. This was how Ginny had always envisioned Mesquite running, smooth and well staffed, with happy guests at the table and herself at the helm. If she thought about it hard enough, which she rarely had time to do, Ginny would say this evening was damn near perfection. Feeling sentimental, she allowed herself a pour from the bottle of chilled Oregon pinot noir in the refrigerator. She wiped her fingers clean with a nearby tea towel and watched as the golden evening light filtered through the windows, illuminating the translucent burgundy liquid in her glass. This is how it should be, she thought to herself. Happy customers in the other room, her daughter and her sister all under one roof, and a warm place to call home. She'd be content if she knew it could last.

They both glared at each other, her pink eyes clashing with his ice-cold blue ones. Even when he was annoyed—and being annoying—he was wickedly handsome. His tousled black hair and the shadows of night only added to his charm. The smooth planes of his angular face, the irritated wedge between his brows, and the long lashes framing his tundra-like eyes —he was beautiful even in the dead of night with only moonlight filtering through the thickening snow-laden air.

That is the one of the beauties of my identity. It acts as a filter, guiding me toward the gems in life

AM: My father had arrived in New York all alone, from the middle of Poland, before his seventh birthday… He arrived in New York, his parents were too busy to pick him up at Castle Garden and sent his next eldest brother Abe, going on 10, to find him, get him through immigration and bring him home to Stanton Street and the tenement where in two rooms the eight of them lived and worked, sewing the great long, many-buttoned cloaks that were the fashion then. They sent him to school for about six months, figuring he had enough. He never learned how to spell, he never learned how to figure. Then he went right back into the shop. By the time he was 12 he was employing two other boys to sew sleeves on coats alongside him in some basement workshop. KM: He went on the road when he was about 16 I think… selling clothes at a wholesale level. AM: He ended up being the support of the entire family because he started the business in 1921 or something. The Miltex Coat Company, which turned out to be one of the largest manufacturers in this country. See we lived in Manhattan then, on 110th Street facing the Park. It was beautiful apartment up on the sixth floor. KM: We had a chauffeur driven car. The family was wealthy. AM: It was the twenties and I remember our mother and father going to a show every weekend. And coming back Sunday morning and she would be playing the sheet music of the musicals. JM: It was an arranged marriage. But a woman of her ability to be married off to a man who couldn’t read or write… I think Gussie taught him how to read and to sign his name. AM: She knew she was being wasted, I think. But she respected him a lot. And that made up for a little. Until he really crashed, economically. And then she got angry with him. First the chauffeur was let go, then the summer bungalow was discarded, the last of her jewellery had to be pawned or sold. And then another step down - the move to Brooklyn. Not just in the case of my father but every boy I knew. I used to pal around with half a dozen guys and all their fathers were simply blown out of the water. I could not avoid awareness of my mother’s anger at this waning of his powers. A certain sneering contempt for him that filtered through her voice. RM: So how did the way you saw your father change when he lost his money? AM: Terrible… pity for him. Because so much of his authority sprang from the fact that he was a very successful businessman. And he always knew what he as doing. And suddenly: nothin’. He didn’t know where he was. It was absolutely not his fault, it was the Great Crash of the ‘29, ‘30, ‘31 period. So from that I always, I think, contracted the idea that we’re very deeply immersed in political and economic life of the country, of the world. And that these forces end up in the bedroom and they end up in the father and son and father and daughter arrangements. In Death of a Salesman what I was interested in there was what his world and what his life had left him with. What that had done to him? Y’know a guy can’t make a living, he loses his dignity. He loses his male force. And so you tend to make up for it by telling him he's OK anyway. Or else you turn your back on him and leave. All of which helps create integrated plays, incidentally. Where you begin to look: well, its a personality here but what part is being played by impersonal forces?

With summer nearly upon the Pacific Northwest, I couldn't expect too many more days like this one. There was no better way to spend a late-spring morning than at the arboretum, the beautiful foliage surrounding me bringing peace and good memories. The trees around me rustled, unsettling dew from last night's rain and showering the ground below with rainbow specks of water as sunlight filtered through.

Physical sunscreen (also known as mineral sunscreen) sits on the skin like armor and forms a barrier between the sun and your skin to keep rays from penetrating. Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are classic mineral sunscreen ingredients. Remember back in the day when lifeguards had that patch of white on their noses? That was mineral sunscreen, so it’s been around for a long time. The plus side of mineral-based sunscreens is that they’re gentle on the skin (and won’t irritate conditions like rosacea, which can be supersensitive to both the sun and sunscreen) and they work immediately upon application. With technological advances such as nanotechnology, many sunscreens are now formulated to be lightweight, blendable, and nongreasy, so your nose won’t look like a lifeguard’s. A chemical sunscreen (also known as synthetic sunscreen) filters the radiation by absorbing it and then transforming it into heat energy. Because it’s a chemical process, you should give it about fifteen minutes after application for it to soak in and work effectively.

Cinnabar smiled. He saw that her teeth had been drilled to take a row of diamond studs that shone like tiny LEDs. Once more, he remembered those flower pictures, taken through filtered reality. Those once-familiar daisies and ferns, roses and lilies and love-in-a-mist, had the same ominous beauty when stripped of the light we see.

In any event, I remain flummoxed by what seems to be a natural tendency of contemplative practice to strengthen the sense of beauty. I guess one explanation is that, without really thinking about it, you're using mindfulness to filter your feelings-working harder to get criti- cal distance from the unpleasant feelings than from the pleasant feelings, such as aesthetic delight. But, for what it's worth, it doesn't feel like that. The sense of beauty feels more like something the mind just naturally relaxes into when the preoccupation with self subsides. I'm tempted to invoke John Keats's famous verse, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." Maybe when you truthfully, you enjoy not only see the world more clearly, more a measure of liberation but also a more direct and continuous perception of the world's actual beauty. On the other hand, the idea of the world having actual beauty, inherent beauty, seems at odds with the Buddhist emphasis on our tendency to impose meaning on the world. It's certainly at odds with the view from evolutionary psychology, which holds that our assignment of feelings to perceptions is indeed that: an assignment, made by brains designed to feel certain ways about certain kinds of things based only on the relationship of those things to the organism's Darwinian interests. Another possibility is that a certain affinity for the universe is a kind of default state of consciousness, a state to which it returns when it's not caught up in the inherently distorting enterprise of operating a self. But here we're venturing beyond psychology, into the philosophi- cal question of what consciousness is. And my general view on that question is: beats me. There's a lot to dislike about the world we're born into. It's a world in which, as the Buddha noted, our natural way of seeing, and of being, leads us to suffer and to inflict suffering on others. And it's a world that, as we now know, was bound to be that way, given that life on this planet was created by natural selection. Still, it may also be a world in which metaphysical truth, moral truth, and happiness can align, and a world that, as you start to realize that alignment, appears more and more beautiful. If so, this hidden order-an order that seems to lie at a level deeper than natural selection itself is something to marvel at. And it's something I'm increasingly thankful for.

Her laugh transformed her face so instantly I was immediately taken by how beautiful she was. Natural. Long thick lashes, smooth flawless skin, warm eyes. I’d thought she was pretty the other day too, but a scowl is an unflattering filter.

I don't even like Christmas. I mean, it's a bit of a crock, isn't it? Just another thing that could be beautiful and true - a time of giving and communion, a moment of connection with the divine. Lights glittering, families gathering in love and laughter, meals shared in peace. Could be but isn't. In this busy, addicted, technology-addled, image-obsessed world, Christmas has just become another thing to buy and sell, to crop and filter, to hashtag and edit for reels and stories. But maybe that's me just being cynical.

Edgerton/Assassins of Dreamsongs 174 Their escape was immediately hampered by a confrontation with a huge Knight, as he rose from the ground, to challenge them. Garish buried both fists into the giant's stomach, in hammering blows and then bore his powerfully bulk up over his head. He quickly hurled the Knight into an onrushing mob of tormented soldiers. They all collapsed like multicolored dominoes, in a neat pile, as the three adventurers raced by. "Come on friends and don't stumble!" Garish rushed forward, throwing a crushing blow into the face of another rising Knight. He then filled his arms with the golden Armor Of His Father, which he deposited equally into the reluctant arms of the two bumblers, so he was free to fight, to defend their escape. A swift blow to the chin of a burly, rising Knight and they were at the edge of the camp, making good their escape. "You d-d-don't has to tell us tw-tw-twice not to stumble, oh great Lord!" Humphrey stammered, nearly dropping pieces of the golden armor. He quickly caught up with the others, in trembling, stumbling steps. A mere shoddy group of warriors alarmed by the escape amidst the confusion, were able to arm themselves, and take up pursuit behind the escaping nobleman and his two bumbling friends. The fiery furies continued to dance around the heels and the bare legs of the pursuing Knights, as they ran in torment after them. Edgerton/Assassins of Dreamsongs 175 Brawn however, was not strength enough to overcome the tiny, irritating furies that persisted in their incessant torture of the poor, pursuing, panic stricken Knights. Mammoth swords of steel did not great fly swatters make, as the Knights swung at the fiery furies in their anger, while in pursuit of the giant Nobleman and two trembling bumblers. A frosty wind suddenly began to filter throughout the forest filled with a sparkling, rainbow energy. The currents of the wind seemed to whisper magical words from a small Wizard, hidden deep within the forest: “Danser-silvarum-shadow-ala-sancta!” Within moments, all of the dark shadows within the thick forest seemed to be doing a quaint, little fairy dance, creating a mysterious woodland, filled with darting shadows and dancing shapes. The pursuing Knights were soon filled with uncertainty of which shadows they should chase after. Panic ridden and tormented beyond their endurance, the trail was soon left forgotten by them! The tortured group of tattered warriors instead turned towards the river, like deserting mice. All too eagerly, they plunged into its’ welcome freezing depths; the only real escape from the torment of the relentless “fairy fire bees”. They were soon joined by a host of other warriors, seeking a release from the torment of a Wizard’s vengeful magical touch. Garish's flying feet left deep impressions in the soft, moist forest earth as he ran. Edgerton/Assassins of Dreamsongs 176 The blond Nobleman’s fluid muscles were alive with the act of escape and revitalized at the promise of an extended life. He slowed his pace for a moment and sucked in the frosty night air, waiting for the others to catch up. Humphrey and Godfrey soon collapsed together in an exhausted pile at his feet, panting and wheezing. "Well, we have made good our escape!" Godfrey gasped. "Oh Master, I hope so!" Humphrey whimpered. "I couldn't stagger another struggling step, unless of course we must! Oh, my aching corns and throbbing feet!" A soft voice whispered from somewhere in the trees, “Perhaps that would be a blessing for us all if you didn't." Arkin's voice was like a beautiful melody to their ears. A broad, mischievous smile crept over the face of the tall Nobleman. He again looked into the eyes of the man who had been like a father to him, as well as a friend. Arkin stood, poised like an ancient forgotten statue on a limb of a giant tree, a golden aura surrounding him, to keep out the cold.

Edgerton/Assassins of Dreamsongs 174 He quickly hurled the Knight into an onrushing mob of tormented soldiers. They all collapsed like multicolored dominoes, in a neat pile, as the three adventurers raced by. "Come on friends and don't stumble!" Garish rushed forward, throwing a crushing blow into the face of another rising Knight. He then filled his arms with the golden Armor Of His Father, which he deposited equally into the reluctant arms of the two bumblers, so he was free to fight, to defend their escape. A swift blow to the chin of a burly, rising Knight and they were at the edge of the camp, making good their escape. "You d-d-don't has to tell us tw-tw-twice not to stumble, oh great Lord!" Humphrey stammered, nearly dropping pieces of the golden armor. He quickly caught up with the others, in trembling, stumbling steps. A mere shoddy group of warriors alarmed by the escape amidst the confusion, were able to arm themselves, and take up pursuit behind the escaping nobleman and his two bumbling friends. The fiery furies continued to dance around the heels and the bare legs of the pursuing Knights, as they ran in torment after them. Edgerton/Assassins of Dreamsongs 175 Brawn however, was not strength enough to overcome the tiny, irritating furies that persisted in their incessant torture of the poor, pursuing, panic stricken Knights. Mammoth swords of steel did not great fly swatters make, as the Knights swung at the fiery furies in their anger, while in pursuit of the giant Nobleman and two trembling bumblers. A frosty wind suddenly began to filter throughout the forest filled with a sparkling, rainbow energy. The currents of the wind seemed to whisper magical words from a small Wizard, hidden deep within the forest: “Danser-silvarum-shadow-ala-sancta!” Within moments, all of the dark shadows within the thick forest seemed to be doing a quaint, little fairy dance, creating a mysterious woodland, filled with darting shadows and dancing shapes. The pursuing Knights were soon filled with uncertainty of which shadows they should chase after. Panic ridden and tormented beyond their endurance, the trail was soon left forgotten by them! The tortured group of tattered warriors instead turned towards the river, like deserting mice. All too eagerly, they plunged into its’ welcome freezing depths; the only real escape from the torment of the relentless “fairy fire bees”. They were soon joined by a host of other warriors, seeking a release from the torment of a Wizard’s vengeful magical touch. Garish's flying feet left deep impressions in the soft, moist forest earth as he ran. Edgerton/Assassins of Dreamsongs 176 The blond Nobleman’s fluid muscles were alive with the act of escape and revitalized at the promise of an extended life. He slowed his pace for a moment and sucked in the frosty night air, waiting for the others to catch up. Humphrey and Godfrey soon collapsed together in an exhausted pile at his feet, panting and wheezing. "Well, we have made good our escape!" Godfrey gasped. "Oh Master, I hope so!" Humphrey whimpered. "I couldn't stagger another struggling step, unless of course we must! Oh, my aching corns and throbbing feet!" A soft voice whispered from somewhere in the trees, “Perhaps that would be a blessing for us all if you didn't." Arkin's voice was like a beautiful melody to their ears. A broad, mischievous smile crept over the face of the tall Nobleman. He again looked into the eyes of the man who had been like a father to him, as well as a friend. Arkin stood, poised like an ancient forgotten statue on a limb of a giant tree, a golden aura surrounding him, to keep out the cold.

I wouldn't admit this to anyone, not even Hina; I can barely even think it when I'm alone, but there are moments when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I'm happily surprised at the reflection--it's me but not me. I can see the shiny black hair that falls below my shoulders, the woman's body that looks good in a fitted sweater and tight jeans.

And he'd thought that what we know is filtered by our flaws, and sometimes turned more beautiful by them.

In our age, economic growth and the innovations of technology has brought about a heightened state of competitive self-interest and extreme forms of individualism. Along with these conditions come media bombardment of impossible aspirations, while real opportunities contract; increased consumerism which attempts to fill a void but rather it intensifies comparison; 'social media' that connects us yet drives us apart, encouraging individuals to gauge their social standing by the number of friends and followers; girls and young women are pressured to adhere to distorted beauty standards by means of filters and 'smoothing' apps – a war of everyone against themselves.

Early in the Reticulum—thousands of years ago—it became almost useless because it was cluttered with faulty, obsolete, or downright misleading information,” Sammann said. “Crap, you once called it,” I reminded him. “Yes—a technical term. So crap filtering became important. Businesses were built around it. Some of those businesses came up with a clever plan to make more money: they poisoned the well. They began to put crap on the Reticulum deliberately, forcing people to use their products to filter that crap back out. They created syndevs whose sole purpose was to spew crap into the Reticulum. But it had to be good crap.” “What is good crap?” Arsibalt asked in a politely incredulous tone. “Well, bad crap would be an unformatted document consisting of random letters. Good crap would be a beautifully typeset, well-written document that contained a hundred correct, verifiable sentences and one that was subtly false. It’s a lot harder to generate good crap. At first they had to hire humans to churn it out.

The air was pure and still, and early sunshine sparkled on the heavy dew. In the valley sat cotton candy mist, and the distant hills stood softly, their edges blurred and colors muted by the moist air. Swallows and house martins swooped and dipped, hungry for their breakfasts, catching the first rise of insects of the day. The honeysuckle and roses had not yet warmed to release their scent, so the strongest smell was of wet grass and bracken. Laura smiled, breathing deeply, and walked lightly through the gate into the meadows. She hadn't the courage to head off onto the mountain on her own just yet but could not wait to explore the woods at the end of the fields. By the time she reached the first towering oaks, her feet were washed clean by the dew. She felt wonderfully refreshed and awake. As she wandered among the trees she had the sense of a place where time had stood still. Where man had left only a light footprint. Here were trees older than memory. Trees that had sheltered farmers and walkers for generations. Trees that had been meeting points for lovers and horse dealers. Trees that had provided fuel and food for families and for creatures of the forest with equal grace. As she walked deeper into the woods she noticed the quality of sound around her change. Gone were the open vistas and echoes of the meadows and their mountain backdrop. Here even the tiniest noises were close up, bouncing back off the trunks and branches, kept in by the dense foliage. The colors altered subtly, too. With the trees in full leaf the sunlight was filtered through bright green, giving a curious tinge to the woodland below. White wood anemones were not white at all, but the palest shade of Naples yellow. The silver lichens which grew in abundance bore a hint of olive. Even the miniature violets reflected a suggestion of viridian.