Islands Paradise Quotes

Paradise was always over there, a day’s sail away. But it’s a funny thing, escapism. You can go far and wide and you can keep moving on and on through places and years, but you never escape your own life. I, finally, knew where my life belonged. Home.

I thought that exile meant you had to leave your country and you could go anywhere--somewhere in the sun, a tropical island, say, or America. But exile doesn't mean that; it means you are banished to a specific place, and guess what, that place isn't in the sun and is no paradise, it's not even America. It's some cold, miserable place like Siberia, where you don't know anyone and you can barely survive. It's another prison.

Not that I was incapable of friendship. 'Don't be shy', the teachers coaxed. I was not shy, only extremely choosy. And Denise shone like a diamond. If you had to ask me to define paradise, I would have said a desert island which Denise could visit, on a boat.

Hawai'i is not truly the idyllic paradise of popular songs--islands of love and tranquility, where nothing bad ever happens. It was and is a place where people work and struggle, live and die, as they do the world over.

Now he realized the truth: that sacrifice was no purchase of freedom. It was like a great elective office, it was like an inheritance of power - to certain people at certain times an essential luxury, carrying with it not a guarantee but a responsibility, not a security but an infinite risk. Its very momentum might drag him down to ruin - the passing of the emotional wave that made it possible might leave the one who made it high and dry forever on an island of despair...Sacrifice by its very nature was arrogant and impersonal; sacrifice should be eternally supercilious.

The weird in me found the weird in you. I was a lost kid until I met you, and the best part of my life, hands down, has been you being my friend.

Take me to unexplored paradise & one of your best islands, I want to cross the pacific ocean and make a great memory. Let's go to the eastern coast of the Philippines where the waves meet the sky. You know where it is!

The day in which you decline an invitation to see a film or a concert in order to walk along roads that you already know, the day in which you say no to a journey to some island paradise so as to contemplate the greyness of your own city in the rain... well, that’s the day you will know you are a true flâneur.

Paradise” is a suffering word, grossly overused and ineptly devalued in everyday hype and blurb. Yet, tired as it is, it will have to do. Nothing else conveys that sense of place that can inspire a blissful contentment.

There is much that I could say about the happy and tender incidents in my childhood days, the sense of security which I enjoyed with my parents, my childish affections and carefree, irresponsible existence in a gentle and affectionate ambience. But my interest is reserved for the steps that I took in my life towards self-realization. All the pleasant points of repose, islands of happiness, paradises whose magic was not unknown to me can remain, as far as I am concerned, in the enchanted distance; for it is not a world that I have any particular desire to re-enter.

I did remember. Mr. Rector and Mr. Endicott had basically taken a beautiful island paradise and bulldozed it into an ugly subdivision, complete with tennis courts and a tiki bar.

Wonder Woman left Paradise Island to fight fascism with feminism.

Centuries ago, sailors on long voyages used to leave a pair of pigs on every deserted island. Or they'd leave a pair of goats. Either way, on any future visit, the island would be a source of meat. These islands, they were pristine. These were home to breeds of birds with no natural predators. Breeds of birds that lived nowhere else on earth. The plants there, without enemies they evolved without thorns or poisons. Without predators and enemies, these islands, they were paradise. The sailors, the next time they visited these islands, the only things still there would be herds of goats or pigs. Oyster is telling this story. The sailors called this "seeding meat." Oyster says, "Does this remind you of anything? Maybe the ol' Adam and Eve story?" Looking out the car window, he says, "You ever wonder when God's coming back with a lot of barbecue sauce?

The South Pacific is memorable because when you are in the islands you simply cannot ignore nature. You cannot avoid looking up at the stars, large as apples on a new tree. You cannot deafen your ear to the thunder of the surf. The bright sands, the screaming birds, and the wild winds are always with you.

The day in which you decline an invitation to see a film or a concert in order to walk along roads that you already know, the day in which you say no to a journey to some island paradise so as to contemplate the greyness of your own city in the rain… well, that’s the day you will know you are a true flâneur.

There is no "tropical island paradise" I know of which remotely matches up to the fantasy ideal that such a phrase is meant to conjure up, or even to what we find described in holiday brochures. It's natural to put this down to the discrepancy we are all used to finding between what advertisers promise and what the real world delivers. It doesn't surprise us much any more. So it can come as a shock to realise that the world we hear described by travellers of previous centuries (or even previous decades) and biologists of today really did exist. The state it's in now is only the result of what we've done to it, and the mildness of the disappointment we feel when we arrive somewhere and find that it's a bit tatty is only a measure of how far our own expectations have been degraded and how little we understand what we've lost. The people who do understand what we've lost are the ones who are rushing around in a frenzy trying to save the bits that are left.

Even without being killed a man can experience death, he can conquer, he can realize the culmination characteristic of a 'super-life'. From a higher point of view, Paradise, the Kingdom of Heaven, Valhalla, the Island of the Heroes, etc., are only symbolic figurations forged for the masses, figurations that in reality designate transcendent states of consciousness, beyond life and death. The ancient Aryan tradition used the term jivan-mukti to indicate such a realization while still in the mortal body.

Australian shrimp barbecue, when the beers and the rums mix with the hard sun headaches and widespread Saturday night violence spreads across the country behind closed front doors. Truth is, Bich said, Australian childhoods are so idyllic and joyous, so filled with beach visits and backyard games of cricket, that Australian adulthoods can’t possibly meet our childhood expectations. Our perfect early lives in this vast island paradise doom us to melancholy because we know, in the hard honest bones beneath our dubious bronze skin, that we will never again be happier than we were once before. She said we live in the greatest country on earth but we’re actually all miserable deep down inside and the junk cures the misery and the junk industry will never die because Australian misery will never die.

A glassy calm replaced the storm surrounding their boat. The distant thunder struck a note, white-hot and remote. An invisible magnet seemed to steer their course. The island pulled them in with its dreamy force.

Centuries ago, sailors on long voyages used to leave a pair of pigs on every deserted island. Or they'd leave a pair of goats. Either way, on any future visit, the island would be a source of meat. These islands, they were pristine. These were home to breeds of birds with no natural predators. Breeds of birds that lived nowhere else on earth. The plants there, without enemies they evolved without thorns or poisons. Without predators and enemies, these islands, they were paradise. The sailors, the next time they visited these islands, the only things still there would be herds of goats or pigs. .... Does this remind you of anything? Maybe the ol' Adam and Eve story? .... You ever wonder when God's coming back with a lot of barbecue sauce?

A typical battlefield of this struggle is Hawaii, America’s most deceptively beautiful state. For most residents and visitors, it seems an unspoiled island paradise. In actuality it is a killing field of biological diversity. When

Traveling further ingrained my desire to connect to a place other than an island that is slightly older, in a New World way, than the United States, especially after I found characteristics of my face in the faces of the people in my global community.

The great writers, Conrad, Maugham and Melville, spent only a few years in the South Seas, but their memory of those waters was indestructible; for the nature of life in the islands commands attention to the vivid world and its even more vivid inhabitants.

I love you so much I`m barely able to do simple things like eat and sleep for thinking of you.I keep remembering how you looked with a shell held to your ear.You stood there with the water running from your hair,and your eyes the color of the sky and the sea, and i fell completely in love with you.I tried not to believe it, but i lost ground every time you got near me.When you left, it was like losing part of myself.I´m not complete anymore without you" -Dillon Òbrian

Magic has a price... and so does paradise." - Pearl Dale, Mermaid Island #1

Whatever you want for yourself, wish for others. Whatever you want for yourself, do for others.

the locale. Their faces were pulled tight, more like masks than faces, really. They moved slowly,

of

These two changed more outfits than YouTubers at Coachella." - Sam Golbach.

marriage gives a man a zest for life. As they say, my life had been sheer paradise before that.

A big island of library, in the middle of an ocean, away from all the fools of the world, would this place not be a real paradise?

What I expected was a reward for my faith; and this sighed-for paradise seemed to me still so distant that (I don’t say this as a figure of speech) I couldn’t reach it even in dreams.

Stay away from people who belittle your dreams. Cancel these folks out of your life. Hang with people who inspire you, who uplift you and who take the time to listen to you, supporting you along the way.

--And yet this great wink of eternity, Of rimless floods, unfettered leewardings, Samite sheeted and processioned where Her undinal vast belly moonward bends, Laughing the wrapt inflections of our love; Take this Sea, whose diapason knells On scrolls of silver snowy sentences, The sceptred terror of whose sessions rends As her demeanors motion well or ill, All but the pieties of lovers’ hands. And onward, as bells off San Salvador Salute the crocus lustres of the stars, In these poinsettia meadows of her tides,-- Adagios of islands, O my Prodigal, Complete the dark confessions her veins spell. Mark how her turning shoulders wind the hours, And hasten while her penniless rich palms Pass superscription of bent foam and wave,-- Hasten, while they are true,--sleep, death, desire, Close round one instant in one floating flower. Bind us in time, O Seasons clear, and awe. O minstrel galleons of Carib fire, Bequeath us to no earthly shore until Is answered in the vortex of our grave The seal’s wide spindrift gaze toward paradise.

Here was a small corner of the Greek archipelago; sky-blue, caressing waves, islands and rocks, a flowering strip of coastline, a magical panorama in the distance, an inviting sunset — you can’t describe it in words. This is what the peoples of Europe remembered as their cradle; here unfolded the first scenes of mythology, here was their earthly paradise. Here lived beautiful people! They got up and went to sleep happy and innocent; the groves were filled with their joyous songs, their great excess of untapped energies went into love and artless joy. The sun bathed these islands and the sea in its rays, rejoicing in its beautiful children.

Fire, fire! The branches crackle and the night wind of late autumn blows the flame of the bonfire back and forth. The compound is dark; I am alone at the bonfire, and I can bring it still some more carpenters' shavings. The compound here is a privileged one, so privileged that it is almost as if I were out in freedom -- this is an island of paradise; this is the Marfino "sharashka" -- a scientific institute staffed with prisoners -- in its most privileged period. No one is overseeing me, calling me to a cell, chasing me away from the bonfire, and even then it is chilly in the penetrating wind. But she -- who has already been standing in the wind for hours, her arms straight down, her head drooping, weeping, then growing numb and still. And then again she begs piteously "Citizen Chief! Please forgive me! I won't do it again." The wind carries her moan to me, just as if she were moaning next to my ear. The citizen chief at the gatehouse fires up his stove and does not answer. This was the gatehouse of the camp next door to us, from which workers came into our compound to lay water pipes and to repair the old ramshackle seminary building. Across from me, beyond the artfully intertwined, many-stranded barbed-wire barricade and two steps away from the gatehouse, beneath a bright lantern, stood the punished girl, head hanging, the wind tugging at her grey work skirt, her feet growing numb from the cold, a thin scarf over her head. It had been warm during the day, when they had been digging a ditch on our territory. And another girl, slipping down into a ravine, had crawled her way to the Vladykino Highway and escaped. The guard had bungled. And Moscow city buses ran right along the highway. When they caught on, it was too late to catch her. They raised the alarm. A mean, dark major arrived and shouted that if they failed to catch the girl, the entire camp would be deprived of visits and parcels for whole month, because of her escape. And the women brigadiers went into a rage, and they were all shouting, one of them in particular, who kept viciously rolling her eyes: "Oh, I hope they catch her, the bitch! I hope they take scissors and -- clip, clip, clip -- take off all her hair in front of the line-up!" But the girl who was now standing outside the gatehouse in the cold had sighed and said instead: "At least she can have a good time out in freedom for all of us!" The jailer had overheard what she said, and now she was being punished; everyone else had been taken off to the camp, but she had been set outside there to stand "at attention" in front of the gatehouse. This had been at 6 PM, and it was now 11 PM. She tried to shift from one foot to another, but the guard stuck out his head and shouted: "Stand at attention, whore, or else it will be worse for you!" And now she was not moving, only weeping: "Forgive me, Citizen Chief! Let me into the camp, I won't do it any more!" But even in the camp no one was about to say to her: "All right, idiot! Come on it!" The reason they were keeping her out there so long was that the next day was Sunday, and she would not be needed for work. Such a straw-blond, naive, uneducated slip of a girl! She had been imprisoned for some spool of thread. What a dangerous thought you expressed there, little sister! They want to teach you a lesson for the rest of your life! Fire, fire! We fought the war -- and we looked into the bonfires to see what kind of victory it would be. The wind wafted a glowing husk from the bonfire. To that flame and to you, girl, I promise: the whole wide world will read about you.

The blue wave curves, topples slowly. I could banish the wave, banish the sea, destroy in a wink this island paradise, but something small grovels within me. I should like the sea to be a slick blue. I should very much like this pain to subside.

I wonder if it’s in my blood to crumble and flourish again, just like the island did. A beautiful paradise turned prison for all of its innocent citizens. The worlds biggest kept secret, and the part they played in it was not knowing who to believe.

Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam, the pilot of some small night-founded skiff, deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, with fixed anchor in his scaly rind, moors by his side under the lee, while night invests the sea, and wished morn delays.

In the end, writing is like a prison, an island from which you will never be released but which is a kind of paradise: the solitude, the thoughts, the incredible joy of putting into words the essence of what you for the moment understand and with your whole heart want to believe.

This bird belonged to the finest of the eight species credited to Papua and its neighboring islands. It was a “great emerald,” one of the rarest birds of paradise. It measured three decimeters long. Its head was comparatively small, and its eyes, placed near the opening of its beak, were also small.

After the war, humans upgraded Paradise Lot from an unofficial Ellis Island of sorts to an official Ellis Island cum refugee camp cum Gaza Strip where all the Others got official-looking documents, which did not allow them to travel, vote, own land or legally marry. They could, however, use the ID to pay taxes.

Gertrude Stein, when asked why she wrote, replied "For praise." Lorca said he wrote to be loved. Faulkner said a writer wrote for glory. I may at times have written for those reasons, it's hard to know. Overall I write because I see the world in a certain way that no dialogue or series of them can begin to describe, that no book can fully render, though the greatest books thrill in their attempt. A great book may be an accident, but a good one is a possibility, and it is thinking of that that one writes. In short, to achieve. The rest takes care of itself, and so much praise is given to insignificant things that there is hardly any sense in striving for it. In the end, writing is like a prison, an island from which you will never be released but which is a kind of paradise: the solitude, the thoughts, the incredible joy of putting into words the essence of what you for the moment understand and with your whole heart want to believe.

Sea, autumnal sweetness, islands bathed in light, diaphanous cloak of delicate rainfall clothing Greece’s eternal bareness. “Happy the person,” I thought, “who is deemed worthy, before dying, to sail the Aegean.” This world offers many pleasures: women, fruit, ideas. But I think no pleasure exists that plunges a person’s heart into Paradise more than the joy of cutting across this sea on a gentle autumn day, murmuring the name of each island. Nowhere else are you transported from truth to dream with such serenity and ease. Boundaries fade; the mast of even the most dilapidated ship sprouts buds and grapes. Here in Greece, truly, necessity blossoms most certainly into miracle. Kazantzakis, Nikos. Zorba the Greek (p. 23). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

Vast tracts of ocean, whether Polynesia, Micronesia or Melanesia, contain island populations that remain outside the modern world. They know about it, they may have traveled to it, they appreciate artifacts and medical help from it, but they live their daily lives much as hundreds of generations of ancestors before them, without money, electricity, phones, TV or manufactured food.

Darren says his mum told him a secret recently about Australians. She said this secret would make him a rich man. She said the greatest secret about Australia is the nation's inherent misery. Bich Dang laughs at the ads on telly with Paul Hogan putting another shrimp on the barbie. She said foreign visitors should rightfully be advised about what happens five hours later at that Australian shrimp barbecue, when the beers and the rums mix with the hard sun headaches and widespread Saturday night violence spreads across the country behind closed front doors. Truth is, Bich said, Australian childhoods are so idyllic and joyous, so filled with beach visits and backyard games of cricket, that Australian adulthoods can’t possibly meet our childhood expectations. Our perfect early lives in this vast island paradise doom us to melancholy because we know, in the hard honest bones beneath our dubious bronze skin, that we will never again be happier than we were once before. She said we live in the greatest country on earth but we’re actually all miserable deep down inside and the junk cures the misery and the junk industry will never die because Australian misery will never die.

She clutches the sack. West, she thinks, this is all she knows, west where the sun goes down, west across the Propontis, and her mind sends up visions of the blessed island of Scheria, and of the bright oil and soft bread of Urbino, and of Aethon’s city in the clouds, each paradise blurring into the last. It does exist, Aethon-the-fish told the wizard inside the whale. Otherwise what’s it all been for?

Coconut trees were fireworks that arced into the sky and exploded in green. Pandanus trees, angular and mop-headed, seemed cut from the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. Breadfruit trees cast generous shadows. The lagoon, never more than twenty feet away, fulfilled every postcard cliché of tropical paradise. On the beach, muscular island men were beaching their wooden sailing canoe after a morning on the water, strings sagging with the weight of colorful reef fish.

Not like Dante discovering a commedia upon the slopes of heaven I would paint a different kind of Paradiso in which the people would be naked as they always are in scenes like that because it is supposed to be a painting of their souls but there would be no anxious angels telling them how heaven is the perfect picture of a monarchy and there would be no fires burning in the hellish holes below in which I might have stepped nor any altars in the sky except fountains of imagination

The U.S. Olympic eight-oared crew was as cool as could be, though. Every afternoon they boarded a boat and made their way out to the New York Athletic Club’s private retreat, Huckleberry Island, a mile off Travers Island, out in the cool waters of Long Island Sound. The island was twelve acres of paradise, and the boys fell in love with it the moment they stepped out of their launch and onto a beach in one of its many small granite coves, wearing the Indian headbands with turkey feathers that club members donned whenever they visited the island. They leapt off stone ledges, plunged into the cool green water of the sound, swam, horsed around, then stretched out on warm flat slabs of granite, toasting themselves brown before plunging back into the water again.

Some people will tell you that Toronto, in the summer, is the nothing more than a cesspool of pollution, garbage, and the smells of a hundred ethnicities competing for top spot in a race won historically by curry, garlic, and the occasional cauldron of boiled cabbage. Take a walk down College Street West, Gerrard Street East, or the Danforth, and you'll see; then, they add—these people, complaining—that the stench is so pervasive, so incorrigible, nor merely for lack of wind, but for the ninety-nine percent humidity, which, after a rainstorm, adds an eradicable bottom-note of sweaty Birkenstocks and the organic tang of decaying plant life. This much is true; there is, however, more to the story. Take a walk down the same streets and you'll find racks of the most stunning saris—red with navy brocade, silver, canary, vermillion and chocolate; marts with lahsun and adrak, pyaz and pudina; windows of gelato, zeppole, tiramisu; dusty smoke shops with patio-bistros; you'll find dove-white statuary of Olympian goddesses, mobs in blue jerseys, primed for the World Cup—and more, still, the compulsory banter of couples who even after forty years can turn foul words into the bawdiest, more unforgettable laughter (and those are just the details). Beyond them is the container, the big canvas brushed with parks and valleys and the interminable shore; a backdrop of ferries and islands, gulls and clouds—sparkles of a million wave-tips as the sun decides which colours to leave on its journey to new days. No, Toronto, in the summer, is the most paradisiacal place in the world.

As my grandmother discovered long ago, the Japanese excel in cultivating nature. Their gardens come in numerous styles, including paradise gardens, dry-landscape gardens, stroll gardens, and tea gardens. Although each type has its own goal, tray all share the same principle: nature is manipulated to create a miniature symbolic landscape. A paradise garden is meant to evoke the Buddhist paradise through the use of water dotted with stone "islands." Dry-landscape gardens, usually tucked away in Zen temples, use dry pebbles and stones to create minimalist views for quiet contemplation. Stroll gardens offer changing scenes with every step, a pool of carp here, a mossy trail there, and a small bridge to link them both, while a tea garden provides a serene path to take you from the external world to the spiritual one of the teahouse.

Sunday Morning V She says, "But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss." Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. VI Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly. VII Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest. VIII She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay." We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings

But for the rest of the party, he would feel strangely elsewhere, as if floating above the room, and at dinner, where he would be seated not with the bright young things of the gathering but, rather, among their parents’ friends and relations—the father’s sister, for example, or the mother’s elderly uncle—he would feel the full force of his undeniable otherness, how what he had striven to conceal had been recognized and accounted for by everyone in their circle. From the other end of the table would occasionally come gusts of laughter, and his seatmate would shake his or her head indulgently, before turning to him and commenting on the irrepressible frivolity of the young, and how one must allow them such latitudes. Sometimes after saying this they would realize their mistake, and hastily add that he, too, must have his moments of mirth, but other times they would not; he would be aged before his time, cast from the island of youth not by his years but by his temperament

A SOLAR OASIS Like everywhere else in Puerto Rico, the small mountain city of Adjuntas was plunged into total darkness by Hurricane Maria. When residents left their homes to take stock of the damage, they found themselves not only without power and water, but also totally cut off from the rest of the island. Every single road was blocked, either by mounds of mud washed down from the surrounding peaks, or by fallen trees and branches. Yet amid this devastation, there was one bright spot. Just off the main square, a large, pink colonial-style house had light shining through every window. It glowed like a beacon in the terrifying darkness. The pink house was Casa Pueblo, a community and ecology center with deep roots in this part of the island. Twenty years ago, its founders, a family of scientists and engineers, installed solar panels on the center’s roof, a move that seemed rather hippy-dippy at the time. Somehow, those panels (upgraded over the years) managed to survive Maria’s hurricane-force winds and falling debris. Which meant that in a sea of post-storm darkness, Casa Pueblo had the only sustained power for miles around. And like moths to a flame, people from all over the hills of Adjuntas made their way to the warm and welcoming light.

We remembered the delicate fig-shaped island,stranded between the American Empire and peaceful Canada, as it had been years ago, with its welcoming red white-and-blue flag-shaped flower bed,splashing fountains, European casino, and horse paths leading through woods where Indians had bent trees into giant bows. Now grass grew inpatches down to the littered beach where children fished with pop topstied to string. Paint flaked from once-bright gazebos. Drinking fountains rose from mud puddles laid with broken brick stepping stones. Along the road the granite face of the Civil War Hero had been spray-painted black. Mrs. Huntington Perry had donated her prize orchids to the Botanical Garden in the time before the riots, when civic money still ran high, but since her death ion the eroding tax base had forced cutbacks that had laid off one skilled gardener a year, so that plants that had survived transplantation from equatorial regions to bloom again in that false paradise now withered, weeds sprang up amid scrupulous identification tags, and fake sunlight flowed for only a few hours per day. The only thing that remained was the steam vapor, beading the sloping greenhouse windows and filling our nostrils with the moisture and aroma of a rotting world

that was the case until 1871, when an Irish-American captain by the name of David O'Keefe was shipwrecked on the shores of Yap and revived by the locals.1 O'Keefe saw a profit opportunity in taking coconuts from the island and selling them to producers of coconut oil, but he had no means to entice the locals to work for him, because they were very content with their lives as they were, in their tropical paradise, and had no use for whatever foreign forms of money he could offer them. But O'Keefe wouldn't take no for an answer; he sailed to Hong Kong, procured a large boat and explosives, took them to Palau, where he used the explosives and modern tools to quarry several large Rai stones, and set sail to Yap to present the stones to the locals as payment for coconuts. Contrary to what O'Keefe expected, the villagers were not keen on receiving his stones, and the village chief banned his townsfolk from working for the stones, decreeing that O'Keefe's stones were not of value, because they were gathered too easily. Only the stones quarried traditionally, with the sweat and blood of the Yapese, were to be accepted in Yap. Others on the island disagreed, and they did supply O'Keefe with the coconuts he sought. This resulted in conflict on the island, and in time the demise of Rai stones as money. Today, the stones serve a more ceremonial and cultural role on the island and modern government money is the most commonly used monetary medium.

La Societe D'elite 408 S. Front St. Suite 408. Memphis TN, 38103 888-335-4831 info@lasocietedelite.com CONCIERGE SERVICE, LUXURY CONCIERGE, CHARTER JET SERVICES, LUXURY CRUISE LINES, LUXURY AUTOS, FASHION SHOWS, DIAMONDS & JEWELRY, COMPLIMENTARY IN-FLIGHT WI-FI, COMPLIMENTARY LIFETIME FITNESS THE WORLD AT YOUR FINGERTIPS WE PROVIDE 24 HOUR 365 DAYS A YEAR CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SUPPORT TO EACH OF OUR MEMBERS AND PARTNERS IN THE U.S. AND ABROAD WE, ARE YOUR CONNECTION TO IT ALL. For your convenience, La Societe D'elite is a part of an operating network in more than 140 countries and territories. La Societe D'elite is an invite-only private and elite (Padalelux) offering our members the world’s most luxurious lifestyle experiences. From red carpet events to island getaways and every luxury in between, we aim to supply. Our corporate partnerships make available the ability to fly private, travel black car, retreat to paradise, or dine at some of the most upscale fine-dining experiences in the world, all with preferred treatment. La Societe D'elite is proud to introduce you to our Industry-Leading Global Padalelux. With our service each member is afforded a 24 hour, 7 days a week, 365 days per year global concierge service. The reason we are the industry-leader is simple. Each member receives global coverage, protections, and insurances that are unrivaled in the luxury concierge industry. Couple this with our worldwide access, global benefits, and our loyalty program then you will begin to see why many are calling us the AMEX Centurion Black Card of Concierges.

My bedroom is separated from the main body of my house so that I have to go outside and cross some pseudo-Japanese stepping stones in order to go to sleep at night. Often I get rained on a little bit on my way to bed. It’s a benediction. A good night kiss. Romantic? Absolutely. And nothing to be ashamed of. If reality is a matter of perspective, then the romantic view of the world is as valid as any other - and a great deal more rewarding. It makes of life and unpredictable adventure rather that a problematic equation. Rain is the natural element for romanticism. A dripping fir is a hundred times more sexy than a sunburnt palm tree, and more primal and contemplative, too. A steady, wind-driven rain composed music for the psyche. It not only nurtures and renews, it consecrates and sanctifies. It whispers in secret languages about the primordial essence of things. Obviously, then, the Pacific Northwest's customary climate is perfect for a writer. It's cozy and intimate. Reducing temptation (how can you possibly play on the beach or work in the yard?), it turns a person inward, connecting them with what Jung called "the bottom below the bottom," those areas of the deep unconscious into which every serious writer must spelunk. Directly above my writing desk there is a skylight. This is the window, rain-drummed and bough-brushed, through which my Muse arrives, bringing with her the rhythms and cadences of cloud and water, not to mention the latest catalog from Victoria's Secret and the twenty-three auxiliary verbs. Oddly enough, not every local author shares my proclivity for precipitation. Unaware of the poetry they're missing, many malign the mist as malevolently as they non-literary heliotropes do. They wring their damp mitts and fret about rot, cursing the prolonged spillage, claiming they're too dejected to write, that their feet itch (athlete's foot), the roof leaks, they can't stop coughing, and they feel as if they're slowly being digested by an oyster. Yet the next sunny day, though it may be weeks away, will trot out such a mountainous array of pagodas, vanilla sundaes, hero chins and god fingers; such a sunset palette of Jell-O, carrot oil, Vegas strip, and Kool-Aid; such a sea-vista display of broad waters, firred islands, whale spouts, and boat sails thicker than triangles in a geometry book, that any and all memories of dankness will fizz and implode in a blaze of bedazzled amnesia. "Paradise!" you'll hear them proclaim as they call United Van Lines to cancel their move to Arizona.

Indeed, probably the most effective way to break the free market's spell would be to transform its most debilitating cultural products into a globalized twelve-step program. See, for instance, how New Economy laissez-faire ideologues like Virginia Postrel or Chris Anderson fare in the hypercapitalist but viciously authoritarian island paradise of Singapore. Or put Thomas Friedman to work in a Marianas textile factory for a couple of months and let him see how flat the market-mastered world looks to him then. Take the utopian theorists of "seasteading" libertarianism at their word, and let them fashion their stateless free-market utopia out of all reach of all international sea treaty enforcement. Put Steve Forbes to work as a union organizer in the shadows of the breathtaking architectural homage to investor-class excess known as the Abu Dhabi skyline - where the local construction industry is awash in sweated day labor. Indeed, I can see a whole Survivor-style reality television franchise in the offing: Capitalist Detox Island. True, it might be hard to sell to advertisers - unless, that is, you compel TARP recipients to purchase ad time. Now that's a manipulation of market forces I can get behind.

Along came Aldo Leopold. He was a U.S. Forest Service ranger who initially supported Pinchot’s use-oriented management of forests. A seasoned hunter, he had long believed that good game management required killing predators that preyed on deer. Then one afternoon, hunting with a friend on a mountain in New Mexico, he spied a mother wolf and her cubs, took aim, and shot them. “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes,” Leopold wrote. “There was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch. I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean a hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the fierce green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.” The wolf’s fierce green fire inspired Leopold to extend ethics beyond the boundaries of the human family to include the larger community of animals, plants, and even soil and water. He enshrined this natural code of conduct in his famous land ethic: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Carol inscribed Leopold’s land ethic in her journal when she was a teenager and has steadfastly followed it throughout her life. She believes that it changes our role from conqueror of the earth to plain member and citizen of it. Leopold led the effort to create the first federally protected wilderness area: a half million acres of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico was designated as wilderness in 1924. Leopold had laid the groundwork for a national wilderness system, interconnected oases of biodiversity permanently protected from human development.

Now that you have the menu, tell me what this is." "Tuna, vanilla brioche crumbs, and a bruléed disk of monkfish liver." "Ah, monkfish liver! Foie gras of the sea!" Michael Saltz said, lifting his cup in a toast. I refused to join him and just tipped the bite backlit a shot, letting the mouthful take shape all at once. Michael Saltz squinted at me while I set the cup down. If he disregarded me, then I'd disregard him. Next, Hugo brought out a single octopus tentacle, roasted to bring out the burgundy speckles in its skin, painted with sweet, sea-infused balsamic squid ink and framed by two quarters of a ruddy pear. We stayed silent as I ate. Skate came wading in a chorizo broth, a cap of seaweed poking through the surface like an island paradise.

For 1000 years after the Crucifixion the apostles and their bold followers had fervently spread the message of Christ. Then some kind of indolence had set in. Why had the Great Commission stopped? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he, William Carey, could go to some tropical island like Tahiti and convert the heathen? “Oh, Tahiti!” he enthused to his students, regaling them with the facts that lured him there. “Four hundred square miles of lush, green paradise. Cold weather and hot weather are unknown. Breadfruit, bananas and coconuts hang everywhere for the eating. Bays and lagoons are choked with fat, lazy fish. And most important, lads, there are thousands of pagans! Pagans! Oh, they are most fastidious. They bathe three times a day. They are polite, yet as ignorant of the ten commandments as beautiful tropical birds...

Jessica also supplied chopped fruits and vegetables to the lounge of lizards in the garden. She’d read that amusing expression on YucatanLiving.com. A group of lizards was called a lounge. So, she supposed, a group of lizards hanging around could be thought of as a lounge of lizards lounging in a lizard lounge. Oh-kay then, she really was spending way too much time by herself. Tormenta Isla Book #3 of Isla Mujeres Mystery series.

Darren says his mum told him a secret recently about Australians. She said this secret would make him a rich man. She said the greatest secret about Australia is the nation’s inherent misery. Bich Dang laughs at the ads on telly with Paul Hogan putting another shrimp on the barbie. She said foreign visitors should rightfully be advised about what happens five hours later at that Australian shrimp barbecue, when the beers and the rums mix with the hard sun headaches and Saturday night violence spreads across the country behind closed front doors. Truth is, Bich said, Australian childhoods are so idyllic and joyous, so filled with beach visits and backyard games of cricket, that Australian adulthoods can’t possibly meet our childhood expectations. Our perfect early lives in this vast island paradise doom us to melancholy because we know, in the hard honest bones beneath our dubious bronze skin, that we will never again be happier than we were once before. She said we live in the greatest country on earth but we’re actually all miserable deep down inside and the junk cures the misery and the junk industry will never die because Australian misery will never die.

year-old tycoon Che Feng (or Fung in Cantonese), the son-in-law of high-ranking CCP member, Dai Xianglong. This was the Super Chairman. Che was one of more than a dozen Chinese princelings found to be using offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, according to the “Paradise Papers,” including President Xi’s own brother-in-law, Deng Jiagui, a real-estate developer.

I was finally relaxing, winding down, and becoming more in sync with the slow gentle pace of this beautiful island paradise, surrounded by the crystal blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.

It is the purest form of European adventuring. What's it all been for, the murdering seas, the gangrene winters and starving springs, our bone pursuit of the unfaithful, midnights of wrestling with the Beast, our sweat become ice and our tears pale flakes of snow, if not for such moments as this: the little converts flowing out of eye's field, so meek, so trustings—how shall any craw clench in fear, any recreant cry be offered in the presence of our blade, our necessary blade? Sanctified now they will feed us, sanctified their remains and droppings fertilize our crops. Did we tell them "Salvation"? Did we mean a dwelling forever in the City? Everlasting life? An earthly paradise restored, their island as it used to be given them back? Probably, Thinking all the time of the little brothers numbered among our own blessings. Indeed, if they save us from hunger in this world, then beyond, in Christ's kingdom, our salvations must be, in like measure, inextricable. Otherwise the dodoes would be only what they appear as in the world's illusory light—only our prey. God could not be that cruel.

Derek Walcott wrote in his 1992 Nobel Lecture about the enthusiasm of the tourist: What is hidden cannot be loved. The traveller cannot love, since love is stasis and travel is motion. If he returns to what he loved in a landscape and stays there, he is no longer a traveller but in stasis and concentration, the lover of that particular part of earth, a native. So many people say they ‘love the Caribbean’, meaning that someday they plan to return for a visit but could never live there, the usual benign insult of the traveller, the tourist. These travellers, at their kindest, were devoted to the same patronage, the islands passing in profile, their vegetal luxury, their backwardness and poverty . . . What is the earthly paradise for our visitors? Two weeks without rain and a mahogany tan, and, at sunset, local troubadours in straw hats and floral shirts beating ‘Yellow Bird’ and ‘Banana Boat Song’ to death. There is a territory wider than this – wider than the limits made by the map of an island – which is the illimitable sea and what it remembers. All of the Antilles, every island, is an effort of memory; every mind, every racial biography culminating in amnesia and fog. Pieces of sunlight through the fog and sudden rainbows, arcs-en-ciel.24

The critical question about these statues is, Why were they all made alike? You see them sitting there, like Diogenes in their barrels, looking at the sky with empty eye-sockets, and watching the sun and the stars go overhead without ever trying to understand them. When the Dutch discovered this island on Easter Sunday in 1722, they said that it had the makings of an earthly paradise. But it did not. An earthly paradise is not made by this empty repetition…These frozen faces, these frozen frames in a film that is running down, mark a civilization which failed to take the first step on the ascent of rational knowledge.

Paradise Isle by Stewart Stafford In superstitious guidance, I discovered your shallows, Ingénues' on naked dunes, Edenites of Paradise Isle. Tragedy and chance are but pirates; One welcome, both shocking rogues, Am I a castaway or a sleepwalker? Let motivations as explorers gather. Leaving footprints only we can see, The wet sand, a camouflage ally, We quit the beach and head inland, As crabs in shade to the waterline crawl. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

BARTON CENTRE, 912, 9th Floor, Mahatma Gandhi Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka - 560 001 Phone Number +91 8884400919 Find the excellence of Mauritius Tour Package From Bangalore! Luxurious resorts, pristine beaches, and thrilling adventures await. Today is the perfect time to book your dream vacation, which includes flights, lodging, and guided tours. Investigate turquoise waters, lively coral reefs, and dazzling scenes. ideal for couples, families, and individuals traveling alone. A trip to the tropical islands that includes cultural experiences, water sports, and island hopping is not to be missed. Get in touch with us now for modified bundles at great costs! **With SurfNxt, Explore the Cultural Mosaic of Mauritius** Mauritius is a must-visit travel destination that combines stunning natural beauty with a rich tapestry of cultures. SurfNxt has fantastic tour packages that can turn your ideal vacation into a reality for those in Bangalore who have been longing to visit this picturesque island. Not only is Mauritius a tropical paradise, it's a dynamic mix of societies. Over the course of its history, the island has been shaped by Indian, African, Chinese, and European cultures. This conjunction makes a remarkable social scene that is reflected in the island's music, food, celebrations, and day to day existence. **The Social Impact of India** Perhaps of the most unmistakable effect on the island is that of the Indian people group. Indian laborers were brought in to work in the sugarcane fields after slavery ended in the 19th century, resulting in a significant demographic shift. Today, approximately 68% of the population is Indian, and this heritage is ingrained in the culture of the area. Guests can encounter Indian celebrations like Diwali and Holi, where the roads wake up with lively varieties and glad festivals. Mauritian food is vigorously enlivened by Indian flavors. Test dishes, for example, dholl puri, samosas, and biryanis, which are tasty as well as mirror the well established customs of Indian cooking. Bollywood music can be heard echoing from shops and homes in a variety of towns, further demonstrating the seamless integration of cultures. **African and Creole Influences** In addition to its Indian heritage, Mauritius has a remarkable amount of African influence. The island's diverse cultural heritage is enriched by the descendants of African slaves who were brought there. In Mauritius, Creole culture, a result of blending African and French influences, is an essential part of daily life. A thrilling experience is provided by the spirited music, similar to Sega, a traditional dance and music style. Attending a Sega performance is a must if you want to truly experience the island's spirit. **Influence of the Chinese] Another important part of the island's culture is the Chinese community. The Chinese have enriched Mauritian life with their culinary traditions, despite their primary involvement in commerce. Cafés serving delightful Chinese dishes coincide close by Indian diners. Try not to miss attempting neighborhood claims to fame like stew chicken and broiled noodles, which keep up with their exceptional Mauritian curve. **Exploring Culture While Traveling** When you book a Mauritius Tour Package From Bangalore, SurfNxt makes sure that you see the island's cultural highlights. You can partake in nearby celebrations, visit noteworthy sanctuaries, and investigate clamoring markets. Each experience furnishes a chance to draw in with the neighborhood local area, become familiar with their traditions, and value their lifestyle. Conclusion: Mauritius is much more than just a lovely place to go to the beach; a mixture of societies vows to have an enduring effect. The combination of Indian, African, Chinese, and European influences results in a travel experience that is extremely enriching.

abolish the widely flaunted requirement that taverns serve food. Once again conventional roles were reversed, as Rockefeller argued for a free market solution and his critics conjured a New York, in the words of conservative Republican lawmaker John Marchi of Staten Island, deregulated into “a wide-open market, a dumping ground for cheap liquor, a paradise for the conniver and the loss-leader advocate.

felt simultaneously invisible and too visible—anything

Modern changes had rid the men of their most onerous responsibilities—canoe building, sea voyaging, warfare—but they had done little to reduce women’s work. If anything, modernity had created more work for them: hand washing all those T-shirts had not been necessary in a time when everyone went topless, and taking care of six youngsters was unlikely when many children died in infancy and any offspring past the third was killed as a population control measure.

rooting voyeuristically through my trash after I dumped it on the De Brums’ garbage pile. I was learning what it is like to be famous. I was fed an intoxicating sense of importance, but I also lost all privacy. Being a big fish in a small pond also meant being a big fish in a small fishbowl. It had not occurred to me that what I might crave more than anything on this far-flung islet was solitude. For the first time in my life, I understood that anonymity was a luxury. It was a godsend to be ignored.

cooked breadfruit, which was as exciting as a football-sized unbuttered baked potato.

privately laughing over the written work of my students. When I felt guilty about this, I just remembered the following fact: no school on the planet allows students in the teachers’ lounge. And the reason for this is that the main activity in that room is gossiping about said students, and not always in flattering terms.

experience was close to nil, so it was heartening to know that I could hardly make things worse than they already were. Success was unlikely, but failure was impossible. How liberating!

Marshallese duty was clear: don’t tell me the truth—tell me what I want to hear. I soon learned that in this country “yes” meant “maybe,”“maybe” meant “no,” and “no” meant “hell no.

Every native wanted to meet me because I was a foreigner, and every foreigner wanted to meet me because, well, I was a foreigner.

worked for a “large multinational organization,” which of course described the United Nations and international crime syndicates equally well.

It was telling that the word for “tasty”—enno—also meant “edible.” They were the same thing. The idea seemed to be that if it doesn’t kill you, that’s the best food you’re going to get.

Put more concretely, Marshallese Time meant that if someone said that X would happen at Y time, then there was a 40 percent chance that X would happen, and 5 percent chance that it would happen at Y time.

Tuvalu took advantage of its fortuitous Internet country code (.tv) and sold domain names to anyone who would buy them. It capitalized on its obscurity by selling postage stamps to philatelists who couldn’t bear to have a single country missing from their collections. It sold passports to people who needed a nationality, and it used its 688 area code for a phone sex line that eventually supplied a tenth of the government’s budget. Internet domains, stamps, passports, and phone sex: the staples of any sound economy. Of course, the passport sale stopped when people discovered that terrorists might have been buying them, and the phone sex line was shut down after the church complained. But you had to admire the resourcefulness.

meant both “coffee” and “to sit around drinking coffee and socializing.” It was acceptable Marshallese to say “I’m coffeeing with the guys.

I grew accustomed to the island’s isolation and found that I enjoyed the lack of newspapers. I liked being out of touch. I no longer felt obligated to mourn every tragedy in every far-off corner of the globe, to feel guilty that X was disappearing and Y was being destroyed and I was doing nothing to stop it. Perhaps this was a healthier way to live.

Even Sunday was no respite. It was a day when no labor was allowed—except, of course, necessary tasks like cooking, cleaning, and childcare, which were women’s work.

There seems to be a rule that the more a food item is considered a delicacy in one culture, the more revolting it is to people from other cultures.

came tantalizingly close to receiving a private audience with His Excellency himself, for no other reason than that I spoke the language.

The English textbooks, which the ministry had handpicked and shipped to every school, were intended for American children learning to read in English, not for foreign children learning English itself. “Splish splash,” a story might declare on one page. “Jane got soaked by the hose.” In one sentence the book had managed to combine a pseudo-word (“splish”), an irregular past tense (“got”), a passive construction (“got soaked by”) for speakers of a language in which there was no such thing, and three words that should not be at the top of a basic vocabulary list (“splash,” “soaked,” and “hose”), one of which (“hose”) referred to an object that didn’t exist in this world. This was supposed to be appropriate reading for second graders, merely because the words were easy to sound out—and this at a school where, on a very good day, my second graders were working on the grammatical complexities of the sentence “I walk.” I

A company called Kilbrew Resorts bought Song Island about six years ago,” Marcus said. “They were going to turn it into a private island for rich people, powered exclusively by solar and wind power. It was supposed to be a paradise for the environmentally-conscious. You know, get the hippie rich people from the cities someplace to play and let them leave with a clear conscience, all that good stuff. Unfortunately, they never got around to installing the wind component, but they did finish most of the solar installations.

The Downside about Living on a Paradise Island [10w] I deliver world class epigrams to a clueless third-world audience.

I had prepared myself to forego modern luxuries, only to find that the true sacrifice was primal needs: privacy, intimacy, comprehension, control.

A sign placed prominently in the cockpit declared “No Acrobatic Maneuvers Allowed,” as if the pilots daily fought the temptation to pull a barrel roll just for the thrill of it.

If Westerners enjoyed the mixed blessings of radical individualism, Marshall Islanders enjoyed the mixed blessings of radical communalism.

would hazard the opinion that no indigenous society suffers from a lack of entertainment, no matter how isolated or austere its homeland. There are always possibilities for recreation, and people have had thousands of years to find them. If the options are limited, that only means that the locals will be incredibly skilled at the few things they do.

They were as time-tested as the trinkets the Dutch traded to the Mannahattas for use of their island paradise. Here we were, some four centuries later and four thousand miles to the south, white men with Indian accomplices, once again knocking on the door,

Paradise Beach Hotel, located on the island of Roatan offering excellent diving and a world class West Bay Beach. Book Now and enjoy a deserving vacation.

God utilized people who believed in Him to help other people on this earth. All people needed to do was believe, and be willing to help out where needed. God does great things through those with a willing heart.