Lush Nature Quotes

If time could run backward, like a film in reverse, we would see this mess reassemble itself into lush green hills and moss-covered ledges of limestone. The streams would run back up the hills to the springs and the salt would stay glittering in underground rooms.

Fortunately, no matter how many times she is pushed down, she bounds up again. No matter how many times she is forbidden, quelled, cut back, diluted, tortured, touted as unsafe, dangerous, mad, and other derogations, she emanates upward in women, so that even the most quiet, even the most restrained woman keeps a secret place for Wild Woman, Even the more repressed woman has a secret life, with secret thoughts and secret feelings which are lush and wild, that is, natural. Even the most captured woman guards the place of the wildish self, for she knows intuitively that someday there will be a loophole, an aperture, a chance, and she will hightail it to escape.

He said that woman is like the ivy-vine, Which, clinging to its oak, grows lush and tall, But, lacking that support, can't thrive at all.

I breathe in the soft, saturated exhalations of cedar trees and salmonberry bushes, fireweed and wood fern, marsh hawks and meadow voles, marten and harbor seal and blacktail deer. I breathe in the same particles of air that made songs in the throats of hermit thrushes and gave voices to humpback whales, the same particles of air that lifted the wings of bald eagles and buzzed in the flight of hummingbirds, the same particles of air that rushed over the sea in storms, whirled in high mountain snows, whistled across the poles, and whispered through lush equatorial gardens…air that has passed continually through life on earth. I breathe it in, pass it on, share it in equal measure with billions of other living things, endlessly, infinitely.

If there are words for all the pastels in a hue—the lavenders, mauves, fushsias, plums, and lilacs—who will name the tones and tints of a smell? It's as if we were hypnotized en masse and told to selectively forget. It may be, too, that smells move us so profoundly, in part, because we cannot utter their names. In a world sayable and lush, where marvels offer themselves up readily for verbal dissection, smells are often right on the tip of our tongues—but no closer—and it gives them a kind of magical distance, a mystery, a power without a name, a sacredness.

The horse is by Nature a very lazy animal whose idea of heaven is an enormous field of lush grass in which he can graze undisturbed until his belly is full, and after a pleasant doze can start filling himself up all over again.

But now let us consider the holes in our own bodies and into what these congenital wounds open. Under the skin of man is a wondrous jungle where veins like lush tropical growths hang along over-ripe organs and weed-like entrails writhe in squirming tangles of red and yellow. In this jungle, flitting from rock-gray lungs to golden intestines, from liver to lights and back to liver again, lives a bird called the soul.

I do not envy those whose introduction to nature was lush meadows, lakes, and swamps where life abounds. The desert hills of Yakima had a poverty that sharpened perception.

Villages have an unmistakable charm. There is a subtle magic found in villages. The earthiness, greenery, and fragrance of flowers, plants, fruits, and vegetables growing in the field is breathtakingly inimitable. Sitting in the lush green fields, while gazing at the wide blue sky, amidst the farm animals and the simple houses in the background, is a joie de vivre.

Louis found me in the rear parlor, the one more distant from the noises of the tourists in the Rue Royale, and with its windows open to the courtyard below. I was in fact looking out the window, looking for the cat again, though I didn't tell myself so, and observing how our bougainvillea had all but covered the high walls that enclosed us and kept us safe from the rest of the world. The wisteria was also fierce in its growth, even reaching out from the brick walls to the railing of the rear balcony and finding its way up to the roof. I could never quite take for granted the lush flowers of New Orleans. Indeed, they filled me with happiness whenever I stopped to really look at them and surrender to their fragrance, as though I still had the right to do so, as though I still were part of nature, as though I were still a mortal man.

She wore a loose-fitting purple velvet Pre-Raphaelite gown, and her abundant dark-brown hair flowed down her back and shoulders to her waist. As she drew near, I noticed her warm brown eyes peeping at me beneath lush, un-plucked brows, her smiling red lips and smooth, un-powdered cheeks almost begging for kisses. She possessed a beauty much different from Daisy, more like a wildflower in the unspoiled earth than a prize-winning rose in a formal garden. However, her Pre-Raphaelite fashion might have been an affectation of a different kind, a bit closer to nature but a stylish imitation just the same.

Along with the greening of May came the rain. Then the clouds disappeared and a soft pale lightness fell over the city, as if Kyoto had broken free of its tethers and lifted up toward the sun. The mornings were as dewy and verdant as a glass of iced green tea. The nights folded into pencil-gray darkness fragrant with white flowers. And everyone's mood seemed buoyant, happy, and carefree. When I wasn't teaching or studying tea kaiseki, I would ride my secondhand pistachio-green bicycle to favorite places to capture the fleeting lushness of Kyoto in a sketchbook. With a small box of Niji oil pastels, I would draw things that Zen pots had long ago described in words and I did not want to forget: a pond of yellow iris near a small Buddhist temple; a granite urn in a forest of bamboo; and a blue creek reflecting the beauty of heaven, carrying away a summer snowfall of pink blossoms. Sometimes, I would sit under the shade of a willow tree at the bottom of my street, doing nothing but listening to the call of cuckoos, while reading and munching on carrots and boiled egg halves smeared with mayonnaise and wrapped in crisp sheets of nori. Never before had such simple indulgences brought such immense pleasure.

I only dream of your ankles brushed by dark violets, of honeybees above you murmuring into a crown. Antique queen, the night dreams on:

The guardian of life, however, does not derive all of his power and assuredness from reasoning and logic. The basic principle of life protection, the conservation of the Earth’s life as a lush and diverse whole, is also perceived as being sacred: as something incomparably holier than anything man might regard as such (not that in this age of cynical despair much holiness is left!).

It was no amalgam of colors comparable to anything in mortal existence. It was as if all natural colors had been mutated into a painfully lush iridescence by some prism fantastically corrupted in its form; it was a rainbow staining the sky after a poison deluge; it was an aurora painting the darkness with a blaze of insanity, a blaze that did not burn vigorously but shimmered with an insect-jeweled frailness.

Deep in the heart of the hot, wet African rainforest, there lives a tribe of peacemakers who share a multiplicity of pleasures and make a very special kind of love. South of the sprawling Congo River, in the midst of war-ravaged territory, some 2,000 miles from the arid Ethiopian desert where the oldest human fossils have been found, lies this lush and steamy jungle paradise, the only natural habitat of the bonobo.

Summer has weeks left, but once the calendar displays the word “September,” you’d think it was Latin for “evacuate.” I pity them for missing the best weather and the most energized time of year…It’s an extremely impressive display of life at the apogee of summer, the year’s productivity mounded and piled past the angle of repose. It is a world lush with the living, a world that-despite the problems- still has what it takes to really produce.

Nature is medicinal; the sun, large bodies of water, and deep breaths of fresh air. Healing is found in the mountains, amidst a forest, by fire, and water. I still recall how healing it was to be home, my parents' island, waking up to tropical sounds of morning; monkeys, tropical birds, and tropical animals discussing their days, feet in sand, and the glorious sound of tropical rain. Visuals of lush greens and vibrant flowers, nature calls us into ourselves, nature calls us home

From around the corner's edge a grotesque light was trickling out, the first intimations of an ominous sunrise over a dark horizon. I dimly recognized this colored light, though not from my waking memory. It grew more intense, now pouring out in weird streams from beyond the solid margin of the building. And the more intense it grew, the more clearly I could hear the screaming voice that had called out to me in a dream. I shouted his name, but the swelling colored brightness was a field of fear which kept me from making any move toward it. It was no amalgam of colors comparable to anything in mortal experience. It was as if all natural colors had been mutated into a painfully lush iridescence by some prism fantastically corrupted in its form; it was a rainbow staining the sky after a poison deluge; it was an aurora painting the darkness with a blaze of insanity, a blaze that did not burn vigorously but shimmered with an insect-jeweled frailness. And, in actuality, it was nothing like these color-filled effusions, which are merely a feeble means of partially fixing a reality uncommunicable to those not initiated to it, a necessary resorting to the makeshift gibberish of the mystic isolated by his experience and left without a language to describe it. ("The Dreaming In Nortown")

Antarctica used to be a jungle. For millions of years it was as lush as Africa. But continental drift and natural climate change froze it over. All those plants died and decomposed. The gases from that decomposition—most notably methane—got trapped in the ice.

Today, she is standing at the top of a mountain and appreciating the majestic panoramic view of mesmerizing Himalaya. As a kid, she used to look up in the sky and wish for wings to fly up to the mountains. And now after a long wait of many years, she is standing here and living her dream. It’s the moment when she can’t believe her eyes because what she always dreamed of has come alive. She looks with amazement as if she’s witnessing a miracle. It is the moment of her life. She just wants to feel it. There are beautiful clouds below her and there are snow clad mountain peaks emerging from those clouds. The white peaks shining in blue sky among white clouds look like glittering diamonds to her. The view of the large lush green meadow surrounded by mountains under blue sky with a rainbow circling the horizon has put her in a state of tranquility. As the sun starts drowning in the horizon, the sky begins to boast his mystical colours. The beautiful mix of pink, orange and red looks like creating a twilight saga. She opens her both arm and takes a deep breath to entwine with the nature. The glimmering rays of the moon are paying tribute to her by kissing her warm cheeks and her eyes twinkle in bright moon light. She raises her face towards the moon and senses the flood of memories which she wants to unleash. The cool breeze lifts her ruffled hair and blows her skirt up. She closes her eyes and breathes deep as if she wants to let her know that she is finally here and then she opens her eyes and finds herself on the same wheelchair inside a room with an empty wall in front of her eye. Tears rolls down from her eye but these are the tears of Joy because she is living her dreams today. The feelings comes to her mind while waiting for her daughter who is coming back home today after her first expedition of a high range mountain ~ AB

And then there was the expansive garden that ran the length of the rear of the house- lush with color and fragrances that seemed to burst from every branch and bloom. Whoever had designed it possessed a keen eye for beauty, each plant chosen with obvious care and an affinity for nature. She'd even acquired a new cat from its depths, a stray orange tom she found wandering among the hydrangea bushes one morning. An offered dish of milk and he'd been her bosom beau ever since. She'd decided to call him Ranunculus because Buttercup was far too feminine a name for such a large and impressive male. She gazed at him now where he slept in the sunshine, basking like a small potentate in the heat of the day.

Energy: vibrant color and light Abundance: lushness, multiplicity, and variety Freedom: nature, wildness, and open space Harmony: balance, symmetry, and flow Play: circles, spheres, and bubbly forms Surprise: contrast and whimsy Transcendence: elevation and lightness Magic: invisible forces and illusions Celebration: synchrony, sparkle, and bursting shapes Renewal: blossoming, expansion, and curves

Coriolanus felt his anxieties melt away. Full of fresh food, shaded by the trees, Lucy Gray singing softly beside him, he began to appreciate nature. It really was beautiful out here. The crystal clean air. The lush colors. He felt so relaxed and free. What if this was his life: rising whenever, catching his food for the day, and hanging out with Lucy Gray by the lake? Who needed wealth and success and power when they had love? Didn't it conquer all?

I identified ten aesthetics of joy, each of which reveals a distinct connection between the feeling of joy and the tangible qualities of the world around us: Energy: vibrant color and light Abundance: lushness, multiplicity, and variety Freedom: nature, wildness, and open space Harmony: balance, symmetry, and flow Play: circles, spheres, and bubbly forms Surprise: contrast and whimsy Transcendence: elevation and lightness Magic: invisible forces and illusions Celebration: synchrony, sparkle, and bursting shapes Renewal: blossoming, expansion, and curves

Across the road, under the willows, Rose Thorn saw a tangle of purple waterleaf, edible. The May apples had opened their umbrellas over creamy flowers, and a clump of white trillium waved flags of truce, a few of them blushing pink. The foliage between them and the island--- elderberry bushes and silky dogwood--- was already so thick that Rosie could barely see the cottage perched just above the bridge. She didn't understand why she'd wanted to leave this lovely, lush, watery place; at this time of year, she was always sure she'd never want to leave again.

He didn’t kiss me. Instead, he carefully took my split lip between his teeth and tugged slightly. A bead of blood pooled from the wound, and Priest, sensually, almost lazily, licked it from my mouth. I gasped, my mouth blooming open naturally, begging for more. And for the first time in all my years of knowing him, ascetic, controlled Priest, he indulged. My God, he ate at my mouth as if it was a lush fruit, licking up my spilled blood, diving deeper to taste the silken edge of my tongue with his, to explore the recess of my mouth. He ate at me as if I was his to devour.

COMMITMENT is like rain in Oregon. You wake up every morning and there it is. It cups your house in its liquid hands and fills your gutters to overflowing. It makes green things grow tall and lush, rivers run deep and invincible. On sunny days it seeps up through petals and pine needles, roots and aqueducts. Other days, it makes mud too thick for walking, and you cannot leave the house. You pace the house, restless and lonely. Then you smell its perfume in a dry, empty room and part the curtains, watch it finger the window with long, slow rivulets. From 'A Compendium of Miniatures

My father became High King, and my mother his queen, yet this island on which you stand, this place … my mother claimed it for herself. The very island where she had once served as a slave became her domain, her sanctuary. The Daglan female who’d ruled it before her had chosen it for its natural defensive location, the mists that kept it veiled from the others. So, too, did my mother. But more than that, she told me many times that she and her heirs were the only ones worthy of tending this island. Nesta murmured to Azriel, “The Prison was once a royal territory?” Bryce didn’t care—and Azriel didn’t reply. Silene had glossed over how Theia and Fionn had used the Trove and Cauldron against the Asteri, and why the Hel had she come to this planet if not to learn about that? Yet once again, Silene’s memory plowed forward. And with the Daglan gone, as the centuries passed, as the Tithe was no longer demanded of us or the land, our powers strengthened. The land strengthened. It returned to what it had been before the Daglan’s arrival millennia before. We returned to what we’d been before that time, too, creatures whose very magic was tied to this land. Thus the land’s powers became my mother’s. Dusk, twilight—that’s what the island was in its long-buried heart, what her power bloomed into, the lands rising with it. It was, as she said, as if the island had a soul that now blossomed under her care, nurtured by the court she built here. Islands, like those they’d seen in the carvings, rose up from the sea, lush and fertile.

Temperance Dews stood with quiet confidence, a respectable women who lived in the sewer that was St. Giles. Her eyes had widened at the sight of Lazarus, but she made no move to flee. Indeed, finding a strange man in her pathetic sitting room seemed not to frighten her at all. Interesting. “I am Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire,” he said. “I know. What are you doing here?” He tilted his head, studying her. She knew him, yet did not recoil in horror? Yes, she’d do quite well. “I’ve come to make a proposition to you, Mrs. Dews.” Still no sign of fear, though she eyed the doorway. “You’ve chosen the wrong woman, my lord. The night is late. Please leave my house.” No fear and no deference to his rank. An interesting woman indeed. “My proposition is not, er, illicit in nature,” he drawled. “In fact, it’s quite respectable. Or nearly so.” She sighed, looked down at her tray, and then back up at him. “Would you like a cup of tea?” He almost smiled. Tea? When had he last been offered something so very prosaic by a woman? He couldn’t remember. But he replied gravely enough. “Thank you, no.” She nodded. “Then if you don’t mind?” He waved a hand to indicate permission. She set the tea tray on the wretched little table and sat on the padded footstool to pour herself a cup. He watched her. She was a monochromatic study. Her dress, bodice, hose, and shoes were all flat black. A fichu tucked in at her severe neckline, an apron, and cap—no lace or ruffles—were all white. No color marred her aspect, making the lush red of her full lips all the more startling. She wore the clothes of a nun, yet had the mouth of a sybarite. The contrast was fascinating—and arousing. “You’re a Puritan?” he asked. Her beautiful mouth compressed. “No.

No healthy young man could fail to be stirred and set off-kilter by Aline, who, at the age of seventeen, had become the loveliest girl on God's green earth. At the moment Aline was already dressed for bed, wearing a nightgown made of intricately tucked and ruffled white cotton. As she moved across the room, the lamplight silhouetted the generous curves of her breasts and hips through the thin fabric, and slid over the shining sable locks of her hair. Aline's looks were the kind that caused the heart to stop and the breath to catch. Her coloring alone would have given even a homely woman the appearance of great beauty. But her features were fine and perfect, and perpetually lit with the radiance of unchecked emotion. And as if all that hadn't been quite enough, nature had added one last flourish, a tiny black mark that flirted with the corner of her mouth. McKenna had fantasized endlessly about kissing that tantalizing spot, and following it to the lush curves of her lips. Kissing and kissing her, until she was weak and shivering in his arms.

She gazed out at the seductive vista. The countryside was dressed in its prettiest May garb- everything budding or blooming or bursting out in the exuberance of late spring. For Laura, the landscape at thirteen hundred feet up a Welsh mountain was the perfect mix of reassuringly tamed and excitingly wild. In front of the house were lush, high meadows filled with sheep, the lambs plump from their mother's grass-rich milk. Their creamy little shapes bright and clean against the background of pea green. A stream tumbled down the hillside, disappearing into the dense oak woods at the far end of the fields, the ocher trunks fuzzy with moss. On either side of the narrow valley, the land rose steeply to meet the open mountain on the other side of the fence. Here young bracken was springing up sharp and tough to claim the hills for another season. Beyond, in the distance, more mountains rose and fell as far as the eye could see. Laura undid the latch and pushed open the window. She closed her eyes. A warm sigh of the wind carried the scent of hawthorn blossom from the hedgerow.

Transportation from One Place to Another Once whilst Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) was delivering one of his spiritually enlightening lectures, a person by the name of Abul Mu’aali was present in this gathering. He was seated directly in front of the great Saint. During the course of the lecture, Abul Mu’aali found that he needed to answer the call of nature (relieve himself). He tried to suppress this need because he found it disrespectful to leave the gathering of al-Ghawth al-A’zam (r.a) He controlled the urge to the best of his ability, but when he could not do so any longer, he decided to leave. As he was about to stand, he saw the great Ghawth (r.a) walking down the first stair of the pulpit (Mimbar) onto the second stair. As the Saint came to the second stair, Abul Mu’aali saw an image of the great Saint on the mimbar. Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) came down to him and threw his shawl over him. As this happened, Abul Mu’aali found that he was no longer in the gathering, but rather in a valley with beautiful lush vegetation. It was beautified even more by a stream, which flowed through it. He immediately answered the call of nature, performed Wudhu and then prayed two Rakaats Salaah. As he completed the Salaah, Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) pulled the shawl off him. When Abul Mu’aali looked, he found to his amazement that he was still in the gathering of the great Saint (r.a) and he had not even missed one word of the lecture of the great Saint. However, much later Abul Mu’aali discovered that he did not have his set of keys with him. He then remembered that when he was transported to the valley by Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a), he had hung his key ring on the branch of a tree beside the stream. Abul Mu’aali states that some time after this incident, he had the opportunity to go on a business expedition. During this journey, Abul Mu’aali reached a valley and rested there. He then noticed that the valley was the exact same place where the great Saint had transported him during his lecture. When he went beside the tree, he found that his missing keys were still hanging on the branch of the tree. Subhan-Allah! The business trip took fourteen days to complete. This miracle of al-Ghawth al-A’zam (r.a) shows that not only did he transport Abul Mu’aali spiritually, but also physically.

Soft moonlight enveloped her path, guiding her toward the gate like creamy white petals leading a bride to the altar. Walter didn't understand- she needed to be in these gardens. The beauty breathed life into her. Filled her very soul. She pushed down the latch, testing it slowly to see if it was locked on the opposite side. Her heart leapt when it opened. The lady left her gardens every autumn now when the flowers began to die, and Mummy didn't seem to care if she visited the gardens when the lady was gone. But in the summer, when the flowers were blooming, when the air smelled sweet and the butterflies danced in the breeze, Mummy and Walter didn't want her to explore. Yet this was her sustenance. Her magic. She needed to be here as much as the butterflies needed their nectar to fly. Quietly she closed the gate and hurried across the brick path until she reached the circular rose garden. In the center of the roses was the most lush carpet of grass. She tossed her shoes into the air, the soft grass tickling her toes. Then she stretched out her arms and twirled in the moonlight. Some people thought the rays of the moon were cool, like the rays of the sun were warm, but they were wrong. The light from the moon was as warm as the sun, a lovely, golden warmth that electrified her from the inside.

I press buttons with letters on them, just as my tongue presses the palate of my mouth as my diaphragm rises and I have told you something by the sound of my voice, I tell you something now, and you hear me, as we both engage with a device rooted in external reality- a computer screen, or the fluorescent face of a silicon phone- and you cannot tell me that Mind and this device through which we Know the things and engage with things and express things of the nature which the Mind is crafted by and through- are separate. Tell me you are not already integrated with this device you hold in your hands. Now this- this nexus- will be the stage where the battles of yore, which were fought upon dirt and in the sand and in lush, wild forests with sticks and spears and gunpowder, will now meet and address each other by name, and where they will wreak change with their fury as war is waged for territory of a different kind. And because of this, congratulations- you will be the stage, you will be the weapon, you will stand in the crossfire of wars that are not your own, as men always have through history and time, and “war” will be a different kind of thing. And, staying true to another law of humankind, like bronze, like iron, like steel, the same things that forge our tools will also craft our weapons.

Why would you do that with me? A simple kiss was enough. What could you be thinking?" "What indeed." He pushed a hand through his hair, more than a little offended at her accusatory tone. "I'm male. You rubbed your... femaleness all over me. I didn't think. I reacted." "You reacted." "Yes." "To..." She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "To me." "It is a natural response. Aren't you a scientist? Then you should understand. Any red-blooded man would react to such stimulus." She stepped back. She dipped her chin and peered at him over her spectacles. "So you find me stimulating." "That's not what I-" He bit off the rest of that sentence. The only way to end a nonsensical conversation was to simply cease talking. Colin drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He closed his eyes briefly. And then he opened them and looked at her. Really looked at her, as though for the first time. He saw thick, dark hair a man could gather by the fistful. Prim spectacles, perched on a gently sloped nose. Behind the lenses, wide-set eyes- dark and intelligent. And that mouth. That ripe, pouting, sensual mouth. He let his gaze drift down her form. There was a wicked thrill to knowing lushness smoldered beneath that modest sprigged muslin gown. To having felt her shape, scouting and chartering her body with all the nerve endings of his own. Their bodies had met. More than that. They'd grown acquainted. Nothing more would come from it, of course. Colin had rules for himself, and as for her... she didn't even liked him, or pretend to. But she showed up in the middle of the night, hatching schemes that skirted the line between academic logic and reckless adventure. She started kisses she had no notion how to continue. Taken all together, she was simply... A surprise. A fresh, bracing gust of the unexpected, for good or ill. "Perhaps," he said cautiously, "I do find you stimulating.

As the rhetoric and power structures of old dissolve, from monarchy to capitalism to the space between a vocalized phrase and its indefinable mental inclination, this urge becomes heightened. And eventually, this conflict absorbs and finds its home within that foundation from whence it is borne, and from where its impact will fractal into every other component of power and being; the place where this dysphoria and this exchange occurs, now that we have unloosed the stop from our pressured throats, of the place it occurs, of the place it will be fought, of the place where it matters most- the mind. Because Mind as we know it and matter itself are no longer so perceptually separate. You are reading these words right now, but how? The voice is no longer an element confined in expression to the physical body. I press buttons with letters on them, just as my tongue presses the palate of my mouth as my diaphragm rises and I have told you something by the sound of my voice, I tell you something now, and you hear me, as we both engage with a device rooted in external reality- a computer screen, or the fluorescent face of a silicon phone- and you cannot tell me that Mind and this device through which we Know the things and engage with things and express things of the nature which the Mind is crafted by and through- are separate. Tell me you are not already integrated with this device you hold in your hands. Now this- this nexus- will be the stage where the battles of yore, which were fought upon dirt and in the sand and in lush, wild forests with sticks and spears and gunpowder, will now meet and address each other by name, and where they will wreak change with their fury as war is waged for territory of a different kind. And because of this, congratulations- you will be the stage, you will be the weapon, you will stand in the crossfire of wars that are not your own, as men always have through history and time, and “war” will be a different kind of thing. And, staying true to another law of humankind, like bronze, like iron, like steel, the same things that forge our tools will also craft our weapons. We don’t need nukes. We have the internet.

Land and Sea The brilliant colors are the first thing that strike a visitor to the Greek Isles. From the stunning azure waters and blindingly white houses to the deep green-black of cypresses and the sky-blue domes of a thousand churches, saturated hues dominate the landscape. A strong, constant sun brings out all of nature’s colors with great intensity. Basking in sunshine, the Greek Isles enjoy a year-round temperate climate. Lemons grow to the size of grapefruits and grapes hang in heavy clusters from the vines of arbors that shade tables outside the tavernas. The silver leaves of olive trees shiver in the least sea breezes. The Greek Isles boast some of the most spectacular and diverse geography on Earth. From natural hot springs to arcs of soft-sand beaches and secret valleys, the scenery is characterized by dramatic beauty. Volcanic formations send craggy cliffsides plummeting to the sea, cause lone rock formations to emerge from blue waters, and carve beaches of black pebbles. In the Valley of the Butterflies on Rhodes, thousands of radiant winged creatures blanket the sky in summer. Crete’s Samaria Gorge is the longest in Europe, a magnificent natural wonder rife with local flora and fauna. Corfu bursts with lush greenery and wildflowers, nurtured by heavy rainfall and a sultry sun. The mountain ranges, gorges, and riverbeds on Andros recall the mainland more than the islands. Both golden beaches and rocky countrysides make Mykonos distinctive. Around Mount Olympus, in central Cyprus, timeless villages emerge from the morning mist of craggy peaks and scrub vegetation. On Evia and Ikaria, natural hot springs draw those seeking the therapeutic power of healing waters. Caves abound in the Greek Isles; there are some three thousand on Crete alone. The Minoans gathered to worship their gods in the shallow caves that pepper the remotest hilltops and mountain ranges. A cave near the town of Amnissos, a shrine to Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth, once revealed a treasure trove of small idols dedicated to her. Some caves were later transformed into monasteries. On the islands of Halki and Cyprus, wall paintings on the interiors of such natural monasteries survive from the Middle Ages. Above ground, trees and other flora abound on the islands in a stunning variety. ON Crete, a veritable forest of palm trees shades the beaches at Vai and Preveli, while the high, desolate plateaus of the interior gleam in the sunlight. Forest meets sea on the island of Poros, and on Thasos, many species of pine coexist. Cedars, cypress, oak, and chestnut trees blanket the mountainous interiors of Crete, Cyprus, and other large islands. Rhodes overflows with wildflowers during the summer months. Even a single island can be home to disparate natural wonders. Amorgos’ steep, rocky coastline gives way to tranquil bays. The scenery of Crete--the largest of the Greek Isles--ranges from majestic mountains and barren plateaus to expansive coves, fertile valleys, and wooded thickets.

Gray burst into the galley. “Miss Turner is not eating.” The cramped, boxed-in nature of the space, the oppressive heat-it seemed an appropriate place to take this irrational surge of resentment. If only his emotion could dissipate through the ventilation slats as quickly as steam. “And good morning to you, too.” Gabriel wiped his hands on his apron without glancing up. “She’s not eating,” Gray repeated evenly. “She’s wasting away.” He didn’t even realize his knuckled cracked. He flexed his fingers impatiently. “Wasting away?” Gabriel’s face split in a grin as he picked up a mallet and attacked a hunk of salted pork. “Now what makes you say that?” “Her dress no longer fits properly. The neckline of her bodice is too loose.” Gabriel stopped pounding and looked up, meeting Gray’s eyes for the first time since he’d entered the galley. The mocking arch of the old man’s eyebrows had Gray clenching his teeth. They stared at each other for a second. Then Gray blew out his breath and looked away, and Gabriel broke into peals of laughter. “Never thought I’d live to see the day,” the old cook finally said, “when you would complain that a beautiful lady’s bodice was too loose.” “It’s not that she’s a beautiful lady-“ Gabriel looked up sharply. “It’s not merely that she’s a beautiful lady,” Gray amended. “She’s a passenger, and I have a duty to look out for her welfare.” “Wouldn’t that be the captain’s duty?” Gray narrowed his eyes. “And I know my duty well enough,” Gabriel continued. “It’s not as though I’m denying her food, now is it? I’m thinking Miss Turner just isn’t accustomed to the rough living aboard a ship. Used to finer fare, that one.” Gray scowled at the hunk of cured pork under Gabriel’s mallet and the shriveled, sprouted potatoes rolling back and forth with each tilt of the ship. “Is this the noon meal?” “This, and biscuit.” “I’ll order the men to trawl for a fish.” “Wouldn’t that be the captain’s duty?” Gabriel’s tone was sly. Gray wasn’t sure whether the plume of steam swirling through the galley originated for the stove or his ears. He didn’t care for Gabriel’s flippant tone. Neither did he care for the possibility of Miss Turner’s lush curves disappearing when he’d never had any chance to appreciate them. Frustrated beyond all reason, Gray turned to leave, wrenching open the galley door with such force, the hinges creaked in protest. He took a deep breath to compose himself, resolving not to slam the door shut behind him. Gabriel stopped pounding. “Sit down, Gray. Rest your bones.” With another rough sigh, Gray complied. He backed up two paces, slung himself onto a stool, and watched as the cook grabbed a tin cup from a hook on the wall and filled it, drawing a dipper of liquid from a small leather bucket. Then Gabriel set the cup on the table before him. Milk. Gabriel stared it. “For God’s sake, Gabriel. I’m not six years old anymore.” The old man raised his eyebrows. “Well, seeing as how you haven’t outgrown a visit to the kitchen when you’re in a sulk, I thought maybe you’d have a taste for milk yet, too. You did buy the goats.

For unknown ages after the explosive outpouring of matter and energy of the Big Bang, the Cosmos was without form. There were no galaxies, no planets, no life. Deep, impenetrable darkness was everywhere, hydrogen atoms in the void. Here and there, denser accumulations of gas were imperceptibly growing, globes of matter were condensing-hydrogen raindrops more massive than suns. Within these globes of gas was kindled the nuclear fire latent in matter. A first generation of stars was born, flooding the Cosmos with light. There were in those times, not yet any planets to receive the light, no living creatures to admire the radiance of the heavens. Deep in the stellar furnaces, the alchemy of nuclear fusion created heavy elements from the ashes of hydrogen burning, the atomic building blocks of future planets and lifeforms. Massive stars soon exhausted their stores of nuclear fuel. Rocked by colossal explosions, they returned most of their substance back into the thin gas from which they had once condensed. Here in the dark lush clouds between the stars, new raindrops made of many elements were forming, later generation of stars being born. Nearby, smaller raindrops grew, bodies far too little to ignite the nuclear fire, droplets in the interstellar mist on their way to form planets. Among them was a small world of stone and iron, the early Earth. Congealing and warming, the Earth released methane, ammonia, water and hydrogen gases that had been trapped within, forming the primitive atmosphere and the first oceans. Starlight from the Sun bathed and warmed the primeval Earth, drove storms, generated lightning and thunder. Volcanoes overflowed with lava. These processes disrupted molecules of the primitive atmosphere; the fragments fell back together into more and more complex forms, which dissolved into the early oceans. After a while the seas achieved the consistency of a warm, dilute soup. Molecules were organized, and complex chemical reactions driven, on the surface of clay. And one day a molecule arose that quite by accident was able to make crude copies of itself out of the other molecules in the broth. As time passed, more elaborate and more accurate self replicating molecules arose. Those combinations best suited to further replication were favored by the sieve of natural selection. Those that copied better produced more copies. And the primitive oceanic broth gradually grew thin as it was consumed by and transformed into complex condensations of self replicating organic molecules. Gradually, imperceptibly, life had begun. Single-celled plants evolved, and life began generating its own food. Photosynthesis transformed the atmosphere. Sex was invented. Once free living forms bonded together to make a complex cell with specialized functions. Chemical receptors evolved, and the Cosmos could taste and smell. One celled organisms evolved into multicellular colonies, elaborating their various parts into specialized organ systems. Eyes and ears evolved, and now the Cosmos could see and hear. Plants and animals discovered that land could support life. Organisms buzzed, crawled, scuttled, lumbered, glided, flapped, shimmied, climbed and soared. Colossal beasts thundered through steaming jungles. Small creatures emerged, born live instead of in hard-shelled containers, with a fluid like the early ocean coursing through their veins. They survived by swiftness and cunning. And then, only a moment ago, some small arboreal animals scampered down from the trees. They became upright and taught themselves the use of tools, domesticated other animals, plants and fire, and devised language. The ash of stellar alchemy was now emerging into consciousness. At an ever-accelerating pace, it invented writing, cities, art and science, and sent spaceships to the planets and the stars. These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do, given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution.

My darling son: depression at your age is more common than you might think. I remember it very strongly in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when I was about twenty-six and felt like killing myself. I think the winter, the cold, the lack of sunshine, for us tropical creatures, is a trigger. And to tell you the truth, the idea that you might soon unpack your bags here, having chucked in all your European plans, makes your mother and me as happy as could be. You have more than earned the equivalent of any university 'degree' and you have used your time so well to educate yourself culturally and personally that if university bores you, it is only natural. Whatever you do from here on in, whether you write or don't write, whether you get a degree or not, whether you work for your mother, or at El Mundo, or at La Ines, or teaching at a high school, or giving lectures like Estanislao Zuleta, or as a psychoanalyst to your parents, sisters and relatives, or simply being Hector Abad Faciolince, will be fine. What matters is that you don't stop being what you have been up till now, a person, who simply by virtue of being the way you are, not for what you write or don't write, or for being brilliant or prominent, but just for being the way you are, has earned the affection, the respect, the acceptance, the trust, the love, of the vast majority of those who know you. So we want to keep seeing you in this way, not as a future great author, or journalist or communicator or professor or poet, but as the son, brother, relative, friend, humanist, who understands others and does not aspire to be understood. It does not matter what people think of you, and gaudy decoration doesn't matter, for those of us who know you are. For goodness' sake, dear Quinquin, how can you think 'we support you (...) because 'that boy could go far'? You have already gone very far, further than all our dreams, better than everything we imagined for any of our children. You should know very well that your mother's and my ambitions are not for glory, or for money, or even for happiness, that word that sounds so pretty but is attained so infrequently and for such short intervals (and maybe for that very reason is so valued), for all our children, but that they might at least achieve well-being, that more solid, more durable, more possible, more attainable word. We have often talked of the anguish of Carlos Castro Saavedra, Manuel Meija Vallejo, Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt, and so many quasi-geniuses we know. Or Sabato or Rulfo, or even Garcia Marquez. That does not matter. Remember Goethe: 'All theory (I would add, and all art), dear friend, is grey, but only the golden tree of life springs ever green.' What we want for you is to 'live'. And living means many better things than being famous, gaining qualifications or winning prizes. I think I too had boundless political ambitions when I was young and that's why I wasn't happy. I think I too had boundless political ambitions when I was young and that's why I wasn't happy. Only now, when all that has passed, have I felt really happy. And part of that happiness is Cecilia, you, and all my children and grandchildren. Only the memory of Marta Cecilia tarnishes it. I believe things are that simple, after having gone round and round in circles, complicating them so much. We should do away with this love for things as ethereal as fame, glory, success... Well, my Quinquin, now you know what I think of you and your future. There's no need for you to worry. You are doing just fine and you'll do better, and when you get to my age or your grandfather's age and you can enjoy the scenery around La Ines that I intend to leave to all of you, with the sunshine, heat and lush greenery, and you'll see I was right. Don't stay there longer than you feel you can. If you want to come back I'll welcome you with open arms. And if you regret it and want to go back again, we can buy you another return flight. A kiss from your father.

Luxury hotel in Mexico with lush and beautiful gardens and unspoiled natural beauty. The weather is always amazing here to enjoy a wide range of outdoor activities, dining, or simply relaxing with the highest level of personalized service.

In some realms of nature, shadows or darkness are the places of greatest growth. The beautiful Indian corn never grows more rapidly than in the darkness of a warm summer night. The sun withers and curls the leaves in the scorching light of noon, but once a cloud hides the sun, they quickly unfold. The shadows provide a service that the sunlight does not. The starry beauty of the sky cannot be seen at its peak until the shadows of night slip over the sky. Lands with fog, clouds, and shade are lush with greenery. And there are beautiful flowers that bloom in the shade that will never bloom in the sun. Florists now have their evening primrose as well as their morning glory. The evening primrose will not open in the noonday sun but only reveals its beauty as the shadows

The undulating terrain was cloaked in lush abundance, the vineyards like garlands of deep green and yellow, orchards and farms sprouting here and there, hillocks of dry golden grass crowned by beautiful sun-gilt houses, barns and silos. And overhead was the bluest sky she'd ever seen, as bright and hard polished as marble. There was something about the landscape that caught at her emotions. It was both lush and intimidating, its beauty so abundant. Far from the bustle of the city, she was a complete stranger here, like Dorothy stepping out of her whirling house into the land of Oz. Farm stands overflowing with local produce marked the long driveways into farms with whimsical names- Almost Paradise, One Bad Apple, Toad Hollow. Boxes and bushels were displayed on long, weathered tables. Between the farms, brushy tangles of berries and towering old oak trees lined the roadway.

But here Nature fulfilled her want of speech and spoke fr her. The murmur of the brook, the voice of the village folk, the songs of the boatmen, the crying of the bird and the rustle of the trees mingled and were one with the trembling of her heart. They became one vast wave of sound which beat upon her restless soul. This murmur and movement of Nature were dumb girl’s language; that speech of the dark eyes, which the long lushes shaded, was the language of the world about her.

The root and bark of life experiences forges our leafy character. We become a manifestation of the stalk of character that we forged while operating in the piney landscape of our environmental demands. What we seriously attend to, how we go about play, and whom we choose as friends and enemies, and other lushes choices that we make in conducting our lives reveals the stem of our character. The most telling of all sylvan experiences are naturally associated with difficult adventures. Conflict brings out budding character traits, its blooming foliage reveals qualities we previously did not know about ourselves. The more challenging experiences we expose ourselves to in life, the more we understand our quintessence, the core of our unique blend of character traits.

How best to portray the story of Lydia---a woman who has mixed Japanese, Malaysian, and English heritage, and who is a vampire, a creature inherently half-demon, half-human---who is constantly trying to resist the temptation of her nature? I designed many versions of this cover; some depicted Lydia, while others focused on specific details from the story, like bite marks, or a pig whose blood she drinks in order to stave off her cravings for human blood. In the end, though, the most powerful visual was not one of Lydia herself, but of the novel's antagonist. Because Lydia is an artist, it felt fitting to use a painting on the cover, but it needed to be a piece that spoke to the story on multiple levels. Caravaggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit felt just right; the sidelong glance peering back at the viewer, the lush basket filled with food that Lydia can never eat, not to mention Caravaggio's own less-than-pristine reputation, not dissimilar to our antagonist's. The final touch: a perfectly-placed crack in the canvas---or is it a bite mark?

Animated, released from stillness by the rain, Dendroalsia begins to move, branch by delicate branch unfolding to recreate the symmetry of overlapping fronds. As each stem uncurls, its tender center is exposed and all along the midline are tiny capsules, bursting with spores. Ready for rain, they release their daughters upon the updrafts of rising mist. The oaks once more are lush and green and the air smells rich with the breath of mosses.

The Diverted Imperium by Stewart Stafford Welcome to my lush vineyard, As we crush poison grapes, Forcing that last vinegar sip, Of this “first citizen’s” foul wine. In spite of meeting in night's shade, It is not the taint of shame's veil, But a new dawning concealed, Our hand to reveal in due course. Fellow senators, my brethren! Men of honour, and, you, Brutus; The noblest of all at our gathering, But your eyes are on yonder hill. Our dreamer’s conference tonight: Seeks sacrifice, not bloodlust; A fly caught in Necessity’s web, And, is no more, for that is Nature. Stakes of the bear pit arranged, A swift consumption of power, Nipping retaliation in the bud, Smoothing our ascendancy. A patriot in a traitor's pall? Liberty's stars in alignment Or noose of the ill-omened? History’s verdict in absentia. The hand beneath the cloak Shakes the dagger mightily, Mercy’s coup de grâce stills, Bloody tip to inked treaties. Once the bloodshed has passed, Martial backing shall follow, And our regime commences, The Imperium by right diverted. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

I’ve come to consider the principles of nature: It’s a quiet place, where you can observe the influences of the environment. Wild animals, for example, sleep differently from domesticated animals. This can be a good lesson. Or take the wild rooster: Its eyes are quick, its tail feathers sparse, its wings strong, and its call short. It can run fast and fly far. What do these characteristics come from? I’ve made this a lesson for myself. Domesticated roosters and wild roosters come from the same species, but the domesticated rooster’s wings are weak, its call long, its tail feathers lush and ungainly, its behavior different from that of the wild rooster. The wild rooster is the way it is because it can’t afford to let down its guard. It always has to be on the alert because danger is ever-present in the forest. If the wild rooster went around acting like a domestic rooster, the cobras and mongooses would make a meal of it in no time. So when it eats, sleeps, opens and closes its eyes, the wild rooster has to be strong and resilient in order to stay alive. So it is with us. If we spend all our time wallowing around in companionship, we’re like a knife or a hoe stuck down into the dirt: It’ll rust easily. But if it’s constantly sharpened on a stone or a file, rust won’t have a chance to take hold. Thus we should learn to be always on the alert. This is why I like to stay in the forest. I benefit from it and learn many lessons.

Tropical flowers are nature's vibrant masterpieces, showcasing a show of colors, shapes, and spices that allure the senses. From the lush rainforests of South America to the paradisiacal islets of Southeast Asia

BARTON CENTRE, 912, 9th Floor, Mahatma Gandhi Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka - 560 001 +91 8884400919 Introduction to the Bangalore-Surfnxt Tour Package Welcome to the exclusive New Zealand Tour Package From Bangalore -Surfnxt Tour Package, an unforgettable journey through New Zealand's hidden treasures. You will be taken on a virtual tour of the breathtaking landscapes, cultural treasures, and thrilling adventures that await you on this immersive tour by the author of this article. Prepare to embark on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure in the land of the Long White Cloud, where you'll find treasures off the beaten path, culinary delights, and unforgettable experiences. On the Bangalore-Surfnxt tour package, we'll show you the beauty and charm of New Zealand's hidden gems. Join us as we do so. 1. Introduction to the Bangalore-Surfnxt Tour Package Have you ever wanted to see New Zealand's breathtaking landscapes while enjoying the old-fashioned charm of Bangalore? The Bangalore-Surfnxt tour package is here to fulfill your dreams, so buckle up! Travelers will have an unforgettable time on this one-of-a-kind tour because it combines the excitement of India with the excitement of New Zealand. Overview of the Tour Itinerary This tour promises an exciting journey filled with picturesque landscapes, thrilling activities, and cultural discoveries from the bustling streets of Bangalore to the tranquil shores of New Zealand. Prepare yourself for a once-in-a-lifetime adventure that will leave you with lasting memories. Highlights of the New Zealand Experience Get ready to be mesmerized by New Zealand's breathtaking beauty as you discover its hidden gems, meet welcoming locals, and immerse yourself in its rich Maori culture. This tour has something for everyone, whether you're a nature lover, an adventurer, or a culture buff. 2. Exploring New Zealand's Unspoiled Beauty Are you ready to immerse yourself in the unspoiled beauty of New Zealand while escaping the bustle of everyday life? Prepare to be awestruck by the country's stunning scenery, which includes pristine beaches, snow-capped mountains, and natural wonders that will take your breath away. New Zealand's diverse landscapes, which include imposing fjords, lush forests, and crystal-clear lakes, offer a magical experience. Nature's wonders will surround you at every turn, whether you're hiking through Mount Cook National Park or sailing through Milford Sound. Unique Flora and Fauna Experiencings Get up close and personal with the unique flora and fauna of New Zealand, including curious kiwi birds and ancient kauri trees. Be prepared to encounter some of the most fascinating plant and animal species in the world as you explore the country's wilderness. 3. Exploring Undiscovered Treasures Are you sick of crowded tourist attractions and experiences that are the same every time? It's time to discover New Zealand's off-the-beaten-path treasures, where you can meet real people, see lesser-known sights, and connect with the country's soul. Lesser-Known Attractions and Hidden Spots Go off the beaten path to discover hidden beaches and charming small towns that will surprise and delight you. You'll feel like you're finding a well-kept secret when you discover a local treasure or a hidden waterfall. Connecting with the locals and immersing yourself in their way of life is one of the best ways to truly experience a destination. The Bangalore-Surfnxt tour gives you authentic opportunities to learn traditional dances and eat dinner with a Maori family. These opportunities will make you appreciate New Zealand more. 4. Immersing Oneself in the Rich Tapestry of Maori Culture and Traditions No trip to New Zealand is complete without experiencing the local culture and traditions. Get ready to interact with the locals, take part in traditional activities, and learn more about the country's history.

Hildegard of Bingen was a Rhenish mystic, musician, composer, prophet, herbalist, pharmacist, and healer (at certain times she would have been called a witch, in spite of her Benedictine monastic garb, and these days she is heralded as such in certain circles as this word is reclaimed). Hildegard would not have been surprised by the effects of our separation from nature: in the 1100s she referred to people deprived of contact with the “lush greenness” of the landscape as “shriveled and wilted.

1. Sri Lanka’s Cultural and Historical Richness "Sri Lanka is a place where history lives in harmony with the present. From ancient temples to colonial fortresses, every corner of this island tells a story." Sri Lanka’s history stretches over 2,500 years, featuring incredible landmarks like the Sigiriya Rock Fortress and Anuradhapura's ancient ruins. The country is also home to the famous Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, an important religious site for Buddhists around the world. Each historic site tells a different story, making Sri Lanka a treasure trove of cultural and spiritual experiences. Find out more about planning a visit here. ________________________________________ 2. Nature’s Bounty and Biodiversity "In Sri Lanka, nature isn't merely observed; it's experienced with all the senses — from the scent of spice plantations to the sight of vibrant tea terraces and the sound of waves on pristine beaches." Sri Lanka’s national parks, like Yala and Udawalawe, are among the best places to see elephants, leopards, and a diverse range of bird species. The island’s ecosystems, from rainforests to coastal mangroves, create an incredible array of landscapes for nature lovers to explore. For those planning to visit these natural wonders, start your journey with a visa application. ________________________________________ 3. Sri Lankan Hospitality and Warmth "The true beauty of Sri Lanka is found in its people — hospitable, welcoming, and ready to share a smile or story over a cup of tea." The warmth of Sri Lankans is a common highlight for visitors, whether encountered in bustling cities or quiet villages. Tourists are frequently invited to join meals or participate in local festivities, making Sri Lanka a welcoming destination for international travelers. To experience this hospitality firsthand, ensure you have the right travel documents, accessible here. ________________________________________ 4. Beaches and Scenic Coastal Areas "Sri Lanka’s coastline is a place where sun meets sand, and every wave brings with it a sense of peace." With over 1,300 kilometers of beautiful coastline, Sri Lanka offers something for everyone. The south coast is famous for relaxing beaches like Unawatuna and Mirissa, while the east coast’s Arugam Bay draws surfing enthusiasts from around the globe. To enjoy these beaches, start by obtaining a Sri Lanka visa. ________________________________________ 5. Tea Plantations and the Hill Country "The heart of Sri Lanka beats in the hill country, where misty mountains and lush tea plantations stretch as far as the eye can see." The central highlands of Sri Lanka, with towns like Ella and Nuwara Eliya, are dotted with tea plantations that produce some of the world’s finest teas. Visiting a tea plantation offers a chance to see tea processing and sample fresh brews, with the cool climate adding to the serene experience. Secure your entry to the hill country with a visa application. ________________________________________ 6. Sri Lankan Cuisine: A Feast for the Senses "In Sri Lanka, food is more than sustenance — it’s an art form, a burst of flavors that range from spicy curries to sweet desserts." Sri Lankan cuisine is a rich blend of spices and textures. Popular dishes like rice and curry, hoppers, and kottu roti offer a true taste of the island. Food tours and local markets provide immersive culinary experiences, allowing visitors to discover the flavors of Sri Lanka. For a trip centered on food and culture, start your journey here.

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.” —Helen Keller

What else did her mother tell you?” Ethan asked, looking for any advantage in his task of winning her over. “That she’d call us later and give us pointers on wooing her daughter. Apparently, Naomi has something of a stubborn nature.” A snort escaped him. “I hadn’t noticed.” Javier paced the living room as Ethan stroked Naomi’s silky hair, unable to resist running his fingers through the long brown strands. “What are you thinking?” “That fate is laughing at me.” A chuckle made Ethan’s chest vibrate, causing Naomi’s head to jiggle. He cradled her head in his big palm to prevent her from falling before replying. “She’s certainly not what either of us expected, that’s for sure.” Javier shot him a dark look. “No shit, Sherlock. I mean don’t get me wrong, short and curvy works fine for me, but I always expected, if ever fate was cruel enough to curse me, she’d at least give me a woman who likes me.” “I’m sure she will in time. We took her by surprise, not to mention she’s in pain. Besides, I kind of like that she’s feisty. She’ll need it to keep up with us.” Round eyes and an open mouth met his answer. “You, my friend, are insane. One ball too many to the head I think. I mean, not only does she not want you, shouldn’t you be more pissed that it looks like she’s meant for both of us?” Ethan shrugged. “I’ll admit, I never expected to share, but if fate says that’s my lot, then at least it chose someone I could tolerate. And beat in a wrestling match if I need to. Besides, I’ll only have to share if you bother to stick around to mark her.” “Oh, I’m staying, so you can forget about keeping her for yourself,” Javier replied shooting him a dark look. “What happened to I’m not meant for monogamy?” Ethan pitched his voice mockingly. A sigh emerged from Javier’s mouth before he slumped in the chair across from him. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. It’s hard to think at all with my damned cat yammering for me to bite her. Mayhap if you were to claim her first, the need for me to do so would vanish?” The optimism in his friend’s voice made him laugh again. “Sorry, no such luck I’m afraid. From everything I’ve ever heard, once you find the one, you’re done for. The need to mark her, claim her, just gets stronger and stronger.” Already the urge to take her rode Ethan hard. It didn’t help that he held her cuddled on his lap, her sweet fragrance tickling his nose while her lush body pressed against his turgid cock.

It is no accident, therefore, that the great revelations of God’s own Name and of his Commandments occur in a mountainous desert, as far from civilization and its contents as possible, in a place as unlike the lush predictabilities and comforts of the Nile and the Euphrates as this earth of ours can offer. If God—the Real God, the One God—was to speak to human beings and if there was any possibility of their hearing him, it could happen only in a place stripped of all cultural reference points, where even nature (which was so imbued with contrary, god-inhabited forces) seemed absent. Only amid inhuman rock and dust could this fallible collection of human beings imagine becoming human in a new way. Only under a sun without pity, on a mountain devoid of life, could the living God break through the cultural filters that normally protect us from him. “YHWH, YHWH,” he thunders at Moshe, the man alone on the Mountain:     “God,     showing-mercy, showing-favor,     long-suffering in anger,     abundant in loyalty and faithfulness,     keeping loyalty to the thousandth (generation),     bearing iniquity, rebellion and sin,     yet not clearing, clearing (the guilty),     calling-to-account the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons and upon sons’ sons, to the third and fourth (generation)!

I love everything about spring! Reeks of hope, new lease on another year, blooming possibilities, lush beds of violet wildflowers along the interstate, nature’s annual migration: whooping cranes, manatees, Canadians.

Bong country is beautiful. Lush green forest, a sweet breeze. There are pygmy hippopotamuses here and monkeys; a sense of Liberia’s possibilities. Rich in natural resources, cool in the hills, hot on the beach.

People, like nature, some dry and harsh, others lush and colorful. Live them or leave them, don't try to change them, you can't change nature.

Soon after that, Eno briefly joined a group called the Scratch Orchestra, led by the late British avant-garde composer Cornelius Cardew. There was one Cardew piece that would be a formative experience for Eno—a piece known as “Paragraph 7,” part of a larger Cardew masterwork called The Great Learning. Explaining “Paragraph 7” could easily take up a book of its own. “Paragraph 7”’s score is designed to be performed by a group of singers, and it can be done by anyone, trained or untrained. The words are from a text by Confucius, broken up into 24 short chunks, each of which has a number. There are only a few simple rules. The number tells the singer how many times to repeat that chunk of text; an additional number tells each singer how many times to repeat it loudly or softly. Each singer chooses a note with which to sing each chunk—any note—with the caveats to not hit the same note twice in a row, and to try to match notes with a note sung by someone else in the group. Each note is held “for the length of a breath,” and each singer goes through the text at his own pace. Despite the seeming vagueness of the score’s few instructions, the piece sounds very similar—and very beautiful—each time it is performed. It starts out in discord, but rapidly and predictably resolves into a tranquil pool of sound. “Paragraph 7,” and 1960s tape loop pieces like Steve Reich’s “It’s Gonna Rain,” sparked Eno’s fascination with music that wasn’t obsessively organized from the start, but instead grew and mutated in intriguing ways from a limited set of initial constraints. “Paragraph 7” also reinforced Eno’s interest in music compositions that seemed to have the capacity to regulate themselves; the idea of a self-regulating system was at the very heart of cybernetics. Another appealing facet of “Paragraph 7” for Eno was that it was both process and product—an elegant and endlessly beguiling process that yielded a lush, calming result. Some of Cage’s pieces, and other process-driven pieces by other avant-gardists, embraced process to the point of extreme fetishism, and the resulting product could be jarring or painful to listen to. “Paragraph 7,” meanwhile, was easier on the ears—a shimmering cloud of sonics. In an essay titled “Generating and Organizing Variety in the Arts,” published in Studio International in 1976, a 28-year-old Eno connected his interest in “Paragraph 7” to his interest in cybernetics. He attempted to analyze how the design of the score’s few instructions naturally reduced the “variety” of possible inputs, leading to a remarkably consistent output. In the essay, Eno also wrote about algorithms—a cutting-edge concept for an electronic-music composer to be writing about, in an era when typewriters, not computers, were still en vogue. (In 1976, on the other side of the Atlantic, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were busy building a primitive personal computer in a garage that they called the Apple I.) Eno also talked about the related concept of a “heuristic,” using managerial-cybernetics champion Stafford Beer’s definition. “To use Beer’s example: If you wish to tell someone how to reach the top of a mountain that is shrouded in mist, the heuristic ‘keep going up’ will get him there,” Eno wrote. Eno connected Beer’s concept of a “heuristic” to music. Brecht’s Fluxus scores, for instance, could be described as heuristics.

Where I had expected to appreciate the monuments and love the natural environment, the reality was entirely the reverse. The immense beauty of many buildings and landscapes had an immediate and visceral impact, and yet in the natural world, where I am generally most comfortable, I was hesitant. While I was duly impressed by what I saw, I could never connect bodily and emotionally. Being from a flat, dry continent, I looked forward to the prospect of soaring alps and thundering rivers, lush valleys and fertile plains, and yet when I actually behind them, I was puzzled by how muted by responses were. My largely Eurocentric education had prepared me for a sense of recognition I did not feel, and this was confounding. The paintings and poems about all these places still moved me, so I couldn't understand the queer impatience that crept up when I saw them in real time and space. Weren't these landforms and panoramas beautiful? Well, yes, of course they were, although a little bit of them seemed to go a long way. To someone from an austere landscape, they often looked too cute; they were pretty, even saccharine. I had a nagging sensation that I wasn't 'getting it.

He gazed into her eyes. There were little flecks of gold ringing her pupils. Now that she wasn’t running from him or terrified by him, he realized Elspeth Stewart was really quite a beauty. Her lips were full and lush. By some trick of musculature under her smooth skin, the corners of them turned up naturally in a beguiling half smile, as if she were hugging a delicious secret to herself. There were soft hollows beneath her rosy cheeks, a sign of the bone-deep loveliness that only ripens with age. “Lachlan Drummond is a lucky bastard,” Rob said with conviction.

I presume this is part of your erotic art collection?" she mused out loud. "It is most beautifully done; only look at the masterful brushwork and the lush, luminous colors. Curiously enough, it reminds me of Boucher, though I suppose it was done by a less well-known artist." He lifted a brow. "I am impressed, madam, since Boucher is exactly who painted the work. You do indeed know your art. The provenance says he did this painting as a private commission for a wealthy, anonymous patron. I acquired it at an equally private auction a few years ago and have enjoyed viewing it ever since." "Well, if this painting is representative of your collection, I would guess that all the works must have scandalous, clandestine origins due to the lurid nature of the subject matter." "Actually, this is one of the less provocative pieces," he informed her. "The majority of my collection is housed in a separate gallery devoted strictly to erotic art and literature. A couple of the maids won't even go inside to clean." Esme turned her gaze on him. "Is it really that bad?" "Or that good, depending on your point of view." He grinned. "I'll show it to you sometime, if you'd like. After all, you are an art lover. Come to think, perhaps I should frame the naked sketch you did of me and add it to the collection. Or would you prefer to keep it and hang it on your bedroom wall?" "I believe I will leave it exactly where it is, else the entire house know what you look like without clothing. Although knowing you, you'd likely be as proud as Bacchus here and every bit as shameless." His grin widened. "Yes, but only because certain parts of me actually do rival the gods.

Hildegard of Bingen grounded both her ecospirituality and her herbal medicine in this knowing. Her central concept of viriditas, or divine “greenness,” sanctifies more than the literally green mosses and leaves; over and over Hildegard calls upon the interdependence of trees, seeds, spirit, and soil as sacred cocreators. She used various trees in her practical cures, but they were also stand-ins for the mythic tree of life in her writings and visions. In one of Hildegard’s greatest hymns, she sings to the trees on her lush Rhineland. “O happy roots, mediatrix, and branches…” The “happy” roots, ever underland, grow in the particular favor of the divine (and perhaps of Hildegard herself—there is speculation that some of her visions may have been enhanced by the hallucinogenic mandrake root, which she prescribed as a cure for depression). Green branching is only and always mirrored in rooted darkness—the place we, too, come from and return to. To be whole on earth is to embrace this exuberant darkness, the landscape we visit with every turn of day into night.

The jar quickly drained between them, with Kimmie drinking most of it, until only the soaked flower lay at the bottom. Kimmie reached in with her fingers and brought it to Lee's face with mischief glistering in her eyes. She tickled the tip of her nose and trailed it down. Without thinking, Lee closed her eyes and parted her lips. She felt it fill her mouth like a soft spider. The petals were jellied and lush as she bit softly and chewed. The taste was an overwhelming version of the liquor itself. A phantasm of undiluted shifting flavors: honey, leaves, bubblegum, ash, blood. When she finally swallowed, she lay back on the ground with the force of it. Her skin tingled like something was coming up through her pores. Thin roots sprouted from every inch of skin that touched the grass: the back of her head, her shoulder blades, her thighs. They probed into the dirt and snaked their way down, farther into the earth, branching and spreading below her. She could feel the roots glowing. An electricity crackled through her, and she knew it was the power of the land. They were connected. She sensed the groundwater flowing below as it fed the wells of the houses tucked into the mountains. When she focused on the water itself, she could access the memories it held, of every living thing that ever made a home on this land. A dinosaur lapping from a creek with its long tongue. A prehistoric woman peering down into its reflective surface and seeing herself staring back. She could sense the coal, the natural gas, the zinc, the marble, nestled like treasure deep within the clay and stone.

BARTON CENTRE, 912, 9th Floor, Mahatma Gandhi Rd, Bengaluru, Karnataka - 560 001 Phone Number +91 8884400919 With the Bali Tour Package From Bangalore offered by Surfnxt, a leading tour operator known for creating exceptional travel experiences, embark on an unforgettable journey. Bali is the ideal setting for a rejuvenating getaway because of its stunning beaches, vibrant culture, and breathtaking landscapes. This article delves into the enticing aspects of the Surfnxt Bali Tour Package, providing information on the itinerary's specifics, lodging options, activities, dining experiences, and important advice for making your trip to this Indonesian paradise one to remember. Introduction to the Bali Tour Package From Bangalore If you're looking for a tropical escape with stunning beaches, vibrant culture, and exciting adventures, Bali is the place to go. Additionally, Surfnxt's Bali tour package, which guarantees an unforgettable experience from beginning to end, caters to Bangalore-based travelers. An Overview of Bali as a Tourist Destination Bali, also known as the Island of the Gods, is a unique paradise. Bali offers a perfect combination of natural beauty and cultural diversity, with everything from ancient temples to lush rice terraces. Bali has something for everyone who wants to travel with its warm hospitality, mouthwatering cuisine, and plethora of activities. An Overview of Surfnxt as a Travel Agency Surfnxt is not your typical travel agency. Surfnxt is proud to curate tours that go above and beyond the norm because they have a passion for creating one-of-a-kind and individualized experiences. Their Bali tour package from Bangalore aims to highlight Bali's best attractions and ensure a hassle-free vacation. Highlights of the Surfnxt Bali Tour Package Beach Resorts and Luxury Accommodations Prepare to relax and enjoy luxury at resorts on the beach that will make you feel like a king or queen. The accommodations included in Surfnxt's Bali tour package are sure to impress even the most discerning travelers thanks to their world-class amenities and stunning ocean views. Adventure Activities and Cultural Experiences Surfnxt has arranged a variety of activities and cultural experiences that will leave you wanting more for thrill-seekers and culture enthusiasts. This tour package has everything, from surfing in crystal-clear waters to touring ancient temples to taking in traditional Balinese dances. The Bali tour package from Surfnxt includes a meticulously planned itinerary that covers all of Bali's must-see attractions and hidden gems. Itinerary Details for Bali Tour from Bangalore Day-by-Day Breakdown of the Tour Program Every day is filled with exciting adventures and unforgettable experiences, including going to famous landmarks and eating local cuisine. Accommodation and transportation options, as well as information about the facilities, are all part of the Surfnxt Bali tour package. Your comfort is our top concern. The accommodations are carefully chosen for their quality and convenience after a day of fun and exploration, ensuring a restful stay. Modes of Transportation and Features Included: Surfnxt will handle all of your transportation needs while you're on your Bali tour. While their knowledgeable staff takes care of all the details, whether you need airport transfers, sightseeing tours, or intercity travel, you can relax and enjoy the journey. Activities and Attractions Included in the Package Water Sports and Outdoor Adventures Get ready to experience the exhilarating water sports included in this package and dive into the clear waters of Bali. Surfing the waves or snorkeling among the colorful marine life are examples of these activities. For adrenaline junkies, options like whitewater rafting and jungle trekking are certain to get your heart pumping.

Today's climate is incurring the contraries of a hazardous pollution situation in a very immense way. Humans are connive to felling of verdant and fecund trees for their selfishness and amenities, as well as massive deforestation, which is unnecessary. Due to which the deficit of wild animals and birds as well as lesions is reaching them. Man is not able to primal recondite that an easefulness, placid, and healthy life is imprescriptible only when the atmosphere is green and anti-pollution with entirety, or else there is sure to be a pander of unsteadiness in nature's environment. As long as the lush trees snuggle prolifictly, your respiration in lungs is alive in this planetary for a procurable and convenient fortune steadily. Incessantly, this will reserve preference for a sedate and easy life, but not full of solemnity. Such a thing will not be a herculean, risky, and insurmountable task. Along with this, modifying preservation from earthly to unearthly will continue to happen readily because your energy is contained in shoreless nature; every day will be a bonus for every creature in their living force.

And face-to-face with the lush vineyard, I feel my worries melt away. The grapes glow with that magical golden sunlight, but from here, it feels far more real. I turn and turn, drinking in the sights of the green vines, thick with plump grapes, the same sage green as the broad leaves fluttering in the breeze. Dusty paths stretch between the rows, and I want to walk through them forever, listening to the almost-quiet of this strange, beautiful world.

Landowners in the bone-dry southwest United States irrigate their properties to evoke the lush, grassy savanna. Gardeners in Japan prune their trees so that the boughs resemble the spreading branches of the trees of East Africa. Such choices reflect the brain’s very particular evolved history—the “ghosts of environments past,” in the phrase of biologist Gordon Orians. What we imagine to be aesthetic preferences are really survival instincts honed over millennia, instincts that helped us find promising places to forage and to rest. When, today, we turn to nature when we’re stressed or burned out—when we take a walk through the woods or gaze out at the ocean’s rolling waves—we are engaging in what one researcher calls “environmental self-regulation,” a process of psychological renewal that our brains cannot accomplish on their own.

UNCONVENTIONAL DESTINATION WEDDING LOCALES Destination Wedding Jan 6 This wedding season, fall in love with endearing unconventional destination wedding locales Theme Weavers Designs Since all the travel restrictions have been lifted, destination weddings are back in vogue. However, the pandemic has led to a major paradigm shift. In this case, Indian couples are looking into hidden gems to take on as their wedding destination, instead of opting for an international location. With the rich cultural heritage and a myriad of local traditions, it has been observed by industry insiders that couples feel closer to their past and history after getting married in a regional wedding destination. At the same time, it is a very cumbersome task to find the perfect wedding destination - it has to be perfectly balanced in terms of the services it offers as well as having breathtaking views. This wedding season, choose something offbeat, by opting for an unexplored destination, that is both visually appealing and has a romantic vibe to them. Start off your wedding journey with an auspicious location. Rishikesh, on the banks of the holy river Ganges is one of the most sacred places a couple can tie the knot. This tiny town’s interesting traditions, picturesque locales, and ancient customs make this one of the most underrated places to get married in india. Perfect for a riverside wedding in extravagant outdoor tents, this wedding season, it is high time Rishikesh gets the hype it deserves. “The Glasshouse on the Ganges,” is one of the most stunning places to get married. While becoming informed travellers, this place is interred with a vast and vibrant cultural history. It offers an extremely unique experience as it revitalises ruined architectural wonders for the couple to tour or get married in, making it a heartwarming and wonderful experience for all those who are involved. Steep your wedding party in the lap of nature, in Naukuchiatal, Nainital, Uttarakhand. This place is commonly referred to as “treasure of natural beauty,” where it offers mesmerising natural spectacles for a couple to get married in a gorgeous outdoor ceremony. Away from the hustle and bustle of the urban jungles that have slowly been taking over the Indian subcontinent, this location provides a much needed breath of fresh air. This location also provides much needed reprieve from the fast paced lifestyle that we live, making a wedding a truly relaxing affair. As this is a quaint hill station, surrounded with lush greens, there are numerous ideas to create a natural and sustainable wedding. The most distinguishing feature of this location is the nine-cornered lake, situated 1,220 m above sea level. There is something classic and timeless about the Kerala backwaters. This location is enriching and chock full of unique cultural traditions. With spectacular and awe-inspiring views of the backwaters, Kumarakom in Kerala easily qualifies as one of the top wedding destinations in india. Just like Naukuchiatal, this space is a study in serenity, where it is far away from the noisy streets and bazaars. Perfect for a cozy and intimate wedding, the Kerala backwaters are a gorgeous choice for couples who are opting for a socially distant wedding, along with having a lot of indigenous flora and fauna. Punctuated with the salty sea and the sultry air, the backwaters in Kerala are an underrated gem that presents couples with a unique wedding location that is perfect for a historical and regal wedding. The beaches of Goa and the forts of Rajasthan are a classic for a reason, but at the same time, they can get boring. Couples have been exploring more underrated wedding locations in order to experience the diverse local cultures of India that can also host their weddings

Zai’s promises about Faery being lush and alive? Maybe actually not a lie after all. Because everything up here is green. The starlight overhead is just bright enough that I can still make out the sprawling scenery unfolding in front of us. Trees taller than anything I’ve ever seen, fields of wildflowers stretching on and on. There are buildings, too, but they’re not like anything on Earth. They’re built right into the layout of the land, not disrupting anything to make space for themselves. There are homes nestled into the giant limbs of the trees, and tucked into massive tangles of flowers. Cavenia has led us to a massive door carved directly into a sloping hillside. There are people moving around, still finishing up their days. Witches and fae move together, intermingling without concern. They’ve set up in what appears to be some kind of town center, gathered around a natural pool of water, where children splash. It isn’t only witches and fae, either. Pixies dart in the air. A goblin helps a young fae patch a hole in the tree branch roof of their home. The sight of a hellhound with her two pups makes my heart ache for Boom, back in Asalin. [...] Overhead, floating islands dot the sky, their undersides made of roots that hang loosely toward the ground. I can barely make out the greenery peeking over the edge on top. One of them has a waterfall flowing off the side, and the water seems to turn to mist before it reaches anyone below. The islands look small from here, as high up as they are, but I know they must be huge. Know, because I can see dragons lounging on all of them. [...] Behind us, I can make out the island we came from in the distance, the colossal divot of an empty ocean stretched between us. This far above it, I realize the island is shaped like a near-perfect crescent moon.

You are sitting in the middle of a magnificent, lush, green garden. This garden is filled with the most spectacular flowers you have ever seen. The environment is supremely tranquil and silent. Savor the sensual delights of this garden and feel as if you have all the time in the world to enjoy this natural oasis. As you look around, you see that in the center of this magical garden stands a towering, red lighthouse, six stories high. Suddenly, the silence of the garden is disturbed by a loud creaking as the door at the base of the lighthouse opens. Out stumbles a nine-foot-tall, nine-hundred-pound Japanese sumo wrestler who casually wanders into the center of the garden. “It gets better,” chuckled Julian. “The Japanese sumo wrestler is almost totally naked. He has a pink wire cable covering his private parts.” As this sumo wrestler starts to move around the garden, he finds a shiny gold stopwatch which someone had left behind many years earlier. He slips it on and falls to the ground with an enormous thud. The sumo wrestler is rendered unconscious and lies there, silent and still. Just when you think he has taken his last breath, the wrestler awakens, perhaps stirred by the fragrance of some fresh yellow roses blooming nearby. Energized, the wrestler jumps swiftly to his feet and intuitively looks to his left. He is startled by what he sees. Through the bushes at the very edge of the garden he observes a long winding path covered by millions of sparkling diamonds. Something seems to instruct the wrestler to take the path, and to his credit, he does. This path leads him down the road of everlasting joy and eternal bliss.

Rachael stared into the rich, lush forest, longing growing in her with a strength that shook her. She heard the continual call of the birds, so many of them, saw them flitting from branch to branch, always busy, always in flight. She had a mad desire to dive out of the boat and swim away to disappear into the dark interior.

Greatness' exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details. Wabi-sabi represents the exact opposite of the Western ideal of great beauty as something monumental, spectacular, and enduring. Wabi-sabi is not found in nature at moments of bloom and lushness, but at moments of inception or subsiding. Wabi-sabi is not about gorgeous flowers, majestic trees, or bold landscapes. Wabi-sabi is about the minor and the hidden, the tentative and the ephemeral: things so subtle and evanescent they are invisible to vulgar eyes.

This Elixir Smites by Stewart Stafford How dull the rose's painted lustre, As bees gossip, all mistrust her, Window taps on stormy nights, Aphids swarm as suckling mites. Once buds entwined at Nature's hip, Now cleft in two and water-dipped, Glass-twisted strangest shape, Mauve-petalled mausoleum draped. Neglected drops in muted drought, The bloody thorns scratch about, A lush finger in withered point, Pruned stem of glum conjoint. Cataclysms from petty faults arise; Reflection pardoned in imperfect eyes. © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.

The Annapurna region, located in central Nepal, is renowned for its stunning mountain ranges, picturesque valleys, and diverse flora and fauna. The region is named after Annapurna, the tenth-highest mountain in the world. Trekking in the Annapurna region offers a blend of natural beauty, cultural encounters, and thrilling adventures. The trails in this region are well-developed and cater to trekkers of all experience levels. Highlights of the Annapurna region trek Trekking in the Annapurna region offers a multitude of highlights that will leave you awe-struck. One of the most popular treks in this region is the Annapurna Circuit, which takes you through lush green forests, quaint traditional villages, and high mountain passes. The trek offers breathtaking views of snow-capped peaks like Annapurna I, Dhaulagiri, and Machhapuchhre (Fishtail). Another highlight of this region is the Annapurna Base Camp trek, which takes you to the foot of the majestic Annapurna massif. The trek offers panoramic views of the surrounding peaks and a chance to immerse yourself in the unique culture of the local Gurung and Magar communities.

We pulled into the so-called safe zone, next to a pair of tow teams that had sidelined themselves, and as King reached past me to untether his camera case and assemble his housing, I started at Jaws. At about 40 feet, this wasn't the biggest day on record, but somehow that diminished nothing. The wave was breathtaking. As it rose, its face opened up to the cliffs and its lip curled over a full-bellied barrel. Except for the luminous glints of turquoise at its peak, the wave was sapphire blue, gin clear, and flecked with white. If heaven were a color it would be tinted like this. You could fall into this water and happily never come out and you could see it forever and never get tired of looking. Jaws did not permit its spectators to daydream about being someplace else, to feel bored or irritated or jaded. Watching it was an instant antidote to petty problems. There could be no confusion about who called the shots out here, at this gorgeous, haunted, heavy, lush, primordial place, with all its unnameable blues and its ability to nourish you and kill you at the same time. There was unspeakable power at Jaws, but it was the beauty that got me.

The glare of the green landscape and the air, the air that was everywhere, in us and making way for us, and we rode and were aware only of each other and ourselves for those couple of miles, and for those couple of miles I was myself, back in the neighborhood of Chacarita, where I moved with my mom after we realized my dad was never going to move out first, that we would have to leave him, and I saw on either side of me the big ugly high-rises and squat goldenrod houses and fuchsia and blue and inscrutable notes scrawled on the walls, graffiti intermingling with the shimmering, shadowing little leaves of the tipas, and as I rode I slowed at the oleander at Facultad de Medicina, those delicate pink flowers that rose over the fence in utter opulence and the lush stiff leaves that reached out through the bars that were freshly painted bright green. Then there it was: the Great Mamamushi. I slowed, and Freddie slowed. We parked our bikes. I was out of breath and all the air on Earth was in my blood, and we kissed again, and I turned around, and he put his arms around my waist, and I leaned into him, and we beheld it: a tree that was almost too much to be true, that truly was incredible, with its trunk that was almost eight meters around, a staggering circumference, glittered over by dragonflies, heavy, petite, iridescent incarnations of Irena's genius, when suddenly a flock of impossible parrots exploded out of the alders, and we looked up to see them shattering the sky. "All the oaks on this trail have their own names," I explained to Freddie. "This one is my favorite. Can you believe it's still growing?" He put his face against mine. He didn't say anything. For a while we just stood like that, together, watching the Great Mamamushi grow.

As she spoke, she turned her face toward his, and in that instant, with the wind catching her hair and painting her cheeks pink, she looked so enchantingly lovely that Simon nearly forgot to breathe. Her lush mouth was caught somewhere between a laugh and a smile, and the sun glinted almost red on her hair. Here on the water, away from stuffy ballrooms, with the fresh air swirling about them, she looked natural and beautiful and just being in her presence made Simon want to grin like an idiot.

With the web uncovered, the intricacies of the belowground alliance still remained a mystery to me, until I started my doctoral research in 1992. Paper birches, with their lush leaves and gossamer bark, seemed to be feeding the soil and helping their coniferous neighbors. But how? In pulling back the forest floor using microscopic and genetic tools, I discovered that the vast belowground mycelial network was a bustling community of mycorrhizal fungal species. These fungi are mutualistic. They connect the trees with the soil in a market exchange of carbon and nutrients and link the roots of paper birches and Douglas firs in a busy, cooperative Internet. When the interwoven birches and firs were spiked with stable and radioactive isotopes, I could see, using mass spectrometers and scintillation counters, carbon being transmitted back and forth between the trees, like neurotransmitters firing in our own neural networks. The trees were communicating through the web! I was staggered to discover that Douglas firs were receiving more photosynthetic carbon from paper birches than they were transmitting, especially when the firs were in the shade of their leafy neighbors. This helped explain the synergy of the pair’s relationship. The birches, it turns out, were spurring the growth of the firs, like carers in human social networks. Looking further, we discovered that the exchange between the two tree species was dynamic: each took different turns as “mother,” depending on the season. And so, they forged their duality into a oneness, making a forest. This discovery was published by Nature in 1997 and called the “wood wide web.” The research has continued unabated ever since, undertaken by students, postdoctoral researchers, and other scientists, with a myriad of discoveries about belowground communication among trees. We have used new scientific tools, as they are invented, along with our curiosity and dreams, to peer into the dark world of the soil and illuminate the social network of trees. The wood wide web has been mapped, traced, monitored, and coaxed to reveal the beautiful structures and finely adapted languages of the forest network. We have learned that mother trees recognize and talk with their kin, shaping future generations. In addition, injured trees pass their legacies on to their neighbors, affecting gene regulation, defense chemistry, and resilience in the forest community. These discoveries have transformed our understanding of trees from competitive crusaders of the self to members of a connected, relating, communicating system. Ours is not the only lab making these discoveries—there is a burst of careful scientific research occurring worldwide that is uncovering all manner of ways that trees communicate with each other above and below ground.

Energy: vibrant color and light Abundance: lushness, multiplicity, and variety Freedom: nature, wildness, and open space Harmony: balance, symmetry, and flow Play: circles, spheres, and bubbly forms Surprise: contrast and whimsy Transcendence: elevation and lightness Magic: invisible forces and illusions

In the face of this vision, Powell put forth another. What was needed above all else, Powell believed, was to know the land, to understand the land, and to react accordingly. This had practical consequences: while a cow might properly graze on a half-acre in the lush East, it would require fifty times that amount of land in most of the West. It followed that the standard acreage of settlement should be different, and it followed that settlement should take into account sources of water. Powell’s goal with his survey was to clearly map out the western lands, to determine what land could be realistically used for agriculture, which meant also determining where irrigation dams should be placed for best effect. In other words, his goal, to use Wendell Berry’s phrase, was to think about “land use” and to do so on a massive scale. Specifically, Powell wanted to think out the uses of land that would be the most beneficial and fruitful for the human beings living there, and for the entire ecosystem (though that word did not yet exist). From the Mormons, Powell learned how “salutary co-operation could be as a way of life, how much less wasteful than competition.” In the late 1880s, Powell wrote a General Plan for land use in the West that “reached to embrace the related problems of land, water, erosion, floods, soil conservation, even the new one of hydroelectric power” that was based on “the settled belief in the worth of the small farmer and the necessity of protecting him both from speculators and from natural conditions he did not understand and could not combat.” It was a methodical, sensible, scientific approach, essentially a declaration of interdependence between the people and their land, and the miracle is that it came very close to passing into law. But of course it met with fierce opposition from those who stood to profit from exploitation, from the boosters and boomers and politicians who thought it “unpatriotic” to describe the West as dry. After all, how dare he call their garden a desert? What right did he have to come in and determine what only free individuals should? Powell was attacked in the papers, slandered in Congress. According to Stegner, Congressman Thomas M. Patterson of Colorado referred to Powell as “this revolutionist,” and the overall attack on Powell “distinguished itself for bombast and ignorance and bad faith.

In their expansion, humans have invaded every part of our planet, from below sea level to the highest mountaintops, from tropical forests to frozen steppes and ice fields, from lush savannahs and prairies to the driest deserts, from the Earth’s surface to the depths of oceans, the air above us, and even the Moon and distant space. Unlike other living species, they have not achieved their successes by developing appropriate physical adaptations; they have done it with their intelligence.

Waterfall by Maisie Aletha Smikle Soothing water gushing from the rocks Hastens to meet the rivers and streams That meet in the ocean deep Never to reach a mountain peak Soft mist rises from the lunging gush As crystal water plunges down in a rush Carried by the gentle breeze Like a balm it calms the soul with ease It dims the heat and cools the air Trickles on the grassy meadow And on the sand beneath Cooling pebbles for your feet As you walk the sandy shore Inhaling cool mist as you tour And watch the little birds soar Chirping and singing like never before Beautiful waterfall So splendid and so tall Climb to the top And view the backdrop Mountains elegantly towering Over hills and plains beneath Casting shadows On lush green meadows Crystal clear water drops Naturally pure to the very last drop Nature is kind nature is fine Nature is undoubtedly divine

The grass is a brighter shade of lush Life devoid of maddening rush So much going right for mother nature Reinstated partly To original stature QUARANTINE+VE

Whereas Rosa’s lips were full and lush, her mother’s were thin and pinched in an expression that hinted at pain so long suppressed and hidden that in hiding from the world, the pain had become second nature.

My wife also contributed to my poison ivy education. She taught me women have an aversion to 'red, bumpy men' and are not the least bit aroused by any part of the male anatomy which happens to be infected. However, this was not a problem. My infestation was so severe, the act of scratching produced orgasmic waves of delight that made me consider scheduling weekly au naturel pilgrimages through lush, rolling fields of the devil vine.