Marvel Vision Quotes

The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate his visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions. Perhaps he cannot; certainly he does not, or does so very seldom.

The Cosmos extends, for all practical purposes, forever. After a brief sedentary hiatus, we are resuming our ancient nomadic way of life. Our remote descendants, safely arrayed on many worlds throughout the Solar System and beyond, will be unified by their common heritage, by their regard for their home planet, and by the knowledge that, whatever other life may be, the only humans in all the Universe come from Earth. They will gaze up and strain to find the blue dot in their skies. They will love it no less for its obscurity and fragility. They will marvel at how vulnerable the repository of all our potential once was, how perilous our infancy, how humble our beginnings, how many rivers we had to cross before we found our way.

Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites and try to control what won't be. But there is grace in their failings.

That night, cold and alone, Joseph had thought he'd found a portal into the past. But he'd been wrong. It was a vision of the future.

I'm enjoying two beautiful visions tonight. Watching you stand there against a marvelous background has to be the most intriguing sunset I have ever experienced.

Algebra applies to the clouds, the radiance of the star benefits the rose--no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who could ever calculate the path of a molecule? How do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by falling grains of sand? Who can understand the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely small, the echoing of causes in the abyss of being and the avalanches of creation? A mite has value; the small is great, the great is small. All is balanced in necessity; frightening vision for the mind. There are marvelous relations between beings and things, in this inexhaustible whole, from sun to grub, there is no scorn, each needs the other. Light does not carry terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths without knowing what it does with them; night distributes the stellar essence to the sleeping plants. Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor and the tap of a swallow's beak breaking the egg, and it guides the birth of the earthworm, and the advent of Socrates. Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has a greater view? Choose. A bit of mold is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an anthill of stars. The same promiscuity, and still more wonderful, between the things of the intellect and material things. Elements and principles are mingled, combined, espoused, multiplied one by another, to the point that the material world, and the moral world are brought into the same light. Phenomena are perpetually folded back on themselves. In the vast cosmic changes, universal life comes and goes in unknown quantities, rolling everything up in the invisible mystery of the emanations, using everything, losing no dream from any single sleep, sowing a microscopic animal here, crumbling a star there, oscillating and gyrating, making a force of light, and an element of thought, disseminated and indivisible dissolving all, that geometric point, the self; reducing everything to the soul-atom; making everything blossom into God; entangling from the highest to the lowest, all activities in the obscurity of a dizzying mechanism, linking the flight of an insect to the movement of the earth, subordinating--who knows, if only by the identity of the law--the evolutions of the comet in the firmament to the circling of the protozoa in the drop of water. A machine made of mind. Enormous gearing, whose first motor is the gnat, and whose last is the zodiac.

She was almost touching him, now. Looking up into his eyes. What she could feel in him was something she's only felt before when she gave him her life energy. Childlike, marveling joy. Trust and vulnerability. And such love… Then she was in his arms and they weren't separate beings any longer. Their minds were together, sharing thoughts, sharing a happiness beyond thought. Sharing everything.

They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions; and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air.

Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs, are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air

Ultron: Stark asked for a savior, and settled for a slave. The Vision: I suppose we're both disappointments. Ultron: [laughs] I suppose we are. The Vision: Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites and try to control what won't be. But there is grace in their failings. I think you missed that. Ultron: They're doomed! The Vision: Yes... but a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. It is a privilege to be among them. Ultron: You're unbelievably naïve. The Vision: Well, I was born yesterday.

What is grief if not love persevering?

The world is a mysterious place. On the one hand, its size can be measured and recorded and verified. Its marvels and oddities captured in complex, empirical detail. On the other hand, its size is relative to our mind’s perception of it. Its marvels and oddities only extending to how far our vision goes. For some of us, this means the world is small, including only those we see as belonging to it. People related to us, people who look like us, dress like us, think like us. For others, it’s medium-size and includes those we connect to through some similarity, some trait that pings familiarity within, which then allows us to overlook the differences between us and them. And then there are those who see the world as huge, as the actual size it measurably is. Huge enough to include vast differences, people with nothing in common with one another except a beating heart and a feeling soul, these two—heart, soul—being the strongest connection between us all.

Kaitlyn remebered the things he'd given her, the sun-flooded afternoons, and the cool healing ocean waves, and the music he'd written. He'd given her everything that was best in him, everything he was. She wanted to give him the same thing back. I don't know how you can love me. The words came soflty, as if he were thinking them to himself. You've seen what I am. That's why I do love you, Kaitlyn told him. I hope you'll still love me when you see what I am. "I know what you are, Kait. Everything beautiful and brave and gallant and..." He stopped as if his throat had closed. "Everything that makes me want to be better for you. That makes me sorry I'm such a stupid mess..." You looked like a knight with that shard, Kaitlyn said, moving toward him. "Really?" He laughed shakily. My knight. And I never said thank you. She was almost touching him, now. Looking up into his eyes. What she could feel in him was something she'd only felt before when she gave him her life energy. Childlike, marveling joy. Trust and vulnerability. And such love... Then she was in his arms and they weren't separate beings any longer. Their minds were together, sharing thoughts, sharing happiness beyond thought. Sharing everything. She never even knew whether he kissed her.

It is a commonplace of all religious thought, even the most primitive, that the man seeking visions and insight must go apart from his fellows and live for a time in the wilderness. If he is of the proper sort, he will return with a message. It may not be a message from the god he set out to seek, but even if he has failed in that particular, he will have had a vision or seen a marvel, and these are always worth listening to and thinking about.... One must seek, then, what only the solitary approach can give - a natural revelation.

What is grief if not love persevering?

Albert Einstein, for one, repeatedly expressed these feelings, as in the following celebrated passage (Einstein, 1949, p. 5): The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science…the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.

The light bounced off the water and shimmered against the buildings on the other side of the river. Joseph walked, listening to the sound of what was beneath his feet, and soon he noticed he was alone. He turned and saw Frankie had stopped beside Albert and filled her jacket pockets. Looking at the two of them, Joseph wondered for a moment if Leo had ever come down here to go mudlarking, his red hair shining in the sun. the vision seemed so vivid, but then Joseph remembered that Leo wasn't real, and the boy dissolved like smoke into the winter sky.

Why is that I never get cut off from pity, sympathy, participation, in spite of the fact that I am living out of my own dream, my interior vision, my fantasies without any interruptions. I dream, I kiss, I have orgasms, I get exalted, I leave the world, I float, I cook, I sew, have nightmares, write in my head, compose, decompose, improvise, invent, I listen to all, I hear all that is said, I feel Spain, I am aware, I am everywhere , I am open to wounds, open to love, I am rooted to my devotions, I am never separete, I am never cut off, never blind, deaf, absent. I hold on to the dream which makes life possible, to the creation which transfigures, to the God who sustains, to the crimes which gave life, to the illusions which makes the marvelous possible. I hold on to the poetry and the human simplicities.

Damn. How much time did you spend in the library?" “I am a library.

After all, all devices have their dangers. The discovery of speech introduced communication—and lies. The discovery of fire introduced cooking—and arson. The discovery of the compass improved navigation—and destroyed civilizations in Mexico and Peru. The automobile is marvelously useful—and kills Americans by the tens of thousands each year. Medical advances have saved lives by the millions—and intensified the population explosion.

To live is to be other. It’s not even possible to feel, if one feels today what he felt yesterday. To feel today what one felt yesterday isn’t to feel – it’s to remember today what was felt yesterday, to be today’s living corpse of what yesterday was lived and lost. To erase everything from the slate from one day to the next, to be new with each new morning, in a perpetual revival of our emotional virginity – this, and only this, is worth being or having, to be or have what we imperfectly are. This dawn is the first dawn of the world. Never did this pink colour yellowing to a warm white so tinge, towards the west, the face of the buildings whose windowpane eyes gaze upon the silence brought by the growing light. There was never this hour, nor this light, nor this person that’s me. What will be tomorrow will be something else, and what I see will be seen by reconstituted eyes, full of a new vision. High city hills! Great marvels of architecture that the steep slopes secure and make even greater, motley chaos of heaped up buildings that the daylight weaves together with bright spots and shadows – you are today, you are me, because I see you, you are what [I’ll be] tomorrow, and I love you from the deck rail as when two ships pass, and there’s a mysterious longing and regret in their passing.

How great indeed is our debt to [Joseph Smith]. His life began in Vermont and ended in Illinois, and marvelous were the things that happened between that simple beginning and that tragic ending. It was he who brought us a true knowledge of God the Eternal Father and His Risen Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. During the short time of his great vision he learned more concerning the nature of Deity than all of those who through centuries had argued that matter in learned councils and scholarly forums. He brought us this marvelous book, the Book of Mormon, as another witness for the living reality of the Son of God. To him, from those who held it anciently, came the priesthood, the power, the gift, the authority, the keys to speak and act in the name of God. He gave us the organization of the Church and its great and sacred mission. Through him were restored the keys of the holy temples, that men and women might enter into eternal covenants with God, and that the great work for the dead might be accomplished. . . . "He was the instrument in the hands of the Almighty.

You will not wonder at his weird pilgrimage,-who who in the swift whifl of living, amid its cold paradox and marvelous vision, have fronted life and aked its riddle face to face. And if you find that riddle hard to read, remember that yonder black boy finds it just a little harder; if it is difficult for you to find and face your duty, it is a shade more difficult for him; if your heart sickens in the blood and dust of battle, remember that to him the dust is thicker and the battle fiercer.

How the moon triumphs through the endless nights! How the stars throb and glitter as they wheel Their thick processions of supernal lights Around the blue vault obdurate as steel! And men regard with passionate awe and yearning The mighty marching and the golden burning, And think the heavens respond to what they feel. Boats gliding like dark shadows of a dream Are glorified from vision as they pass The quivering moonbridge on the deep black stream; Cold windows kindle their dead glooms of glass To restless crystals; cornice dome and column Emerge from chaos in the splendour solemn; Like faery lakes gleam lawns of dewy grass. With such a living light these dead eyes shine, These eyes of sightless heaven, that as we gaze We read a pity, tremulous, divine, Or cold majestic scorn in their pure rays: Fond man! they are not haughty, are not tender; There is no heart or mind in all their splendour, They thread mere puppets all their marvellous maze.

The characteristic of vision. That great sweeping act of imagination which evoked a marvelous park, where children pressed against the fences, wondering at the extraordinary creatures, come alive from their storybooks. Real vision. The ability to see the future. The ability to marshal resources to make that future vision a reality.

How do we know that the creation of worlds is not determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who knows the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely little, the reverberations of causes in the precipices of being, and the avalanches of creation? The tiniest worm is of importance; the great is little, the little is great; everything is balanced in necessity; alarming vision for the mind. There are marvelous relations between beings and things; in that inexhaustible whole, from the sun to the grub, nothing despise the other; all have need of each other. The light does not bear away terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths, without knowing what it is doing; the night distributes stellar essences to the sleeping flowers. All birds that fly have round their the thread of the infinite. Germination is complicated with the bursting forth of a meteor and with the peck of a swallow cracking its egg, and it places on one level the birth of an earthworm and the advent of Socrates. Where telescopes end, the microscopes begin. Which of the two possesses the larger field of vision? Choose. A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an ant hill of stars.

It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave. The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate his visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions. Perhaps he cannot; certainly he does not, or does so very seldom. Lucy had done so never.

I pray that I am sufficiently stirred by the rumor of great things to seek the God who created this single thread that I am, and to marvel at a vision magnificent enough to cause this God to weave from this single thread a tapestry most resplendent.

I am getting desperately afraid of going to heaven for I have had the vision of the shame I shall suffer as I get my first glimpse of the Lord Jesus; His majesty, power, and marvellous love for me, who treated Him so meanly and shabbily on earth and acted as though I did Him a favour in serving Him! No wonder God shall have to wipe away the tears off all faces, for we shall be broken-hearted when we see the depth of His love and the shallowness of ours.

A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude, that if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which favoroud the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition. (...) an object much less deserving would have been sufficient to fill the vacant place in their hearts.

it was as if the entire day, the entire vacation even, were leading up to a single moment. he felt certain then that stan lee was in some direct communication with the universe - in a way, say, that the watcher, the most mysterious marvel character, was content like some gnostic entity merely to know of machinations of creation - and that through lee's spiritually advanced vision, paul's own destiny was entrapped in the monthly serializations of these kitschy superheroes. he seemed both influenced and influencer in the world of marvel.

I find it utterly abhorrent that the magic of language to splash marvelous visions across darkened minds and infuse hope to hearts where it had all but vanished is turned by greed and avarice to the endeavor of manipulating visions and imputing false hope. However, if we would stop ‘hearing’ the words and start ‘listening’ to them, we would bring an immediate halt to such atrocities.

This [divine authority] must be our great and singular message to the world. We do not offer it with boasting. We testify in humility but with gravity and absolute sincerity. We invite all, the whole earth, to listen to this account [the first vision] and take measure of its truth. God bless us as those who believe in His divine manifestations and help us to extend knowledge of these great and marvelous occurrences to all who will listen. To these we say in a spirit of love, bring with you all that you have of good and truth which you have received from whatever source, and come and let us see if we may add to it. This invitation I extend to men and women everywhere with my solemn testimony that this work is true, for I know the truth of it by the power of the Holy Ghost. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

This has rather shaken you up, hasn’t it?” “Oh, don’t,” snapped Edwin, throat scratched with guilt. “Don’t go being nice, how can you constantly be like this, when it’s your arm and your visions and somebody else’s bloody mess—and I made it worse— and Reggie might be dead, and here we are dancing like sodding debutantes around the fact that you might be next, and who knows what—” “Edwin. Shut up,” Robin suggested.

A person living an artistic existence refuses to surrender to the winds of time, continues singing and dancing into the teeth of the harshest storm, and marvels in all of the delightful treasures of simply being.

Art is not subject to reason, it is intuitive. When you start creating what your powerful imagination tells you, when you surrender to your spiritual impulse and inspiration completely, without thinking beforehand about the end result of your creativity. It is then as if the emotional range of your sensitive mind has been crafted into the delicate spectrum of colors. A vision of black and white is now a marvel of mesmerizing stains.

And having given up on life, the Captain suddenly began to live. A great mad joy surged through him. This emotion, coming as unexpectedly as the plunge of the horse when he had broken away, was one that the Captain had never experienced. His eyes were glassy and half-open, as in delirium, but he saw suddenly as he had never seen before. The world was a kaleidoscope, and each of the multiple visions which he saw impressed itself on his mind with burning vividness. On the ground half-buried in the leaves there was a little flower, dazzling white and beautifully wrought. A thorny pine cone, the flight of a bird in the blue windy sky, a fiery shaft of sunshine in the green gloom - these the Captain saw as though for the first time in his life. He was conscious of the pure keen air and the felt the marvel of his own tense body, his labouring heart, and the miracle of blood, muscle, nerves, and bones. The Captain knew no terror now; he soared the rare level of consciousness where the mystic feels that the earth is he and that he is the earth. Clinging crabwise to the runaway horse, there was a grin of rapture on his bloody mouth.

Ensor sees with his imagination, but his vision is perfectly accurate, of an almost geometric precision. He is one of the very few who can really see. Like you, he has an obsession with masks; he is a seer as you and I are. The common herd, of course thinks that he is mad. ***************** You shall see what sort of man Ensor is, and what a marvellous insight he has into the invisible realm where our vices are created... those vices for which our faces make masks.

I may enter a zone of transcendence, in which I marvel at all the accidents of fate, since the beginning of life on earth, that led to my genes being created and my standing in this particular garden in a contemplative and imagining mind. I’ve been reading recently how reflection evolved. what a fascinating solution to the rigors of survival…how amazing that a few basic ingredients- the same ones that form the mountains, plants, and rivers- when arranged differently and stressed could result in us. More and more of late, I find myself standing outside of life, with a sense of the human saga laid out before me. it is a private vision, balanced between youth and old age, a vision in which I understand how caught up in striving we humans get, and a little of why, and how difficult it is even to recognize, since it feels integral to our nature and is. but I find it interesting that, according to many religions, life and begins and ends in a garden.

[T]he practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which favoured the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition 

The tiniest worm is of importance; the great is little, the little is great; everything is balanced in necessity; alarming vision for the mind. There are marvellous relations between beings and things; in that inexhaustible whole, from the sun to the grub, nothing despises the other; all have need of each other.

Many of us have forgotten how we used to be bedazzled by such everyday wonders as marveling at a spider web, finding an animal shape in the clouds, exploring the delicate intricacy of the pistils and stamens of a flower. It is time to rediscover the emotional vitality of the child within us. Our inner child can find enduring satisfaction in simple pleasures because s/he does not pursue them purely to escape inner emotional turmoil. Perhaps the vision of the emotionally vital poet Walt Whitman will motivate you to reconnect with the ardor of your abandoned inner child: I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels . . . And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth, And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times . . .

On the one hand, he beheld a vision of social life in is most charming and refined forms, of quick-pulsed youth, of fair, impassioned faces invested with all the charm of poetry, framed in a marvelous setting of luxury or art; and, on the other hand, he saw a somber picture of degradation, in which passion was extinct and nothing was left but the cords and pulleys and bare mechanism.

But even more than by the filth of its organs, the flower is betrayed by the fragility of its corolla: thus, far from answering the demands of human ideas, it is the sign of their failure. In fact, after a very short period of glory the marvelous corolla rots indecently in the sun, thus becoming, for the plant, a garish withering. Risen from the stench of the manure pile---even though it seemed for a moment to have escaped it in a flight of angelic and lyrical purity---the flower seems to relapse abruptly into its original squalor: the most ideal is rapidly reduced to a wisp of aerial manure. For flowers do not age honestly like leaves, which lose nothing of their beauty, even after they have died; flowers wither like old and overly made-up dowagers, and they die ridiculously on stems that seemed to carry them to the clouds.

Woodswoman: Living Alone in the Adirondack Wilderness and Linda devoured it, marveling at the independence and frugality of the author, ecologist Anne LaBastille, who was inspired by Walden and built her own cabin using just $600 worth of logs. Next she started Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, an entrepreneurial self-help tome that she scoured for advice on building a fulfilling future.

Does not every eternal masterpiece derive from the experience of disgrace, humiliation, wounded pride? The thoughtless mob may wildly applaud a work of art - to me it reveals the devastated mind of its creator. In all the great symphonies of tones, colours and ideas I see a gleam of the marvellous colour trumpet red, a faint reflection of the vision that for a short while raised the Master above the bewildering maze of his tormenting guilt.

He then said something in Arabic to Ali, who made a sign of obedience and withdrew, but not to any distance. As to Franz a strange transformation had taken place in him. All the bodily fatigue of the day, all the preoccupation of mind which the events of the evening had brought on, disappeared as they do at the first approach of sleep, when we are still sufficiently conscious to be aware of the coming of slumber. His body seemed to acquire an airy lightness, his perception brightened in a remarkable manner, his senses seemed to redouble their power, the horizon continued to expand; but it was not the gloomy horizon of vague alarms, and which he had seen before he slept, but a blue, transparent, unbounded horizon, with all the blue of the ocean, all the spangles of the sun, all the perfumes of the summer breeze; then, in the midst of the songs of his sailors, -- songs so clear and sonorous, that they would have made a divine harmony had their notes been taken down, -- he saw the Island of Monte Cristo, no longer as a threatening rock in the midst of the waves, but as an oasis in the desert; then, as his boat drew nearer, the songs became louder, for an enchanting and mysterious harmony rose to heaven, as if some Loreley had decreed to attract a soul thither, or Amphion, the enchanter, intended there to build a city. At length the boat touched the shore, but without effort, without shock, as lips touch lips; and he entered the grotto amidst continued strains of most delicious melody. He descended, or rather seemed to descend, several steps, inhaling the fresh and balmy air, like that which may be supposed to reign around the grotto of Circe, formed from such perfumes as set the mind a dreaming, and such fires as burn the very senses; and he saw again all he had seen before his sleep, from Sinbad, his singular host, to Ali, the mute attendant; then all seemed to fade away and become confused before his eyes, like the last shadows of the magic lantern before it is extinguished, and he was again in the chamber of statues, lighted only by one of those pale and antique lamps which watch in the dead of the night over the sleep of pleasure. They were the same statues, rich in form, in attraction, and poesy, with eyes of fascination, smiles of love, and bright and flowing hair. They were Phryne, Cleopatra, Messalina, those three celebrated courtesans. Then among them glided like a pure ray, like a Christian angel in the midst of Olympus, one of those chaste figures, those calm shadows, those soft visions, which seemed to veil its virgin brow before these marble wantons. Then the three statues advanced towards him with looks of love, and approached the couch on which he was reposing, their feet hidden in their long white tunics, their throats bare, hair flowing like waves, and assuming attitudes which the gods could not resist, but which saints withstood, and looks inflexible and ardent like those with which the serpent charms the bird; and then he gave way before looks that held him in a torturing grasp and delighted his senses as with a voluptuous kiss. It seemed to Franz that he closed his eyes, and in a last look about him saw the vision of modesty completely veiled; and then followed a dream of passion like that promised by the Prophet to the elect. Lips of stone turned to flame, breasts of ice became like heated lava, so that to Franz, yielding for the first time to the sway of the drug, love was a sorrow and voluptuousness a torture, as burning mouths were pressed to his thirsty lips, and he was held in cool serpent-like embraces. The more he strove against this unhallowed passion the more his senses yielded to its thrall, and at length, weary of a struggle that taxed his very soul, he gave way and sank back breathless and exhausted beneath the kisses of these marble goddesses, and the enchantment of his marvellous dream.

Human beings tend to think that light-sensitive molecules exist only in the eyes, but they come in four major types: rhodopsin (in the retina, which absorbs light for vision), hemoglobin (in red blood cells), myoglobin (in muscle), and most important of all, cytochrome (in all the cells). Cytochrome is the marvel that explains how lasers can heal so many different conditions, because it converts light energy from the sun into energy for the cells. Most of the photons are absorbed by the energy powerhouses within the cells, the mitochondria.

Jalal-ud-Din Rumi used to tell a story about a far distant country, somewhere to the north of Afghanistan. In this country there was a city inhabited entirely by the blind. One day the news came that an elephant was passing outside the walls of this city. ‘The citizens called a meeting and decided to send a delegation of three men outside the gates so that they could report back what an elephant was. In due course, the three men left the town and stumbled forwards until they eventually found the elephant. The three reached out, felt the animal with their hands, then they all headed back to the town as quickly as they could to report what they had felt. ‘The first man said: “An elephant is a marvellous creature! It is like a vast snake, but it can stand vertically upright in the air!” The second man was indignant at hearing this: “What nonsense!” he said. “This man is misleading you. I felt the elephant and what it most resembles is a pillar. It is firm and solid and however hard you push against it you could never knock it over.” The third man shook his head and said: “Both these men are liars! I felt the elephant and it resembles a broad pankah. It is wide and flat and leathery and when you shake it it wobbles around like the sail of a dhow.” All three men stuck by their stories and for the rest of their lives they refused to speak to each other. Each professed that they and only they knew the whole truth. ‘Now of course all three of the blind men had a measure of insight. The first man felt the trunk of the elephant, the second the leg, the third the ear. All had part of the truth, but not one of them had even begun to grasp the totality or the greatness of the beast they had encountered. If only they had listened to one another and meditated on the different facets of the elephant, they might have realized the true nature of the beast. But they were too proud and instead they preferred to keep to their own half-truths. ‘So it is with us. We see Allah one way, the Hindus have a different conception, and the Christians have a third. To us, all our different visions seem incompatible and irreconcilable. But what we forget is that before God we are like blind men stumbling around in total blackness ...

Another gust whips through, and Addie folds herself against it, eyes blurring. She shuffles sideways, onto a narrow street, just to escape the violent wind, and the sudden quiet, the breezeless peace, of the alley is like down, soft and warm. Her knees fold. She slumps into a corner against a set of steps, and watches her fingers turn blue, thinks she can see frost spreading over her skin, and marvels quietly, sleepily, at her own transformation. Her breath fogs the air in front of her, each exhale briefly blotting out the world beyond until the gray city fades to white, to white, to white. Strange, how it seems to linger now, a little more with every breath, as if she's fogging up a pane of glass. She wonders how many breaths until the world is hidden. Erased, like her. Perhaps it is her vision blurring. She does not care. She is tired. She is so tired. Addie cannot stay awake, and why should she try? Sleep is such a mercy. Perhaps she will wake again in the spring, like the princess in one of her father's stories, and find herself lying in the grassy bank along the Sarthe, Estele nudging her with a worn shoe and teasing her for dreaming again.

This has rather shaken you up, hasn’t it?” “Oh, don’t,” snapped Edwin, throat scratched with guilt. “Don’t go being nice, how can you constantly be like this, when it’s your arm and your visions and somebody else’s bloody mess—and I made it worse— and Reggie might be dead, and here we are dancing like sodding debutantes around the fact that you might be next, and who knows what—” “Edwin. Shut up,” Robin suggested. Edwin did, gratefully. He snagged two fingers through a gap in the trellis, sagging the weight of his arm there, trying to formulate an apology. Robin put his hand between Edwin’s shoulder blades, patted twice, then let it stay. “I hope that wasn’t you trying to be comforting,” Robin said after a moment. “Because you’re dashed miserable at it, if so.

Because I came to see That I should never have been a first-rate potter. I didn't have it in me. It's strange, isn't it, That a man should have a consuming passion To do something for which he lacks the capacity? Could a man be said to have a vocation To be a second-rate potter? To be, at best, A competent copier, possessed by the craving To create, when one is wholly uncreative? I don't think so. For I came to see, That I had always known, at the secret moments, That I didn't have it in me. There are occasions When I am transported- a different person, Transfigured in the vision of some marvellous creation, And I feel what the man must have felt when he made it. But nothing I made ever gave me that contentment- That state of utter exhaustion and peace Which comes in dying to give something life...

Arrived in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, he rushed up to his room for ten francs wherewith to satisfy the demands of the cabman, and went in to dinner. He glanced round the squalid room, saw the eighteen poverty-stricken creatures about to feed like cattle in their stalls, and the sight filled him with loathing. The transition was too sudden, and the contrast was so violent that it could not but act as a powerful stimulant; his ambition developed and grew beyond all social bounds. On the one hand, he beheld a vision of social life in its most charming and refined forms, of quick-pulsed youth, of fair, impassioned faces invested with all the charm of poetry, framed in a marvelous setting of luxury or art; and, on the other hand, he saw a sombre picture, the miry verge beyond these faces, in which passion was extinct and nothing was left of the drama but the cords and pulleys and bare mechanism.

Once the aspirations and appetites of the world have been whetted by the marvels of Western technology and the self-image of a people awakened by religion, one cannot hope to keep people locked out of the earthly kingdom of wealth, health and happiness. Either they share in the blessings of the world or they organize to break down and overthrow those structures or governments which stand in the way of their goals. Former generations could not conceive of such luxury, but their children now take this vision and demand that it become a reality. And when they look around and see that the only people who do not share in the abundance of Western technology are colored people, it is an almost inescapable conclusion that their condition and their exploitation are somehow related to their color and the racism of the white Western world. This is a treacherous foundation for a world house. Racism can well be that corrosive evil that will bring down the curtain on Western civilization.

Pitt was one of the marvels of the century, a leader who dazzled sober politicians and the crowd alike. He drew his peculiar appeal from some inner quality of temperament as well as mind, a quality which allowed, indeed drove, him to disregard both conventional wisdom and opposition and to push through to what he wanted. He was an “original” in an age suspicious of the original. He got away with being what he was, scorning the commonplace and the expected and explaining himself in a magnificent oratorical flow that inspired as much as it informed. Pitt’s powers of concentration shone from his fierce eyes, as did his belief in himself; in the crisis of war he said, “I know that I can save this country and that no one else can.” He was obsessed even more by a vision of English greatness, a vision that fed on hatred of France and contempt for Spain. Pitt had despised the fumbling efforts of his predecessors to cope with the French on the Continent, and he was impatient with the incompetence of English generals in America.

Untold numbers of readers of Black Elk Speaks and When the Tree Flowered have wished to understand more fully the relationship between Neihardt and Black Elk and the role that Neihardt played as Black Elk's amanuensis. They have also been curious to learn about Black Elk's life after the Wounded Knee massacre. How was it that a nineteenth-century Lakota mystic could live a full half of the twentieth century on the Pine Ridge Reservation in harmony with the encroaching white man's world? The Sixth Grandfather is presented in order to help readers answer these questions. The title of the book is doubly appropriate. Black Elk, in his great vision, saw himself as the "sixth grandfather," the spirit of the earth, the power to nurture and make grow. Symbolically, Black Elk's teachings, transmitted through Neihardt, have had a marvelous generative power: they have grown and blossomed and become an inspiration for millions, Indians and non-Indians alike. Through Neihardt's writings, the sacred tree of Black Elk's vision has truly conic to bloom.

THE Oldest Ones of All were gluttons. Probably it was because they seldom had enough to eat. You can read even nowadays a poem written by one of them, which is known as the Vision of Mac Conglinne. In this Vision there is a description of a castle made out of different kinds of food. The English for part of the poem goes like this: A lake of new milk I beheld In the midst of a fair plain. I saw a well-appointed house Thatched with butter. Its two soft door-posts of custard, Its dais of curds and butter, Beds of glorious lard, Many shields of thin pressed cheese. Under the straps of those shields Were men of soft sweet smooth cheese, Men who knew not to wound a Gael, Spears of old butter had each of them. A huge cauldron full of meat (Methought I’d try to tackle it), Boiled, leafy kale, browny-white, A brimming vessel full of milk. A bacon house of two-score ribs, A wattling of tripe—support of clans— Of every food pleasant to man, Meseemed the whole was gathered there. Of chitterlings of pigs were made Its beautiful rafters, Splendid the beams and the pillars Of marvellous pork.

Doubtless, if, at that time, I had paid more attention to what was in my mind when I pronounced the words "going to Florence, to Parma, to Pisa, to Venice,” I should have realised that what I saw was in no sense a town, but something as different from anything that I knew, something as delicious, as might be, for a human race whose whole existence had passed in a series of late winter afternoons, that inconceivable marvel, a morning in spring. These images, unreal, fixed, always alike, filling all my nights and days, differentiated this period in my life from those which had gone before it (and might easily have been confused with it by an observer who saw things only from without, that is to say who saw nothing), as in an opera a melodic theme introduces a novel atmosphere which one could never have suspected if one had done no more than read the libretto, still less if one had remained outside the theatre counting only the minutes as they passed. And besides, even from the point of view of mere quantity, in our lives the days are not all equal. To get through each day, natures that are at all highly strung, as was mine, are equipped, like motor-cars, with different gears. There are mountainous, arduous days, up which one takes an infinite time to climb, and downward-sloping days which one can descend at full tilt, singing as one goes. During this month—in which I turned over and over in my mind, like a tune of which one never tires, these visions of Florence, Venice, Pisa, of which the desire that they excited in me retained something as profoundly personal as if it had been love, love for a person—I never ceased to believe that they corresponded to a reality independent of myself, and they made me conscious of as glorious a hope as could have been cherished by a Christian in the primitive age of faith on the eve of his entry into Paradise. Thus, without my paying any heed to the contradiction that there was in my wishing to look at and to touch with the organs of my senses what had been elaborated by the spell of my dreams and not perceived by my senses at all—though all the more tempting to them, in consequence, more different from anything that they knew— it was that which recalled to me the reality of these visions that most inflamed my desire, by seeming to offer the promise that it would be gratified.

1. In the tabernacle there was acacia wood overlaid with gold and also linen embroidered with gold thread; both the acacia wood and the linen signify humanity, and the gold signifies divinity (Exo. 25:10-11; 26:15, 29; 36:34; 37:1-2; 28:6; 39:3). 2. In Exodus 3 God’s dwelling was a thornbush, but in Exodus 40 His dwelling was the tabernacle made of humanity overlaid by and interwoven with divinity; such an overlaid and embroidered humanity is a transformed humanity. ‹‹    DAY 3    ›› F. Both the thornbush and the tabernacle are symbols; God’s actual dwelling place was neither the physical thornbush nor the tabernacle; it was His people: 1. After the children of Israel had been dealt with by God, they became acacia wood overlaid with gold and also linen embroidered with gold thread; the church today is the fulfillment of this type. 2. At present, the church may be a redeemed thornbush; however, the day is coming when we shall be gold, pearl, and precious stone (Rev. 21:18-21). 3. Praise the Lord for this marvelous vision of God’s dwelling place! This vision covers God’s habitation from the initial stage, the stage of the thornbush, to the consummate stage, the stage of the New Jerusalem.

Algebra applies to the clouds; the radiance of the star benefits the rose; no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who could ever calculate the path of a molecule? How do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by falling grains of sand? Who can understand the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely small, the echoing of causes in the abyss of being and the avalanches of creation? A mite has value; the small is great, the great is small; all is balanced in necessity: frightening vision for the mind. There are marvelous relations between beings and things; in this inexhaustible whole, from sun to grub, there is no scorn; each needs the other. Light does not carry terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths without knowing what it does with them; night distributes the stellar essence to the sleeping plants. Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor and the tap of a swallow's beak breaking the egg, and it guides the birth of an earthworm and the advent of Socrates. Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view? Choose. A bit of mold is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an anthill of stars.

It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer either differential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave. The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up, marveling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate his visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions. Perhaps he cannot; certainly he does not, or does so very seldom. Lucy had done so never. . . . She was no dazzling executante; her runs were not at all like strings of pearls, and she struck no more right notes than was suitable for one of her age and situation. Nor was she the passionate young lady, who performs so tragically on a summer's evening with the window open . . . And she was tragical only in the sense that she was great, for she loved to play on the side of Victory. Victory of what and over what - that is more than the words of daily life can tell us. But that some sonatas of Beethoven are written tragic no one can gainsay; yet they can triumph or despair as the player decides, and Lucy decided that they should triumph.

She drifted down the walk carelessly for a moment, stunned by the night. The moon had come out, and though not dramatically full or a perfect crescent, its three quarters were bright enough to turn the fog and dew and all that had the power to shimmer a bright silver, and everything else- the metal of the streetlamps, the gates, the cracks in the cobbles- a velvety black. After a moment Wendy recovered from the strange beauty and remembered why she was there. She padded into the street before she could rethink anything and pulled up her hood. "Why didn't I do this earlier?" she marveled. Sneaking out when she wasn't supposed to was its own kind of adventure, its own kind of magic. London was beautiful. It felt like she had the whole city to herself except for a stray cat or two. Despite never venturing beyond the neighborhood much by herself, she had plenty of time with maps, studying them for someday adventures. And as all roads lead to Rome, so too do all the major thoroughfares wind up at the Thames. Names like Vauxhall and Victoria (and Horseferry) sprang from her brain as clearly as if there had been signs in the sky pointing the way. Besides Lost Boys and pirates, Wendy had occasionally terrified her brothers with stories about Springheel Jack and the half-animal orphan children with catlike eyes who roamed the streets at night. As the minutes wore on she felt her initial bravery dissipate and terror slowly creep down her neck- along with the fog, which was also somehow finding its way under her coat, chilling her to her core. "If I'm not careful I'm liable to catch a terrible head cold! Perhaps that's really why people don't adventure out in London at night," she told herself sternly, chasing away thoughts of crazed, dagger-wielding murderers with a vision of ugly red runny noses and cod-liver oil. But was it safer to walk down the middle of the street, far from shadowed corners where villains might lurk? Being exposed out in the open meant she would be more easily seen by police or other do-gooders who would try to escort her home. "My mother is sick and requires this one particular tonic that can only be obtained from the chemist across town," she practiced. "A nasty decoction of elderberries and slippery elm, but it does such wonders for your throat. No one else has it. And do you know how hard it is to call for a cab this time of night? In this part of town? That's the crime, really." In less time than she imagined it would take, Wendy arrived at a promenade that overlooked the mighty Thames. She had never seen it from that particular angle before or at that time of night. On either bank, windows of all the more important buildings glowed with candles or gas lamps or even electric lights behind their icy panes, little tiny yellow auras that lifted her heart. "I do wish I had done this before," she breathed. Maybe if she had, then things wouldn't have come to this...

It is surely absurd to seek God in terms of a preconceived idea of what God is. To seek thus is only to find what we know already, which is why it is so easy to deceive oneself into all manner of “supernatural” experiences and visions. To believe in God and to look for the God you believe in is simply to seek confirmation of an opinion. To ask for a revelation of God’s will, and then to “test” it by reference to your preconceived moral standards is to make a mockery of asking. You knew the answer already. Seeking for “God” in this way is no more than asking for the stamp of absolute authority and certainty on what you believe in any case, for a guarantee that the unknown and the future will be a continuation of what you want to retain from the past—a bigger and better fortress for “I.” Ein feste Burg! If we are open only to discoveries which will accord with what we know already, we may as well stay shut. This is why the marvelous achievements of science and technology are of so little real use to us. It is in vain that we can predict and control the course of events in the future, unless we know how to live in the present. It is in vain that doctors prolong life if we spend the extra time being anxious to live still longer. It is in vain that engineers devise faster and easier means of travel if the new sights that we see are merely sorted and understood in terms of old prejudices. It is in vain that we get the power of the atom if we are just to continue in the rut of blowing people up.

Lastly, he hit on the idea of transferring the observer's position into the centre of the world, and to examine the variations in angular velocity, regardless of distance, as seen from the sun. And lo! it worked. The results were even more gratifying than he had expected. Saturn, for instance, when farthest away from the sun, in its aphelion, moves at the rate of 106 seconds arc per day; when closest to the sun, and its speed is at maximum, at 135 seconds arc per day. The ratio between the two extreme velocities is 106 to 135, which only differs by two seconds from 4:5. - the major third. With similar, very small deviations (which were all perfectly explained away at the end), the ratio of Jupiter's slowest to its fastest motion is a minor third, Mars' the quint, and so forth. So much for each planet considered by itself. But when he compared the extreme angular velocities of pairs of different planets, the results were even marvellous: "At the first glance the Sun of Harmony broke in all its clarity through the clouds." The extreme values yield in fact the intervals of the complete scale. But not enough: if we start with the outermost planet, Saturn, in the aphelion, the scale will be in the major key; if we start with Saturn in the perihelion, it will be in the minor key. Lastly, if several planets are simultaneously at the extreme points of their respective orbits, the result is a motet where Saturn and Jupiter represent the bass, Mars the tenor, Earth and Venus the contralto, Mercury the soprano. On some occasions all six can be heard together:

In 1972, Sara Kapp had been living for some time at Karmê Chöling without daring to ask to speak to Chögyam Trungpa. But when a New York modeling agency wanted to sign her as a model, she decided to ask his advice. Posing in front of the camera all day did not seem appropriate for someone who was trying to cut through her ego. Chögyam Trungpa asked her why she wanted to become a model. She explained how she had experienced some difficulty in sticking to any one thing after finishing college. So she thought that maybe picking out something for a few years might be beneficial. If that is the reason, he replied, then there’s no problem. He encouraged her to follow her career, and as she continued to hesitate, he told her: “The only obstacle I can see is if you do this work hoping to earn lots of money or to be on the cover of Vogue. That would be sad, because you’d be losing youself in the future. It’s a real shame when people regret not having enough money, or having missed a career opportunity, because they are then fixing themselves in the past. It’s very, very sad.” Then staring into her eyes, he repeated: “It’s very, very, very sad because that way we miss out on the present, and the present is marvelous.” She went on to become one of the best-known runway models of her day. For a period of time, one could find mannequins of Sara Kapp in Saks and other epxensive department stores throughout the United States. Her last major modeling contract was as the first Princes Borghese for Revlon. She now works behind the scenes in the fashion industry in Milan.

Through Evernight he back was borne on black and roaring waves that ran o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores that drowned before the Days began, until he heard on strands of pearl where ends the world the music long, where ever-foaming billows roll the yellow gold and jewels wan. He saw the Mountain silent rise where twilight lies upon the knees of Valinor, and Eldamar beheld afar beyond the seas. A wanderer escaped from night to haven white he came at last, to Elvenhome the green and fair where keen the air, where pale as glass beneath the Hill of Ilmarin a-glimmer in a valley sheer the lamplit towers of Tirion are mirrored on the Shadowmere. He tarried there from errantry, and melodies they taught to him, and sages old him marvels told, and harps of gold they brought to him. They clothed him then in elven-white, and seven lights before him sent, as through the Calacirian to hidden land forlorn he went. He came unto the timeless halls where shining fall the countless years, and endless reigns the Elder King in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer; and words unheard were spoken then of folk of Men and Elven-kin, beyond the world were visions showed forbid to those that dwell therein. A ship then new they built for him of mithril and of elven-glass with shining prow; no shaven oar nor sail she bore on silver mast: the Silmaril as lantern light and banner bright with living flame to gleam thereon by Elbereth herself was set, who thither came and wings immortal made for him, and laid on him undying doom, to sail the shoreless skies and come behind the Sun and light of Moon.

human kind to the danger of a painful and comfortless situation. A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which favoured the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition. Some deities of a more recent and fashionable cast might soon have occupied the deserted temples of Jupiter and Apollo, if, in the decisive moment, the wisdom of Providence had not interposed a genuine revelation, fitted to inspire the most rational esteem and conviction, whilst, at the same time, it was adorned with all that could attract the curiosity, the wonder, and the veneration of the people. In their actual disposition, as many were almost disengaged from their artificial prejudices, but equally susceptible and desirous of a devout attachment; an object much less deserving would have been sufficient to fill the vacant place in their hearts, and to gratify the uncertain eagerness of their passions. Those who are inclined to pursue this reflection, instead of viewing with astonishment the rapid progress of Christianity, will perhaps be surprised that its success was not still more rapid and still more universal.

that everything that had ever happened to me had been a loving step in that process of my progression. every person, every circumstance, and every incident was custom created for me. It was as if the entire universe existed for my higher good and development. I felt so loved, so cherished, and so honored. I realized that not only was I being embraced by deity, but also that I myself was divine, and that we all are. I knew that there are no accidents in this life. That everything happens for a reason. yet we always get to choose how we will experience what happens to us here. I could exercise my will in everything, even in how I felt about the wreck and the death of my family members. God didn't want me to hurt and feel put upon as if my son and wife had been taken from me. He was simply there assisting me to decide how I was going to experience it. He was providing me with the opportunity, in perfect love, to exercise my personal agency in this entire situation. I knew my wife and son were gone. They had died months earlier, but time didn't exist where I was at that moment. rather than having them ripped away from me, I was being given the opportunity to actually hand them over to God. To let them go in peace, love, and gratitude. Everything suddenly made sense. Everything had divine order. I could give my son to God and not have him taken away from me. I felt my power as a creator and cocreator with God to literally let go of all that had happened to me. I held my baby son as God himself held me. I experienced the oneness of all of it. Time did not matter. Only love and order existed. Tamara and Griffin had come into my life as perfect teachers. And in leaving me in such a way, they continued as perfect teachers to bring me to that point of remembering who I was. remembering that I was created in God's image and actually came from Him. I was aware now that I could actually walk with God, empowered by what I was learning in my life. I felt the divine energy of the being behind me inviting me to let it all go and give Griffin to Him. In all that peace and knowledge, I hugged my little boy tightly one last time, kissed him on the cheek, and gently laid him back down in the crib. I willingly gave him up. No one would ever take him away from me again. He was mine. We were one, and I was one with God. As soon as I breathed in all that peace, I awoke, back into the pain and darkness of my hospital bed, but with greater perspective. I marveled at what I had just experienced. It was not just a dream. It felt too real. It was real to me, far more real than the pain, the grief, and my hospital bed. Griffin was alive in a place more real than anything here. And Tamara was there with him. I knew it. As the years have passed, I've often wondered how I could have put my son back in the crib the way I did. Maybe I should have held on and never let go. But in that place, it all made sense. I realized that no one ever really dies. We always live on. I had experienced a God as real and tangible as we are. He knows our every heartache, yet allows us to experience and endure them for our growth. His is the highest form of love; He allows us to become what we will. He watches as we create who we are. He allows us to experience life in a way that makes us more like Him, divine creators of our own destiny. My experience showed me purpose and order. I knew there was a master plan far greater than my limited earthly vision. I also learned that my choices were mine alone to make. I got to decide how I felt, and that made all the difference in the universe. even in this tragedy, I got to determine the outcome. I could choose to be a victim of what had happened or create something far greater.

There are many who profess to be religious and speak of themselves as Christians, and, according to one such, “as accepting the scriptures only as sources of inspiration and moral truth,” and then ask in their smugness: “Do the revelations of God give us a handrail to the kingdom of God, as the Lord’s messenger told Lehi, or merely a compass?” Unfortunately, some are among us who claim to be Church members but are somewhat like the scoffers in Lehi’s vision—standing aloof and seemingly inclined to hold in derision the faithful who choose to accept Church authorities as God’s special witnesses of the gospel and his agents in directing the affairs of the Church. There are those in the Church who speak of themselves as liberals who, as one of our former presidents has said, “read by the lamp of their own conceit.” (Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine [Deseret Book Co., 1939], p. 373.) One time I asked one of our Church educational leaders how he would define a liberal in the Church. He answered in one sentence: “A liberal in the Church is merely one who does not have a testimony.” Dr. John A. Widtsoe, former member of the Quorum of the Twelve and an eminent educator, made a statement relative to this word liberal as it applied to those in the Church. This is what he said: “The self-called liberal [in the Church] is usually one who has broken with the fundamental principles or guiding philosophy of the group to which he belongs. . . . He claims membership in an organization but does not believe in its basic concepts; and sets out to reform it by changing its foundations. . . . “It is folly to speak of a liberal religion, if that religion claims that it rests upon unchanging truth.” And then Dr. Widtsoe concludes his statement with this: “It is well to beware of people who go about proclaiming that they are or their churches are liberal. The probabilities are that the structure of their faith is built on sand and will not withstand the storms of truth.” (“Evidences and Reconciliations,” Improvement Era, vol. 44 [1941], p. 609.) Here again, to use the figure of speech in Lehi’s vision, they are those who are blinded by the mists of darkness and as yet have not a firm grasp on the “iron rod.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, when there are questions which are unanswered because the Lord hasn’t seen fit to reveal the answers as yet, all such could say, as Abraham Lincoln is alleged to have said, “I accept all I read in the Bible that I can understand, and accept the rest on faith.” . . . Wouldn’t it be a great thing if all who are well schooled in secular learning could hold fast to the “iron rod,” or the word of God, which could lead them, through faith, to an understanding, rather than to have them stray away into strange paths of man-made theories and be plunged into the murky waters of disbelief and apostasy? . . . Cyprian, a defender of the faith in the Apostolic Period, testified, and I quote, “Into my heart, purified of all sin, there entered a light which came from on high, and then suddenly and in a marvelous manner, I saw certainty succeed doubt.” . . . The Lord issued a warning to those who would seek to destroy the faith of an individual or lead him away from the word of God or cause him to lose his grasp on the “iron rod,” wherein was safety by faith in a Divine Redeemer and his purposes concerning this earth and its peoples. The Master warned: “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better … that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matt. 18:6.) The Master was impressing the fact that rather than ruin the soul of a true believer, it were better for a person to suffer an earthly death than to incur the penalty of jeopardizing his own eternal destiny.

believed the world was small and otptions were limited until i dreamed. I live in a world endless visions, the world where light and beauty forms a landscape. I see transformations, i see explosions of inner beauty. I see fresh water flowing down the grey rocks, water lilies growing up the mountains. I live where buildings of glass are built to be marvelled not to be accupied, the place where people sleep outside to cherish light of stars and moon, listen to birds at night and right songs.

The significant thing about Edwards is the way he enters into the tradition, infuses it with his personality and makes it live. The vitality of his thought gives to its product the value of unique creation. Two qualities in him especially contribute to this result, large constructive imagination and a marvelously acute power of abstract reasoning. With the vision of the seer he looks steadily upon his world, which is the world of all time and space and existence, and sees it as a whole; God and souls are in it the great realities, and the transactions between them the great business in which all its movement is concerned.

if any—the Russian operation had.” Clapper’s answer was less than satisfying for the president-elect, but it seemed to bring a sigh of relief from his team, whose main concern seemed to be ensuring that no part of the report suggested that any factor other than the candidate’s own strategic vision and charisma had accounted for his triumph. Comey later marveled at their myopic focus.

A cosmic perspective actually strengthens our concerns about what happens here and now, because it offers a vision of just how prodigious life’s future potential could be. Earth’s biosphere is the outcome of more than four billion years of Darwinian selection: the stupendous time spans of the evolutionary past are now part of common culture. But life’s future could be more prolonged than its past. In the aeons that lie ahead, even more marvellous diversity could emerge, on and beyond Earth. The unfolding of intelligence and complexity could still be near its cosmic beginnings.

Mountains cry out to be climbed. Dirt says to us, “Dig.” The ocean’s fathomless waters invite us to go on a deep-sea treasure hunt. The heavens declare not only the glory of God; they also declare that we were made to test their bounds and marvel at their beauty. This is true for every sphere of creation and of human culture: God made all of us, male and female, to explore the world he created, to know it, care for it, and have dominion over it for his glory and others’ benefit. God’s original creation was good yet latent with potential. It was pristine yet incomplete. Missing were the work, curiosity, and energy of humans, the only part of the creation bearing the image of God. Human ambition wasn’t something that crept in after the Fall. It was—is—an aspect of bearing the image of God, of filling his world with beauty and industry and delight.

Hear me beautiful woman, The Voice from within. Greater is he that is within you than he that is within the world. You cannot begin to understand when one looks at you with eyes of the world and only sees what is optically visible. It takes time for one to know you and what's inside. Only One knows you from within, from the beginning. The world may hurt you because of its outward mindset but know that your beauty is deep. Know that you are loved by the one who sees the real you. Know that you are understood by the one who knows your mind and your heart. Know that you are a virtuous because of your resilience through love, and not defeated. Oh beautiful woman stand strong and confident in the one who reaffirms Who You Are and not how Broken You Are. Your power is strengthened with every Act of forgiveness that you practice. Your beauty is increased with every act of kindness that you show to that ugly head a worldly perception with hopes that it will recognize "you". Stop quirreling with the enemy in your mind that turns your hampster wheel. It drains your by showing you pictures passed instead of vision unrevealed. You are who HE says you are despite anyone who doesn't marvel in adoration. Don't see youself as the world reflects you; the world's mirror is tainted. Optical illusions can be fatal. Wake up! The eyes tell the mind what to see but only the heart can discern what lies beneath the scars, beyond the perseverance, inside of forgiveness, over the hills and valleys, signs on the journey, and hope for the spirit. Emotions are vissitudal. You are being etched in inexorable truth. Stand as your are, not as you're seen. Sincerely, Vitrue

He who wishes to attain the profoundly marvelous must free images from their conventional associations, associations always dominated by utilitarian judgement; must learn to see the man behind the social function, break the scale of so-called normal values, replacing it by that of sensitive values, surmount taboos, the weight of ancestral prohibitions, cease to connect the object with profit one can get out of it, with the price it has in society, with the action it commands. This liberation begins when by some means the voluntary censorship of the bad conscience is lifted, when the mechanism of the dream is no longer impeded. Magic ceremonies, psychic exercises leading to concentration and ecstasy, the liberation of mental automatism, are so many means capable of refining vision through the tensions they induce. It is a means to enlarge normal facilities; they are a way of approach to the realm of the marvelous.

I'm not lovely," she blurted out. One side of his mouth kicked up. "Now, there," he said quietly, searching her face as if to memorize this new Callie, whom he'd just discovered, "I shall have to disagree." And then he set his lips to hers and she was drugged by his caress and his words, both equally intoxicating. This kiss was different from all that they had shared before- softer, seeking, as though they were both discovering something altogether new. This was a concert of stroking tongue and soft lips. Gabriel lifted his head and waited for her to open her eyes; when she did, he was struck once more by her loveliness. He searched her face, watching as she returned from the sensual place where the kiss had taken her. "You said I was plain." He shook his head slowly, marveling at the clear, brown depths of emotion in her eyes. "There is nothing plain about you." And then, he kissed her again. Her mouth was his banquet. He sipped at her lips, savoring their taste, their softness. Her hands found their way around his neck and into his hair- threading through the dark locks. The caress sent a shiver of pleasure through him. He ate at her, nibbling at her lips before gently laving the worried skin there with his tongue. When he pulled away and met her eyes once more, they were both breathing heavily, and Gabriel was wishing that they were anywhere but here, hundreds of Londoners mere feet away. He had to stop. He was about to do exactly what he had resolved not to do. Had he not promised himself that he would not compromise her again? He owed her more. Better. A vision flashed in his mind of Callie naked, spread before him in a pool of sunlight, and he pushed it aside. This was no time to indulge in fantasies that would further arouse him- as it was, his excitement was embarrassingly obvious in his breeches.

This ”joy” which I have selected as the mark of the true fairy-story (or romance), or as the seal upon it, merits more consideration. Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: “inner consistency of reality,” it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality. The peculiar quality of the ”joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a “consolation” for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, “Is it true?” The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist). But in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a faroff gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. The use of this word gives a hint of my epilogue. It is a serious and dangerous matter. It is presumptuous of me to touch upon such a theme; but if by grace what I say has in any respect any validity, it is, of course, only one facet of a truth incalculably rich: finite only because the capacity of Man for whom this was done is finite. I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. The Gospels contain a fairystory, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.” There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath. It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be “primarily” true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown. The joy would have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree, as the joy which the “turn” in a fairy-story gives: such joy has the very taste of primary truth. (Otherwise its name would not be joy.) It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimportant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is preeminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.

Some people who are overcome by their attachment to emptiness seem to negate the interdependence of action and effect. This represents great nihilism, which is totally wrong. They should remedy this by seeking a definite understanding and a clear vision of the subtle aspect of interdependent karma and its effects. In short, it is essential to realize the following two concepts simultaneously: a perfect understanding of the unfailing consequences of one’s action and a definite awareness of the emptiness and essencelessness of all things. This is described as the object of wonderment by the Bodhisattvabhūmivṛtti:  Being fully aware that all things are intrinsically empty, One abides by the principle of karma and its consequences. This is wonderful, supremely wonderful! This is marvelous, supremely marvelous!

The ezer is a warrior. Like the man, she is also God's creative masterpiece--a work of genius and a marvel to behold--for she is fearfully and wonderfully made. The ezer never sheds her image-bearer identity. Not here. Not ever. God defines who she is and how she is to live in his world. That never changes.

Who voiced the robot Ultron? At the party in Stark's place, which Avenger ends an argument by stating that his girlfriend is better than another Avenger's girlfriend? Who is in possession of the Time Stone in 2012 during the Battle of New York? During the fight on Sokovia, Captain America gives a pep talk.  Finish his final statement: "You get hurt, hurt them back. You get killed _______." Which Infinity Stone was left with Taneleer Tivan on the planet of Knowhere? When Thor tells the Avengers that Loki is his brother, and must be treated fairly, Natasha Romanoff tells him that Loki killed 80 people in two days.  What is Thor's response (exact quote)? After the credits roll at the end of most Marvel movies, it states that someone will return in a future movie.  Which character does it say will return at the end of "Avengers: Infinity War"? Who has the idea to go back in time and kill baby Thanos? Where is Captain America when he is first shown in the film? Who, according to Steve Rogers, might have the ability to properly remove Vision's Infinity Stone?

You're hardly nothing," said Robin. "You made me see the future." "I think we've established that wasn't me," said Edwin. "We don't know if it was even them. I think it was latent. Triggered." Robin smiled at him. "I wasn't talking about the visions." The vulnerable line of Edwin's mouth wavered in confusion, then deepened at one side. His grip on Robin's hand tightened. "Robin," he began…

Sometimes the destination of our lives is the summation of the journey compiled and suddenly released into one marvelous place at one astonishing moment.

The most important vision one can be enlightened with is a glimpse of our own true, inherent divinity, an inkling of our eternal potential, our marvelous capabilities, our unbreakable strength, our enduring choice, and our infinite, divine, worth. To feel a permeating sense of the awe-inspiring inexplicable, indescribable Love and its Light burning ever bright and warm, like an eternal Ember at our deepest core, is a life-enhancing, defining and as positively, mind- altering and fulfilling of an experience as there ever was. It is nothing less than a miracle, a glorious paradigm shift...and that’s just the beginning.

Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived at the time of Christ, records that Cyrus read the prophecy of Isaiah and was marveled saying:   "Thus saith Cyrus the King:  Since God Almighty hath appointed me to be king of the habitable earth, I believe that he is that God which the nation of the Israelites worship; for he foretold my name by the prophets; and that I should build him a house at Jerusalem, in the country of Judea"   Josephus continues:   “This was known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies; for this prophet said that God had spoken thus to him in a secret vision: "My will is, that Cyrus, whom I have appointed to be king over many and great nations, send back my people to their own land, and build my temple.  This was foretold before the temple was demolished" Accordingly, when Cyrus read this, and admired the divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written; so he called for the most eminent Jews that were in Babylon, and said to them, that he gave them leave to go back to their own country, and to rebuild the city of Jerusalem" 18   The fulfillment of this prophecy is also recorded in the Bible in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23, Ezra 1:2-8 and 4:3.

The countryside stretched green and alive from her perch on the hill....She breathed in the air of a free woman and marveled at how her clarity of spirit even seemed to affect her vision. Brighter colors. Fresher air.

Three generations later, viewed from the standpoint of the digital age, a structure such as Hoover can appear to suffer from a kind of vulgarity of size—a thing so enormous and monolithic as to seem preindustrial, almost primitive. Like fascist architecture, that soaring wall of concrete, for all its Art Deco adornments, can strike the postmodern eye as embarrassingly elephantine and childishly simplistic. Yet one only need page through the dam’s elegant blueprints to realize that this is a machine that, in its own way, is as sophisticated as a Boeing 747—a marvel of engineering, of mathematics, of human thinking, of vision, and, yes, of art. For all these reasons, Hoover is regarded by many civil engineers as one of America’s most impressive achievements. It may not be much of an overstatement to say that, along with splitting the atom and sending the Voyager spacecraft beyond the solar system, Hoover is the most remarkable thing this country has ever pulled off. Unlike

By investing some time in the powerful and positive visions of birth as a “blessed event,” the reality of it being marvelous begins to grow into being. Cultural habits are strong, so it takes time for new patterns and pathways to emerge. As more women work to create a new vision of birth, one in which we are fully present, the cultural habits around pregnancy and childbirth will eventually shift with us and new traditions will be made.

Hey, neighbor,” exclaimed the vision. It was Carey Osland in her working getup. I could see why she preferred loafers and housedresses. She looked marvelous, almost edible, but definitely not comfortable. “I’m glad to see you,” Carey was saying warmly while I was decoding her identity.

I've never met a man more candid, fair, and honest,” marveled author H. G. Wells after meeting with Stalin in 1934, at the start of the Great Purge. “Everyone trusts him.” Wells had likewise been impressed by Lenin, whom he called a “frank,” “refreshing,” and “amazing little man” who had “almost persuaded me to share his vision.”4

We must be aware that by virtue of the fact that our Creator created us with these marvelous faculties, he has a definite job for us to do. This great life force surges through us 24 hours of every day. It is powerful. We have the ability to direct it into any design we choose. We can neglect to direct it and it is like a great river out of its channel. It tends to destroy everything in its course. But if it is harnessed, it can take electrical power to the millions. This great life force is even more powerful than the river when it is directed. Down through the ages, men and women with vision and faith have directed this terrific force, and as a result, we have our modern way of life.

All Russia is our orchard. The land is great and beautiful, there are many marvellous places in it. Think, Anya, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, and all your ancestors were serf-owners, they owned living souls; and now, doesn't something human look at you from every cherry in the orchard, every leaf and every stalk? Don't you hear voices . . . ? Oh, it's awful, your orchard is terrible; and when in the evening or at night you walk through the orchard, then the old bark on the trees sheds a dim light and the old cherry-trees seem to be dreaming of all that was a hundred, two hundred years ago, and are oppressed by their heavy visions. Still, at any rate, we've left those two hundred years behind us. So far we've gained nothing at all--we don't yet know what the past is to be to us--we only philosophise, we complain that we are dull, or we drink vodka. For it's so clear that in order to begin to live in the present we must first redeem the past, and that can only be done by suffering, by strenuous, uninterrupted labour.

Over ninety percent of your mental life is subconscious, so men and women who fail to make use of this marvelous power live within very narrow limits. Your subconscious processes are always lifeward and constructive. Your subconscious is the builder of your body and maintains all its vital functions. It is on the job twenty-four hours a day and never sleeps. It is always trying to help and preserve you from harm. Your subconscious mind is in touch with infinite life and boundless wisdom, and its impulses and ideas are always lifeward. The great aspirations, inspirations and visions for a grader and nobler life spring from the subconscious. Your profoundest convictions are those you cannot argue about rationally because they do not come from your conscious mind; they come from your subconscious mind. Your subconscious speaks to you in intuitions, impulses, hunches, intimations, urges and ideas, and it is always telling you to rise, transcend grow, advance, adventure and move forward to greater heights. The urge to love, to save the lives of others comes from the depths of your subconscious.

More recently I was giving a seminar in Amsterdam and took the opportunity to visit the Van Gogh museum. Walking past one astounding "psychedelic" canvas after another, I marveled again at the marvelous reality-labyrinth Van Gogh offers us — his multiple vision, his poetry, his creative acts of seeing. I realized again that, just as Van Gogh "is" great precisely because he did not copy Rembrandt's reality-tunnels, and Picasso "is" great because he did not copy Van Gogh, and Mondrian "is" great because he did not copy Picasso, etc., all "greatness" in art is a new synergy, a new transaction between "observer" and "observed.

I can pen a thousand marvelous ideas. But if I refuse to do them or find myself too fearful to attempt them, I have created a thousand deaths that I didn’t need to die.

Regardless of how your designs were created, InVision and Marvel allow you to easily turn them into functional prototype websites. With InVision, you upload your page designs, and then link them together to make the website navigable. Then, you can carry out user tests on what, to the users, appears to be a real website, even though it hasn’t seen a smidgen of code. InVision also allows other people to give written feedback on your work-in-progress designs. You upload your designs, and then invite others to annotate them with whatever type of feedback you desire. Notable has similar functionality. Alternatives include Firefly and BugHerd. The Composite app connects to Photoshop files, turning them into clickable prototypes. To gather feedback on your work-in-progress videos, you can use Frame.io, a fantastic web-based platform. Alternatives include Wipster, Symu, Vidhub, and Kollaborate. Such services provide great benefits; it’s hard to gather and record such feedback even when everyone’s in the same room. Optimal Workshop provides several tools (OptimalSort, Treejack, and Chalkmark) to help you optimize your website’s navigation and information architecture. The tools are described in our article about card sorting. Alternatives for card sorting include SimpleCardSort, UsabiliTEST, and Xsort.

no one joins in the human enterprise of human dreams and visions and goals so marvelously and so creatively as the person who is unattached

To live is to be other. It’s not even possible to feel, if one feels today what he felt yesterday. To feel today what one felt yesterday isn’t to feel – it’s to remember today what was felt yesterday, to be today’s living corpse of what yesterday was lived and lost. To erase everything from the slate from one day to the next, to be new with each new morning, in a perpetual revival of our emotional virginity – this, and only this, is worth being or having, to be or have what we imperfectly are. This dawn is the first dawn of the world. Never did this pink colour yellowing to a warm white so tinge, towards the west, the face of the buildings whose windowpane eyes gaze upon the silence brought by the growing light. There was never this hour, nor this light, nor this person that’s me. What will be tomorrow will be something else, and what I see will be seen by reconstituted eyes, full of a new vision. High city hills! Great marvels of architecture that the steep slopes secure and make even greater, motley chaos of heaped up buildings that the daylight weaves together with bright spots and shadows – you are today, you are me, because I see you, you are what [I’ll be] tomorrow, and I love you from the deck rail as when two ships pass, and there’s a mysterious longing and regret in their passing.

The easy consolation of placing the blame at one definite door was denied me. I did not vision that this, too, would be my fate concerning everything throughout the years to come: forever mixed feelings, an ever-increasing complexity of problems, repellent dirt, gripping misery, appalling selfishness and exploitation side by side with sublime self-abnegation, marvelous beauty of color and form – and never the chance of fixing the blame and earning placid rest. For with every passing day and month and year I was to see deeper into the causes and to realize that everyone in turn was right, and everyone was wrong.

Our bodies may take months to travel between worlds, but our disputes and arguments take seconds or minutes. As long as everybody agrees to abide by my arbitration, physical enforcement can wait until they’re close enough to touch. And everybody does agree that my legal framework is easier to comply with, better adjusted to trans-Jovian space, than any earthbound one.” A note of steel creeps into her voice, challenging. Her halo brightens, tickling a reactive glow from the walls of the throne room. Five billion inputs or more, Sadeq marvels. The crown is an engineering marvel, even though most of its mass is buried in the walls and floor of this huge construct. “There is law revealed by the Prophet, peace be unto him, and there is law that we can establish by analyzing his intentions. There are other forms of law by which humans live, and various interpretations of the law of God even among those who study His works. How, in the absence of the word of the Prophet, can you provide a moral compass?” “Hmm.” She taps her fingers on the arm of her throne, and Sadeq’s heart freezes. He’s heard the stories from the claim jumpers and boardroom bandits, from the greenmail experts with their roots in the earthbound jurisdictions that have made such a hash of arbitration here. How she can experience a year in a minute, rip your memories out through your cortical implants, and make you relive your worst mistakes in her nightmarishly powerful simulation space. She is the queen—the first individual to get her hands on so much mass and energy that she could pull ahead of the curve of binding technology, and the first to set up her own jurisdiction and rule certain experiments to be legal so that she could make use of the mass/energy intersection. She has force majeure—even the Pentagon’s infowarriors respect the Ring Imperium’s autonomy for now. In fact, the body sitting in the throne opposite him probably contains only a fraction of her identity. She’s by no means the first upload or partial, but she’s the first gust front of the storm of power that will arrive when the arrogant ones achieve their goal of dismantling the planets and turning dumb and uninhabited mass into brainpower throughout the observable reaches of the universe. And he’s just questioned the rectitude of her vision, in her presence.