Mountains And Beach Quotes

I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter. We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love. For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.

Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you -- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.

Bilbo’s Last Song Day is ended, dim my eyes, But journey long before me lies. Farewell, friends! I hear the call. The ship's beside the stony wall. Foam is white and waves are grey; Beyond the sunset leads my way. Foam is salt, the wind is free; I hear the rising of the Sea. Farewell, friends! The sails are set, The wind is east, the moorings fret. Shadows long before me lie, Beneath the ever-bending sky, But islands lie behind the Sun That I shall raise ere all is done; Lands there are to west of West, Where night is quiet and sleep is rest. Guided by the Lonely Star, Beyond the utmost harbour-bar, I’ll find the heavens fair and free, And beaches of the Starlit Sea. Ship, my ship! I seek the West, And fields and mountains ever blest. Farewell to Middle-earth at last. I see the Star above my mast!

it wasn't the mountain ahead that wears you out, but the grain of sand in your shoe

The world has enough beautiful mountains and meadows, spectacular skies and serene lakes. It has enough lush forests, flowered fields and sandy beaches. It has plenty of stars and the promise of a new sunrise and sunset every day. What the world needs more of is people to appreciate and enjoy it.

I believe that each person has a favorite place, a tree, a mountain, or a beach which they want to come back to, even if the return can only take place in the boundaries of their imagination.

We are here to abet creation and to witness it, to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but we notice each other's beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house.

When you smile, serious ideas get exhausted. At night the mountains keep quiet beside you, in the morning the sand goes with you down to the beach. When you do nice things to me all the heavy industries shut down.

There were letters on the bottom, letters he'd seen before, on the ship that had carried him from London, the ship that had broken up on the reef that guarded the island. The letters said: NEVER LAND. Peter looked at it. And then he looked around him--at the lagoon; at the rock where the mermaids (Mermaids!) lounged; at the palm-fringed beach; at the tinkling fairy flitting over his head; at his new friends the Mollusks; at the jungle-covered, pirate-infested mountains looming over it all. Then he looked at the board again, and he laughed out loud. 'That's exactly where I am,' he said.

People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul.

Karou who had, a lifetime past, begun this story on a battlefield, when she knelt beside a dying angel and smiled. You could trace a line from the beach at Bullfinch, through everything that had happened since - lives ended and begun, wars won and lost, love and wishbones and rage and regret and deception and despair and always, somehow, hope - and end up right here, in this cave in the Adelphas Mountains, in this company.

But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean. Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent. All my days have I watched it and listened to it, and I know it well. At first it told to me only the plain little tales of calm beaches and near ports, but with the years it grew more friendly and spoke of other things; of things more strange and more distant in space and in time. Sometimes at twilight the grey vapours of the horizon have parted to grant me glimpses of the ways beyond; and sometimes at night the deep waters of the sea have grown clear and phosphorescent, to grant me glimpses of the ways beneath. And these glimpses have been as often of the ways that were and the ways that might be, as of the ways that are; for ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.

I like my writing career and it's progression, I'd rather be that slow moving tide that turns a mountain into a beautiful beach for all to enjoy, rather than a flash in a pan that yields no heat.

Imagine that the whole world belongs to you. The birch trees in New Hampshire's White Mountains are yours, and so are the cirrus clouds in the western sky at dusk and the black sand on the beaches of Hawaii's big island. You own everything, my dear sovereign - the paintings in all the museums of the world, as well as the internet and the wild horses and the roads. Please take good care of it all, OK? Be an enlightened monarch who treats your domain with reverent responsibility. And make sure you also enjoy the full measure of fun that comes with such mastery. Glide through life as if all of creation is yearning to honor and entertain you.

Secondhand books had so much life in them. They'd lived, sometimes in many homes, or maybe just one. Theyd been on airplanes, traveled to sunny beaches, or crowded into a backpack and taken high up on a mountain where the air thinned.

You love a job, no matter how hard it is, it’s still easy. Not sure, never studied up on the guy, could be wrong, but I reckon Michelangelo didn’t wake up and think, ‘Fuck, I gotta drag my ass outta bed. More painting at the Sistine Chapel. Wish that shit was done so I could get to a fuckin’ beach.

He thought of the Riviera, as it was then before it had all been built up, with the lovely stretches of blue sea and the sand beaches and the stretches of pine woods and the mountains of the Esterel going out into the sea. He remembered it as it was when he and Zelda had first found it before people went there for the summer.

Sleep tight in the secure arms of your daddy. I know I have. He’ll be good at making you feel safe. When you’re scared, let him remind you that he’s right there, always ready to hold you when you need it. More than anything, I want to tell you this: You are a fighter. You are strong. You are brave. You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. This world is yours to make the most of, and I believe you will live a life so full of happiness that I will feel it from above. Never let others bring you down. Their words don’t change who you are. You are in control of who you are. You, my sweet Lila Kate, are your mother’s daughter. We fight for what we want and what we believe in. We don’t listen to others, and we are secure in who we are. Show the world how amazing Lila Kate Carter is, and climb mountains, baby girl. Climb them all.

too young to live, too old to die

I want to climb every last mountain, row down every last river, explore every last cave, cross every last bridge, run across every last beach, visit every last town, city, country. Everywhere. I should've done more than watch documentaries and video blogs about these places.

3. People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within.

Suddenly we were in Hawaii—tropical mountains running down to sparkling seas, sweeping bays, flawless beaches guarded by listing palms, little green and rocky islands standing off the headlands. From time to time we drove through sunny canefields, overlooked by the steep, blue eminence of the Great Dividing Range.

He was asleep in a short time and he dreamed of Africa when he was a boy and the long, golden beaches and the white beaches, so white they hurt your eyes, and the high capes and the great brown mountains. He lived along that coast now every night and in his dreams he heard the surf roar and saw the native boats come riding through it. He smelled the tar and oakum of the deck as he slept and he smelled the smell of Africa that the land breeze brought at morning.

People say the beach is the great equaliser Who are they kidding? Sit at Bondi and watch the boys flex And the girls walk bolt upright It looks like a nightmare episode of Baywatch. The true equaliser is the mountain cold And stacks of cold flung together Maybe then we’d listen to what each other is saying Instead of checking out the best bods. And as I wrap another layer Around my Size 10 I think of Jack’s favourite saying: “today’s tan is tomorrow’s cancer” I walk outside And whistle at the wind.

Mexico, the land of pyramids and palaces, deserts and jungles, mountains and beaches, markets and gardens, boulevards and cobblestoned streets, broad plazas and hidden courtyards, is now known as a slaughter ground. And for what? So North Americans can get high.

It infuriates him, this killing, this death. Infuriating that this is what we’re known for now, drug cartels and slaughter. This my city of Avenida 16 Septembre, the Victoria Theater, cobblestone streets, the bullring, La Central, La Fogata, more bookstores than El Paso, the university, the ballet, garapiñados, pan dulce, the mission, the plaza, the Kentucky Bar, Fred’s—now it’s known for these idiotic thugs. And my country, Mexico—the land of writers and poets—of Octavio Paz, Juan Rulfo, Carlos Fuentes, Elena Garro, Jorge Volpi, Rosario Castellanos, Luis Urrea, Elmer Mendoza, Alfonso Reyes—the land of painters and sculptors—Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Gabriel Orozco, Pablo O’Higgins, Juan Soriano, Francisco Goitia—of dancers like Guillermina Bravo, Gloria and Nellie Campobello, Josefina Lavalle, Ana Mérida, and composers—Carlos Chávez, Silvestre Revueltas, Agustín Lara, Blas Galindo—architects—Luis Barragán, Juan O’Gorman, Tatiana Bilbao, Michel Rojkind, Pedro Vásquez—wonderful filmmakers—Fernando de Fuentes, Alejandro Iñárritu, Luis Buñuel, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro—actors like Dolores del Río, “La Doña” María Félix, Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Salma Hayek—now the names are “famous” narcos—no more than sociopathic murderers whose sole contribution to the culture has been the narcocorridas sung by no-talent sycophants. Mexico, the land of pyramids and palaces, deserts and jungles, mountains and beaches, markets and gardens, boulevards and cobblestoned streets, broad plazas and hidden courtyards, is now known as a slaughter ground. And for what? So North Americans can get high.

…his intention was pure. He didn’t know why, but he liked a girl and he felt compelled to do something about it. That’s how it all starts. And as that drive grows, it’s the gateway to real emotion. Emotion that moves mountains and starts wars and makes mix tapes and buys airbrushed lovers’ T-shirts at the beach and writes horrible songs with simple guitar chords. But it’s the gateway to love and passion and rage and fear and jealousy and envy and self-hatred.

It's hard to explain, but it's related to me know that for every moment of beauty this place gives me, I probably miss a thousand more. And I want them all. I swear I'd live on the dunes if I could. I was born out of my time. I should have been around during the end of the eighteenth century, when the Romantic Era kicked off, and writers and artists were obsessed with nature: the ocean, the mountains, the sky. And they believed in following their own path, experimenting, not blindly obeying rules. I found a quote by Henry David Thoreau- "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life"...It made me cry. Urgency is so beautiful.

Home? What is home? Home is where a house is that you come back to when the rainy season is about to begin, to wait until the next dry season comes around. Home is where your woman is, that you come back to in the intervals between a greater love - the only real love - the lust for riches buried in the earth, that are your own if you can find them. Perhaps you do not call it home, even to yourself. Perhaps you call them 'my house,' 'my woman,' What if there was another 'my house,' 'my woman,' before this one? It makes no difference. This woman is enough for now. Perhaps the guns sounded too loud at Anzio or at Omaha Beach, at Guadalcanal or at Okinawa. Perhaps when they stilled again some kind of strength had been blasted from you that other men still have. And then again perhaps it was some kind of weakness that other men still have. What is strength, what is weakness, what is loyalty, what is perfidy? The guns taught only one thing, but they taught it well: of what consequence is life? Of what consequence is a man? And, therefore, of what consequence if he tramples love in one place and goes to find it in the next? The little moment that he has, let him be at peace, far from the guns and all that remind him of them. So the man who once was Bill Taylor has come back to his house, in the dusk, in the mountains, in Anahuac. ("The Moon Of Montezuma")

Stacy stepped into the forest and immediately took a deep breath of the pine- and spruce-scented air she’d come to love. She’d seen pictures in books and newspapers of countries and cities around the world. She’d seen photos of tropical islands and beaches and mountain biomes. But she couldn’t imagine any biome more beautiful than their taiga forest.

Every country should be content with the blessings of God; lakes, rivers, landscape, seas, mountains, beaches, wildlife, valleys, mangroves, wetlands,deltas etc.

She traveled too. She had a strict rule. One week vacation a year, relaxation on a beach. The other week of vacation, adventure. Going somewhere she could learn, see, taste, experience.

The months came and went, and back and forth they twisted through the uncharted vastness, where no men were and yet where men had been if the Lost Cabin were true. They went across divides in summer blizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains between the timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland could boast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sad and silent, where wild- fowl had been, but where then there was no life nor sign of life— only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in sheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches.

Calming allows us to rest, and resting is a precondition for healing. When animals in the forest get wounded, they find a place to lie down, and they rest completely for many days. They don't think about food or anything else. They just rest, and they get the healing they need. When we humans get sick, we just worry! We look for doctors and medicine, but we don't stop. Even when we go to the beach or the mountains for a vacation, we don't rest, and we come back more tired than before. We have to learn to rest. Lying down is not the only position for resting. During sitting or walking meditation, we can rest very well. Meditation does not have to be hard labor. Just allow your body and mind to rest like an animal in the forest. Don't struggle. There is no need to attain anything. I am writing a book, but I am not struggling. I am resting also. Please read in a joyful, yet restful way. The Buddha said, "My Dharma is the practice of non-practice." Practice in a way that does not tire you out, but gives your body, emotions, and consciousness a chance to rest. Our body and mind have the capacity to heal themselves if we allow them to rest. Stopping, calming, and resting are preconditions for healing. If we cannot stop, the course of our destruction will just continue. The world needs healing. Individuals, communities, and nations need healing.

People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within.

We drove out along the coast road. There was the green of the headlands, the white, red-roofed villas, patches of forest, and the ocean very blue with the tide out and the water curling far out along the beach. We drove through Saint Jean de Luz and passed through villages farther down the coast. Back of the rolling country we were going through we saw the mountains we had come over from Pamplona. The road went on ahead. Bill looked at his watch. It was time for us to go back. He knocked on the glass and told the driver to turn around. The driver backed the car out into the grass to turn it. In back of us were the woods, below a stretch of meadow, then the sea.

Second hand books had so much life in them. They'd lived, sometimes in many homes, or maybe just one. They'd been on airplanes, traveled to sunny beaches, or crowded into a backpack and taken high up a mountain where the air thinned. "Some had been held aloft tepid rose-scented baths, and thickened and warped with moisture. Others had child-like scrawls on the acknowledgement page, little fingers looking for a blank space to leave their mark. Then there were the pristine novels, ones that had been read carefully, bookmarks used, almost like their owner barely pried the pages open so loathe were they to damage their treasure. I loved them all. And I found it hard to part with them. Though years of book selling had steeled me. I had to let them go, and each time made a fervent wish they'd be read well, and often. Missy, my best friend, said I was completely cuckoo, and that I spent too much time alone in my shadowy shop, because I believed my books communicated with me. A soft sigh here, as they stretched their bindings when dawn broke, or a hum, as they anticipated a customer hovering close who might run a hand along their cover, tempting them to flutter their pages hello. Books were fussy when it came to their owners, and gave off a type of sound, an almost imperceptible whirr, when the right person was near. Most people weren't aware that books chose us, at the time when we needed them.

All my parents wanted was the open road and a VW camper van. That was enough escape for them. The ocean, the night sky, some acoustic guitar.. what more could you ask? Well, actually, you could ask to go soaring off the side of a mountain on a snowboard, feeling as if, for one moment you are riding the clouds instead of the snow. You could scour Southeast Asia, like the world weary twenty somethings in Alex Garland’s novel The Beach, looking for the one corner of the globe uncharted by the Lonely Planet to start your own private utopia. You could, for the matter, join a new age cult and dream of alien abduction. From the occult to raves to riots it seems that the eternal urge for escape has never enjoyed such niche marketing.

Mexico, the land of pyramids and palaces, deserts and jungles, mountains and beaches, markets and gardens, boulevards and cobblestoned streets, broad plazas and hidden courtyards, is now known as a slaughter ground. And for what? So North Americans can get high. Just across the bridge is the gigantic marketplace, the insatiable consumer machine that drives the violence here. North Americans smoke the dope, snort the coke, shoot the heroin, do the meth, and then have the nerve to point south (down, of course, on the map), and wag their fingers at the “Mexican drug problem” and Mexican corruption. It’s not the “Mexican drug problem,” Pablo thinks now, it’s the North American drug problem. As for corruption, who’s more corrupt—the seller or the buyer? And how corrupt does a society have to be when its citizens need to get high to escape their reality, at the cost of bloodshed and suffering of their neighbors? Corrupt to the soul. That’s the big story, he thinks. That’s the story someone should write. Well, maybe I will. And no one will read it.

ROSES UNDERFOOT The sound of salaams rising as waves diminish down in prayer, hoping for some trace of the one whose trace does not appear. If anyone asks you to say who you are, say without hesitation, soul withing soul within soul. There's a pearl diver who does not know how to swim! No matter. Pearls are handed him on the beach. We lovers laugh to hear, "This should be more that and that more this,"coming from people sitting in a wagon tilted in a ditch. Going in search of the heart, I found a huge rose under my feet, and roses under all our feet! How to say this to someone who denies it? The robe we wear is the sky's cloth. Everything is soul and flowering. --------------------------------- I open and fill with love and other objects evaporate. All the learning in books stays put on the shelf. Poetry, the dear words and images of song, comes down over me like mountain water. ---------------------------------- Any cup I hold fills with wine that lovers drink. Every word I say opens into mystery. Any way I turn I see brilliance.

In nature, we find so may things. At the water's edge, atop a mountain, or in the middle of a park, I watch my children flourish in who they are. With all the distractions, toys, and walls out of the way, the essence of who they are just shines. When I remember to pay attention, I see it radiating so strongly that I can't help but be brought right into it myself. My children are experts on breathing, on living; they know how to do it. And the open air? Why, that's breath itself. When I find myself in the midst of unsettling chaos-full of more commitments and expectations that we can really handle-I need to look no further than my little ones for the answer to what I've forgotten: Stop. Breathe. Listen. Then we head straight to the beach, or right to the woods, and play until we find ourselves restored.

3. People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul.

And Tenar listened to the sea, a few yards below the cave mouth, crashing and sucking and booming on the rocks, and the thunder of it down the beach eastward for miles. Over and over and over it made the same sounds, yet never quite the same. It never rested. On all the shores of all the lands in all the world, it heaved itself in these unresting waves, and never ceased, and never was still. The desert, the mountains: they stood still. They did not cry out forever in a great, dull voice. The sea spoke forever, but its language was foreign to her. She did not understand.

Tonight we fly Over the mountains The beach and the sea Over the friends that we've known And those that we now know And those who we've yet to meet And when we die Oh, will we be That disappointed Or sad If heaven doesn't exist What will we have missed This life is the best we've ever had

Inside my skin is the beach, and the sand, the redwoods and pond water, the feel of a kiss, wet on my lips, a mountain climbed, and fog forever, boogie boards, and sleeping mats, stories and stories, and real friends. None of it heavy water. Just me moving forward, finding m own story. -Ari

Anywhere you wanted to travel to?” ‘I’m suffocated by the darkness and this question. I wish I was brave enough to have travelled. Now that I don’t have time to go anywhere, I want to go everywhere: I want to get lost in the deserts of Saudi Arabia; find myself running from the bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas; stay overnight on Hashima Island, this abandoned coal-mining facility in Japan sometimes known as Ghost Island; travel the Death Railway in Thailand, because even with a name like that, there’s a chance I can survive the sheer cliffs and rickety wooden bridges; an everywhere else. I want to climb every last mountain, row down every last river, explore every last cave, cross every last bridge, run across last beach, visit every last town, city, country. Everywhere. I should’ve done more than watch documentaries and video blogs about these places.

People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul. Especially if you have other things to rely on. An instant’s recollection and there it is: complete tranquillity. And by tranquillity I mean a kind of harmony. So keep getting away from it all—like that. Renew yourself. But keep it brief and basic. A quick visit should be enough to ward off all < . . . > and send you back ready to face what awaits you. What’s there to complain about? People’s misbehavior? But take into consideration: • that rational beings exist for one another; • that doing what’s right sometimes requires patience; • that no one does the wrong thing deliberately; • and the number of people who have feuded and envied and hated and fought and died and been buried. . . . and keep your mouth shut. Or are you complaining about the things the world assigns you? But consider the two options: Providence or atoms. And all the arguments for seeing the world as a city. Or is it your body? Keep in mind that when the mind detaches itself and realizes its own nature, it no longer has anything to do with ordinary life—the rough and the smooth, either one. And remember all you’ve been taught—and accepted—about pain and pleasure. Or is it your reputation that’s bothering you? But look at how soon we’re all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of all those applauding hands. The people who praise us—how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place. The whole earth a point in space—and most of it uninhabited. How many people there will be to admire you, and who they are. So keep this refuge in mind: the back roads of your self. Above all, no strain and no stress. Be straightforward. Look at things like a man, like a human being, like a citizen, like a mortal. And among the things you turn to, these two: i. That things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance comes only from within—from our own perceptions. ii. That everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist. Think of how many changes you’ve already seen. “The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.

People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like. By going within. Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul. Especially if you have other things to rely on. An instant’s recollection and there it is: complete tranquillity. And by tranquillity I mean a kind of harmony. So keep getting away from it all—like that. Renew yourself. But keep it brief and basic. A quick visit should be enough to ward off all <…> and send you back ready to face what awaits you.

From his beach bag the man took an old penknife with a red handle and began to etch the signs of the letters onto nice flat pebbles. At the same time, he spoke to Mondo about everything there was in the letters, about everything you could see in them when you looked and when you listened. He spoke about A, which is like a big fly with its wings pulled back; about B, which is funny, with its two tummies; or C and D, which are like the moon, a crescent moon or a half-full moon; and then there was O, which was the full moon in the black sky. H is high, a ladder to climb up trees or to reach the roofs of houses; E and F look like a rake and a shovel; and G is like a fat man sitting in an armchair. I dances on tiptoes, with a little head popping up each time it bounces, whereas J likes to swing. K is broken like an old man, R takes big strides like a soldier, and Y stands tall, its arms up in the air, and it shouts: help! L is a tree on the river's edge, M is a mountain, N is for names, and people waving their hands, P is asleep on one paw, and Q is sitting on its tail; S is always a snake, Z is always a bolt of lightning, T is beautiful, like the mast on a ship, U is like a vase, V and W are birds, birds in flight; and X is a cross to help you remember.

Men seek retreats for themselves in country places, on beaches and mountains, and you yourself are wont to long for such retreats, but that is altogether unenlightened when it is possible at any hour you please to find a retreat within yourself. For nowhere can a man withdraw to a more untroubled quietude than in his own soul.12

We are here to witness the creation and to abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other.… Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house.”266

CHAPTER ONE A Boy at the Window FOR A LONG TIME AFTER THAT SUMMER, the four Penderwick sisters still talked of Arundel. Fate drove us there, Jane would say. No, it was the greedy landlord who sold our vacation house on Cape Cod, someone else would say, probably Skye. Who knew which was right? But it was true that the beach house they usually rented had been sold at the last minute, and the Penderwicks were suddenly without summer plans. Mr. Penderwick called everywhere, but Cape Cod was booked solid, and his daughters were starting to think they would be spending their whole vacation at home in Cameron, Massachusetts. Not that they didn’t love Cameron, but what is summer without a trip to somewhere special? Then, out of the blue, Mr. Penderwick heard through a friend of a friend about a cottage in the Berkshire Mountains. It had plenty of bedrooms and a big fenced-in pen for a dog—perfect for big, black, clumsy, lovable Hound Penderwick—and it was available to be rented for three weeks in August. Mr. Penderwick snatched it up, sight unseen. He didn’t know what he was getting us into, Batty would say. Rosalind always said, It’s too bad Mommy never saw Arundel—she would have loved the gardens. And Jane would say, There are much better gardens in heaven. And Mommy will never have to bump into Mrs. Tifton in heaven, Skye added to make her sisters laugh. And laugh they would, and the talk would move on to other things, until the next time someone remembered Arundel.

no planning, Graff--that's the first thing. No mapping it out, no dates to get anywhere, no dates to get back. Just think of things! Think of mountains, say, or think of beaches. Think of rich widows and farm girls! Then just point to where you feel they'll be, and pick the roads the same way too--pick them for the curves and hills. That's the second thing--to pick roads that the beast will love.

It's almost unbelievable when you think of it, how they live there in all that ice and sand and mountainous wilderness. Look at it,' he says. 'Huge barren deserts, huge oceans. How do they endure all those terrible things? The floods alone. The earthquakes alone make it crazy to live there. Look at those fault systems. They're so big, there's so many of them. The volcanic eruptions alone. What could be more frightening than a volcanic eruption? How do they endure avalanches, year after year, with numbing regularity? It's hard to believe people live there. The floods alone. You can see whole huge discolored areas, all flooded out, washed out. How do they survive, where do they go? Look at the cloud buildups. Look at that swirling storm center. What about the people who live in the path of a storm like that? It must be packing incredible winds. The lightning alone. People exposed on beaches, near trees and telephone poles. Look at the cities with their spangled lights spread in all directions. Try to imagine the crime and violence. Look at the smoke pall hanging low. What does that mean in terms of respiratory disorders? It's crazy. Who would live there? The deserts, how they encroach. Every year they claim more and more arable land. How enormous those snowfields are. Look at the massive storm fronts over the ocean. There are ships down there, small craft, some of them. Try to imagine the waves, the rocking. The hurricanes alone. The tidal waves. Look at those coastal communities exposed to tidal waves. What could be more frightening than a tidal wave? But they live there, they stay there. Where could they go?

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It always seemed that I learned more about myself the more I ventured into the forest or hiked along a beach or up a mountain. But for me, it was always the ocean that I found most attractive. Perhaps it's the enigma of waves that pull me to the sea whenever I feel lost. Unlike a mountain, they are a powerful force that's ever-changing--a piece of nature that defies analysis. And I was sick of being analyzed by a world of ancient beliefs.

Our crab pots are out front, and Francis has fixed a big metal barrel right on the beach. He lights a good fire to get the water boiling, and after the crabs are cooked, we women sit on the patio shucking until we have a mountain of meat in the middle of the table. We stir up buckets of cocktail sauce from catsup, mayonnaise, Worcestershire, lemon juice, and celery salt, and the kids come running. They eat on their towels on the sand, soaking up as much sun as possible to get them through the next winter.

Faolan stretched out on the blanket, propping his head on one elbow thoughtfully. “Eire is fine enough, I suppose,” he began, “but if I could have one wish, I’d show ye my Highlands. I’d take ye to the tops of the mountains and show ye where the golden eagles nest. I want ye to see the sun rise and set over the moors. I want to make love to ye in the heather with the warm sun beating down on us.” His eyes widened as an idea occurred to him. “We could sail out to one of the far islands and have it all to ourselves, like Adam and Eve in our very own Eden. I’d take ye walking on the beach in the moonlight, and I wouldna have to share ye with anyone but the selkies.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I’d teach ye to ride and hunt and fish, mo ruadh, and bank the fires to keep ye warm through the cold winter months.” With a blissful sigh, he pulled her tight against him and buried his face in the crook of her neck. “‘Twould be heaven for sure,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice when his lips brushed her ear, “pizza or no.

In the morning light the scene was beyond compare. The mountains and the hills were bathed in the soft light of the coming day, and the glowing, richly tinted clouds that encircled them. The lighter green of the hillsides contrasted with the deeper shades of the valleys and the graceful foliage of the waving palms that extended around the beach. The groves of orange trees bending with their golden fruit, mingled with the breadfruit trees, and the banana with its great green leaves, while the morning breeze, laden with the breath of flowers, came from the shore, distilling a fragrance rarely inhaled in other lands.

A wise man once said that human beings were programmed to like boundary conditions—places like tree houses, mountain cabins, or transgressive gay bars. Boundary conditions exist in places where you can stay in one element and look at another different and fascinating element for as long as you wanted. That’s why people like beach towns like Cape May; you can sit and look at the ocean, or go in the ocean and look back at the land, whatever’s more fun. If that’s true, then maybe that’s why people go to funerals. Funerals are the boundary condition between life and afterlife. Sheldon Berkman had crossed the boundary between

The terrain is as rocky as Pennsylvania, and the steepness of the climbs is unparalleled. Imagine a mountain range sculpted using beach sand, with mountains as tall and steep as the sand will allow. Wind and time would erode and soften the sculpture. The mountains would melt down; the peaks would become less pointed and the slopes more gradual. A week-old sculpture might be representative of the shape of the majority of the Appalachian Mountain Range. The White Mountains would be like the sculpture the moment it was completed, with the sharpness and steepness still intact. No other mountains on the AT are this austere. Only the Great Smoky Mountains come close; they may be equated to one- or two-day-old mountains of sand.

So get up, pretty woman! And from your beautifully shaped body don’t be ashamed For we are meant to be different, Rounded shapes and squared We come in a small, medium and a large size And to each there is still a wide range This is to create a beautiful portrait for the eyes And we are not supposed to please the “media-thinking” and change! So woman up! Whether your size is infinity-X large or infinity-X Small In love with “you” you should fall Don’t let them and their meaningless words or shallow looks Make you lose it all As to this nature you belong, The beach, the mountains, the oceans And the colorful life this mother earth has to give So embrace this with your body and soul No matter how they evolve… For as long as you live!

I don’t understand it,” Hans Castorp said. “I never can understand how anybody can not smoke—it deprives a man of the best part of life, so to speak—or at least of a first-class pleasure. When I wake in the morning, I feel glad at the thought of being able to smoke all day, and when I eat, I look forward to smoking afterwards; I might almost say I only eat for the sake of being able to smoke—though of course that is more or less of an exaggeration. But a day without tobacco would be flat, stale, and unprofitable, as far as I am concerned. If I had to say to myself to-morrow: ‘No smoke to-day’—I believe I shouldn’t find the courage to get up—on my honour, I’d stop in bed. But when a man has a good cigar in his mouth—of course it mustn’t have a side draught or not draw well, that is extremely irritating—but with a good cigar in his mouth a man is perfectly safe, nothing can touch him—literally. It’s just like lying on the beach: when you lie on the beach, why, you lie on the beach, don’t you?—you don’t require anything else, in the line of work or amusement either.—People smoke all over the world, thank goodness; there is nowhere one could get to, so far as I know, where the habit hasn’t penetrated. Even polar expeditions fit themselves out with supplies of tobacco to help them carry on. I’ve always felt a thrill of sympathy when I read that. You can be very miserable: I might be feeling perfectly wretched, for instance; but I could always stand it if I had my smoke.

heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha took the heron into his soul, he flew over the woods and the mountains. He was a heron: he fed upon fish and hungered with the heron’s hunger, he spoke the cawing of the heron and died the heron’s death. A dead jackal lay there on the sandy riverbank, and Siddhartha’s soul slipped into the dead body. He was a dead jackal: he lay on the beach, he swelled up and stank, he rotted away and was dismembered by the hyenas before being skinned by the vultures. He turned to a skeleton and then to dust, and then he blew into the fields. And Siddhartha’s soul returned. His soul had died, it had decayed, it had crumbled to dust. He had tasted the hazy intoxication of the cycle of existence and, like the hunter poised for the opportunity, awaited his chance to escape from this cycle to the place where causality ended and an eternity free of sorrow began.

The home of the young bride and her widower groom lies in Travancore, at the southern tip of India, sandwiched between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats—that long mountain range that runs parallel to the western coast. The land is shaped by water and its people united by a common language: Malayalam. Where the sea meets white beach, it thrusts fingers inland to intertwine with the rivers snaking down the green canopied slopes of the Ghats. It is a child’s fantasy world of rivulets and canals, a latticework of lakes and lagoons, a maze of backwaters and bottle-green lotus ponds; a vast circulatory system because, as her father used to say, all water is connected. It spawned a people—Malayalis—as mobile as the liquid medium around them, their gestures fluid, their hair flowing, ready to pour out laughter as they float from this relative’s house to that one’s, pulsing and roaming like blood corpuscles in a vasculature, propelled by the great beating heart of the monsoon.

SIDDHARTHA LEARNED SOMETHING NEW ON every step of his path, for the world was transformed, and his heart was enchanted. He saw the sun rising over the mountains with their forests and setting over the distant beach with its palm-trees. At night, he saw the stars in the sky in their fixed positions and the crescent of the moon floating like a boat in the blue. He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbows, rocks, herbs, flowers, stream and river, the glistening dew in the bushes in the morning, distant high mountains which were blue and pale, birds sang and bees, wind silverishly blew through the rice-field. All of this, a thousand-fold and colourful, had always been there, always the sun and the moon had shone, always rivers had roared and bees had buzzed, but in former times all of this had been nothing more to Siddhartha than a fleeting, deceptive veil before his eyes, looked upon in distrust, destined to be penetrated and destroyed by thought, since it was not the essential existence, since this essence lay beyond, on the other side of, the visible.

The Lady of the Ladle The Youth at Eve had drunk his fill, Where stands the “Royal” on the Hill, And long his mid-day stroll had made, On the so-called “Marine Parade”—(Meant, I presume, for Seamen brave, Whose “march is on the Mountain wave”; ’Twere just the bathing-place for him Who stays on land till he can swim—) And he had strayed into the Town, And paced each alley up and down, Where still, so narrow grew the way, The very houses seemed to say, Nodding to friends across the Street, “One struggle more and we shall meet.” And he had scaled that wondrous stair That soars from earth to upper air, Where rich and poor alike must climb, And walk the treadmill for a time. That morning he had dressed with care, And put Pomatum on his hair; He was, the loungers all agreed, A very heavy swell indeed: Men thought him, as he swaggered by, Some scion of nobility, And never dreamed, so cold his look, That he had loved—and loved a Cook. Upon the beach he stood and sighed Unheedful of the treacherous tide; Thus sang he to the listening main, And soothed his sorrow with the strain! «

You don’t climb the second mountain the way you climb the first mountain. You conquer your first mountain. You identify the summit, and you claw your way toward it. You are conquered by your second mountain. You surrender to some summons, and you do everything necessary to answer the call and address the problem or injustice that is in front of you. On the first mountain you tend to be ambitious, strategic, and independent. On the second mountain you tend to be relational, intimate, and relentless. It’s gotten so I can recognize first- and second-mountain people. The first-mountain people are often cheerful, interesting, and fun to be around. They often have impressive jobs and can take you to an amazing variety of great restaurants. The second-mountain people aren’t averse to the pleasures of the world. They delight in a good glass of wine or a nice beach. (There’s nothing worse than people who are so spiritualized they don’t love the world.) But they have surpassed these pleasures in pursuit of moral joy, a feeling that they have aligned their life toward some ultimate good. If they have to choose, they choose joy.

The morning after / my death” The morning after my death we will sit in cafés but I will not be there I will not be * There was the great death of birds the moon was consumed with fire the stars were visible until noon. Green was the forest drenched with shadows the roads were serpentine A redwood tree stood alone with its lean and lit body unable to follow the cars that went by with frenzy a tree is always an immutable traveller. The moon darkened at dawn the mountain quivered with anticipation and the ocean was double-shaded: the blue of its surface with the blue of flowers mingled in horizontal water trails there was a breeze to witness the hour * The sun darkened at the fifth hour of the day the beach was covered with conversations pebbles started to pour into holes and waves came in like horses. * The moon darkened on Christmas eve angels ate lemons in illuminated churches there was a blue rug planted with stars above our heads lemonade and war news competed for our attention our breath was warmer than the hills. * There was a great slaughter of rocks of spring leaves of creeks the stars showed fully the last king of the Mountain gave battle and got killed. We lay on the grass covered dried blood with our bodies green blades swayed between our teeth. * We went out to sea a bank of whales was heading South a young man among us a hero tried to straddle one of the sea creatures his body emerged as a muddy pool as mud we waved goodbye to his remnants happy not to have to bury him in the early hours of the day We got drunk in a barroom the small town of Fairfax had just gone to bed cherry trees were bending under the weight of their flowers: they were involved in a ceremonial dance to which no one had ever been invited. * I know flowers to be funeral companions they make poisons and venoms and eat abandoned stone walls I know flowers shine stronger than the sun their eclipse means the end of times but I love flowers for their treachery their fragile bodies grace my imagination’s avenues without their presence my mind would be an unmarked grave. * We met a great storm at sea looked back at the rocking cliffs the sand was going under black birds were leaving the storm ate friends and foes alike water turned into salt for my wounds. * Flowers end in frozen patterns artificial gardens cover the floors we get up close to midnight search with powerful lights the tiniest shrubs on the meadows A stream desperately is running to the ocean The Spring Flowers Own & The Manifestations of the Voyage (The Post-Apollo Press, 1990)

In that moment Ned felt a swelling, a ripping expansion, a hugeness that rang through him for the length of his life, a feeling that was sometimes rivalled but never quite matched. Not at weddings, not at births, not at funerals. Not when he worked his way north to Longreach, where he finally saw Toby again, finding him cocky, funny and largely unchanged. Not during good seasons or bad. Not when he was alone on cold waterways, not when he was in the grip of people he loved. Not as he poured dirt into graves, not as he watched his children, then his grandchildren, play. Not on the white sands of hidden beaches. Not in the shade of ancient trees, in whose canopies he imagined he could see the darting of cream-brown quolls. Not on rocky mountain roofs. Not in the presence of whales, not while viewing fine ships. Not at the scent of Huon pine. Not as Callie's last breath eased out of her, in their house overlooking kanamaluka, the eastern sun warming her face right up to the final moments of her life. Not at his ninetieth birthday, surrounded by his family and what was left of his friends, as he felt both powerfully loved and profoundly alone. Not even then, at the very end of his life, did he feel it again, although he always remembered it: this hugeness of feeling. This undamming of a whole summer's fear, this half-sickening lurch to joy. (pp.225-6)

I want to make people understand that boxing ourselves into tiny cubbies based on class, race, ethnicity, religion—anything, really—comes from a poverty of mind, a poverty of imagination. The world is dull and cruel when we isolate ourselves. Survival, true survival of the body and soul, requires creativity, freedom of thought, collaboration. You might have time and I might have land. You might have ideas and I might have strength. You might have a tomato and I might have a knife. We need each other. We need to say: I honor the things that you respect and I value the things you cherish. I am not better than you. You are not better than me. Nobody is better than anybody else. Nobody is who you think they are at first glance. We need to see beyond the projections we cast onto each other. Each of us is so much grander, more nuanced, and more extraordinary than anybody thinks, including ourselves. I’ve flown on private planes, I’ve lounged on private beaches. I’ve fallen asleep at night with no shelter, no parents, no country, no food. I’ve been made to feel worthless and disposable by the world. I’ve seen enough to know that you can be a human with a mountain of resources and you can be a human with nothing, and you can be a monster either way. Everywhere, and especially at both extremes, you can find monsters. It’s at the extremes that people are most scared—

The Sailor-boy’s Gossip You say, dear mamma, it is good to be talking With those who will kindly endeavour to teach. And I think I have learnt something while I was walking Along with the sailor-boy down on the beach. He told me of lands where he soon will be going, Where humming-birds scarcely are bigger than bees, Where the mace and the nutmeg together are growing, And cinnamon formeth the bark of some trees. He told me that islands far out in the ocean Are mountains of coral that insects have made, And I freely confess I had hardly a notion That insects could world in the way that he said. He spoke of wide deserts where the sand-clouds are flying. No shade for the brow, and no grass for the feet; Where camels and travelers often lie dying, Gasping for water and scorching with heat. He told me of places away in the East, Where topaz, and ruby, and sapphires are found: Where you never are safe from the snake and the beast, For the serpent and tiger and jackal abound. I thought our own Thames was a very great stream, With its waters so fresh and its currents so strong; But how tiny our largest of rivers must seem To those he had sailed on, three thousand miles long. He speaks, dear mamma, of so many strange places, With people who neither have cities nor kings. Who wear skins on their shoulders, paint on their faces, And live on the spoils which their hunting-field brings. Oh! I long, dear mamma, to learn more of these stories, From books that are written to please and to teach, And I wish I could see half the curious glories The sailor-boy told me of down on the beach. Eliza Cook.

An Aside   To break with this routine I have written this manuscript in a way that challenges my reader to explore on the edge of language instead of drowning in devices intending to take for granted meanings and draw false assumptions burdened by planted biases. In your face are thrown one lie after another that defy what is actually seen and offer nothing of balance to either perspective or clarity on a daily basis... yet, it seems natural to you. Because there is no power to your sense of expectation. None. You are boxed into what is possible and what is not, even unsure of the shape of the earth. Led into debates over something as idiotic as that while you balk at having neighbors from elsewhere. So enormous is this Universe and yet you would limit its possibility to produce any of the wonders on some tiny grain of sand found on a beach in comparison. From written history anomalies have been spied and reported accomplishing what nothing today can. Trans Lunar Phenomena, recorded hundreds of years with thousands of reports demonstrate intelligent presence on the moon while nothing of this is factored into your narrow credulity. When one emerges who can answer resolution to so many anomaly, predicts events with accuracy, and offers what is needed to help you survive a planet crippled to the point of extinction, you cannot quit your routine of acquired preference for the mundane suited to a boxed-in comfort zone long enough to check him out. The few above this are too few. I feel quite privileged to have found four. Others are awakening yet still not shown to be at a point of no return to stifling group thought. If you are, then show me. Show me you are aware we near the point where nothing is left to lose. Where resolute action need not be possessed of fear. I will say this, unified consciousness would have no trouble with accepting this challenge I throw at your feet, but then conditions so favorable to enslavement here may be your problem and not that solely attributable to split consciousness. I am willing to engage with you to the very end of hope to find out. Wake up to the signs and ramifications of the trends set I have touched upon. Help awaits a world ready to receive it.

When a middle school teacher in San Antonio, Texas, named Rick Riordan began thinking about the troublesome kids in his class, he was struck by a topsy-turvy idea. Maybe the wild ones weren’t hyperactive; maybe they were misplaced heroes. After all, in another era the same behavior that is now throttled with Ritalin and disciplinary rap sheets would have been the mark of greatness, the early blooming of a true champion. Riordan played with the idea, imagining the what-ifs. What if strong, assertive children were redirected rather than discouraged? What if there were a place for them, an outdoor training camp that felt like a playground, where they could cut loose with all those natural instincts to run, wrestle, climb, swim, and explore? You’d call it Camp Half-Blood, Riordan decided, because that’s what we really are—half animal and half higher-being, halfway between each and unsure how to keep them in balance. Riordan began writing, creating a troubled kid from a broken home named Percy Jackson who arrives at a camp in the woods and is transformed when the Olympian he has inside is revealed, honed, and guided. Riordan’s fantasy of a hero school actually does exist—in bits and pieces, scattered across the globe. The skills have been fragmented, but with a little hunting, you can find them all. In a public park in Brooklyn, a former ballerina darts into the bushes and returns with a shopping bag full of the same superfoods the ancient Greeks once relied on. In Brazil, a onetime beach huckster is reviving the lost art of natural movement. And in a lonely Arizona dust bowl called Oracle, a quiet genius disappeared into the desert after teaching a few great athletes—and, oddly, Johnny Cash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers—the ancient secret of using body fat as fuel. But the best learning lab of all was a cave on a mountain behind enemy lines—where, during World War II, a band of Greek shepherds and young British amateurs plotted to take on 100,000 German soldiers. They weren’t naturally strong, or professionally trained, or known for their courage. They were wanted men, marked for immediate execution. But on a starvation diet, they thrived. Hunted and hounded, they got stronger. They became such natural born heroes, they decided to follow the lead of the greatest hero of all, Odysseus, and

LXXII In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee, And as the flames along their faces gleam’d, Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free, The long wild locks that to their girdles stream’d, While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half scream’d: Tambourgi! Tambourgi! thy ’larum afar Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war; All the sons of the mountains arise at the note, Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote! Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, To his snowy camese and his shaggy capote? To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock, And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock. Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live? Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego? What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe? Macedonia sends forth her invincible race; For a time they abandon the cave and the chase: But those scarves of blood-red shall be redder, before The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o’er. Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves, And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves, Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar, And track to his covert the captive on shore. I ask not the pleasure that riches supply, My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy; Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair, And many a maid from her mother shall tear. I love the fair face of the maid in her youth, Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe; Let her bring from her chamber the many-toned lyre, And sing us a song on the fall of her sire. Remember the moment when Previsa fell, The shrieks of the conquer’d, the conquerors’ yell; The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, The wealthy we slaughter’d, the lovely we spared. I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear; He neither must know who would serve the Vizier: Since the days of our prophet, the Crescent ne’er saw A chief ever glorious like Ali Pasha. Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped, Let the yellow-haired Giaours view his horsetail with dread; When his Delhis come dashing in blood o’er the banks, How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks! Selictar, unsheath then our chief’s scimitar: Tambourgi! thy ’larum gives promise of war; Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore, Shall view us as victors, or view us no more!

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

I look back now and can see how much my father also found his own freedom in the adventures we did together, whether it was galloping along a beach in the Isle of Wight with me behind him, or climbing on the steep hills and cliffs around the island’s coast. It was at times like these that I found a real intimacy with him. It was also where I learned to recognize that tightening sensation, deep in the pit of my stomach, as being a great thing to follow in life. Some call it fear. I remember the joy of climbing with him in the wintertime. It was always an adventure and often turned into much more than just a climb. Dad would determine that not only did we have to climb a sheer hundred-and-fifty-foot chalk cliff, but also that German paratroopers held the high ground. We therefore had to climb the cliff silently and unseen, and then grenade the German fire position once at the summit. In reality this meant lobbing clumps of manure toward a deserted bench on the cliff tops. Brilliant. What a great way to spend a wet and windy winter’s day when you are age eight (or twenty-eight, for that matter). I loved returning from the cliff climbs totally caked in mud, out of breath, having scared ourselves a little. I learned to love that feeling of the wind and rain blowing hard on my face. It made me feel like a man, when in reality I was a little boy. We also used to talk about Mount Everest, as we walked across the fields toward the cliffs. I loved to pretend that some of our climbs were on the summit face of Everest itself. We would move together cautiously across the white chalk faces, imagining they were really ice. I had this utter confidence that I could climb Everest if he were beside me. I had no idea what Everest would really involve but I loved the dream together. These were powerful, magical times. Bonding. Intimate. Fun. And I miss them a lot even today. How good it would feel to get the chance to do that with him just once more. I think that is why I find it often so emotional taking my own boys hiking or climbing nowadays. Mountains create powerful bonds between people. It is their great appeal to me. But it wasn’t just climbing. Dad and I would often go to the local stables and hire a couple of horses for a tenner and go jumping the breakwaters along the beach. Every time I fell off in the wet sand and was on the verge of bursting into tears, Dad would applaud me and say that I was slowly becoming a horseman. In other words, you can’t become a decent horseman until you fall off and get up again a good number of times. There’s life in a nutshell.

Moreover, Nancy Sinatra was afflicted, as the overwhelming majority of Americans were, with monolingualism. Lana’s richer, more textured version of “Bang Bang” layered English with French and Vietnamese. Bang bang, je ne l’oublierai pas went the last line of the French version, which was echoed by Pham Duy’s Vietnamese version, We will never forget. In the pantheon of classic pop songs from Saigon, this tricolor rendition was one of the most memorable, masterfully weaving together love and violence in the enigmatic story of two lovers who, regardless of having known each other since childhood, or because of knowing each other since childhood, shoot each other down. Bang bang was the sound of memory’s pistol firing into our heads, for we could not forget love, we could not forget war, we could not forget lovers, we could not forget enemies, we could not forget home, and we could not forget Saigon. We could not forget the caramel flavor of iced coffee with coarse sugar; the bowls of noodle soup eaten while squatting on the sidewalk; the strumming of a friend’s guitar while we swayed on hammocks under coconut trees; the football matches played barefoot and shirtless in alleys, squares, parks, and meadows; the pearl chokers of morning mist draped around the mountains; the labial moistness of oysters shucked on a gritty beach; the whisper of a dewy lover saying the most seductive words in our language, anh oi; the rattle of rice being threshed; the workingmen who slept in their cyclos on the streets, kept warm only by the memories of their families; the refugees who slept on every sidewalk of every city; the slow burning of patient mosquito coils; the sweetness and firmness of a mango plucked fresh from its tree; the girls who refused to talk to us and who we only pined for more; the men who had died or disappeared; the streets and homes blown away by bombshells; the streams where we swam naked and laughing; the secret grove where we spied on the nymphs who bathed and splashed with the innocence of the birds; the shadows cast by candlelight on the walls of wattled huts; the atonal tinkle of cowbells on mud roads and country paths; the barking of a hungry dog in an abandoned village; the appetizing reek of the fresh durian one wept to eat; the sight and sound of orphans howling by the dead bodies of their mothers and fathers; the stickiness of one’s shirt by afternoon, the stickiness of one’s lover by the end of lovemaking, the stickiness of our situations; the frantic squealing of pigs running for their lives as villagers gave chase; the hills afire with sunset; the crowned head of dawn rising from the sheets of the sea; the hot grasp of our mother’s hand; and while the list could go on and on and on, the point was simply this: the most important thing we could never forget was that we could never forget.

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

Nevertheless, it would be prudent to remain concerned. For, like death, IT would come: Armageddon. There would be-without exaggeration-a series of catastrophes. As a consequence of the evil in man...-no mere virus, however virulent, was even a burnt match for our madness, our unconcern, our cruelty-...there would arise a race of champions, predators of humans: namely earthquakes, eruptions, tidal waves, tornados, typhoons, hurricanes, droughts-the magnificent seven. Floods, winds, fires, slides. The classical elements, only angry. Oceans would warm, the sky boil and burn, the ice cap melt, the seas rise. Rogue nations, like kids killing kids at their grammar school, would fire atomic-hydrogen-neutron bombs at one another. Smallpox would revive, or out of the African jungle would slide a virus no one understood. Though reptilian only in spirit, the disease would make us shed our skins like snakes and, naked to the nerves, we'd expire in a froth of red spit. Markets worldwide would crash as reckless cars on a speedway do, striking the wall and rebounding into one another, hurling pieces of themselves at the spectators in the stands. With money worthless-that last faith lost-the multitude would riot, race against race at first, God against God, the gots against the gimmes. Insects hardened by generations of chemicals would consume our food, weeds smother our fields, fire ants, killer bees sting us while we're fleeing into refuge water, where, thrashing we would drown, our pride a sodden wafer. Pestilence. War. Famine. A cataclysm of one kind or another-coming-making millions of migrants. Wearing out the roads. Foraging in the fields. Looting the villages. Raping boys and women. There'd be no tent cities, no Red Cross lunches, hay drops. Deserts would appear as suddenly as patches of crusty skin. Only the sun would feel their itch. Floods would sweep suddenly over all those newly arid lands as if invited by the beach. Forest fires would burn, like those in coal mines, for years, uttering smoke, making soot for speech, blackening every tree leaf ahead of their actual charring. Volcanoes would erupt in series, and mountains melt as though made of rock candy till the cities beneath them were caught inside the lava flow where they would appear to later eyes, if there were any eyes after, like peanuts in brittle. May earthquakes jelly the earth, Professor Skizzen hotly whispered. Let glaciers advance like motorboats, he bellowed, threatening a book with his fist. These convulsions would be a sign the parasites had killed their host, evils having eaten all they could; we'd hear a groan that was the going of the Holy Ghost; we'd see the last of life pissed away like beer from a carouse; we'd feel a shudder move deeply through this universe of dirt, rock, water, ice, and air, because after its long illness the earth would have finally died, its engine out of oil, its sky of light, winds unable to catch a breath, oceans only acid; we'd be witnessing a world that's come to pieces bleeding searing steam from its many wounds; we'd hear it rattling its atoms around like dice in a cup before spilling randomly out through a split in the stratosphere, night and silence its place-well-not of rest-of disappearance. My wish be willed, he thought. Then this will be done, he whispered so no God could hear him. That justice may be served, he said to the four winds that raged in the corners of his attic.

I like my writing career and it's progression, I'd rather be that slow moving tide that slowly turns a hidden mountain into a beautiful beach for all to enjoy, rather than a flash in a pan that yields no heat.

In the distance, steel-blue mountains loomed heavy on the horizon, their shoulders burdened with the same accursed snow the gods were currently depositing upon the lowlands. Between us and the mountains, the vast expanse of one of the innumerable caravan sites littering the Welsh shores was dimly visible, and at the far edges of the sands, grey waves tipped a mulch of brown foam up on to the beach, a sudden deposition of wishy-washy creatures that seemed to spider-leg over each other in their haste to reach the shore and see what all the fuss was about. But even these creatures comprised of sea-foam were freaked out by the death-stare, for the little critters swiftly dissipated under the force of a skeletal glower. A skull lay in the sand, its empty sockets staring down the beach at the retreating surge. Their fear wouldn’t last long. Soon they’d realise the skeleton had not engaged in pursuit, their confidence would grow, and they’d encroach, further and further up the bank. Eventually, they’d be close enough to see it was completely inert, and would overrun our position, victoriously sweeping up their fallen foe and dragging it back out with them into the dreary waves.

Owning the beach is like owning a mountain or an island, putting your name on something that belongs to the whole world.

inside. When they arrived at the beach, the other Sultans,

A life without unfulfilled desire is not what you want. A life without unfulfilled desire is a life without desire. The beach, you say. You want to go to the beach? Is that really what you want? The beach. The pool. The library. You want to go to the butcher, the bake, the supermarket. You want to go to the mountains and swim with friends in the lake. To want, in the infinitive form. To want, conjugated: I want, you want, he, she, one wants, we want, you all want, they want. Have you ever thought about putting a question into this device, about what would happen if you asked about the world, instead of just asking for it? Who do you think you are> Who do you think I am? What do you think you have in your hands? Why would you think you have any idea of what you want? You've had thirty-seven years to get it right, thirty-seven years with the device at your disposal, just waiting, ready, willing, and most nights you still go to bed confused, angry at yourself. When are you going to start considering the possibility that you are exactly who you want to be?

Naif hugged herself as she watched the damp stealing in. The island’s ready mists were like the ghosts of the young dead roaming the slopes. Below ground was a maze of tunnels and caves. Some led to the mountain top, while a different set ran along the beach. In one of the latter Ruzalia moored her sleek stingray-styled boat. At this time of day she would be down there, preparing it for her next raid.

Too Beautiful for Words [10w] + [10w] When nature presents us with miracles too beautiful for words, it is either a mountain, a beach, or a baby.

The Scriptures tell us that all creation declares the glory of God (see Psalm 19:1). But if you actually witness a glorious sunset of explosive colors, where the bluest Hawaiian ocean crashes into the majestic mountain-lined beaches of gold—now you’ve experienced the black-and-white words of Scripture in a color-saturated way that can glorify God even more.

Exercise 1: How to Invigorate Your Relationship with Your Romantic Partner STEP 1: Privately, each person should think about time spent with their partner. Without talking about it, each of you should make a list of the shared times together that could best be described as “very pleasant” or “exciting.” Think about things you do at home, for work, in the community, for leisure, on vacation, or anywhere else where you did something with your partner that made you feel excited. For instance, think about when the two of you: Went to a concert or a club Played or watched a sport or games of some kind Shopped Learned a new skill Talked Volunteered Solved a problem Took care of other people, animals, or things Went to a spiritual or religious event/workshop/meeting Played music Had sex (the more details, the better) Worked out Relaxed Spent time in a different environment than you are usually in (beach versus mountains, suburbs versus city, noisy versus quiet, teeming with people versus sparsely populated) Engaged in strenuous physical and/or mental exercise Joined an organization that you both believed in Pursued a hobby Worked on the house, the yard, the car, the boat Cooked new recipes Went to the movies Sat in the same room and did your own thing, like read, did needlework, or worked crossword puzzles Planned the family budget Took a class Something else (the sky is the limit—add any activities that fueled you)

The human landscape of Houston more than makes up for the lack of mountains and beaches... Houston is about the integrity, generosity, dedication, and love of its people.

Another middle-sized (six thousand) Southern university on the move. Conservative by national standards, although it severed its ties to the ultraconservative Southern Baptists in 1986. ACC athletics and Greek parties shape the social scene. The strategic central North Carolina location is accessible to mountains, beaches, and the famous research triangle. (Rising Stars - Wake Forest University)

You could run a fingertip along the spines, smell that glorious old book scent, flick them open, and unbend a dog-eared page. Read someone else’s notes in the margin, or a highlighted passage, and see why that sentence or metaphor had dazzled the previous owner. Secondhand books had so much life in them. They’d lived, sometimes in many homes, or maybe just one. They’d been on airplanes, traveled to sunny beaches, or crowded into a backpack and taken high up a mountain where the air thinned.

will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: From whence shall my help come? My help cometh from God, Who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121.

If the mind is in turmoil and you are anxious and worried, the beach or the mountain will not give you peace. You must choose peace.

eggs and curried chicken salad and double fudge brownies. That was all she was good at: eating. In the summer the Castles, the Alistairs, and the Randolphs all went to the beach together. When they were younger, they would play flashlight tag, light a bonfire, and sing Beatles songs, with Mr. Randolph playing the guitar and Penny’s voice floating above everyone else’s. But at some point Demeter had stopped feeling comfortable in a bathing suit. She wore shorts and oversized T-shirts to the beach, and she wouldn’t go in the water, wouldn’t walk with Penny to look for shells, wouldn’t throw the Frisbee with Hobby and Jake. The other three kids always tried to include Demeter, which was more humiliating, somehow, than if they’d just ignored her. They were earnest in their pursuit of her attention, but Demeter suspected this was their parents’ doing. Mr. Randolph might have offered Jake a twenty-dollar bribe to be nice to Demeter because Al Castle was an old friend. Hobby and Penny were nice to her because they felt sorry for her. Or maybe Hobby and Penny and Jake all had a bet going about who would be the one to break through Demeter’s Teflon shield. She was a game to them. In the fall there were football parties at the Alistairs’ house, during which the adults and Hobby and Jake watched the Patriots, Penny listened to music on her headphones, and Demeter dug into Zoe Alistair’s white chicken chili and topped it with a double spoonful of sour cream. In the winter there were weekends at Stowe. Al and Lynne Castle owned a condo near the mountain, and Demeter had learned to ski as a child. According to her parents, she used to careen down the black-diamond trails without a moment’s hesitation. But by the time they went to Vermont with the Alistairs and the Randolphs, Demeter refused to get on skis at all. She sat in the lodge and drank hot chocolate until the rest of the gang came clomping in after their runs, rosy-cheeked and winded. And then the ski weekends, at least, had stopped happening, because Hobby had basketball and Penny and Jake were in the school musical, which meant rehearsals night and day. Demeter thought back to all those springs, summers, falls, and winters with Hobby and Penny and Jake, and she wondered how her parents could have put her through such exquisite torture. Hobby and Penny and Jake were all exceptional children, while Demeter was seventy pounds overweight, which sank her self-esteem, which led to her getting mediocre grades when she was smart enough for A’s and killed her chances of landing the part of Rizzo in Grease, even though she was a gifted actress. Hobby was in a coma. Her mother was on the phone. She kept

Beautiful world provides the best information and photos of the world's most stunning natural wonders. We cover their location, how to get to them, when to visit, trails, hotels, and their special features. National Parks and UNESCO sites are mixed amongst individual mountains and lakes. Islands and beaches feature as do some of the world's most amazing rock formations and caves. Beautifulworld.com is a great resource for travelers and students.

They had come a long way, those gypsies encamped for their evening meal on the dusty greensward by the winding mountain road in Provence. From Transylvania they had come, from the pustas of Hungary, from the High Tatra of Czechoslovakia, from the Iron Gate, even from as far away as the gleaming Rumanian beaches washed by the waters of the Black Sea. A long journey, hot and stifling and endlessly, monotonously repetitive across the already baking plains of Central Europe or slow and difficult and exasperating and occasionally dangerous in the traversing of the great ranges of mountains that had lain in their way. Above all, one would have thought, even for those nomadic travellers par excellence, a tiring journey. No traces of any such tiredness could be seen in the faces of the gypsies, men, women and children all dressed in their traditional finery, who sat or squatted in a rough semi-circle round two glowing coke braziers, listening in quietly absorbed melancholy to the hauntingly soft and nostalgic tsigane music of the Hungarian steppes. For this apparent

A9, the road that Bea was traveling this early morning after leaving the Isle of Skye, was part of Scotland’s answer to Route 66. It was also a driver’s sort of road as it wound its way along the north coast of the highlands above Inverness, and this time of year was the perfect jot in time to be on it. It was early enough in the day for the sun’s rays to still break across the landscape, highlighting every tree, shrub, mountain, loch, or beach in the crisp and clear Kodachrome of late autumn, and it was also just late enough in the season for the road to be safely navigated at speeds just a bit above normal

A9, the road that Bea was traveling this early morning after leaving the Isle of Skye, was part of Scotland’s answer to Route 66. It was also a driver’s sort of road as it wound its way along the north coast of the highlands above Inverness, and this time of year was the perfect jot in time to be on it. It was early enough in the day for the sun’s rays to still break across the landscape, highlighting every tree, shrub, mountain, loch, or beach in the crisp and clear Kodachrome of late autumn, and it was also just late enough in the season for the road to be safely navigated at speeds just a bit above normal. Her car was running great, and her tunes were vibrating the sideboard speakers with rhythm and base and melody. Using her gears, she took the corners and adjusted to the rise and fall of the road in a syncopated rhythm that made she and her car one. With her left hand on the gearshift, her right grasping the steering wheel, and her eyes shifting from road to scenery and back again, she felt the exhilaration of being on her first road trip alone and free.

Preferences, at one level, are what they are. Economists make a sharp distinction between preferences and beliefs. Preferences reflect whether we prefer cake or cookies, the beach or the mountains, brown people or white. Not when we are ignorant of the merits of each and may therefore be swayed by information, but when we know everything we could possibly need to know. People can have wrong beliefs but they cannot have wrong preferences