Offering Flowers Quotes

The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer. Guide her, protect her When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit. May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers. Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait. O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.

In an era where women undress their outfits & give their bodies so carelessly, become the rare wild woman that undresses her mind and soul & knows the worth of what she has to offer.

I brought her flowers one dusky Tuesday evening when the light was perfect. I pointed out the irony of that romantic old tradition— the severed genitalia of another species, offered as a precopulatory bribe—and then I recited my story just as we were about to fuck. To this day, I still don't know what went wrong.

And offers me a black rose. "I figured you'd hate flowers, so I decided to get one that matched your soul" He says. I take the flower, careful not to touch any of his long finger.

The universe took its time on you Crafted you to offer the world Something different from everyone else When you doubt How you were created You doubt an energy greater than us both --irreplaceable

Where are you hiding my love? Each day without you will never come again. Even today you missed a sunset on the ocean, A silver shadow on yellow rocks I saved for you, A squirrel that ran across the road, A duck diving for dinner. My God! There may be nothing left to show you Save wounds and weariness And hopes grown dead, And wilted flowers I picked for you a lifetime ago, Or feeble steps that cannot run to hold you, Arms too tired to offer you to a roaring wind, A face too wrinkled to feel the ocean's spray.

So what else can I tell you?" I asked. "I mean, to get you to reveal Lily to me." She triangled her fingers under her chin. "Let's see. Are you a bed wetter?" "Am I a...?" "Bed wetter. I am asking if you are a bed wetter." I knew she was trying to get me to blink. But I wouldn't. "No, ma'am. I leave my beds dry." "Not even a little drip every now and then?" "I'm trying hard to see how this is germane." "I'm gauging your honesty. What is the last periodical you read methodically?" "Vogue. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, that's mostly because I was in my mother's bathroom, enduring a rather long bowel movement. You know, the kind that requires Lamaze." "What adjective do you feel the most longing for?" That was easy. "I will admit I have a soft spot for fanciful." "Let's say I have a hundred million dollars and offer it to you. The only condition is that if you take it, a man in China will fall off his bicycle and die. What do you do?" "I don't understand why it matters whether he's in China or not. And of course I wouldn't take the money." The old woman nodded. "Do you think Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual?" "All I can say for sure is that he never made a pass at me." "Are you a museumgoer?" "Is the pope a churchgoer?" "When you see a flower painted by Georgia O'Keefe, what comes to mind?" "That's just a transparent ploy to get me to say the word vagina, isn't it? There. I said it. Vagina.

Learning After some time, you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and imprisoning a soul; You learn that love does not equal sex, and that company does not equal security, and you start to learn…. That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises, and you start to accept defeat with the head up high and open eyes, and you learn to build all roads on today, because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans… and the future has its own way of falling apart in half. And you learn that if it’s too much even the warmth of the sun can burn. So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you. And you learn that you can actually bear hardship, that you are actually strong, and you are actually worthy, and you learn and learn…and so every day. Over time you learn that being with someone because they offer you a good future, means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past. Over time you comprehend that only who is capable of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing you can bring you all happiness. Over time you learn that if you are with a person only to accompany your own solitude, irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again. Over time you learn that real friends are few and whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later, will find himself surrounded only with false friendships. Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of anger continue hurting throughout a lifetime. Over time you learn that everyone can apologize, but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls. Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshly it is very likely that your friendship will never be the same. Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends, you cry for those you let go. Over time you realize that every experience lived, with each person, is unrepeatable. Over time you realize that whoever humiliates or scorns another human being, sooner or later will suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold. Over time you learn to build your roads on today, because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist. Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happen causes the finale to be different form expected. Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future, but the moment you were living just that instant. Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you, you’ll yearn for those who walked away. Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness, say you love, say you miss, say you need, say you want to be friends, since before a grave, it will no longer make sense. But unfortunately, only over time…

If I ever fall in love again, I would like it if it were a slightly cold guy. Someone who won't constantly mind about my childish needs but who, the day after the quarrel, for example would offer me a flower accompanied by a sweet note That's kind of guy I need.

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign.

Men really ought to try offers of fealty rather than flowers.

He was there alone with himself, collected, tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of the constellations, and the invisible splendor of God, opening his soul to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. In such moments, offering up his heart at the hour when the flowers of night inhale their perfume, lighted like a lamp in the center of the starry night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of creation, he could not himself perhaps have told what was passing in his own mind; he felt something depart from him, and something descend upon him, mysterious interchanges of the depths of the soul with the depths of the universe.

The curse was broken. Manon just stared at them, her breathing turning jagged. Then she roused Abraxos, and was in the saddle within heartbeats. She did not offer them any explanation, any farewell, as they leaped into the thinning night. As she guided her wyvern to the bit of blasted earth on the battlefield. Right to its heart. And smiling through her tears, laughing in joy and sorrow, Manon laid that precious flower from the Wastes upon the ground. In thanks and in love. So they would know, so Asterin would know, in the realm where she and her hunter and child walked hand in hand, that they had made it. That they were going home.

Some people do not even want to look at a person when the person is alive, but when the person dies they write eloquent obituaries and make offerings of flowers. At that point the person has died and cannot really enjoy the fragrance of the flowers anymore. If we really understood and remembered that life was impermanent, we would do everything we could to make the other person happy right here and right now.

Who owns Cross Creek? The red-birds, I think, more than I, for they will have their nests even in the face of delinquent mortgages..It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed, but not bought. It may be used, but not owned. It gives itself in response to love and tending, offers its sesonal flowering and fruiting. But we are tenants and not possessors, lovers, and not masters. Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time..."

The look the Shepherd turned on her was very beautiful. “Nothing my Father and I have made is ever wasted,” he said quietly, “and the little wild flowers have a wonderful lesson to teach. They offer themselves so sweetly and confidently and willingly, even if it seems that there is no one to appreciate them. Just as though they sang a joyous little song to themselves, that it is so happy to love, even though one is not loved in return.

There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one’s grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past.

I'm a cactus but I will only offer you flowers.

The continuity of life is never broken; the river flows onward and is lost to our sight, but under its new horizon it carries the same waters which it gathered under ours, and its unseen valleys are made glad by the offerings which are borne down to them from the past,--flowers, perchance, the germs of which its own waves had planted on the banks of Time.

he would now have comprehended that work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that play consists of whaterver a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why construcing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill, is work, whilst rolling nine-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service that would turn it into work, then they would resign.

He was out there alone with himself, composed, tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart to the serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of the constellations and the invisible splendor of God, opening his soul to the thoughts that fall from the Unknown. In such moments, offering up his heart as the flowers of night emit their perfume, lit like a lamp in the center of the starry night, expanding in ecstasy the midst of creation’s universal radiance, perhaps he could not have told what was happening in his own mind; he felt something floating away from him, and something descending upon him, mysterious exchanges of the soul with the universe.

And that reminds me, Mama! I have just intercepted another of that puppy’s floral offerings to my sister. This billet was attached to it.” (Charles)

By making eye-contact, getting down to your child's level, offering a touch, or using a tone of your voice that conveys a desire to genuinely connect, you disarm yourself. You make it possible to reach your child more deeply and truly move forward together.

I wrote too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak But I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat So this is my wheat field you can have every acre, Love this is my garden song this is my fist fight with that bitter frost tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek as i sang maybe i need you off key but in tune maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea maybe i didn't even know i was here til i saw you holding me give me one room to come home to give me the palm of your hand every strand of my hair is a kite string and I have been blue in the face with your sky crying a flood over Iowa so you mother will wake to Venice Lover, I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered bible it is the one verse you can trust so I'm putting all of my words in the collection plate I am setting the table with bread and grace my knees are bent like the corner of a page I am saving your place

Flowers that are offered for the dead, do not know the difference of where their beauty will be placed, they do not say, "This is not a palace" or "This is not a garden"; they just are. They are just beautiful, without giving regards to whether they are placed on a grave or in a castle. Flowers are just beautiful, whether they grow by the wayside or in a manicured garden. If we were all like flowers, then we would all be beautiful, with no regards to why or how. We just are. We are just beautiful.

I don't have a talent, unless you count hunting illegally, which they don't. Or maybe singing, which I wouldn't do for the Capitol in a million years. My mother tried to interest me in a variety of suitable alternatives from a list Effie Trinket sent her. Cooking, flower arranging, playing the flute. None of them took, although Prim had a knack for all three. Finally Cinna stepped in and offered to help me develop my passion for designing clothes, which really required development since it was non-existent.

Gently, I open the door to eternal mystery, the flowers of my breasts cupped, offered with both my hands.

Yet we allow our historical sympathy to override our aesthetic discrimination. We offer flowers of approbation when the artist is safely laid in his grave.

The gentle rose offers a powerful joy known only to the heart.

A flower was offered to me, Such a flower as May never bore; But I said "I've a pretty rose tree," And I passed the sweet flower o'er. Then I went to my pretty rose tree, To tend her by day and by night; But my rose turned away with jealousy, And her thorns were my only delight.

How lucky country children are in these natural delights that lie ready to their hand! Every season and every plant offers changing joys. As they meander along the lane that leads to our school all kinds of natural toys present themselves for their diversion. The seedpods of stitchwort hang ready for delightful popping between thumb and finger, and later the bladder campion offers a larger, if less crisp, globe to burst. In the autumn, acorns, beechnuts, and conkers bedizen their path, with all their manifold possibilities of fun. In the summer, there is an assortment of honeys to be sucked from bindweed flowers, held fragile and fragrant to hungry lips, and the tiny funnels of honeysuckle and clover blossoms to taste.

No road offers more mystery than that first one you mount from the town you were born to, the first time you mount it of your own volition, on a trip funded by your own coffee tin of wrinkled up dollars - bills you've saved and scrounged for, worked the all-night switchboard for, missed the Rolling Stones for, sold fragrant pot with smashed flowers going brown inside twist-tie plastic baggies for. In fact, to disembark from your origins, you've done everything you can think to scrounge money save selling your spanking young pussy.

Under the magic of the Dionysian, not only does the bond between man and man lock itself in place once more, but also nature itself, no matter how alienated, hostile, or subjugated, rejoices again in her festival of reconciliation with her prodigal son, man. The earth freely offers up her gifts, and the beasts of prey from the rocks and the desert approach in peace. The wagon of Dionysus is covered with flowers and wreaths; under his yolk stride panthers and tigers.

Happiness, do not leave me. I know you, a capricious monarch perching on the fortunate flowers you see. Hear me: I am too attached to this royalty now. Can I make you rest here somehow? I will offer you the nectar of every flower in blossom, the honey of every fruit in harvest. I will make the Earth a garden, the entire universe a forest. I beg of you not to flutter by. I beg of you not to leave me, butter-coloured fly. Nest here and for you, I will create a home.

I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.

Krishnamurti, a great Indian sage, once said: “You can take a piece of wood that you brought back from your garden, and each day present it with a flower. At the end of a month you will adore it, and the idea of not giving it an offering will be a sin.” In other words, everything that you are used to, once done long enough, starts to seem natural, even though it might not be.

Dost though even know what would become of me? Thou dost not." She exhaled sharply. "Friends would disown me. It is our way. I would be alone!" "No," he said unexpectedly. He turned and held his hand to her, palm upward, empty, a simple masculine offering. "Maddygirl. With...me.

What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them! Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment, and I don't know what besides, and would rend the air with their shrieks if condemned to such a life. Sometimes I feel as if I were blest above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily. I believe I should always be good if the sun always shone, and could enjoy myself very well in Siberia on a fine day. And what can life in town offer in the way of pleasure to equal the delight of any one of the calm evenings I have had this month sitting alone at the foot of the verandah steps, with the perfume of young larches all about, and the May moon hanging low over the beeches, and the beautiful silence made only more profound in its peace by the croaking of distant frogs and hooting of owls?

For, like desire, regret seeks not to be analysed but to be satisfied. When one begins to love, one spends one’s time, not in getting to know what one’s love really is, but in making it possible to meet next day. When one abandons love one seeks not to know one’s grief but to offer to her who is causing it that expression of it which seems to one the most moving. One says the things which one feels the need of saying, and which the other will not understand, one speaks for oneself alone. I wrote: 'I had thought that it would not be possible. Alas, I see now that it is not so difficult.' I said also: 'I shall probably not see you again;' I said it while I continued to avoid shewing a coldness which she might think affected, and the words, as I wrote them, made me weep because I felt that they expressed not what I should have liked to believe but what was probably going to happen.

Greet the sky and live, blossom!... Yet even as the wind stirs your petals, flowers fall. My flowers are eternal, my songs live forever. I lift them in offering; I, a singer. I cast them to the wind, I spill them. The flowers become gold, they come to dwell inside the palace of eternity.

It is easy to say I am thankful for the sweet and beautiful things in life: flower gardens, ice cream cones, diamond rings, dances under moonlight, children’s laughter, birdsongs, and the like. The challenge is recognizing things of value in the dark, sour, uglier parts of life. But if you look hard enough, you will find that even tough times offer pearls worthy of gratitude.

As a woman, I see myself as a garden, and I see myself as the gardener of myself, I see myself forming and pruning and watering and nourishing all the flowers and trees and vines and leaves in me. There is a world within yourself, that has so much to offer! If only you would walk into it each day! We were not meant to save the world; we were meant to save ourselves! And in saving ourselves, we have saved worlds innumerable.

The hardiest plant in the world is the purple saxifrage. It has delicate-looking flowers, with purple petals that seem as though they might blow away in the wind, yet it thrives in the Arctic. The flowers survive by clustering together, low to the ground, offering each other shelter against the hardest conditions on earth.

Let's offer flowers, pour a cup of libation, split open the skies and start anew on creation. If the forces of grief invade our lovers' veins, cupbearer and I will wash away this temptation. With rose water we'll mellow crimson wine's bitter cup; we'll sugar the fire to sweeten smoke's emanation. Take this fine lyre, musician, strike up a love song; let's dance, sing all night, go wild in celebration. As dust, 0 West Wind, let us rise to the Heavens, floating free in Creator's glow of elation. If mind desires to return while heart cries to stay, here's a quarrel for love's deliberation. Alas, these words and songs go for naught in this land; come, Hafez, let's create a new generation.

The Ballad of Lucy Jordan The morning sun touched lightly on the eyes of Lucy Jordan In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round. At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair. So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing Little nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair. Her husband, he's off to work and the kids are off to school, And there are, oh, so many ways for her to spend the day. She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way. At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing Pretty nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair. The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan On the roof top where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand, And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd. At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair

The night following the reading, Gansey woke up to a completely unfamiliar sound and fumbled for his glasses. It sounded a little like one of his roommates was being killed by a possum, or possibly the final moments of a fatal cat fight. He wasn’t certain of the specifics, but he was sure death was involved. Noah stood in the doorway to his room, his face pathetic and long-suffering. “Make it stop,” he said. Ronan’s room was sacred, and yet here Gansey was, twice in the same weak, pushing the door open. He found the lamp on and Ronan hunched on the bed, wearing only boxers. Six months before, Ronan had gotten the intricate black tattoo that covered most of his back and snaked up his neck, and now the monochromatic lines of it were stark in the claustrophobic lamplight, more real than anything else in the room. It was a peculiar tattoo, both vicious and lovely, and every time Gansey saw it, he saw something different in the pattern. Tonight, nestled in an inked glen of wicked, beautiful flowers, was a beak where before he’d seen a scythe. The ragged sound cut through the apartment again. “What fresh hell is this?” Gansey asked pleasantly. Ronan was wearing headphones as usual, so Gansey stretched forward far enough to tug them down around his neck. Music wailed faintly into the air. Ronan lifted his head. As he did, the wicked flowers on his back shifted and hid behind his sharp shoulder blades. In his lap was the half-formed raven, its head tilted back, beak agape. “I thought we were clear on what a closed door meant,” Ronan said. He held a pair of tweezers in one hand. “I thought we were clear that night was for sleeping.” Ronan shrugged. “Perhaps for you.” “Not tonight. Your pterodactyl woke me. Why is it making that sound?” In response, Ronan dipped the tweezers into a plastic baggy on the blanket in front of him. Gansey wasn’t certain he wanted to know what the gray substance was in the tweezers’ grasp. As soon as the raven heard the rustle of the bag, it made the ghastly sound again—a rasping squeal that became a gurgle as it slurped down the offering. At once, it inspired both Gansey’s compassion and his gag reflex. “Well, this is not going to do,” he said. “You’re going to have to make it stop.” “She has to be fed,” Ronan replied. The ravel gargled down another bite. This time it sounded a lot like vacuuming potato salad. “It’s only every two hours for the first six weeks.” “Can’t you keep her downstairs?” In reply, Ronan half-lifted the little bird toward him. “You tell me.

Man is to technology what the bee is to the flower. It’s man’s intervention that allows technology to expand and evolve itself and in return, technology offers man convenience, wealth and the lessening burden of physical labor via its automated systems.

She offered me her soul, and I gave it back. Not because I did not want it. Oh, I wanted it like a flower wants the sun, like a river wants the sea. When I come to collect her soul, it will not be to take her to the afterlife. No, her soul will be mine to keep.

It is spring, and the night wind is moist with the smell of turned loam and the early flowers; the moon pours out its beauty which you see as beauty finally, warm and offering everything. You have only to take.

Whatever talent a person has should be dedicated to the rest of humanity - indeed to all living beings. Therein lies fulfillment. All men are kin. They are of the same likeness, the same build, molded out of the same material, with the same divine essence in each. Service to man will help your divinity to blossom, for it will gladden your heart and make you feel that life has been worth while. Service to man is service to God, for He is in every man, and every living being, in every stone and stump. Offer your talents at the feet of God. Let every act be a flower, free from the creeping worms of envy and egoism and full of the fragrance of love and sacrifice.

Aeneas' mother is a star?" "No; a goddess." I said cautiously, "Venus is the power that we invoke in spring, in the garden, when things begin growing. And we call the evening star Venus." He thought it over. Perhaps having grown up in the country, among pagans like me, helped him understand my bewilderment. "So do we, he said. "But Venus also became more...With the help of the Greeks. They call her Aphrodite...There was a great poet who praised her in Latin. Delight of men and gods, he called her, dear nurturer. Under the sliding star signs she fills the ship-laden sea and the fruitful earth with her being; through her the generations are conceived and rise up to see the sun; from her the storm clouds flee; to her the earth, the skillful maker, offers flowers. The wide levels of the sea smile at her, and all the quiet sky shines and streams with light..." It was the Venus I had prayed to, it was my prayer, though I had no such words. They filled my eyes with tears and my heart with inexpressible joy.

I know someone who kisses the way a flower opens, but more rapidly. Flowers are sweet. They have short, beatific lives. They offer much pleasure. There is nothing in the world that can be said against them. Sad, isn't it, that all they can kiss is the air. Yes, yes! We are the lucky ones.

Flowers make themselves fragrant and offer nectar. Why? To nourish the bees or to get themselves pollinated? Or both? In nature, to get you have to give. There is no charity. There is no exploitation, neither selfishness nor selflessness. One grows by helping others grow. Is that not the perfect society?

I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or month, but at an indefinite future period.

In the mirror, he saw himself, a knight with bowed head, offering his service, a sword in his hand, a sword in his back. He felt no pain, only the ache in his heart. Choose me. There were tears on his cheeks, even as he felt the shame of it. She was no one, a girl who had lucked into a gift, who had done nothing to earn it. She was his queen. "Darlington," she said. But that was not his true name any more than Alex was hers. If only she would choose him. If only she would let him... She touched her fingers to his face, lifted his chin. Her lips brushed his ear. He didn't understand it. He only wanted her to do it again. Stars poured through him, a cold and billowing wave of night. He saw everything. He saw their bodies entwined. She was above him and beneath him all at once, her body splayed and white as a lotus flower.

Hope is not the result of medicine or anything that science has to offer. It is a flower that sprouts and grows when others pour water upon it. I think sometimes that I spent so much time worrying about how to protect and strengthen the flower - even going so far as to graft in a new stem and root system - that I forgot to simply water it.

No one wants a dandelion. They crop up all over the place, ugly and unfortunate, an average blossom in a world desperatly seeking beauty. They're weeds, people say. They're uninteresting and offer no fragrance and there are too many of them, too much of them, we don't want them, destroy them. Dandelions are a nuisance, We desire the buttercups, the daffodils, the morning glories. We want the azalea, the poinsettia, the calla lily. We pluck them from our gradens and plant them in our homes and we don't seem to remember their toxic nature. We don't seem to care that if you get too close? if you take a small bite? The beauty is replaced wit pain and laced with a posion that laughs in your blood, destroys your organs, infevts your heart. But pick a dandelion. Pick a dandelion and make a salad, eat the leaves, the flower, the stem. Thread it in your hair, plant it in the ground and watch it thrive. Pick a dandelion and close your eyes make a wish blow it into the wind. Watch it change the world.

I offered her the flowers, which she took with a delightful laugh. She pulled my head down and kissed me on the cheek. She smelled of cigars and new car seats, horses and furniture polish, Stilton, Belgian chocolate and, behind it all, the hemp and the crowd and the last drop into oblivion.” (Tyburn)

She liked to scatter hope," Minerva said, taking his offering. "Pardon?" "Snowdrops. They represent hope. The first flowers in the spring. Hope for a new beginning." She took a sniff of the delicate blossoms and then shyly glanced over at him. "Perhaps you were meant to be here today. To find your hope.

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust. I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am aware, and the time of offering go by. Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower in thy service and pluck it while there is time.

We offered her flowers and signalled to her with our penises, but she did not respond with joy.' 'The men with the extra skins didn't look happy. They looked angry.' 'We went towards them to greet them, but they ran away.' Snowman can imagine. The sight of these preternaturally calm, well-muscled men advancing en masse, singing their unusual music, green eyes glowing, blue penises waving in unison, both hands outstretched like extras in a zombie film, would have to have been alarming.

There is a Sufi story about a man who is so good that the angels ask God to give him the gift of miracles. God wisely tells them to ask him if that is what he would wish. So the angels visit this good man and offer him first the gift of healing by hands, then the gift of conversion of souls, and lastly the gift of virtue. He refuses them all. They insist that he choose a gift or they will choose one for him. "Very well," he replies. "I ask that I may do a great deal of good without ever knowing it." The story ends this way: The angels were perplexed. They took counsel and resolved upon the following plan: Every time the saint's shadow fell behind him it would have the power to cure disease, soothe pain, and comfort sorrow. As he walked, behind him the shadow made arid paths green, caused withered plants to bloom, gave clear water to dried up brooks, fresh color to pale children, and joy to unhappy men and women. The saint simply went about his daily life diffusing virtue as the stars diffuse light and the flowers scent, without ever being aware of it. The people respecting his humility followed him silently, never speaking to him about his miracles. Soon they even forgot his name and called him "the Holy Shadow.

Wave after wave of glass and debris slammed into her wildfire. But she kept that wall of flame burning—for the Royal Theater. And the flower girls at the market. For the slaves and the courtesans and the Faliq family. For the city that had offered her joy and pain, death and rebirth, for the city that had given her music, Aelin kept that wall of fire burning bright.

They say that wisdom is a dying flower, and I disagree. In a world covered in mud, the lotus still continues to grow. Even after mankind washes itself away from the surface of the earth, knowledge will still remain. Look no further than the bosom of Nature. It offers all the solutions needed to cure and unite humanity. Wise men only exist as interpreters and transmitters of Truth. Their time on earth is limited, but Nature's existence is eternal. Open books shall always exist for those with an opened eye and pure heart; for Truth can only be seen by those with truth in them.

Let it come, let it come The time that we will love. So patient have I been That I’ve forgetten everything: Fear and suffering Have departed for the heavens, And an unholy thirst Darkens my veins. Let it come, let it come The time that we will love. Like the field Left to forgetfulness, Growing and flowering With incense and weeds, And the fierce buzzing Of dirty flies. Let it come, let it come The time that we will love. I loved the desert, burnt orchards, musty shops, tepid drinks. I dragged myself through stinking alleys, and with eyes closed I offered myself to the sun, the god of fire.

Chastity and moral purity were qualities McCandless mulled over long and often. Indeed, one of the books found in the bus with his remains was a collection of stories that included Tol¬stoy’s “The Kreutzer Sonata,” in which the nobleman-turned-ascetic denounces “the demands of the flesh.” Several such passages are starred and highlighted in the dog-eared text, the margins filled with cryptic notes printed in McCandless’s distinc¬tive hand. And in the chapter on “Higher Laws” in Thoreau’s Walden, a copy of which was also discovered in the bus, McCand¬less circled “Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it.” We Americans are titillated by sex, obsessed by it, horrified by it. When an apparently healthy person, especially a healthy young man, elects to forgo the enticements of the flesh, it shocks us, and we leer. Suspicions are aroused. McCandless’s apparent sexual innocence, however, is a corol¬lary of a personality type that our culture purports to admire, at least in the case of its more famous adherents. His ambivalence toward sex echoes that of celebrated others who embraced wilderness with single-minded passion—Thoreau (who was a lifelong virgin) and the naturalist John Muir, most prominently— to say nothing of countless lesser-known pilgrims, seekers, mis¬fits, and adventurers. Like not a few of those seduced by the wild, McCandless seems to have been driven by a variety of lust that supplanted sexual desire. His yearning, in a sense, was too pow¬erful to be quenched by human contact. McCandless may have been tempted by the succor offered by women, but it paled beside the prospect of rough congress with nature, with the cosmos it¬self. And thus was he drawn north, to Alaska.

Once, I discovered it propped up on my sister's pillow, its neck wrapped in one of our mother's best linen dishtowels. Cookie fragments on dolls' plates were laid out around it, mixed with berries from the prickly-berry hedge, like offerings made to appease an idol. It was wearing a chaplet woven of carrot fronds and marigolds that my sister and Leonie had picked in the garden. The flowers were wilted, the garland was lopsided; the effect was astonishingly depraved, as if a debauched Roman emperor had arrived on the scene and had hacked off his own body in a maiden's chamber as the ultimate sexual thrill.

What a man touched upon, he should take with him. If he forgot it, he should be reminded. What gives a man worth is that he incorporates everything he has experienced. This includes the countries where he has lived, the people whose voices he has heard. It also takes in his origins, if he can find out something about them... not only one’s private experience but everything concerning the time and place of one’s beginnings. The words of a language one may have spoken and heard only as a child imply the literature in which it flowered. The story of a banishment must include everything that happened before it as well as the rights subsequently claimed by the victims. Others had fallen before and in different ways; they too are part of the story. It is hard to evaluate the justice of such a claim to history... We should know not only what happened to our fellow men in the past but also what they were capable of. We should know what we ourselves are capable of. For that, much knowledge is needed; from whatever direction, at whatever distance knowledge offers itself, one should reach out for it, keep it fresh, water it and fertilize it with new knowledge.

The poor young man must work for his bread; he eats; when he has eaten, he has nothing left but reverie. He enters God's theater free; he sees the sky, space, the stars, the flowers, the children, the humanity in which he suffers, the creation in which he shines. He looks at humanity so much that he sees the soul, he looks at creation so much that he sees God. He dreams, he feels that he is great; he dreams some more, and he feels that he is tender. From the egotism of the suffering man, he passes to the compassion of the contemplating man. A wonderful feeling springs up within him, forgetfulness of self, and pity for all. In thinking of the countless enjoyments nature offers, gives, and gives lavishly to open souls and refuses to closed souls, he, a millionaire of intelligence, comes to grieve for the millionaires of money. All hatred leaves his heart as all light enters his mind. And is he unhappy? No. The poverty of a young man is never miserable.

Flowers bloom in spring Oh, the sky spreads in summer They’re engraved and sparkling In my heart Rain falls in the morning Even on a day when I shut the window The light overflowing to my chest Is from above the clouds Joy and sorrow I hold everything close while I’m walking They’re things that firmly join My hand And your hand together Autumn is at the waterside Winter lurks at the treetop There’s a boundless kindness Deep in the world Every time when night comes Let’s offer a prayer Let’s quietly greet The day to come tomorrow Oh, a voice calling out from far, far away Guides me As if it smiles As if it sings The sound of wind echoes Joy and sorrow I hold everything close while I’m walking They’re things that firmly join My hand And your hand together

You make out with a boy because he’s cute, but he has no substance, no words to offer you. His mouth tastes like stale beer and false promises. When he touches your chin, you offer your mouth up like a flower to to be plucked, all covered in red lipstick to attract his eye. When he reaches his hand down your shirt, he stops, hand on boob, and squeezes, like you’re a fruit he’s trying to juice. He doesn’t touch anything but skin, does not feel what’s within. In the morning, he texts you only to say, “I think I left the rest of my beer at your place, but it’s cool, you can drink it. Last night was fun.” You kiss a girl because she’s new. Because she’s different and you’re twenty two, trying something else out because it’s all failed before. After spending six weekends together, you call her, only to be answered by a harsh beep informing you that her number has been disconnected. You learn that success doesn’t come through experimenting with your sexuality, and you’re left with a mouth full of ruin and more evidence that you are out of tune. You fall for a boy who is so nice, you don’t think he can do any harm. When he mentions marriage and murder in the same sentence, you say, “Okay, okay, okay.” When you make a joke he does not laugh, but tilts his head and asks you how many drinks you’ve had in such a loving tone that you sober up immediately. He leaves bullet in your blood and disappears, saying, “Who wants a girl that’s filled with holes?” You find out that a med student does. He spots you reading in a bar and compliments you on the dust spilling from your mouth. When you see his black doctor’s bag posed loyally at his side, you ask him if he’s got the tools to fix a mangled nervous system. He smiles at you, all teeth, and tells you to come with him. In the back of his car, he covers you in teethmarks and says, “There, now don’t you feel whole again.” But all the incisions do is let more cold air into your bones. You wonder how many times you will collapse into ruins before you give up on rebuilding. You wonder if maybe you’d have more luck living amongst your rubble instead of looking for someone to repair it. The next time someone promises to flood you with light to erase your dark, you insist them you’re fine the way you are. They tell you there’s hope, that they had holes in their chest too, that they know how to patch them up. When they offer you a bottle in exchange for your mouth, you tell them you’re not looking for a way out. No, thank you, you tell them. Even though you are filled with ruins and rubble, you are as much your light as you are your dark.

He carried in his hand a cluster of beautiful bluebells, which he offered to me; observing, with a smile, that though he had seen so little of me for the last two months, he had not forgotten that bluebells were numbered among my favourite flowers. It was done as a simple act of goodwill, without compliment or remarkable courtesy, or any look that could be construed into ‘reverential, tender adoration’ (vide Rosalie Murray); but still, it was something to find my unimportant saying so well remembered: it was something that he had noticed so accurately the time I had ceased to be visible.

You won’t manage, you’ll forget me; but if after a year, alas, more perhaps, a sad text, a death, or a rainy evening reminds you of me, you can offer me some altruism! I will never, never be able see you again . . . except in my soul, and this would require that we think about each other simultaneously. I’ll think about you forever so that my soul remains open to you endlessly in case you feel like entering it. But the visitor will keep me waiting for a long time! The November rains will have rotted the flowers on my grave, June will have burned them, and my soul will always be weeping impatiently. Ah! I hope that someday the sight of a keepsake, the recurrence of a birthday, the bent of your thoughts will guide your memory within the circle of my tenderness. It will then be as if I’ve heard you, perceived you, a magic spell will cover everything with flowers for your arrival. Think about the dead man. But, alas! Can I hope that death and your gravity will accomplish what life with its ardors, and our tears, and our merry times, and our lips were unable to achieve?

Since once again, Lord - though this time not in the forests of the Aisne but in the steppes of Asia - I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the Real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labours and sufferings of the world. Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles, and once again begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labour. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits. My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit. Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those whom the light is now awakening to the new day . . . Over every living thing which is to spring up, to grow, to flower, to ripen during this day say again the words: ‘This is my Body’. And over every death-force which waits in readiness to corrode, to wither, to cut down, speak again your commanding words which express the supreme mystery of faith: ‘This is my Blood’.

People have always associated the country with love, and they have done well; nothing affords so fine a frame for the woman whom one loves as the blue sky, the odours, the flowers, the breeze, the shining solitude of fields, or woods. However much one loves a woman, whatever confidence one may have in her, whatever certainty her past may offer us as to her future, one is always more or less jealous. If you have been in love, you must have felt the need of isolating from this world the being in whom you would live wholly.

I don’t remember when first I heard Them calling, with their silvery voices, The little Angels of the trees and flowers. They offered to unlock my mind And take my soul away, to clean. And oh! I welcomed them, and lay Stretched out upon the fragrant Grass, light as an empty husk. Then they, with rueful smiles, did oil The rusty hinges of my mind, and swept Away the cobwebs, and hung my soul Upon a topmost bough, to air, Close to the purifying sun. And I was lucky For as it fluttered there, a robin chat’s sweet Song rose through the trees till every fiber Of my soul was bathed in harmony. When all was clean and new they fetched My soul and slipped it back and, smiling, Danced away. And I—well, for a day or two— I looked upon the world with all the Innocence and wonder of a newborn babe. And now, if I am sad, or filled With sudden rage, I find some quiet place With grass and leaves and earth, and sit there Silently, and hope that they will come And call me, with their silvery voices, And make me clean again, those Little Angels of the trees and flowers.

Guy kept his eyes on her. "I brought you some flowers." He held a bouquet wrapped in florist paper behind him, as if uncertain about offering it. Ivy smiled and stood up, holding out her hands. "Oh!" She looked from the roses to Guy, tears stinging her eyes. "They're lavender." "I did the wrong thing," Guy said, quickly pulling them away. Ivy reached for the flowers, her hands catching and holding his. "No! No, they're perfect." She looked into his eyes. "How did you know that--that I love lavender roses?" He shrugged. "They just seemed right for you.

Paths of the mirror" I And above all else, to look with innocence. As if nothing was happening, which is true. II But you, I want to look at you until your face escapes from my fear like a bird from the sharp edge of the night. III Like a girl made of pink chalk on a very old wall that is suddenly washed away by the rain. IV Like when a flower blooms and reveals the heart that isn’t there. V Every gesture of my body and my voice to make myself into the offering, the bouquet that is abandoned by the wind on the porch. VI Cover the memory of your face with the mask of who you will be and scare the girl you once were. VII The night of us both scattered with the fog. It’s the season of cold foods. VIII And the thirst, my memory is of the thirst, me underneath, at the bottom, in the hole, I drank, I remember. IX To fall like a wounded animal in a place that was meant to be for revelations. X As if it meant nothing. No thing. Mouth zipped. Eyelids sewn. I forgot. Inside, the wind. Everything closed and the wind inside. XI Under the black sun of the silence the words burned slowly. XII But the silence is true. That’s why I write. I’m alone and I write. No, I’m not alone. There’s somebody here shivering. XIII Even if I say sun and moon and star I’m talking about things that happen to me. And what did I wish for? I wished for a perfect silence. That’s why I speak. XIV The night is shaped like a wolf’s scream. XV Delight of losing one-self in the presaged image. I rose from my corpse, I went looking for who I am. Migrant of myself, I’ve gone towards the one who sleeps in a country of wind. XVI My endless falling into my endless falling where nobody waited for me –because when I saw who was waiting for me I saw no one but myself. XVII Something was falling in the silence. My last word was “I” but I was talking about the luminiscent dawn. XVIII Yellow flowers constellate a circle of blue earth. The water trembles full of wind. XIX The blinding of day, yellow birds in the morning. A hand untangles the darkness, a hand drags the hair of a drowned woman that never stops going through the mirror. To return to the memory of the body, I have to return to my mourning bones, I have to understand what my voice is saying.

But I also know of yet another life. I know and want it and devour it ferociously. It's a life of magical violence. It's mysterious and bewitching. In it snakes entwine while the stars tremble. Drops of water drip in the phosphorescent darkness of the cave. In that dark the flowers intertwine in a humid fairy garden. And I am the sorceress of that silent bacchanal. I feel defeated by my own corruptibility. And I see that I am intrinsically bad. It's only out of pure kindness that I am good. Defeated by myself. Who lead me along the paths of the salamander, the spirit who rules the fire and lives within it. And I give myself as an offering to the dead. I weave spells on the solstice, spectre of an exorcised dragon.

So the women would not forgive. Their passion remained intact, carefully guarded and nurtured by the bitter knowledge of all they had lost, of all that had been stolen from them. For generations they vilified the Yankee race so the thief would have a face, a name, a mysterious country into which he had withdrawn and from which he might venture again. They banded together into a militant freemasonry of remembering, and from that citadel held out against any suggestion that what they had suffered and lost might have been in vain. They created the Lost Cause, and consecrated that proud fiction with the blood of real men. To the Lost Cause they dedicated their own blood, their own lives, and to it they offered books, monographs, songs, acres and acres of bad poetry. They fashioned out of grief and loss an imaginary world in which every Southern church had stabled Yankee horses, every nick in Mama's furniture was made by Yankee spurs, every torn painting was the victim of Yankee sabre - a world in which paint did not stick to plaster walls because of the precious salt once hidden there; in which bloodstains could not be washed away and every other house had been a hospital.

Sometimes, if the two old women were not asleep, they heard him pacing slowly along the walks at a very advanced hour of the night. He was there alone, communing with himself, peaceful, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the ether, moved amid the darkness by the visible splendor of the constellations and the invisible splendor of God, opening his heart to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. At such moments, while he offered his heart at the hour when nocturnal flowers offer their perfume, illuminated like a lamp amid the starry night, as he poured himself out in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of creation, he could not have told himself, probably, what was passing in his spirit; he felt something take its flight from him, and something descend into him. Mysterious exchange of the abysses of the soul with the abysses of the universe!

There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares as little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for what ought to be. And for my present purpose I specially insist on this abstract independence. If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, "You can't put the clock back." The simple and obvious answer is "You can." A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has ever existed.

Last Flowers Appliances have gone berserk I cannot keep up Treading on people’s toes Snot-nosed little punk And I can’t face the evening straight You can offer me escape Houses move and houses speak If you take me then you’ll get relief relief, relief, relief, … And if I’m gonna talk I just wanna talk Please don’t interrupt Just sit back and listen Cause I can’t face the evening straight And you can offer me escape Houses move and houses speak If you take me then you’ll get relief relief, relief, relief, relief… It’s too much Too bright Too powerful Too much Too bright Too powerful Too much Too bright Too powerful Too much

As we have seen, prayer, celebration of the religious offices, alms, consoling the afflicted, the cultivation of a little piece of ground, fraternity, frugality, hospitality, self-sacrifice, confidence, study, and work, filled up each day of his life. Filled up is exactly the phrase; and in fact, the Bishop's day was full to the brim with good thoughts, good words, and good actions. Yet it was not complete if cold or rainy weather prevented him from passing an hour or two in the evening, when the two women had retired, in his garden before going to sleep. It seemed as though it were a sort of rite with him, to prepare himself for sleep by meditating in the presence of the great spectacle of the starry firmament. Sometimes late at night, if the two women were awake, they would hear him slowly walking the paths. He was out there alone with himself, composed, tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of the constellations, and the invisible splendor of God, opening his soul to the thoughts that fall from the Unknown. In such moments, offering up his heart at the hour when the flowers of night emit their perfume, lit like a lamp in the center of the starry night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of creation’s universal radiance, perhaps he could not have told what was happening in his own mind; he felt something depart from him, and something descend upon him; mysterious exchanges of the depths of the soul with the depths of the universe. He contemplated the grandeur, and the presence of God; the eternity of the future, that strange mystery; the eternity of the past, a stranger mystery; all the infinities hidden deep in every direction; and, without trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, he saw it. He did not study God; he was dazzled by Him. He reflected upon the magnificent union of atoms, which give visible forms to Nature, revealing forces by recognizing them, creating individualities in unity, proportions in extension, the innumerable in the infinite, and through light producing beauty. These unions are forming and dissolving continually; from which come life and death. He would sit on a wooden bench leaning against a decrepit trellis and look at the stars through the irregular outlines of his fruit trees. This quarter of an acre of ground, so sparingly planted, so cluttered with shed and ruins, was dear to him and satisfied him. What more was needed by this old man, who divided the leisure hours of his life, where he had so little leisure, between gardening in the day time, and contemplation at night? Was this narrow enclosure, with the sky for a background not space enough for him to adore God in his most beautiful, most sublime works? Indeed, is that not everything? What more do you need? A little garden to walk in, and immensity to reflect on. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and meditate on; a few flowers on earth and all the stars in the sky.

Nothing Twice     Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.   Even if there is no one dumber, if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce, you can’t repeat the class in summer: this course is only offered once.   No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with exactly the same kisses.   One day, perhaps, some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent.   The next day, though you’re here with me, I can’t help looking at the clock: A rose? A rose? What could that be? Is it a flower or a rock?   Why do we treat the fleeting day with so much needless fear and sorrow? It’s in its nature not to stay: today is always gone tomorrow.   With smiles and kisses, we prefer to seek accord beneath our star, although we’re different (we concur) just as two drops of water are.

My homeland has many palm-trees and the thrush-song fills its air; no bird here can sing as well as the birds sing over there. We have fields more full of flowers and a starrier sky above, we have woods more full of life and a life more full of love. Lonely night-time meditations please me more when I am there; my homeland has many palm-trees and the thrush-song fills its air. Such delights as my land offers Are not found here nor elsewhere; lonely night-time meditations please me more when I am there; My homeland has many palm-trees and the thrush-song fills its air. Don’t allow me, God, to die without getting back to where I belong, without enjoying the delights found only there, without seeing all those palm-trees, hearing thrush-songs fill the air.

You can laugh," he said. "Dad's been ranting and muttering for an hour. Something about-" his gaze shifted and lingered on Shelby "-traitors and infidels.Hello,you must be the infidel." The friendly irony in his voice had Shelby's lips curving. "I must be." "Shelby Campbell,my brother, Caine." "The first Campbell ever to step into the MacGregor keep.Enter at your own risk." Caine offered his hand as Shelby crossed the threshold. His first thought was that she had the face of a mermaid-not quite beautiful, but alluring and not easily forgotten. Shelby glanced around the wide hall, approving the faded tapestries and heavy old furniture.She caught the scent of spring flowers, a wisp of dust and old polish. No,she couldn't have done it better herself. "Well, the roof didn't cave in," she commented as she studied a crested shield on the wall. "So far so good.

Today the tower's flock, the usual birds, flew in a kind of scatter pattern, their paths intricately chaotic, the bunch parting and interweaving like boiling pasta under a pot's lifted lid. It appeared someone had given the birds new instructions, had whispered that there was something to avoid, or someone to fool. I once heard Perkus Tooth say that he'd woken that morning having dreamed an enigmatic sentence: "Paranoia is a flower in the brain." Perkus offered this, then smirked and bugged his eyes--the ordinary eye, and the other. I played at amazement (I was amazed, anyway, at the fact that Perkus dreamed sentences to begin with). Yet I hadn't understood what the words meant to him until now, when I knew for a crucial instant that the birds had been directed to deceive me. That was when I saw the brain's flower. Perkus had, I think, been trying to prepare me for how beautiful it was.

[The goal is] "liberation from the bondage of rebirth. According to the Vedantists the self, which they call the atman and we call the soul, is distinct from the body and its senses, distinct from the mind and its intelligence; it is not part of the Absolute, for the Absolute, being infinite, can have no parts but the Absolute itself. It is uncreated; it has existed form eternity and when at least it has cast off the seven veils of ignorance will return to the infinitude from which it came. It is like a drop of water that has arisen from the sea, and in a shower has fallen into a puddle, then drifts into a brook, finds its way into a stream, after that into a river, passing through mountain gorges and wide plains, winding this way and that, obstructed by rocks and fallen trees, till at least it reaches the boundless seas from which it rose." "But that poor little drop of water, when it has once more become one with the sea, has surely lost its individuality." Larry grinned. "You want to taste sugar, you don't want to become sugar. What is individuality but the expression of our egoism? Until the soul has shed the last trace of that it cannot become one with the Absolute." "You talk very familiarly of the Absolute, Larry, and it's an imposing word. What does it actually signify to you?" "Reality. You can't say what it is ; you can only say what it isn't. It's inexpressible. The Indians call it Brahman. It's not a person, it's not a thing, it's not a cause. It has no qualities. It transcends permanence and change; whole and part, finite and infinite. It is eternal because its completeness and perfection are unrelated to time. It is truth and freedom." "Golly," I said to myself, but to Larry: "But how can a purely intellectual conception be a solace to the suffering human race? Men have always wanted a personal God to whom they can turn in their distress for comfort and encouragement." "It may be that at some far distant day greater insight will show them that they must look for comfort and encouragement in their own souls. I myself think that the need to worship is no more than the survival of an old remembrance of cruel gods that had to be propitiated. I believe that God is within me or nowhere. If that's so, whom or what am I to worship—myself? Men are on different levels of spiritual development, and so the imagination of India has evolved the manifestations of the Absolute that are known as Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and by a hundred other names. The Absolute is in Isvara, the creator and ruler of the world, and it is in the humble fetish before which the peasant in his sun-baked field places the offering of a flower. The multitudinous gods of India are but expedients to lead to the realization that the self is one with the supreme self.

You guys could handle this on your own. Why risk getting kicked out of your He-Man-Monster-Haters Club?" "Because we can't handle this on our own. At least I don't think we can." "You said yourself you already have some Prodigium working with you. Why not go to them?" "We have a handful," he said, frustration creeping into his voice. "And most of them suck. Look, just consider it a peace offering, okay? My way of saying I'm sorry for lying to you. And pulling a knife in your presence, even if it was just to open a damn window to get out before you vaporized me." Most girls got flowers. I got a dirt put used for demon raising. Nice. "Thanks," I replied. "But don't you want in on this?" He looked at me, and not for the first time, I wished his eyes weren't so dark. It would have been nice to have some idea of what was going on in his head. "That's up to you," he said. Mom always liked to say that we hardly ever know the decisions we make that change our lives,mostly because they're little ones. You take this bus instead of that one and end up meeting your soul mate, that kind of thing. But there was no doubt in my mind that this was one of those life-changing moments. Tell Archer no,and I'd never see him again. And Dad and Jenna wouldn't be mad at me, and Cal...Tell Archer yes, and everything suddenly got twistier and more complicated than Mrs. Casnoff's hairdo. And even though I'm a twisty and complicated girl, I knew what my answer had to be. "It's too much of a risk, Cross. Maybe one day when I'm head of the Council, and you're...well, whatever you're going to be for L'Occhio di Dio, we could work on some kind of collaboration." That brought up depressig images of me and Archer sittig across a boardroom table, sketching out battle plans on a whiteboard, so my voice was a little shaky when I continued. "But for now, it's too dangerous." And not just because basically everyone in our lives would want to kill us if they found out, I thought. But because I was pretty sure I was still in love with him, and I thought he might feel something similar for me, and there was no way we could work together preventing the Monster Apocalypse/World War III without that becoming an issue. Not that I could say any of that. Archer's face was blank as he said, "Cool. Got it." "Cross," I started to say, but then his eyes slid past me and went wide with horror. At the same time, I became aware of a slithering noice behind me. That just could not be good; in my experience, nothing pleasant slithers. Still, I was not prepared for the nightmares climbing out of the crater.

The dude feels right fatherly. Takes her down to the crick to wash the underground off of her. Just can't bring himself to shoot her while she's filthy and starving. There's time. Offers her a cake of French-milled soap he brought all the way out from Chicago. Smells like gardenias if you know your flowers, and the dude does. Snow White knows something's skewed but she grabs it, strips off like it's nothing and climbs in the water. She don't shiver even though that stream has to be as cold as a wagon tire. The miner's crud comes off her in black ribbons. The duded watches another girl come out of the blind mole-skin she was walking around it. This one has muscles like a mountain cat and a kind of pretty he doesn't know what to do with. For fairness he'd take her stepmother six days and twice on Sunday. The beauty Snow White's got has nothing to do with him. She's scarred up and suspicious an shameless. Her pretty's not for him. It's like saying the moon's got a fine figure on her. Maybe true, but what good is that to a man?

I have always been fascinated by youth. This fire that makes us feel glorious, insolent, immortal. I will have to come to terms with it - everything has been reduced to ashes. (I tried in vain not to burn myself in the way.) I believe that the deep tenderness I feel for man comes from the fact that he is so full of certainty – yet, he doubts all the time. It is a funny paradox. He is constantly misled. He gives great importance to things that do not have any, and misses those which have. I would like to be like a flower. Going through life, just like this, regardless of whether I will be born again or if anyone will remember my beauty. Just passing by like this, to make the world a little more beautiful, or a little more breathable, for a little while. I would like to be a flower of those in the bouquets for the hospitals. Of those who are plucked to die near those who are going to die. Or those who are just born. So that we can watch life together for a moment, as long as it is there. To die because I am beautiful and I represent life. To die because the love of the flower never offers itself as a trophy, for the love of the flower is always humble. And I love to love with humility. We should always love with humility.

I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally

One morning she at last succeeded in helping him to the foot of the steps, trampling down the grass before him with her feet, and clearing a way for him through the briars, whose supple arms barred the last few yards. Then they slowly entered the wood of roses. It was indeed a very wood, with thickets of tall standard roses throwing out leafy clumps as big as trees, and enormous rose bushes impenetrable as copses of young oaks. Here, formerly, there had been a most marvellous collection of plants. But since the flower garden had been left in abandonment, everything had run wild, and a virgin forest had arisen, a forest of roses over-running the paths, crowded with wild offshoots, so mingled, so blended, that roses of every scent and hue seemed to blossom on the same stem. Creeping roses formed mossy carpets on the ground, while climbing roses clung to others like greedy ivy plants, and ascended in spindles of verdure, letting a shower of their loosened petals fall at the lightest breeze. Natural paths coursed through the wood — narrow footways, broad avenues, enchanting covered walks in which one strolled in the shade and scent. These led to glades and clearings, under bowers of small red roses, and between walls hung with tiny yellow ones. Some sunny nooks gleamed like green silken stuff embroidered with bright patterns; other shadier corners offered the seclusion of alcoves and an aroma of love, the balmy warmth, as it were, of a posy languishing on a woman’s bosom. The rose bushes had whispering voices too. And the rose bushes were full of songbirds’ nests. ‘We must take care not to lose ourselves,’ said Albine, as she entered the wood. ‘I did lose myself once, and the sun had set before I was able to free myself from the rose bushes which caught me by the skirt at every step.’ They had barely walked a few minutes, however, before Serge, worn out with fatigue, wished to sit down. He stretched himself upon the ground, and fell into deep slumber. Albine sat musing by his side. They were on the edge of a glade, near a narrow path which stretched away through the wood, streaked with flashes of sunlight, and, through a small round blue gap at its far end, revealed the sky. Other little paths led from the clearing into leafy recesses. The glade was formed of tall rose bushes rising one above the other with such a wealth of branches, such a tangle of thorny shoots, that big patches of foliage were caught aloft, and hung there tent-like, stretching out from bush to bush. Through the tiny apertures in the patches of leaves, which were suggestive of fine lace, the light

The things about you I appreciate May seem indelicate: I'd like to find you in the shower And chase the soap for half an hour. I'd like to have you in my power And see your eyes dilate. I'd like to have your back to scour And other parts to lubricate. Sometimes I feel it is my fate To chase you screaming up a tower Or make you cower By asking you to differentiate Nietzsche from Schopenhauer. I'd like successfully to guess your weight And win you at a fête. I'd like to offer you a flower. I like the hair upon your shoulders, Falling like water over boulders. I like the shoulders too: they are essential. Your collar-bones have great potential (I'd like your particulars in folders Marked Confidential). I like your cheeks, I like your nose, I like the way your lips disclose The neat arrangement of your teeth (Half above and half beneath) In rows. I like your eyes, I like their fringes. The way they focus on me gives me twinges. Your upper arms drive me berserk. I like the way your elbows work. On hinges … I like your wrists, I like your glands, I like the fingers on your hands. I'd like to teach them how to count, And certain things we might exchange, Something familiar for something strange. I'd like to give you just the right amount And get some change. I like it when you tilt your cheek up. I like the way you not and hold a teacup. I like your legs when you unwind them. Even in trousers I don't mind them. I like each softly-moulded kneecap. I like the little crease behind them. I'd always know, without a recap, Where to find them. I like the sculpture of your ears. I like the way your profile disappears Whenever you decide to turn and face me. I'd like to cross two hemispheres And have you chase me. I'd like to smuggle you across frontiers Or sail with you at night into Tangiers. I'd like you to embrace me. I'd like to see you ironing your skirt And cancelling other dates. I'd like to button up your shirt. I like the way your chest inflates. I'd like to soothe you when you're hurt Or frightened senseless by invertebrates. I'd like you even if you were malign And had a yen for sudden homicide. I'd let you put insecticide Into my wine. I'd even like you if you were Bride Of Frankenstein Or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian's Jekyll and Hyde. I'd even like you as my Julian Or Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan. How melodramatic If you were something muttering in attics Like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean Mathematics. You are the end of self-abuse. You are the eternal feminine. I'd like to find a good excuse To call on you and find you in. I'd like to put my hand beneath your chin, And see you grin. I'd like to taste your Charlotte Russe, I'd like to feel my lips upon your skin I'd like to make you reproduce. I'd like you in my confidence. I'd like to be your second look. I'd like to let you try the French Defence And mate you with my rook. I'd like to be your preference And hence I'd like to be around when you unhook. I'd like to be your only audience, The final name in your appointment book, Your future tense.

The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead... ...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin. It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus... ...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.

The charge that Anarchism is destructive, rather than constructive, and that, therefore, Anarchism is opposed to organization, is one of the many falsehoods spread by our opponents. They confound our present social institutions with organization; hence they fail to understand how we can oppose the former, and yet favor the latter. The fact, however, is that the two are not identical. “The State is commonly regarded as the highest form of organization. But is it in reality a true organization? Is it not rather an arbitrary institution, cunningly imposed upon the masses? “Industry, too, is called an organization; yet nothing is farther from the truth. Industry is the ceaseless piracy of the rich against the poor. “We are asked to believe that the Army is an organization, but a close investigation will show that it is nothing else than a cruel instrument of blind force. “The Public School! The colleges and other institutions of learning, are they not models of organization, offering the people fine opportunities for instruction? Far from it. The school, more than any other institution, is a veritable barrack, where the human mind is drilled and manipulated into submission to various social and moral spooks, and thus fitted to continue our system of exploitation and oppression. “Organization, as WE understand it, however, is a different thing. It is based, primarily, on freedom. It is a natural and voluntary grouping of energies to secure results beneficial to humanity. “It is the harmony of organic growth which produces variety of color and form, the complete whole we admire in the flower. Analogously will the organized activity of free human beings, imbued with the spirit of solidarity, result in the perfection of social harmony, which we call Anarchism. In fact, Anarchism alone makes non-authoritarian organization of common interests possible, since it abolishes the existing antagonism between individuals and classes. “Under present conditions the antagonism of economic and social interests results in relentless war among the social units, and creates an insurmountable obstacle in the way of a co-operative commonwealth. “There is a mistaken notion that organization does not foster individual freedom; that, on the contrary, it means the decay of individuality. In reality, however, the true function of organization is to aid the development and growth of personality. “Just as the animal cells, by mutual co-operation, express their latent powers in formation of the complete organism, so does the individual, by co-operative effort with other individuals, attain his highest form of development. “An organization, in the true sense, cannot result from the combination of mere nonentities. It must be composed of self-conscious, intelligent individualities. Indeed, the total of the possibilities and activities of an organization is represented in the expression of individual energies. “It therefore logically follows that the greater the number of strong, self-conscious personalities in an organization, the less danger of stagnation, and the more intense its life element. “Anarchism asserts the possibility of an organization without discipline, fear, or punishment, and without the pressure of poverty: a new social organism which will make an end to the terrible struggle for the means of existence,—the savage struggle which undermines the finest qualities in man, and ever widens the social abyss. In short, Anarchism strives towards a social organization which will establish well-being for all. “The germ of such an organization can be found in that form of trades unionism which has done away with centralization, bureaucracy, and discipline, and which favors independent and direct action on the part of its members.

THE ANTHEM OF HOPE Tiny footprints in mud, metal scraps among thistles Child who ambles barefooted through humanity’s war An Elderflower in mud, landmines hidden in bristles Blood clings to your feet, your wee hands stiff and sore You who walk among trenches, midst our filth and our gore Box of crayons in hand, your tears tumble like crystals Gentle, scared little boy, at the heel of Hope Valley, The grassy heel of Hope Valley. And the bombs fall-fall-fall Down the slopes of Hope Valley Bayonets cut-cut-cut Through the ranks of Hope Valley Napalm clouds burn-burn-burn All who fight in Hope Valley, All who fall in Hope Valley. Bullets fly past your shoulder, fireflies light the sky Child who digs through the trenches for his long sleeping father You plant a kiss on his forehead, and you whisper goodbye Vain corpses, brave soldiers, offered as cannon fodder Nothing is left but a wall; near its pallor you gather Crayon ready, you draw: the memory of a lie Kind, sad little boy, sketching your dream of Hope Valley Your little dream of Hope Valley. Missiles fly-fly-fly Over the fields of Hope Valley Carabines shoot-shoot-shoot The brave souls of Hope Valley And the tanks shell-shell-shell Those who toiled for Hope Valley, Those who died for Hope Valley. In the light of gunfire, the little child draws the valley Every trench is a creek; every bloodstain a flower No battlefield, but a garden with large fields ripe with barley Ideations of peace in his dark, final hour And so the child drew his future, on the wall of that tower Memories of times past; your tiny village lush alley Great, brave little boy, the future hope of Hope Valley The only hope of Hope Valley. And the grass grows-grows-grows On the knolls of Hope Valley Daffodils bloom-bloom-bloom Across the hills of Hope Valley The midday sun shines-shines-shines On the folk of Hope Valley On the dead of Hope Valley From his Aerodyne fleet The soldier faces the carnage Uttering words to the fallen He commends their great courage Across a wrecked, tower wall A child’s hand limns the valley And this drawing speaks volumes Words of hope, not of bally He wipes his tears and marvels The miracle of Hope Valley The only miracle of Hope Valley And the grass grows-grows-grows Midst all the dead of Hope Valley Daffodils bloom-bloom-bloom For all the dead of Hope Valley The evening sun sets-sets-sets On the miracle of Hope Valley The only miracle of Hope Valley (lyrics to "the Anthem of Hope", a fictional song featured in Louise Blackwick's Neon Science-Fiction novel "5 Stars".