Red Berries Quotes

November comes And November goes, With the last red berries And the first white snows. With night coming early, And dawn coming late, And ice in the bucket And frost by the gate. The fires burn And the kettles sing, And earth sinks to rest Until next spring.

Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.

...the winter is kind and leaves red berries on the boughs for hungry sparrows...

We were back where I had started: on the hill top inside a circle of trees burdened down with red berries that blew in the wind as if determined to remind me how much blood a body had in it and how the worst place to see it was flying through the air in droplets.

The berry of rowans is red, always red. The earth at its trunk is dark with blood shed. But a Prince is a man, and a man may be bled. He came for the girl… And got the monster instead.

You turned red all over, Finn," Aiden said helpfully. "So did Teagan. As red as Kool-Aid." The back of Finn's neck went from pink lemonade to Blastin' Berry Cherry. "Yeah," Aiden said. "Like that." "I don't want to talk about it," Finn said.

Her eyes were dark. Dark as chocolate, dark as coffee, dark as the polished wood of my father’s lute. They were set in a fair face, oval. Like a teardrop. Her easy smile could stop a man’s heart. Her lips were red. Not the garish painted red so many women believe makes them desirable. Her lips were always red, morning and night. As if minutes before you saw her, she had been eating sweet berries, or drinking heart’s blood. No matter where she stood, she was in the center of the room. Do not misunderstand. She was not loud, or vain. We stare at a fire because it flickers, because it glows. The light is what catches our eyes, but what makes a man lean close to a fire has nothing to do with its bright shape. What draws you to a fire is the warmth you feel when you come near. The same was true of Denna.

Keep that red-haired girl of yours in the open air all summer and don't let her read books until she gets more spring into her step." This message frightened Marilla wholesomely. She read Anne's death warrant by consumption in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a result, Anne had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart's content; and when September came she was bright-eyed and alert, with a step that would have satisfied the Spencervale doctor and a heart full of ambition and zest once more. "I just feel like studying with might and main," she declared as she brought her books down from the attic. "Oh, you good old friends, I'm glad to see your honest face once more - yes, even you, geometry.

...dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on a bush.

Sometimes a girl needed more than Special K with Red Berries in the morning. This qualified as one of those mornings.

On the first day of November last year, sacred to many religious calendars but especially the Celtic, I went for a walk among bare oaks and birch. Nothing much was going on. Scarlet sumac had passed and the bees were dead. The pond had slicked overnight into that shiny and deceptive glaze of delusion, first ice. It made me remember sakes and conjure a vision of myself skimming backward on one foot, the other extended; the arms become wings. Minnesota girls know that this is not a difficult maneuver if one's limber and practices even a little after school before the boys claim the rink for hockey. I think I can still do it - one thinks many foolish things when November's bright sun skips over the entrancing first freeze. A flock of sparrows reels through the air looking more like a flying net than seventy conscious birds, a black veil thrown on the wind. When one sparrow dodges, the whole net swerves, dips: one mind. Am I part of anything like that? Maybe not. The last few years of my life have been characterized by stripping away, one by one, loves and communities that sustain the soul. A young colleague, new to my English department, recently asked me who I hang around with at school. "Nobody," I had to say, feeling briefly ashamed. This solitude is one of the surprises of middle age, especially if one's youth has been rich in love and friendship and children. If you do your job right, children leave home; few communities can stand an individual's most pitiful, amateur truth telling. So the soul must stand in her own meager feathers and learn to fly - or simply take hopeful jumps into the wind. In the Christian calendar, November 1 is the Feast of All Saints, a day honoring not only those who are known and recognized as enlightened souls, but more especially the unknowns, saints who walk beside us unrecognized down the millennia. In Buddhism, we honor the bodhisattvas - saints - who refuse enlightenment and return willingly to the wheel of karma to help other beings. Similarly, in Judaism, anonymous holy men pray the world from its well-merited destruction. We never know who is walking beside us, who is our spiritual teacher. That one - who annoys you so - pretends for a day that he's the one, your personal Obi Wan Kenobi. The first of November is a splendid, subversive holiday. Imagine a hectic procession of revelers - the half-mad bag lady; a mumbling, scarred janitor whose ravaged face made the children turn away; the austere, unsmiling mother superior who seemed with great focus and clarity to do harm; a haunted music teacher, survivor of Auschwitz. I bring them before my mind's eye, these old firends of my soul, awakening to dance their day. Crazy saints; but who knows what was home in the heart? This is the feast of those who tried to take the path, so clumsily that no one knew or notice, the feast, indeed, of most of us. It's an ugly woods, I was saying to myself, padding along a trail where other walkers had broken ground before me. And then I found an extraordinary bouquet. Someone had bound an offering of dry seed pods, yew, lyme grass, red berries, and brown fern and laid it on the path: "nothing special," as Buddhists say, meaning "everything." Gathered to formality, each dry stalk proclaimed a slant, an attitude, infinite shades of neutral. All contemplative acts, silences, poems, honor the world this way. Brought together by the eye of love, a milkweed pod, a twig, allow us to see how things have been all along. A feast of being.

This month is fit for little. The dead ripen in the grapeleaves. A red tongue is among us. Mother, keep out of my barnyard, I am becoming another. Dog-head, devourer: Feed me the berries of dark. The lids won't shut. Time Unwinds from the great umbilicus of the sun its endless glitter. I must swallow it all. Lady, who are those others in the moons' vat- Sleepdrunk, their limbs at odds? In this light the blood is black. Tell me my name.

The blood of the guitar was Chuck Berry red.

On the trees were no longer only leaves but brown fruits, on the bushes no longer blossoms but clusters of red berries. And the wind had a rough manliness in its voice - the tone not of a lover but of a husband.

Summer rain smelled like newly clipped grass, like mouths stained red with berry juice - blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. It smelled like late nights spent pointing constellations out from their starry guises, freshly washed laundry drying outside on the line, like barbecues and stolen kisses in a 1932 Ford Coupe

There are stories told to him only at this time of year. Fantastic, magical stories, the old Hollier in the woods finding only three red berries, which peel back in the night to reveal gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh, Christmas in hot deserts, dust-blown countries, the necklace of tears, and the story of the robin.

The bare branches were silvered with frost. The berries of the holly tree looked white with rime. Old Marie said that all holly berries had once been white, but that the crown of thorns had been made of holly, and the berries had turned red when touched with Jesus's blood. She had a story to explain everything, Old Marie.

When the holly’s in the red And the pine is in the green, When the mornings all are frosty, In a brilliant silver sheen Then I love to go a’ walking Rambling here and there, quite slow, Plucking greenery and berries; Wishing for a Christmas snow

...like the way a child hankers for a holly berry. He don't know it's poison, he just sees something pretty and red and he wants it in his mouth...There's a whole lot of evil in the world looks pretty on the outside.

She was a pretty girl, and I was moved by her prettiness. Her hair was brown at the verge of red, and curly. Her face was still a little freckled. But it was her eyes that most impressed me. They were nearly black and had a liquid luster. The brief, laughing look that she had given me made me feel extraordinarily seen, as if after that I might be visible in the dark.

It is not, I think, a question of when and how the white people will "free" the black and the red people. It is a condescension to believe that we have the power to do that. Until we have recognized in them the full strength and grace of their distinctive humanity we will be able to set no one free, for we will not be free ourselves. When we realize that they possess a knowledge for the lack of which we are incomplete and in pain, then the wound in our history will be healed. Then they will simply be free, among us--and so will we, among ourselves for the first time, and among them.

I get it. Having had Satoru take me in as his cat, I think I felt as lucky as he did. Strays, by definition, have been abandoned or left behind, but Satoru rescued me when I broke my leg. He made me the happiest cat on earth. I'll always remember those five years we had together. And I'll forever go by the name Nana, the name that - let's face it - is pretty unusual for a male cat. The town where Satoru grew up, too, I would remember that. And the green seedlings swaying in the fields. The sea, with its frighteningly loud roar. Mount Fuji, looming over us. How cosy it felt on top of that boxy TV. That wonderful lady cat, Momo. That nervy but earnest hound, Toramaru. That huge white ferry, which swallowed up cars into its stomach. The dogs in the pet holding area, wagging their tails at Satoru. That foul-mouthed chinchilla telling me Guddo rakku! The land in Hokkaido stretching out forever. Those vibrant purple and yellow flowers by the side of the road. The field of pampas grass like an ocean. The horses chomping on grass. The bright-red berries on the mountain-ash trees. The shades of red on the mountain ash that Satoru taught me. The stands of slender white birch. The graveyard, with its wide-open vista. The bouquet of flowers in rainbow colours. The white heart-shaped bottom of the deer. That huge, huge, huge double rainbow growing out of the ground. I would remember these for the rest of my life. And Kosuke, and Yoshimine, and Sugi and Chikako. And above all, the one who brought up Satoru and made it possible for us to meet - Noriko. Could anyone be happier than this?

There are strawberries growing among my bulbs. Wild ones, seeded from God knows where, poking their pale little fingers among the tulips and crocuses. Wild strawberries are invasive; not quite as invasive as dandelions, but those little heart-shaped leaves conceal a powerful hunger for conquest, sending their runners everywhere, each one an outpost preparing itself for a future invasion. And yet I cannot bring myself, père, to curb their cheery exuberance. Though more or less worthless in terms of fruit, the little white flowers and pretty leaves make excellent ground count cover, keeping the thistles and ragwort at bay without suppressing my daffodils. And besides, in summer, there may be enough of the tiny red berries to put on a tart, or flavor a glassful of sweet white wine. That is, if the birds do not steal them first. They too enjoy their sweetness. Those strawberries will creep, Reynaud, said Narcisse's voice in my mind. Let them stay, and in a month, your beds will be nothing but strawberries.

For I shall bring you crimson leaves And rippling wheat in golden sheaves; A cache of berries, red and sweet, And dappled deer on silent feet." - Emma Delagardie and Augustus Whittlesby, Americanus: A Masque in Three Parts

Her lips were red. Not the garish painted red so many women believe makes them desirable. Her lips were always red, morning and night. As if minutes before you saw her, she had been eating sweet berries, or drinking heart’s blood.

Some car had hit it after all, because it hadn’t had the courage to honor its own correct instinct. And I began to cry because I had this thought about people, that they do this all the time, deny the wise voice inside them telling them the right thing to do because it is different. I remembered once seeing a tea party some little girls had set up outside, mismatched china, decorations of a plucked pansy blossom and a seashell and a shiny penny and a small circle of red berries and a fern, pressed wetly into the wooden table, the damp outline around it a beautiful bonus. They didn’t consult the Martha Stewart guide for entertainment and gulp a martini before their guests arrived. They pulled ideas from their hearts and minds about the things that gave them pleasure, and they laid out an offering with loving intent. It was a small Garden of Eden, the occupants making something out of what they saw was theirs. Out of what they truly saw.

Not all plants are equal: some have much more polyphenols than others, and as a general rule bright or dark colours are a good sign, including a wide range of berries, beans, artichokes, grapes, prunes, red cabbage, spinach, peppers, chilli, beetroot and mushrooms.

The discussion was escalating into an argument when the Demeter head counselor offered one last suggestion. "What about this?" He held out a small red object. "Miniature explosive!" the Ares boy bellowed. "Duck!" "It's not an explosive or a duck," the Demeter boy said. "It's a berry native to this land. Grows all over the place here." The Aphrodite girl wrinkled her nose. "Excuse me, but ew! There are seeds all over the outside! So unattractive. And red? That colour is so overdone, fruit-wise." "Yes, but it's tasty," the Demeter counselor said. "I call it a strawberry. "Why?" the Athena girl wanted to know. "Because blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, and cranberry were taken.

As the days cooled the colours around her did, too. Bright red flowers were replaced by dark red berries. The sun set earlier. The berries now were tinged with blue. Perhaps it was warmth that made the colour. Red meant life. Blue meant the blue lips of harsh breathing and death. The end of things.

Her easy smile could stop a man’s heart. Her lips were red. Not the garish painted red so many women believe makes them desirable. Her lips were always red, morning and night. As if minutes before you saw her, she had been eating sweet berries, or drinking heart’s blood. No matter where she stood, she was in the center of the room.” Kvothe frowned. “Do not misunderstand. She was not loud, or vain. We stare at a fire because it flickers, because it glows. The light is what catches our eyes, but what makes a man lean close to a fire is the warmth you feel when you come near. The same was true of Denna.

The year is dying. The wind blows across the stubble and finds there is nothing left for it to shake. Only the red berries on their slender trees still seem to want to remind us of something merrier and the beat of the thresher awakens in us the thought of how much life and nourishment lies hidden in the cut-down ear of corn.

I sat down in the middle of the garden, where snakes could scarcely approach unseen, and leaned my back against a warm yellow pumpkin. There were some ground-cherry bushes growing along the furrows, full of fruit. I turned back the papery triangular sheaths that protected the berries and ate a few. All about me giant grasshoppers, twice as big as any I had ever seen, were doing acrobatic feats among the dried vines. The gophers scurried up and down the ploughed ground. There in the sheltered draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it singing its humming tune up on the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave. The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers. Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me. Their backs were polished vermilion, with black spots. I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.

She was going to go home after this and sip red wine and stare at the wall, I could tell. She would wonder why she was doing this, struggling against commercial interests at a corporate hospital when all she wanted to do was help people, and in the morning, when she walked out of her beautiful home and unlocked her convertible, she would remember.

Daisy smiled and said, “Jay Berry, you won’t die. You may think you will, but you won’t. In a day or two, you’ll be as good as new, I hope.” “You’re just saying that because you heard Papa say it,” I said. “No, I’m not!” Daisy said. “I’m saying it because I’m a nurse, and nurses are supposed to cheer up their patients.” I knew all too well that once Daisy had gotten into one of her Red Cross nursing spells, it was ridiculous to even think of trying to argue her out of it. So I just groaned, closed my eyes, and sat there while

So, are your lips red and puffy like mine?” Tate teases….“Good, I want to make them red and puffy again very soon, you in?

I’m red as a berry, shiny from the pickling of the womb, and squinting at the world through suspicious, slitted eyes.

Foragers feast," my father would say, and we'd set out into the woods, cedar bark baskets in our hands. In the summer, we harvested bright red huckleberries, and salal berries so dark blue they looked like night in your hand. In the fall, we found mushrooms hiding under the trees- I was captivated by the convoluted morels, each one a labyrinth of nooks and crannies.

The berry of rowans is red, always red. The earth at its trunk is dark with bloodshed. But a Prince is a man, and a man may be bled. He came for the girl.. And got the monster instead.

Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots. Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills We trekked and picked until the cans were full, Until the tinkling bottom had been covered With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's. We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre. But when the bath was filled we found a fur, A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache. The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Taut, merry, nervous, expertly mounted, exquisitely clothed, haughty in their bright youth, the chevaliers of France poured from the disheveled clearing. Sunlit, all that morning, they spanned the glittering woods: diamond on diamond, grey on grey, riches on riches; bough and limb indistinguishable; skirts and meadows sewn in the same silks; skulls in antique fantasy knotted with rhizome and leafy with fern frond. Webs, manes, beards, spun the same smokelike filament; rime flashed; jewels sparked, red and fat, on rosebush and ring. Earth and animals wore the same livery. Jazerained in its berries, the oak tree matched their pearls, and paired their brilliant-sewn housings with low mosses underfoot, freshets winking half-ice in the pile.

Perhaps it is a shame that I have vowed to keep my past locked up within me. At Hvammur, during the trial, they plucked at my words like birds. Dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on a bush. They did not let me say what happened in my own way, but took my memories of Illugastadir, of Natan, and wrought them into something sinister; they wrested my statement of that night and made me seem malevolent. Everything I said was taken from me and altered until the story wasn’t my own

Hvammur, during the trial, they plucked at my words like birds. Dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on a bush.

Coffee and humanity both sprang from the same area in eastern Africa. What if some of those early ape-men nibbled on the bright red berries? What if the resulting mental stimulation opened them up to a new way of looking at old problems, much as it did Europeans? Could this group of berry nibblers be the Missing Link, and that memory of the bright but bitter-tasting fruit be the archetype for the story of the Garden of Eden?

The main herbs to treat MRSA are cryptolepis, sida, alchornea, bidens, black pepper, the berberines, usnea, juniper berry, isatis, licorice, ginger, ashwagandha, echinacea, red root, reishi, honey, and Artemisia annua.

How curious it is that in nature, the most vibrant colors are those that precede death. The delicate pinks and blues of spring are wan in comparison to the dramatic crimson of the hawthorn berries or the bloody gashes of the buckthorn leaves in late November. Stars blaze pale in their infancy, but in old age they melt and simmer in reds and oranges just as the oaks and maples do. Youth, it seems, is a state of diffuse abundance, while death’s approach concentrates.

By day I taught Sahjara, who brought me unceasing small presents ranging from orange flower cakes to bouquets of jolly red berries; by night, I imagined my employer making the sort of inappropriate advances which would have made most governesses flee the estate forthwith, and in graphic detail, complete with bare thighs and calloused fingers and the diagonal notches which rest so sweetly above the hipbones when a gentleman is in training, as I had no doubt whatsoever Mr. Thornfield was.

He asked me, "what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to war with another?" I answered "they were innumerable; but I should only mention a few of the chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to govern; sometimes the corruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war, in order to stifle or divert the clamour of the subjects against their evil administration. Difference in opinions has cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire: what is the best colour for a coat, whether black, white, red, or gray: and whether it should be long or short, narrow or wide, dirty or clean; with many more. Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long a continuance, especially if it be in things indifferent.

People came from far and wide to see the Italian Gardens and buy a honeycomb or damson jam in the farm shop. The wool from the sheep and the cheese from the goats drew buyers in a queue the day they were ready for purchase. In June, the pick-your-own strawberry fields were filled with children carrying baskets of berries, their lips stained red with sweet juice. In August, the dahlia fields were so flush with color that the cloudy days seemed brighter, and in autumn the apple and pear orchards were woven through with ladders and littered with overflowing bushels.

She was a hunchback with a sweet smile. She smiled sweetly at anything; she couldn't help it; the trees, me, the grass, anything. The basket pulled her down, dragging her toward the ground. She was such a tiny woman, with a hurt face, as if slapped forever. She wore a funny old hat, an absurd hat, a maddening hat, a hat to make me cry, a hat with faded red berries on the brim. And there she was, smiling at everything, struggling across the carpet with a heavy basket containing Lord knew what, wearing a plumed hat with red berries. I got up. It was so mysterious. There I was, like magic, standing up, my two feet on the ground, my eyes drenched. I said, "Let me help." She smiled again and gave me the basket. We began to walk. She led the way. Beyond the trees it was stifling. And she smiled. It was so sweet it nearly tore my head off. She talked, she told me things I never remembered. It didn't matter. In a« dream she held me, in a dream I followed under the blinding sun. For blocks we went forward. I hoped it would never end. Always she talked in a low voice made of human music. What words! What she said! I remembered nothing. I was only happy. But in my heart I was dying. It should have been so. We stepped from so many curbs, I wondered why she did not sit upon one and hold my head while I drifted away. It was the chance that never came again. That old woman with the bent back! Old woman, I feel so joyfully your pain. Ask me a favor, you old woman you! Anything. To die is easy. Make it that. To cry is easy, lift your skirt and let me cry and let my tears wash your feet to let you know I know what life has been for you, because my back is bent too, but my heart is whole, my tears are delicious, my love is yours, to give you joy where God has failed. To die is so easy and you may have my life if you wish it, you old woman, you hurt me so, you did, I will do anything for you, to die for you, the blood of my eighteen years flowing in the gutters of Wilmington and down to the sea for you, for you that you might find such joy as is now mine and stand erect without the horror of that twist. I left the old woman at her door. The trees shimmered. The clouds laughed. The blue sky took me up. Where am I? Is this Wilmington, California? Haven't I been here before? A melody moved my feet. The air soared with Arturo in it, puffing him in and out and making him something and nothing. My heart laughed and laughed. Goodbye to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and all of you, you fools, I am much greater than all of you! Through my veins ran music of blood. Would it last? It could not last. I must hurry. But where? And I ran toward home. Now I am home. I left the book in the park. To hell with it. No more books for me. I kissed my mother. I clung to her passionately. On my knees I fell at her feet to kiss her feet and cling to her ankles until it must have hurt her and amazed her that it was I.

THOSE BORN UNDER Pacific Northwest skies are like daffodils: they can achieve beauty only after a long, cold sulk in the rain. Henry, our mother, and I were Pacific Northwest babies. At the first patter of raindrops on the roof, a comfortable melancholy settled over the house. The three of us spent dark, wet days wrapped in old quilts, sitting and sighing at the watery sky. Viviane, with her acute gift for smell, could close her eyes and know the season just by the smell of the rain. Summer rain smelled like newly clipped grass, like mouths stained red with berry juice — blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. It smelled like late nights spent pointing constellations out from their starry guises, freshly washed laundry drying outside on the line, like barbecues and stolen kisses in a 1932 Ford Coupe. The first of the many autumn rains smelled smoky, like a doused campsite fire, as if the ground itself had been aflame during those hot summer months. It smelled like burnt piles of collected leaves, the cough of a newly revived chimney, roasted chestnuts, the scent of a man’s hands after hours spent in a woodshop. Fall rain was not Viviane’s favorite. Rain in the winter smelled simply like ice, the cold air burning the tips of ears, cheeks, and eyelashes. Winter rain was for hiding in quilts and blankets, for tying woolen scarves around noses and mouths — the moisture of rasping breaths stinging chapped lips. The first bout of warm spring rain caused normally respectable women to pull off their stockings and run through muddy puddles alongside their children. Viviane was convinced it was due to the way the rain smelled: like the earth, tulip bulbs, and dahlia roots. It smelled like the mud along a riverbed, like if she opened her mouth wide enough, she could taste the minerals in the air. Viviane could feel the heat of the rain against her fingers when she pressed her hand to the ground after a storm. But in 1959, the year Henry and I turned fifteen, those warm spring rains never arrived. March came and went without a single drop falling from the sky. The air that month smelled dry and flat. Viviane would wake up in the morning unsure of where she was or what she should be doing. Did the wash need to be hung on the line? Was there firewood to be brought in from the woodshed and stacked on the back porch? Even nature seemed confused. When the rains didn’t appear, the daffodil bulbs dried to dust in their beds of mulch and soil. The trees remained leafless, and the squirrels, without acorns to feed on and with nests to build, ran in confused circles below the bare limbs. The only person who seemed unfazed by the disappearance of the rain was my grandmother. Emilienne was not a Pacific Northwest baby nor a daffodil. Emilienne was more like a petunia. She needed the water but could do without the puddles and wet feet. She didn’t have any desire to ponder the gray skies. She found all the rain to be a bit of an inconvenience, to be honest.

Whatever he touched burst into bloom, scattering the snow with leaves like beaten emeralds, red berries, pussy willows and seed cones, a riot of color and texture crackling through that white world. Soon enough our little wilderness path could have been a grand avenue decked out for a returning general's triumphant procession. Birds hunkered down for the long winter crept out of their burrows, chirruping their alarmed delight as they grew drunk on berries. A narrow fox darted across our path, a starling clutched in its mouth, sparing us a dismissive glance as it slunk back into the velvet shadow.

What you are doing is exploring. You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place... nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.

you,” he responded instantly.  “Do you feel all right?  The doctor said you could have some odd feelings when you awoke.  The enhanced perceptions can be disconcerting.” Isabella’s mouth opened and his eyes focused on her berry red lips.  He couldn’t wait to taste them.  “Do you think I’m…rambling?  Delusional?  Is that why

September, 1918" This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves, And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows. Under a tree in the park, Two little boys, lying flat on their faces, Were carefully gathering red berries To put in a pasteboard box. Some day there will be no war, Then I shall take out this afternoon And turn it in my fingers, And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate, And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves. To-day I can only gather it And put it into my lunch-box, For I have time for nothing But the endeavour to balance myself Upon a broken world.

If you put red berries in your hair," he said, "why would you look like some witch or priestess, and never like a reveller." She laughed with a naked, painful sound. "I don't know," she said. His vigorous, warm hands were playing excitedly with the berries. "Why can't you laugh?" he said. "You never laugh laughter. You only laugh when something is odd or incongruous, and then it almost seems to hurt you." She bowed her head as if he was scolding her. "I wish you could laugh at me for just one minute - just for a minute. I feel as if it would set something free." "But!" - and she looked up at him with eyes frightened and struggling - "I do laugh at you - I do." "Never! There's always a kind of intensity. When you laugh I could always cry, it seems as if it shows up your suffering.

There were miniature fruit trees growing chocolate-dipped plumbs and brown-sugar-glazed peaches. Wedges of cheese peeking out of miniature treasure chests made of pastry. Upside-down turtle shells filled with soup. Finger sandwiches shaped like actual fingers. Colourful plates of salted pink and red radishes. Water with lavendar bubbles, and peach-coloured wine with berries at the bottom of the glass.

Did she give you that brooch?” Nikeya often wore it, close to her heart. It was shaped like a mulberry fruit with delicate gold leaves. Each berry was like a drop of amber, and such a deep red it was almost black. “No,” Nikeya said, touching it. “This is an heirloom from my father.” She made a tired stab at a flirtatious smile. “That’s the second time you’ve enquired about my trinkets, Princess. I’ve heard people only start to notice such trifling details when they fall in love.” Dumai moved away. “You go too far.” “I must, else I would never go anywhere.” “I don’t want you to go anywhere.” When her smile widened, Dumai added, flushing, “I mean you should stay here, in the apartments, while I speak to Consort Jekhen.” “Very well. I will take a night in your bed instead, Princess.” “Good for you. I will not be in it.

I suppose… I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. But knowing what I do of your past… I assumed…” Her lame attempt at an apology seemed to erode the remnants of Sebastian’s self-control. “Well, your assumption was wrong! If you haven’t yet noticed, I’m busier than the devil in a high wind, every minute of the day. I don’t have the damned time for a tumble. And if I did—” He stopped abruptly. All semblance of the elegant viscount Evie had once watched from afar in Lord Westcliff’s drawing room had vanished. He was rumpled and bruised and furious. And he wasn’t breathing at all well. “If I did—” He broke off again, a flush crossing the crests of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Evie saw the exact moment when his self-restraint snapped. Alarm jolted through her, and she lurched toward the closed door. Before she had even made a step, she found herself seized and pinned against the wall by his body and hands. The smell of sweat-dampened linen and healthy, aroused male filled her nostrils. Once he had caught her, Sebastian pressed his parted lips against the thin skin of her temple. His breath snagged. Another moment of stillness. Evie felt the electrifying touch of his tongue at the very tip of her eyebrow. He breathed against the tiny wet spot, a waft of hellfire that sent chills through her entire body. Slowly he brought his mouth to her ear, and traced the intricate inner edges. His whisper seemed to come from the darkest recesses of her own mind. “If I did, Evie… then by now I would have shredded your clothes with my hands and teeth until you were naked. By now I would have pushed you down to the carpet, and put my hands beneath your breasts and lifted them up to my mouth. I would be kissing them… licking them… until the tips were like hard little berries, and then I would bite them so gently…” Evie felt herself drift into a slow half swoon as he continued in a ragged murmur. “… I would kiss my way down to your thighs… inch by inch… and when I reached those sweet red curls, I would lick through them, deeper and deeper, until I found the little pearl of your clitoris… and I would rest my tongue on it until I felt it throb. I would circle it, and stroke it… I’d lick until you started to beg. And then I would suck you. But not hard. I wouldn’t be that kind. I would do it so lightly, so tenderly, that you would start screaming with the need to come… I would put my tongue inside you… taste you… eat you. I wouldn’t stop until your entire body was wet and shaking. And when I had tortured you enough, I would open your legs and come inside you, and take you… take you…” Sebastian stopped, anchoring her against the wall while they both remained frozen, aroused, panting. At length, he spoke in a nearly inaudible voice. “You’re wet, aren’t you?” Had it been physically possible to blush any harder, Evie would have. Her skin burned with violated modesty as she understood what he was asking. She tipped her chin in the tiniest of nods. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything on this earth.

Berry’s investigation was a searing indictment of how church officials in Louisiana buried reports of sexual abuse of minors and did their best to pay off victims to keep them silent. By the time his story ran, the tiny Lafayette diocese in which Gauthe had committed his crimes was deeply in the red from $4.2 million in confidential settlements to the families of nine victims, and $114 million in pending claims in another eleven lawsuits.

And noted all the things he wished to fix up for the feast I think we’ll have a pastry, yes, of peas and onions, sage and cress I think we’ll have an egg soufflé or tartlet at the least I think we’ll have a roast of squash, full of flavor, nothing posh I think we’ll have a soup of greens with warm and toasty bread A meal of oats to warm the heart, I think would make a lovely start And jugs of wine with berries spiced the prefect shade of red

Then Bacchus and Silenus and the Maenads began a dance, far wilder than the dance of the trees; not merely a dance of fun and beauty (though it was that too) but a magic dance of plenty, and where their hands touched, and where their feet fell, the feast came into existence- sides of roasted meat that filled the grove with delicious smells, and wheaten cakes and oaten cakes, honey and many-colored sugars and cream as thick as porridge and as smooth as still water, peaches, nectarines, pomegranates, pears, grapes, straw-berries, raspberries- pyramids and cataracts of fruit. Then, in great wooden cups and bowls and mazers, wreathed with ivy, came the wines; dark, thick ones like syrups of mulberry juice, and clear red ones like red jellies liquefied, and yellow wines and green wines and yellow-green and greenish-yellow. But for the tree people different fare was provided. When Lucy saw Clodsley Shovel and his moles scuffling up the turf in various places (when Bacchus had pointed out to them) and realized that the trees were going to eat earth it gave her rather a shudder. But when she saw the earths that were actually brought to them she felt quite different. They began with a rich brown loam that looked almost exactly like chocolate; so like chocolate, in fact, that Edmund tried a piece of it, but he did not find it all nice. When the rich loam had taken the edge off their hunger, the trees turned to an earth of the kind you see in Somerset, which is almost pink. They said it was lighter and sweeter. At the cheese stage they had a chalky soil, and then went on to delicate confections of the finest gravels powdered with choice silver sand. They drank very little wine, and it made the Hollies very talkative: for the most part they quenched their thirst with deep draughts of mingled dew and rain, flavored with forest flowers and the airy taste of the thinnest clouds.

So, did you see that community center I was talking about?” “What? Where?” “We walked right past it, just before that grocery store. I mentioned it on the way to the city? You just drop in and take classes. They’ve got all sorts of stuff. I bet you can get a student rate, even.” “But I’m not a student—” “You’re young enough that they’ll assume—” “—and how am I supposed to find the time to take dance classes, now that I’m the dessert?” “I’m starting to really regret using that metaphor,” Silas says, grinning. “And let me explain something, Rosie.” He takes a swig of the coffee and presses his lips together, searching for words. “I’m from a long, long, long, long line of woodsmen. My brothers are all supertalented. They all built their own rooms. For god’s sake, Lucas built a freaking wooden hot tub in his bedroom with wooden monkeys pouring water into it.” “Monkeys?” “Don’t ask. Anyway, I can do some woodworking. I know my way around the forest, I can handle an ax better than most, I can make a tree grow where nothing else will, I can live off berries and hunt for my food, and I’ve known about the Fenris since I could crawl. I’m a woodsman, for all intents and purposes. But that doesn’t mean I live for it any more than the fact that you’re good at hunting means you have to live for that. So maybe breaking out of the hunting lifestyle for a few hours here and there will help you figure out if it’s really for you or not.” I shake my head, confused as to why he’d even think that was possible. “I can’t just not hunt, Silas. So yeah, I take a few random classes, and what if I decide that I hate hunting and want to quit? That doesn’t mean I can. I owe Scarlett my life, and if she wants to cash in by having me spend my life hunting beside her, so be it. It’d kill her if she ever thought I wanted to quit.” “Rosie,” Silas says quietly. “I’m not suggesting you drop your sister like a bad habit and take up intense ballet training.

Right by the Arctic Circle, the city of Rovaniemi is a key draw for visitors, with various Santa Claus attractions (the red-suited saint officially resides here) and numerous tours and activities, ranging from reindeer-farm visits to snowmobiling safaris, dog sledding with huskies and various high-adrenaline adventures. Rovaniemi has a small ski area, but the best skiing is at Pyhä-Luosto. Elsewhere you can hike, take an ice-breaker cruise, stay in a winter snow castle and go berry picking in summer.

Eliminate these foods: • Sugar • Soda • Processed carbs • Trans fats • Processed meats • Excess vegetable oils Eat more of these foods: • Wild salmon • Berries and cherries • Grass-fed meat • Vegetables • Nuts • Beans • Dark chocolate • Garlic and turmeric • Pomegranate juice, green tea, and red wine • Extra-virgin olive oil Make these lifestyle changes to reduce stress: • Meditate or practice deep breathing • Express your emotions • Play • Cultivate intimacy and pleasure • And most of all . . . enjoy your life!

So he strode, and ran, and hurried home. He emptied into the ever-useful pocket-handkerchief the little meal remaining in the mug. Mary would have her tea at Miss Simmonds’; her food for the day was safe. Then he went upstairs for his better coat, and his one, gay red-and-yellow silk pocket-handkerchief — his jewels, his plate, his valuables, these were. He went to the pawn-shop; he pawned them for five shillings; he stopped not, nor stayed, till he was once more in London Road, within five minutes’ walk of Berry Street — then he loitered in his gait, in order to discover the shops he wanted. He bought meat, and a loaf of bread, candles, chips, and from a little retail yard he purchased a couple of hundredweights of coal. Some money still remained — all destined for them, but he did not yet know how best to spend it. Food, light, and warmth, he had instantly seen were necessary; for luxuries he would wait. Wilson’s eyes filled with tears when he saw Barton enter with his purchases. He understood it all, and longed to be once more in work that he might help in some of these material ways, without feeling that he was using his son’s money.

after the first time they did not listen. So Sarah tried teaching them words. Pointing to the table, stool, fire, she would say the name slowly and clearly. Then the Indian children said—or tried to say—the words, shouting with laughter when their tongues could not find a way around the strange sounds. They, in turn, showed her where the wild strawberries grew. So she went out and filled a basket with the berries, which were like red jewels in the grass. When John Noble came home with a duck he had shot, or a fish caught in the river, he would find ripe berries waiting, too. They traded with

Feathers belong to a family of natural luminescence. Included in this group spanning past, present, and future life are fish scales and butterfly wings and the skin of bright berries as the sun passes through them, the glowing eye of an animal when lit at night, the interior of the shell of an abalone, the intricate glitter of the flower of a violet. The leaf of a begonia shatters light when struck with sun, green as viewed from above or red as viewed from below; so do the leaves of a hosta appear to flicker at some point each cloudless day. While seated on the bus, I have seen the back of the neck of a young boy sparkle in this way, so perhaps we, too, are part of the family of glitter and light.

And then she set to work, washing fresh blueberries that sat on the counter, before grabbing a big colander. Sam headed into the backyard, whose lawn backed acres of woods. Blackberries and raspberries grew wild and thick in the brambles that sat at the edge of the woods. Sam carefully navigated her way through the thorny vines, her thin running shirt catching and snagging on a thorn. "Darn it," she mumbled. Blackberries are red when they're green, she could hear her grandfather telling her when they used to pick the fruit. But today, a brilliant summer day, the blackberries were deep purple, almost black, and each one resembled a mini beehive. Sam plucked and popped a fresh blackberry, already warm from the sun, into her mouth, savoring the natural sweetness, and picked until her colander was half full before easing her way through the woods to find a raspberry bush thick with fruit. She navigated her way out of the brambles and headed back to the kitchen, where she preheated the oven and began to wash the blackberries and raspberries. Sam pulled cold, unsalted butter from the fridge and began to cube it, some flour and sugar from the cupboard, a large bowl, and then she located her grandmother's old pastry blender. Sam made the crust and then rolled it into a ball, lightly flouring it and wrapping it in plastic before placing it in the refrigerator. Then she started in on the filling, mixing the berries, sugar, flour, and fresh orange juice.

The starkness of winter can reveal colours we would otherwise miss. I once watched a fox cross a frosty field, her coat shining against the gloom. Walking in the bare winter woodland, I am surrounded by astonishing foxy reds: the deep burnish of bracken, it’s dry fronds twisted to lacework; the deep crimson leaves left on brambles; the last remaining berries on honeysuckle and orange clusters of rose hips. The iconic holly, it’s boughs so thoroughly raided each Christmas. There is the bright yellow of gorse on heathland, going on until spring comes, as well as stately evergreens and the tangle of green leaves that remain unnoticed on the ground. Life goes on abundantly in winter – changes made here will usher us into future glories.

All the recent marketing successes have been PR successes, not advertising successes. To name a few: Starbucks, The Body Shop, Amazon.com, Yahoo!, eBay, Palm, Google, Linus, PlayStation, Harry Potter, Botox, Red Bull, Microsoft, Intel, and BlackBerry. A closer look at the history of most major brands shows this to be true. As a matter of fact, an astonishing number of well-known brands have been built with virtually no advertising at all. Anita Roddick built The Body Shop into a worldwide brand without any advertising. Instead she traveled the world looking for ingredients for her natural cosmetics, a quest that resulted in endless publicity. Until recently Starbucks didn’t spend a hill of beans on advertising either. In its first ten years, the company spent less that $10 million (total) on advertising in the United States, a trivial amount for a brand that delivers annual sales of $1.3 billion today. Wal-Mart became the world’s largest retailer, ringing up sales approaching $200 billion, with little advertising. Sam’s Club, a Wal-Mart sibling, averages $56 million per store with almost no advertising. In the pharmaceutical field, Viagra, Prozac, and Vioxx became worldwide brands with almost no advertising. In the toy field, Beanie Babies, Tickle Me Elmo, and Pokémon became highly successful brands with almost no advertising. In the high-technology field, Oracle, Cisco, and SAP became multibillion-dollar companies (and multibillion-dollar brands) with almost no advertising.

Nova Berry looked like a hickory switch- tall, thin and knobby. She could trace her family line back hundreds of years in the Appalachian Mountains. These days people treated what she did as a novelty, but there was a time when the Berry women were known far and wider their natural remedies.Slippery elm for digestive problems. Red clover for skin conditions. Pot marigold for certain monthly female ailments. Nova had been forced to spice things up a bit now that there were things like Maalox and Midol on the market, so easily acquired. So she made it known that her cure for heartburn also mended a broken heart, and her cure for cramps also made you more fertile, or less, if that's what you wanted. Half the time it really worked, because if it was one thing generations of Berry women knew, it was that confidence was the primary ingredient in every potion.

Humans get hungry for blue, it seems: to hold the sea in their hands, to wear the sky in their hair, to drape themselves in the hazy blue of distant mountains. Blue is more than a colour: it is a feeling. We don’t say that we feel orange or purple, but we say we feel blue when our souls are sad and heavy. We play or sing or listen to the blues to express this sensation. Like any colour, it cannot be adequately described with words, only experienced, known through the eyes and the soul. Making blue has always been magic: the domain of alchemists since the beginning of human history. To find red only required blood or berries or the smearing of red clay. To make brown was as simple as reaching down to the earth beneath one’s feet. White chalk is plentiful in many places, or can be replaced by fire ash. But blue appears rarely in forms from which paints or dyes can be made…blue requires earthly magic.

There is no part of this country where one cannot find a source of fresh, organic meat and produce. I’m not talking about Whole Foods, I’m referring to farmers’ markets and local butchers and fishermen and -women. If you can’t find a source for fresh produce and eggs and/or chicken, bacon, and/or dairy products, by Christ, become the source! What more noble pursuit than supplying your community with breakfast foods?! If you want to read more about this notion, by actual smart and informed writers, pick up some Michael Pollan and some Wendell Berry. I have no intention of ever ceasing to enjoy red meat. However, I firmly believe that we can choose how and where our meat is raised, and I’m all for a grass-fed, happy steer finding its way to my grill long before a factory-farmed, filthy, corn-fed lab creation. It’s up to us to choose farm-to-table fare as much as possible until it becomes our society’s norm once again.

It’s not me telling you,” she said. “It’s neuroscience that would say that our capacity to multitask is virtually nonexistent. Multitasking is a computer-derived term. We have one processor. We can’t do it.” “I think that when I’m sitting at my desk feverishly doing seventeen things at once that I’m being clever and efficient, but you’re saying I’m actually wasting my time?” “Yes, because when you’re moving from this project to this project, your mind flits back to the original project, and it can’t pick it up where it left off. So it has to take a few steps back and then ramp up again, and that’s where the productivity loss is.” This problem was, of course, exacerbated in the age of what had been dubbed the “info-blitzkrieg,” where it took superhuman strength to ignore the siren call of the latest tweet, or the blinking red light on the BlackBerry. Scientists had even come up with a term for this condition: “continuous partial attention.” It was a syndrome with which I was intimately familiar, even after all my meditating.

The sun was going down. Every open evening, the hills of Derbyshire were blazed over with red sunset. Mrs. Morel watched the sun sink from the glistening sky, leaving a soft flower-blue overhead, while the western space went red, as if all the fire had swum down there, leaving the bell cast flawless blue. The mountain-ash berries across the field stood fierily out from the dark leaves, for a moment. A few shocks of corn in a corner of the fallow stood up as if alive; she imagined them bowing; perhaps her son would be a Joseph. In the east, a mirrored sunset floated pink opposite the west’s scarlet. The big haystacks on the hillside, that butted into the glare, went cold. With Mrs. Morel it was one of those still moments when the small frets vanish, and the beauty of things stands out, and she had the peace and the strength to see herself. Now and again, a swallow cut close to her. Now and again, Annie came up with a handful of alder-currants. The baby was restless on his mother's knee, clambering with his hands at the light.

Servers moved among the guests with trays of hors d'oeuvres and the signature cocktail, champagne with a honey infused liqueur and a delicate spiral twist of lemon. The banquet was bursting with color and flavor- flower-sprinkled salads, savory chili roasted salmon, honey glazed ribs, just-harvested sweet corn, lush tomatoes and berries, artisan cheeses. Everything had been harvested within a fifty-mile radius of Bella Vista. The cake was exactly what Tess had requested, a gorgeous tower of sweetness. Tess offered a gracious speech as she and Dominic cut the first slices. "I've come a long way from the city girl who subsisted on Red Bull and microwave burritos," she said. "There's quite a list of people to thank for that- my wonderful mother, my grandfather and my beautiful sister who created this place of celebration. Most of all, I'm grateful to Dominic." She turned to him, offering the first piece on a yellow china plate. "You're my heart, and there is no sweeter feeling than the love we share. Not even this cake. Wait, that might be overstating it. Everyone, be sure you taste this cake. It's one of Isabel's best recipes.

They climbed out of the pit to find a banquet awaiting them. A long table, four high-backed Untan-style chairs, a candelabra in the centre bearing four thick-stemmed beeswax candles, the golden light flickering down on silver plates heaped with Malazan delicacies. Oily santos fish from the shoals off Kartool, baked with butter and spices in clay; strips of marinated venison, smelling of almonds in the northern D'avorian style; grouse from the Seti plains stuffed with bull-berries and sage; baked gourds and fillets of snake from Dal Hon; assorted braised vegetables and four bottles of wine: a Malaz Island white from the Paran Estates, warmed rice wine from Itko Kan, a fullbodied red from Gris, and the orange-tinted belack wine from the Napan Isles. Kalam stood staring at the bounteous apparition, as Stormy, with a grunt, walked over, boots puffing in the dust, and sat down in one of the chairs, reaching for the Grisian red. 'Well,' Quick Ben said, dusting himself off, 'this is nice. Who's the fourth chair for, you think?' Kalam looked up at the looming bulk of the sky keep. 'I'd rather not think about that.' Snorting sounds from Stormy as he launched into the venison strips.

I don't have the damned time for a tumble. And if I did---" He stopped abruptly. All semblance of the elegant viscount Evie had once watched from afar in Lord Westcliff's drawing room had vanished. He was rumpled and bruised and furious. And he wasn't breathing at all well. "If I did--" He broke off again, a flush crossing the crests of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Evie saw the exact moment when his self-restraint snapped. Alarm jolted through her, and she lurched toward the closed door. Before she had even made a step, she found herself seized and pinned against the wall by his body and hands. The smell of sweat-dampened linen and healthy, aroused male filled her nostrils. Once he had caught her, Sebastian pressed his parted lips against the thin skin of her temple. His breath snagged. Another moment of stillness. Evie felt the electrifying touch of his tongue at the very tip of her eyebrow. He breathed against the tiny wet spot, a waft of hellfire that sent chills through her entire body. Slowly he brought his mouth to her ear, and traced the intricate inner edges. His whisper seemed to come from the darkest recesses of her own mind. "If I did, Evie... then by now I would have shredded your clothes with my hands and teeth until you were naked. By now I would have pushed you down to the carpet, and put my hands beneath your breasts and lifted them up to my mouth. I would be kissing them... licking them... until the tips were like hard little berries, and then I would bite them so gently..." Evie felt herself drift into a slow half swoon as he continued in a ragged murmur. "... I would kiss my way down to your thighs... inch by inch... and when I reached those sweet red curls, I would lick through them, deeper and deeper, until I found the little pearl of your clitoris... and I would rest my tongue on it until I felt it throb. I would circle it, and stroke it... I'd lick until you started to beg. And then I would suck you. But not hard. I wouldn't be that kind. I would do it so lightly, so tenderly, that you would start screaming with the need to come... I would put my tongue inside you... taste you... eat you. I wouldn't stop until your entire body was wet and shaking. And when I had tortured you enough, I would open your legs and come inside you, and take you... take you..." Sebastian stopped, anchoring her against the wall while they both remained frozen, aroused, panting. At length, he spoke in a nearly inaudible voice. "You're wet, aren't you?

So Beaujolais is like this hybrid---a red that drinks like a white, we even put a chill on it. Maybe that's why it has trouble, it doesn't quite fit. No one takes Gamay seriously---too light, too simple, lacks structure. But..." I swirled the glass and it was so... optimistic. "I like to think it's pure. Fleurie sound like flowers doesn't it?" "Girls love flowers," she said judiciously. "They do." I put her wine down, then moved it two inches closer to her, where I knew the field of her focus began. "None of that means anything. It just speaks to me. I feel invited to enjoy it. I get roses." "Child, what is wrong with you? There's no roses in the damn wine. Wine is wine and it makes you loose and helps you dance. That's it. The way you kids talk, like everything is life or death." "It's not?" "You ain't even learned about living yet!" I thought about buying wine. About how I would scan the different Beaujolais crus at the liquor store---the Morgan, the Côte de Brouilly, the Fleurie would be telling me a story. I would see different flowers when I looked at the labels. I thought about the wild strawberries dropped off from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm just that afternoon and how the cooks laid out paper towels and sheet trays in the kitchen, none of them touching, as if they would disintegrate, their fragrance euphoric.

The store smells of roasted chicken and freshly ground coffee, raw meat and ripening stone fruit, the lemon detergent they use to scrub the old sheet-linoleum floors. I inhale and feel the smile form on my face. It's been so long since I've been inside any market other than Fred Meyer, which smells of plastic and the thousands of people who pass through every day. By instinct, I head for the produce section. There, the close quarters of slim Ichiban eggplant, baby bok choy, brilliant red chard, chartreuse-and-purple asparagus, sends me into paroxysms of delight. I'm glad the store is nearly empty; I'm oohing and aahing with produce lust at the colors, the smooth, shiny textures set against frilly leaves. I fondle the palm-size plums, the soft fuzz of the peaches. And the berries! It's berry season, and seven varieties spill from green cardboard containers: the ubiquitous Oregon marionberry, red raspberry, and blackberry, of course, but next to them are blueberries, loganberries, and gorgeous golden raspberries. I pluck one from a container, fat and slightly past firm, and pop it into my mouth. The sweet explosion of flavor so familiar, but like something too long forgotten. I load two pints into my basket. The asparagus has me intrigued. Maybe I could roast it with olive oil and fresh herbs, like the sprigs of rosemary and oregano poking out of the salad display, and some good sea salt. And salad. Baby greens tossed with lemon-infused olive oil and a sprinkle of vinegar. Why haven't I eaten a salad in so long? I'll choose a soft, mild French cheese from the deli case, have it for an hors d'oeuvre with a beautiful glass of sparkling Prosecco, say, then roast a tiny chunk of spring lamb that I'm sure the nice sister will cut for me, and complement it with a crusty baguette and roasted asparagus, followed by the salad. Followed by more cheese and berries for dessert. And a fruity Willamette Valley Pinot Noir to wash it all down. My idea of eating heaven, a French-influenced feast that reminds me of the way I always thought my life would be.

He cannot will his entry into and exit from the activity on a daily basis. There is not, as there is for most workers, a brief interval of exemption at the end of the day when he is permitted to enact a wholly different set of gestures; the timing of his eventual exit will by determined not by his own will but by the end of the war, whether that comes in days, months, or years, and there is of course a very high probability that even when the war ends he will never exit from it. Although in all forms of work the worker mixes himself with and eventually becomes inseparable from the materials of his labor (an inseparability that has only its most immediate sign the residues which coat his body, the coal beneath the skin of his arm, the spray of grain in his hair, the ink on his fingers), the boy in war is, to an extent, found in almost no other form of work, inextricably bound up with the men and materials of his labor: he will learn to perceive himself as he will be perceived by others, as indistinguishable from the men of his unit, regiment, division, and above all national group (all of whom will share the same name: he is German) as he is also inextricably bound up with the qualities and conditions – berry laden or snow laden - of the ground over which he walks or runs or crawls and with which he craves and courts identification, as in the camouflage postures he adopts, now running bent over parallel with the ground it is his work to mime, now arching forward conforming the curve of his back to the curve of a companion boulder, now standing as upright and still and narrow as the slender tree behind which he hides; he is the elms and the mud, he is the one hundred and sixth, he is a small piece of German terrain broken off and floating dangerously through the woods of France. He is a fragment of American earth wedged into an open hillside in Korea and reworked by its unbearable sun and rain. He is dark blue like the sea. He is light grey like the air through which he flies. He is sodden in the green shadows of earth. He is a light brown vessel of red Australian blood that will soon be opened and emptied across the rocks and ridges of Gallipoli from which he can never again become distinguishable.

St. Louis Blues (1929) I hate to see de evenin' sun go down, Hate to see de evenin' sun go down 'Cause ma baby, he done lef' dis town. Feelin' tomorrow like I feel today, Feel tomorrow like I feel today, I'll pack my trunk, make ma git away. Saint Louis woman wid her diamon' rings Pulls dat man 'roun' by her apron strings. 'Twant for powder an' for store-bought hair, De man ah love would not gone nowhere, nowhere. Got de Saint Louis Blues jes as blue as ah can be. That man got a heart lak a rock cast in the sea. Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me. Doggone it! I loves day man lak a schoolboy loves his pie, Lak a Kentucky Col'nel loves his mint an' rye. I'll love ma baby till the day ah die. Been to de gypsy to get ma fortune tole, To de gypsy, done got ma fortune tole, Cause I'm most wile 'bout ma Jelly Roll. Gypsy done tole me, "Don't you wear no black." Yes, she done told me, "Don't you wear no black. Go to Saint Louis, you can win him back." Help me to Cairo, make Saint Louis by maself, Git to Cairo, find ma old friend Jeff, Gwine to pin maself close to his side; If ah flag his train, I sho' can ride. Got de Saint Louis Blues jes as blue as ah can be. That man got a heart lak a rock cast in the sea. Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me. Doggone it! I loves day man lak a schoolboy loves his pie, Lak a Kentucky Colonel loves his mint an' rye. I'll love ma baby till the day I die. You ought to see dat stovepipe brown of mine, Lak he owns de Dimon' Joseph line, He'd make a cross-eyed o'man go stone blin'. Blacker than midnight, teeth lak flags of truce, Blackest man in de whole of Saint Louis, Blacker de berry, sweeter am de juice. About a crap game, he knows a pow'ful lot, But when worktime comes, he's on de dot. Gwine to ask him for a cold ten-spot, What it takes to git it, he's cert'nly got. Got de Saint Louis Blues jes as blue as ah can be. Dat man got a heart lak a rock cast in the sea. Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me. Doggone it! I loves day man lak a schoolboy loves his pie, Lak a Kentucky Col'nel loves his mint an' rye. I'll love ma baby till the day ah die. A black-headed gal makes a freight train jump the track, said a black-headed Gal makes a freight train jump the track, But a long tall gal makes a preacher ball the jack. Lawd, a blonde-headed woman makes a good man leave the town, I said Blonde-headed woman makes a good man leave the town, But a red-headed woman makes a boy slap his papa down. Oh, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, I said ashes to ashes and dust to dust, If my blues don't get you, my jazzing must.

He ran long at the White House, and arrived late to his next meeting with Hillary Clinton, Jake Sullivan and Frank Ruggiero—their first major strategy session on Taliban talks after the secret meeting with A-Rod. She was waiting in her outer office, a spacious room paneled in white and gilt wood, with tasseled blue and pink curtains and an array of colorfully upholstered chairs and couches. In my time reporting to her later, I only ever saw Clinton take the couch, with guests of honor in the large chair kitty-corner to her. She’d left it open for him that day. “He came rushing in. . . . ” Clinton later said. “And, you know, he was saying ‘oh I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’ ” He sat down heavily and shrugged off his coat, rattling off a litany of his latest meetings, including his stop-in at the White House. “That was typical Richard. It was, like, ‘I’m doing a million things and I’m trying to keep all the balls in the air,’ ” she remembered. As he was talking, a “scarlet red” flush went up his face, according to Clinton. He pressed his hands over his eyes, his chest heaving. “Richard, what’s the matter?” Clinton asked. “Something horrible is happening,” he said. A few minutes later, Holbrooke was in an ambulance, strapped to a gurney, headed to nearby George Washington University Hospital, where Clinton had told her own internist to prepare the emergency room. In his typically brash style, he’d demanded that the ambulance take him to the more distant Sibley Memorial Hospital. Clinton overruled him. One of our deputies on the SRAP team, Dan Feldman, rode with him and held his hand. Feldman didn’t have his BlackBerry, so he scrawled notes on a State Department expense form for a dinner at Meiwah Restaurant as Holbrooke dictated messages and a doctor assessed him. The notes are a nonlinear stream of Holbrooke’s indomitable personality, slashed through with medical realities. “Call Eric in Axelrod’s office,” the first read. Nearby: “aortic dissection—type A . . . operation risk @ > 50 percent”—that would be chance of death. A series of messages for people in his life, again interrupted by his deteriorating condition: “S”—Secretary Clinton—“why always together for medical crises?” (The year before, he’d been with Clinton when she fell to the concrete floor of the State Department garage, fracturing her elbow.) “Kids—how much love them + stepkids” . . . “best staff ever” . . . “don’t let him die here” . . . “vascular surgery” . . . “no flow, no feeling legs” . . . “clot” . . . and then, again: “don’t let him die here want to die at home w/ his fam.” The seriousness of the situation fully dawning on him, Holbrooke turned to job succession: “Tell Frank”—Ruggiero—“he’s acting.” And finally: “I love so many people . . . I have a lot left to do . . . my career in public service is over.” Holbrooke cracked wise until they put him under for surgery. “Get me anything you need,” he demanded. “A pig’s heart. Dan’s heart.

When you're camping, it’s important to be aware of what insects can harm you, what plants and berries to avoid and what paths to stay on. If you do your homework and use good judgment, you can have a great time. The same common sense applies to visiting large cities. It's good to do your homework before leaving. Be knowledgeable about what's the best time to be where, where not to go alone and what areas to avoid. In some places, what colors to wear could be an issue. If you are hanging out in an area where the turf color is red and the rival color is black, then the smart move is obviously not to wear black. The loco locals won’t know that you are ignorant to what is an acceptable or rival color. They will just see you as trouble for them, which will mean trouble for you.

Shopping for the essentials of the Eat Clean diet can be tricky. For some people, just the thought of replacing all their “unclean” food scares them. This overwhelming reaction is normal and is typical among those who are still on the adjustment phase of the program. If you find yourself in this stage, you don’t have to fret. Here are some tips to help you get at ease with the process: Take Your Time You don’t have to rush. Take your time in examining each item in your pantry. Bear in mind that it is not necessary to eliminate all the bad foods. You can just eliminate the worst items first, and then gradually get rid of the others in the next few days or weeks. Once you have already discarded some of the worst food items, you may start making your grocery list. Prepare Your Grocery List Preparing your grocery list is the start of this Clean Eating journey. Allow yourself to make necessary adjustments, especially if you personally feel that it is a major transition and you want to tackle it step by step. It’s okay to miss an item or two. The important thing here is to stick to the basic principle of the program. Below are some of the essential items that you should consider when going shopping for this Eat Clean diet: Grains and Protein ·Brown rice ·Millet ·Black beans ·Pinto beans ·Lentils ·Chickpeas ·Raw almonds ·Raw cashews ·Sunflower seeds ·Walnuts ·Almond butter ·Cannellini beans ·Flax seed Vegetables/Herbs ·Kale ·Lettuces ·Onions ·Garlic ·Cilantro ·Parsley ·Tomatoes ·Broccoli ·Potatoes ·Fennel Condiments/Flavoring ·Extra virgin olive oil ·Coconut oil ·Sesame oil ·Black pepper ·Pink Himalayan salt ·Hot sauce ·Turmeric ·Cayenne ·Gomasio ·Cinnamon ·Red pepper flakes ·Maple syrup ·Tamari ·Stevia ·Dijon mustard ·Apple cider vinegar ·Red wine vinegar Fruits ·Lemons ·Avocado ·Apples ·Bananas ·Melon ·Grapes ·Berries Snacks ·Raw chocolate ·Coconut ice cream ·Tortilla chips ·Popcorn ·Pretzels ·Dairy-free cheese shreds ·Frozen fruits for smoothies ·Bagged frozen veggies ·Organic canned soups Beverages ·Coconut water ·Herbal teas ·Almond or hemp milk Pick the Fresh Ones You will know if the fruit or vegetable is fresh through its appearance and texture.

The saucy Miss Tottenham slipped the strawberry into her delectable mouth, all the while looking at Cyrus. His thigh muscles tensed inside the velvet prison of his breeches. Hot pleasure shot through his body at the sight of the red berry slipping through her lips. Adding to his misery, a spurt of juice from the tender morsel painted her bottom lip red. He nearly groaned. Tradition named the apple as the fruit of man's downfall, but tonight he'd argue mightily for the dangers of a ripe strawberry on a certain woman's lips.

I knew the Tam were already a success by the greeting I got. The women in their canoes in the middle of the lake called out loud hellos that I heard over my engine, and a few men and children came down to the beach and gave me big floppy Tam waves. A noticeable shift from the chary welcome we’d received six weeks earlier. I cut the engine and several men came and pulled the boat to shore, and without my having to say a word two swaybacked young lads with something that looked like red berries woven in their curled hair led me up a path and down a road, past a spirit house with an enormous carved face over the entryway—a lean and angry fellow with three thick bones through his nose and a wide open mouth with many sharp teeth and a snake’s head for a tongue. It was much more skilled than the Kiona’s rudimentary depictions, the lines cleaner, the colors—red, black, green, and white—far more vivid and glossy, as if the paint were still wet. We passed several of these ceremonial houses and from the doorways men called down to my guides and they called back. They took me in one direction then, as if I wouldn’t notice, turned me around and doubled back down the same road past the same houses, the lake once again in full view. Just when I thought their only plan was to parade me round town all day, they turned a corner and stopped before a large house, freshly built, with a sort of portico in front and blue-and-white cloth curtains hanging in the windows and doorway. I laughed out loud at this English tea shop encircled by pampas grass in the middle of the Territories. A few pigs were digging around the base of the ladder. From below I heard footsteps creaking the new floor. The cloth at the windows and doors puffed in and out from the movement within. ‘Hallo the house!’ I’d heard this in an American frontier film once. I waited for someone to emerge but no one did, so I climbed up and stood on the narrow porch and knocked on one of the posts. The sound was absorbed by the voices inside, quiet, nearly whispery, but insistent, like the drone of a circling aeroplane. I stepped closer and pulled the curtain aside a few inches. I was struck first by the heat, then the smell. There were at least thirty Tam in the front room, on the floor or perched oddly on chairs, in little groups or even alone, everyone with a project in front of them. Many were children and adolescents, but

The crops, however, I examine closely, to see what each bird has been feeding upon. Clover. Kinnickkinnick. Snowberries. Wheat. Barley. Crickets. Grasshoppers. Fir needles. Huckleberries. Rose hips. The crops filled with snowberries are breathtaking, looking like a clump of pearls, and nearly as rare; it’s always a thrill to open a crop and see nothing but beautiful white berries. Usually in these woods, though, in the autumn, the crops are bulging with bright red kinnickkinnick berries, and the bright green leaves from the same bush. Tom and Nancy save the crop from each bird they kill and set it on the windowsill to dry translucent in the sunlight—a globe, a ball, filled with Christmas colors, perfect red and green; and then in December they hang these as ornaments on their tree. For

I nod, trying not to look too hard at the food on his dish. The flakiness of the sugared crust, which reminds me of crystals on an edge of snow. The red-stained berries smeared across the plate, ripe and surely ful of taste. The words I’ve said cling to my mind like the pastry does to the heavy silver fork.

You Never Can Tell" It was a teenage wedding, and the old folks wished them well You could see that Pierre did truly love the mademoiselle And now the young monsieur and madame have rung the chapel bell, "C'est la vie", say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell They furnished off an apartment with a two room Roebuck sale The coolerator was crammed with TV dinners and ginger ale, But when Pierre found work, the little money comin' worked out well "C'est la vie", say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell They had a hi-fi phono, boy, did they let it blast Seven hundred little records, all rock, rhythm and jazz But when the sun went down, the rapid tempo of the music fell "C'est la vie", say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell They bought a souped-up jitney, 'twas a cherry red '53, They drove it down New Orleans to celebrate their anniversary It was there that Pierre was married to the lovely mademoiselle "C'est la vie", say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell

WILD GAME MARINADE WITH JUNIPER AND GIN The year was 1976; the place, the La Varenne cooking school in Paris. A nice Jewish guy from Baltimore (yours truly) was about to have his first taste of wild game. Our instructor, Chef Fernand Chambrette, had secured a haunch of wild boar, and he prepared a traditional marinade of red wine and juniper berries to heighten its gamy flavor. A shot of gin reinforced the woodsy flavor of the juniper. If I’d known game could be this good, I would have tried it a lot sooner. You’ll be amazed by the power of this simple marinade to turn tame supermarket pork, beef, and even lamb into “wild” game. 3 cups dry red wine ½ cup balsamic vinegar ½ cup extra virgin olive oil 2 tablespoons gin 1 medium onion, thinly sliced 1 carrot, thinly sliced 1 rib celery, thinly sliced 2 cloves garlic, flattened with the side of a cleaver

Red meat and processed meats contain more saturated fat and trans fat than other animal products, and are the poorest food choices. However, the fat issue does not tell the whole story. Scientific studies have documented that red meat has a much more pronounced association with colon cancer and pancreatic cancer compared with other animal products.51 The consumption of red meat and processed meats on a regular basis more than doubles the risk of some cancers. Even ingesting a small amount of red meat, such as two to three ounces a day, has been shown to significantly increase the risk of cancer.52 Toxic nitrogenous compounds (called N-nitroso compounds) occur in larger concentrations in red meat and processed meats. Red meat also has high haem (also spelled heme) content. Haem is an iron-carrying protein, and it has been shown to have destructive effects on the cells lining our digestive tract.53 Processed meat, luncheon meat, barbecued meat, and red meat must not be a regular part of your diet if you are looking to maintain excellent health into your later years of life. Eating too many animal products and not enough vegetables increases one’s risk of cancer. To achieve optimal health, humans require a high exposure to a full symphony of phytochemicals found in unprocessed plant matter. Eating more animal products results in a smaller percentage of calories consumed from high phytochemical vegetation such as seeds, berries, vegetables and beans. Also, since animal products contain no fiber, they remain in the digestive tract longer, slowing digestive transit time and allowing heightened exposure to toxic compounds.

red rose petals for poultices, and thyme and acorns to be powdered and mixed with fat and spread on neck pustules. Others required hard work, like the digging of yew root that would help a pregnant woman to hold back her fetus. They collected lemon grass and dill for urinary problems, marshy sweet flag to fight deterioration of memory because of moist and cold humors, juniper berries to be boiled for opening blocked nasal passages, lupine for hot packs to draw abscesses, and myrtle and mallow to soothe itchy rashes.

In the fleeting light she saw the meadow, dotted with stunted hawthorns, their twisted limbs dense with red berries, and then a shape: achingly familiar, child-sized, shockingly still.

The lines began to sing, a shrill, electric song, and then the cacophony of the train roared out of the darkness. The carriages were almost empty and painfully bright as they hurtled along the tracks to the heart of the city. In the fleeting light she saw the meadow, dotted with stunted hawthorns, their twisted limbs dense with red berries, and then a shape: achingly familiar, child-sized, shockingly still.

The robin in your tender heart Hungers for the red berry That titillates your tongue. She carols as the snow falls— And not with the chorus of the dawn In radiant spring. What might have been? Your voice silenced, The spirit of you Destroyed, I see glimpses of your fire From the light that has vanished From your eyes. Your wings soar, Only not to follow Your heart. Whatever the passion, Let it burn. It will save you.

The hedge beside him was full of orange hips where the wild roses had been, and darker red clusters of berries from the hawthorns, which had been covered with white blossoms, like snowdrifts in the spring. The perfume was almost too heavy. He

In the Manglemunching Forest there's a Nickle Nackle tree, Growing Nickle Nackle berries that are red as red can be.

Trees were erected by German immigrants in Texas in the 1840s, and by the 1850s they had become naturalized and were decorated with local produce: moss, cotton, pecans, red pepper swags and, an American innovation, the popcorn string, as well as Old World red berries, biscuits and sweets.