Turbulent Waters Quotes

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Intense and passionate love can be very demanding or exhausting, for it depends on vulnerability, empathy, and emotional investment to navigate the turbulent waters with awareness. (Another empty room)
Erik Pevernagie
The boardroom is not merely a conference room; it's the bridge of a corporate vessel, guiding the company through the turbulent waters of the business world.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Board Room Blitz: Mastering the Art of Corporate Governance)
Are you saying these Christians believe we will never be good enough to marry their daughters because of our race?
Leslie K. Simmons (Red Clay, Running Waters)
Smooth seas don't produce skillful sailors.' It's the rought waters that train us to e His disciples. He uses the turbulent times I our lives to prepare us for His purposes-if we'll let Him.
Lynn Austin
A song of despair The memory of you emerges from the night around me. The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. Deserted like the dwarves at dawn. It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one! Cold flower heads are raining over my heart. Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked. In you the wars and the flights accumulated. From you the wings of the song birds rose. You swallowed everything, like distance. Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank! It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss. The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse. Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver, turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank! In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded. Lost discoverer, in you everything sank! You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire, sadness stunned you, in you everything sank! I made the wall of shadow draw back, beyond desire and act, I walked on. Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost, I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you. Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness. and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar. There was the black solitude of the islands, and there, woman of love, your arms took me in. There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle. Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms! How terrible and brief my desire was to you! How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid. Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs, still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds. Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies. Oh the mad coupling of hope and force in which we merged and despaired. And the tenderness, light as water and as flour. And the word scarcely begun on the lips. This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing, and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank! Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you, what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned! From billow to billow you still called and sang. Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel. You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents. Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well. Pale blind diver, luckless slinger, lost discoverer, in you everything sank! It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour which the night fastens to all the timetables. The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore. Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate. Deserted like the wharves at dawn. Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands. Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything. It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!
Pablo Neruda
Stakeholder trust enhances a company's resilience in the face of challenges. When faced with crises or setbacks, companies with high levels of stakeholder trust are better equipped to navigate these turbulent waters.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (The Virtuous Boardroom: How Ethical Corporate Governance Can Cultivate Company Success)
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you. (Isa. 43:2)
Max Lucado (You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Your Turbulent Times)
Music burst through him, perfect notes he hear rarely. Fire and ice, wind and calm, sky and earth, water and rock all fused together. Joley seemed as wild and turbulent s the sea, yet beneath her fiery passion, at the very core of her, she was as forceful and strong and as constant as the deepest ocean currents. Ilya seemed as calm as a windless sea, yet beneath the surface smoldered a volcano of such explosive magnitude, his power could easily sweep everything from his path. Together they completed each other, his melody and hers merging together into a single, perfect harmony.
Christine Feehan (Turbulent Sea (Drake Sisters, #6))
I am cool with people. I am not the one at the top of the water tower with the rifle at all. I am cool when they are cool. I am not a people person. I live alone and don't visit much with people. I do answer all the mail and meet anyone after the show though. I have no problem with this. These people took the time out to check me out, there's no way I am blowing that off or in any way disrespecting that. The Black Flag years were turbulent and it took a lot of work to be cool with people after that. I have never been one to go to clubs or events unless I am performing or on business. It's just not me.
Henry Rollins
I came to Oxford looking for a Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience. I chose to experience a lifetime. I know that one day he will lose to the waterfall, slip behind its turbulent curtain forever, lost to me like something out of a fairy tale. But in our story, there's no villain, no witch, no fairy godmother, no moral imperative or cautionary conclusion. No happily-ever-after. It just is. It's life. The water keeps flowing as we come and go. We were never forever, Jamie and I. Nothing is in this life. But if you love someone and are loved by someone, you might find forever after. Whatever and wherever it is.
Julia Whelan (My Oxford Year)
There is no concept of justice in Cree culture. The nearest word is kintohpatatin, which loosely translates to "you've been listened to." But kintohpatatin is richer than justice - really it means you've been listened to by someone compassionate and fair, and your needs will be taken seriously.
Edmund Metatawabin (Up Ghost River: A Chief's Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History)
Houses nearby were burning, and when huge drops of water the size of marbles began to fall, he half thought that they must be coming from the hoses of firemen fighting the blazes. (They were actually drops of condensed moisture falling from the turbulent tower of dust, heat, and fission fragments that had already risen miles into the sky above Hiroshima.)
John Hersey (Hiroshima)
Grief is like the ocean. The waves ebb and flow. Sometimes the water is calm. Other times it's turbulent. In order to survive, I had to learn to swim. In moments when I struggled with massive waves of grief, I rode it out.
Dana Arcuri (Sacred Wandering: Growing Your Faith In The Dark)
Skip had loved that lighthouse—and all it symbolized. Light in the darkness. Guidance through turbulent waters. Salvation for the floundering. Hope for lost souls.
Irene Hannon (Pelican Point (Hope Harbor, #4))
Investors long for steady waters, but paradoxically, the opportunities are richest when markets turn turbulent.
Roger Lowenstein (When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management)
From time to time Eva would venture on deck to gaze at the grey sky,the grey turbulent water and the grey ships with their belching smoke stacks butting and smashing onward through the waves and jagged swells - disappearing in explosions of wintry spume from time to time - gamely making for the British Isles
William Boyd
Some days it was bearable; some days it burned. Grief was like the great Southern Ocean; it moved in ebbs and flows, often turbulent and rough, or peaceful and settled, and even over time when I could navigate the waters, the tide never stopped.
N.R. Walker (Galaxies and Oceans)
One of a mother’s greatest gifts is to teach her child that to grow is not to timidly sit on some safe shore at water’s edge and clumsily grab whatever happens to float by. Rather, it is to deliberately step into waters both calm and turbulent in order to wrestle great things to shore. And that lesson can be best taught by a mother who stands before her child dripping wet.
Craig D. Lounsbrough (Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone: Simple Truths for Profound Living)
Just like the sea, she was turbulent and wild, angry and loving. She felt every sensation, but it was only here, with water around her, that she dared let herself feel so strongly, so passionately.
Christine Feehan (Water Bound (Sea Haven/Sisters of the Heart, #1))
The metaphor, though obvious, is too good to resist: Franklin, by nature, liked to find ingenious ways to calm turbulent waters. But during his time as a diplomat in England, this instinct would fail him.
Walter Isaacson (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)
I know that one day he will lose to the waterfall, slip behind its turbulent curtain forever, lost to me like something out of a fairy tale. But in our story, there's no villain, no witch, no fairy godmother, no moral imperative or cautionary conclusion. No happily-ever-after. It just is. It's life. The water keeps flowing as we come and go. We were never forever, Jamie and I. Nothing is in this life. But if you love someone, and are loved by someone, you might find forever after. Whatever and wherever that is.
Julia Whelan (My Oxford Year)
Everyone and everything needed to be raised to its highest level – the teacher must become a mage, the husband a knight errant, the labor a hero in a sacred drama – intensified, rarefied, baptized in the turbulent waters of restlessness, curiosity, and ardor.
Philip Zaleski (The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams)
Justin: I am falling so in love with you. Her body electrified. Celeste wiped her eyes and read his text again. The drone of the plane disappeared; the turbulence was no more. There was only Justin and his words. Justin: I lose myself and find myself at the same time with you. Justin: I need you, Celeste. I need you as part of my world, because for the first time, I am connected to someone in a way that has meaning. And truth. Maybe our distance has strengthened what I feel between us since we’re not grounded in habit or daily convenience. We have to fight for what we have. Justin: I don’t know if I can equate what I feel for you with anything else. Except maybe one thing, if this makes any sense. Justin: I go to this spot at Sunset Cliffs sometimes. It’s usually a place crowded with tourists, but certain times of year are quieter. I like it then. And there’s a high spot on the sandstone cliff, surrounded by this gorgeous ice plant, and it overlooks the most beautiful water view you’ve ever seen. I’m on top of the world there, it seems. Justin: And everything fits, you know? Life feels right. As though I could take on anything, do anything. And sometimes, when I’m feeling overcome with gratitude for the view and for what I have, I jump so that I remember to continue to be courageous because not every piece of life will feel so in place. Justin: It’s a twenty-foot drop, the water is only in the high fifties, and it’s a damn scary experience. But it’s a wonderful fear. One that I know I can get through and one that I want. Justin: That’s what it’s like with you. I am scared because you are so beyond anything I could have imagined. I become so much more with you beside me. That’s terrifying, by the way. But I will be brave because my fear only comes from finally having something deeply powerful to lose. That’s my connection with you. It would be a massive loss. Justin: And now I am in the car and about to see you, so don’t reply. I’m too flipping terrified to hear what you think of my rant. It’s hard not to pour my heart out once I start. If you think I’m out of mind, just wave your hands in horror when you spot the lovesick guy at the airport. Ten minutes went by. He had said not to reply, so she hadn’t. Justin: Let’s hope I don’t get pulled over for speeding… but I’m at a stoplight now. Justin: God, I hope you aren’t… aren’t… something bad. Celeste: Hey, Justin? Justin: I TOLD YOU NOT TO REPLY! Justin: I know, I know. But I’m happy you did because I lost it there for a minute. Celeste: HEY, JUSTIN? Justin: Sorry… Hey, Celeste? Celeste: I am, unequivocally and wholly falling in love with you, too. Justin: Now I’m definitely speeding. I will see you soon.
Jessica Park (Flat-Out Celeste (Flat-Out Love, #2))
I think about that story a lot now. People in a boat, waiting, terrified, while implacable, unsmiling men, irresistibly strong, seize …. Maybe the person next to you, maybe you, and with no warning at all, with time only for a quick intake of air you are pitched into freezing, turbulent water and salt and darkness to drown.
Tony Kushner (Millennium Approaches (Angels in America, #1))
Why not? Why can’t we have fun and embrace life? Why is it so important to change into a new person just because the number of candles on your birthday cake has increased each year?
Melody Anne (Turbulent Waters (Billionaire Aviators, #3))
All right,” Malcolm said. “Let’s go back to the beginning.” He paused, staring at the ceiling. “Physics has had great success at describing certain kinds of behavior: planets in orbit, spacecraft going to the moon, pendulums and springs and rolling balls, that sort of thing. The regular movement of objects. These are described by what are called linear equations, and mathematicians can solve those equations easily. We’ve been doing it for hundreds of years.” “Okay,” Gennaro said. “But there is another kind of behavior, which physics handles badly. For example, anything to do with turbulence. Water coming out of a spout. Air moving over an airplane wing. Weather. Blood flowing through the heart. Turbulent events are described by nonlinear equations. They’re hard to solve—in fact, they’re usually impossible to solve. So physics has never understood this whole class of events. Until about ten years ago. The new theory that describes them is called chaos theory.
Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park, #1))
She sang. Wordless hymns of the sea: immediate, extemporized passages about waves and sunlight and tides and the constant, beautiful pressure of water on everything. The glory of seaweed slowly swaying, the delicious feeling that foretold a storm in the Dry World and turbulence below. The music came out of her without pause, driven by years of observing, seeing, listening, enjoying, experiencing the world and unable to express it. The wonder and sadness of being alive. The joy of being a mermaid; the pain of being the only one like herself- the only mermaid who had been mortal, temporarily, and then lost everything.
Liz Braswell (Part of Your World)
Life often goes along in a stream. The details float by like a leaf on a river. The current is pushing and pulling the leaf, but we do not see it because we are standing on the banks of the river. There are moments when the leaf is caught up in little eddies. Events pile up. They gather like twigs--like flotsam and jetsam--caught up in the stream of life. Time blocks and unblocks in little bursts at such places. Information pours through like water. The details crystallize. Various pressures and turbulences in the river, pouring into the sea of life, push and pull, but we do not see it. We do not see the leaf or the pushing and pulling.
Michael Bunker (The WICK Omnibus Edition)
Inhale, exhale. When the heaviness finally came it felt so nice—like the lead X-ray smock they drape over you at the dentist. I forgot all about the Red Flower candle burning on the dresser. Black waves were crashing on my bed. I slipped beneath the turbulent surface of the water. It felt so good that I wanted to sink forever. Mmm. My eyes rolled back, my body relaxed, and I passed out to the Britney Spears Blackout album always looping in my head.
Cat Marnell (How to Murder Your Life)
The last glow of sundown dims away. Stars appear in the east. Night encloses us. The ocean seems to enlarge. When you’re adrift at night, imagination and perception merge. They have to. You can’t see as well, as far, as deep. You tie knots by muscle memory, and you operate your reel mostly by feel. Your boat drifts, your thoughts drift. You sense the sweep of tide and water, and the boat gets rocked in turbulence just past each undersea ridgeline and boulder field. You, too, are looking up, searching constellations, dreaming. You fell again how flexible and expansive your mind can be when it’s working right. And you slip your leash to explore the vast vault of sky and great interior spaces.
Carl Safina (The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World)
When I was shipwrecked recently, for instance, I had the fortune to wash aboard a barge where I enjoyed a late supper of roast leg of lamb with creamed polenta and fricassee of baby artichokes, followed by some aged Gouda served with roasted figs, and finished up with some fresh strawberries dipped in milk chocolate and crushed honeycomb, and I found this to be a wonderful antidote to being tossed like a rag doll in the turbulent waters of a particularly stormy creek.
Lemony Snicket (The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #13))
We heard of this woman who was out of control. We heard that she was led by her feelings. That her emotions were violent. That she was impetuous. That she violated tradition and overrode convention. That certainly her life should not be an example to us. (The life of the plankton, she read in this book on the life of the earth, depends on the turbulence of the sea) We were told that she moved too hastily. Placed her life in the stream of ideas just born. For instance, had a child out of wedlock, we were told. For instance, refused to be married. For instance, walked the streets alone, where ladies never did, and we should have little regard for her, even despite the brilliance of her words. (She read that the plankton are slightly denser than water) For she had no respect for boundaries, we were told. And when her father threatened her mother, she placed her body between them. (That because of this greater heaviness, the plankton sink into deeper waters) And she went where she should not have gone, even into her sister's marriage. And because she imagined her sister to be suffering what her mother had suffered, she removed her sister from that marriage. (And that these deeper waters provide new sources of nourishment) That she moved from passion. From unconscious feeling, allowing deep and troubled emotions to control her soul. (But if the plankton sinks deeper, as it would in calm waters, she read) But we say that to her passion, she brought lucidity (it sinks out of the light, and it is only the turbulence of the sea, she read) and to her vision, she gave the substance of her life (which throws the plankton back to the light). For the way her words illuminated her life we say we have great regard. We say we have listened to her voice asking, "of what materials can that heart be composed which can melt when insulted and instead of revolting at injustice, kiss the rod?" (And she understood that without light, the plankton cannot live and from the pages of this book she also read that the animal life of the oceans, and hence our life, depends on the plankton and thus the turbulence of the sea for survival.) By her words we are brought to our own lives, and are overwhelmed by our feelings which we had held beneath the surface for so long. And from what is dark and deep within us, we say, tyranny revolts us; we will not kiss the rod.
Susan Griffin (Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her)
The Chorus Line: The Birth of Telemachus, An Idyll Nine months he sailed the wine-red seas of his mother's blood Out of the cave of dreaded Night, of sleep, Of troubling dreams he sailed In his frail dark boat, the boat of himself, Through the dangerous ocean of his vast mother he sailed From the distant cave where the threads of men's lives are spun, Then measured, and then cut short By the Three Fatal Sisters, intent on their gruesome handcrafts, And the lives of women also are twisted into the strand. And we, the twelve who were later to die by his hand At his father's relentless command, Sailed as well, in the dark frail boats of ourselves Through the turbulent seas of our swollen and sore-footed mothers Who were not royal queens, but a motley and piebald collection, Bought, traded, captured, kidnapped from serfs and strangers. After the nine-month voyage we came to shore, Beached at the same time as he was, struck by the hostile air, Infants when he was an infant, wailing just as he wailed, Helpless as he was helpless, but ten times more helpless as well, For his birth was longed-for and feasted, as our births were not. His mother presented a princeling. Our various mothers Spawned merely, lambed, farrowed, littered, Foaled, whelped and kittened, brooded, hatched out their clutch. We were animal young, to be disposed of at will, Sold, drowned in the well, traded, used, discarded when bloomless. He was fathered; we simply appeared, Like the crocus, the rose, the sparrows endangered in mud. Our lives were twisted in his life; we also were children When he was a child, We were his pets and his toythings, mock sisters, his tiny companions. We grew as he grew, laughed also, ran as he ran, Though sandier, hungrier, sun-speckled, most days meatless. He saw us as rightfully his, for whatever purpose He chose, to tend him and feed him, to wash him, amuse him, Rock him to sleep in the dangerous boats of ourselves. We did not know as we played with him there in the sand On the beach of our rocky goat-island, close by the harbour, That he was foredoomed to swell to our cold-eyed teenaged killer. If we had known that, would we have drowned him back then? Young children are ruthless and selfish: everyone wants to live. Twelve against one, he wouldn't have stood a chance. Would we? In only a minute, when nobody else was looking? Pushed his still-innocent child's head under the water With our own still-innocent childish nursemaid hands, And blamed it on waves. Would we have had it in us? Ask the Three Sisters, spinning their blood-red mazes, Tangling the lives of men and women together. Only they know how events might then have had altered. Only they know our hearts. From us you will get no answer.
Margaret Atwood (The Penelopiad)
Prosperity is a turbulent thing; it torments itself. It stirs the brain in more ways than one, goading men on to various aims—some to power, and others to high living. Some it puffs up; others it slackens and wholly enervates. “But,” the retort comes, “so-and-so carries his prosperity well.” Yes; just as he carries his liquor. So you need not let this class of men persuade you that one who is besieged by the crowd is happy; they run to him as crowds rush for a pool of water, rendering it muddy while they drain it.
Seneca (Letters from a Stoic)
And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disordered, irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from these globules themselves as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things burst out; the air grew filled with them; larvae so bloodless and so hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader of the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before his eyes in a drop of water - things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other, devouring each other - forms like nought ever beheld by the naked eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary command against all evil beings. ("The House And The Brain")
Edward Bulwer-Lytton (Reign of Terror Volume 2: Great Victorian Horror Stories)
She is fragile as the morning dew melting in the warmth of a child's smile; stirring at the lonely, lovely waft of a butterfly's wings; tender as the curve of a wildflower petal. She is fierce as a summer storm now raging against the fiery sky; now raining tears to soothe the sun-scorched earth. She is soft as a midnight breeze swaying to the sound of waves breaking on distant shores; whispering comfort to a world steeped in the dark night of inhumanity. She is brilliant as the rising Phoenix lifting the suffering from the ashes; her own suffering woven into wings of fire in the long watches of the night. She is serene and turbulent as the silvered water hiding currents unknown beneath the gentle gaze of a human who has walked a thousand miles and still has more to go.
L.R. Knost
An inhale caught in her throat at the sight awaiting her—the tops of autumn-brushed trees like a quilt of fall colors, giving way to sand and grass and water-edged rock. And then, the sea—turbulent and yet somehow tranquil, waves of cobalt and azure, frothy white at the edges. “If I lived in this house, I’d clean out this attic and turn it into a bedroom so I could wake up to this view every day
Melissa Tagg (Autumn by the Sea (Muir Harbor, #1))
I thought nothing. The surface of my mind was perfectly still. But under the surface there was a shifting and a stirring. I felt the great swell of the undercurrent. For years a wreck had sat in the depths, a rusting vessel with its cargo of bones. Now it shifted. I had disturbed it, and it created a turbulence that lifted clouds of sand from the seabed, motes of grit swirling wildly in the dark disturbed water.
Diane Setterfield (The Thirteenth Tale)
Hang on, you two!’ the ram said. ‘There’s a lot of turbulence over this part of the sea and –’ ‘AHHHHHHHH!’ Helle, who was not hella good at listening, slipped off the ram’s back and plummeted to her death. ‘Darn it!’ said Chrysomallos. ‘I told you to hang on!’ After that, Phrixus dug his hands into the ram’s fleece and wouldn’t let go for anything. The place where Helle died was a narrow channel of water between the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. Forever afterwards it was called the Hellespont, I guess because Hella Stupid would’ve been impolite.
Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Greek Heroes (Percy Jackson's Greek Myths Book 2))
As we become more skillful we also discover that concentration has its own seasons. Sometimes we sit and settle easily. At other times the conditions of mind and body are turbulent or tense. We can learn to navigate all these waters. When conditions show the mind is tight, we learn to soften and relax, to open the attention. When the mind is sleepy or flabby, we learn to sit up and focus with more energy. The Buddha compared this with the tuning of a lute, sensing when we are out of tune and gently strengthening or loosening our energy to come into balance. In
Jack Kornfield (A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life)
We have written the equations of water flow. From experiment, we find a set of concepts and approximations to use to discuss the solution--vortex streets, turbulent wakes, boundary layers. When we have similar equations in a less familiar situation, and one for which we cannot yet experiment, we try to solve the equations in a primitive, halting, and confused way to try to determine what new qualitatitive features may come out, or what new qualitative forms are a consequence of the equations. Our equations for the sun, for example, as a ball of hydrogen gas, describe a sun without sunspots, without the rice-grain structure of the surface, without prominences, without coronas. Yet, all of these are really in the equations; we just haven't found the way to get them out. ...The test of science is its ability to predict. Had you never visited the earth, could you predict the thunderstorms, the volcanoes, the ocean waves, the auroras, and the colourful sunset? A salutary lesson it will be when we learn of all that goes on on each of those dead planets--those eight or ten balls, each agglomerated from the same dust clouds and each obeying exactly the same laws of physics. The next great era of awakening of human intellect may well produce a method of understanding the qualitative content of equations. Today we cannot. Today we cannot see that the water flow equations contain such things as the barber pole structure of turbulence that one sees between rotating cylinders. Today we cannot see whether Schrodinger's equation contains frogs, musical composers, or morality--or whether it does not. We cannot say whether something beyond it like God is needed, or not. And so we can all hold strong opinions either way.
Richard P. Feynman
An Echo in the Bone. It was a familiar phenomenon. Doctors, soldiers, and mothers encounter it routinely; I had, any number of times. Unable to respond to an immediate emergency while clouded by fatigue, the mind simply withdraws a little, separating itself fastidiously from the body's overwhelming self-centered needs. From this clinical distance, it can direct things, bypassing emotions, pain, and tiredness, making necessary decisions, cold-bloodedly overruling the mindless body's needs for food, water, sleep, love, grief, pushing it past its fail-safe points. Why emotions? I wondered dimly. Surely emotion was a function of the mind. And yet it seemed so deeply rooted in the flesh and this abdication of the mind always suppressed emotion, too. They body resents this abdication, I think. Ignored and abused, it will not easily let the mind return. Often, the separation persists until one if finally allowed to sleep. With the body absorbed in its quiet intensities of regeneration, the mind settles cautiously back into the turbulent flesh, feeling its delicate way through the twisting passages of dreams, making peace. And you wake once more whole.
Diana Galbaldon
What is turbulence then? It is a mess of disorder at all scales, small eddies within large ones. It is unstable. It is highly dissipative, meaning that turbulence drains energy and creates drag. It is motion turned random. But how does flow change from smooth to turbulent? Suppose you have a perfectly smooth pipe, with a perfectly even source of water, perfectly shielded from vibrations—how can such a flow create something random? All the rules seem to break down. When flow is smooth, or laminar, small disturbances die out. But past the onset of turbulence, disturbances grow catastrophically. This onset—this transition—became a critical mystery in science.
James Gleick (Chaos: Making a New Science)
The Clipper pulled away from its moorage, entered Long Island Sound off Queens, and began its takeoff run, bumping across a mile-long fetch of open water before at last lifting off, shedding water like a breaching whale. With a cruising speed of 145 miles per hour, the plane would need about six hours to reach its first stop, Bermuda. It flew at eight thousand feet, which pretty much ensured that it would encounter every cloud and storm in its path. There would be turbulence but also luxury. White-jacketed stewards served full meals on china in a dining compartment with tables, chairs, and tablecloths. At dinner men wore suits, women dresses; at night the stewards made up beds in curtained berths. Honeymooners could book a private suite in the plane’s tail and swoon at the moonglade on the sea below.
Erik Larson (The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz)
On his voyage home, Franklin resumed his study of the calming effect of oil on water, this time with more disturbing metaphorical implications. The lanterns aboard his ship had a thick layer of oil that floated atop a layer of water. The surface was always calm and flat, so viewed from above, it would seem that the oil had stilled the roiling water. But when the lantern was viewed from the side, so that both layers could be seen, it became evident that, as Franklin recorded, “the water under the oil was in great commotion.” Even though oil could give the appearance of stilling turbulence, the water beneath the surface was still “rising and falling in irregular waves.” This underlying turbulence, Franklin realized, was not something that could easily be calmed, even by the most judicious application of oil.43
Walter Isaacson (Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)
Battered by shifing currents and a cold, unrelenting wind, we sailed past deserted islands crowded with pines and a ghost tree growing staight out of the water, its gaunt trunk and scrawny branches raised heavenward like an outcast pleading for his life. Now, having reached the north shore, we were doggedly searching for the hidden rivulet that would take us into The Peak. We were trapped in muddy water barbed with grasses and covered with thick green algae, which broke apart in clumps, then, after we'd edged through, resealed, erasing all signs of our passing. The wind had dissipated - strange, as it'd been so turbulent minutes ago out on the lake. Dense trees surrounded us, packed like hordes of stranded prisoners. There wasn't a single bird, not a scuttle through the branches, not a cry - as if everything alive had fled.
Marisha Pessl
Sunday Morning V She says, "But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss." Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. VI Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly. VII Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest. VIII She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay." We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings
Wallace Stevens
Have you every thrown one stone after another into a tranquil surface of water? The waves spread out in all directions. They collide with each other and all things that get in their way. In the same manner, this is the affect that thoughts have on our state of presence. The baseline (being present) is calm. ‘But, one thought after the other results in turbulence. What happens to a calm lake when you throw one stone after the other into it? The waves from each stone collide into each other without flowing their nature course. Similarly, the mind throws countless thoughts and feelings into our state of conscious living. ‘This is because we unconsciously attempt to focus on the majority of these passing thoughts. Hence, the torment of thought waves flood over the serenity of aware presence. Practice letting each thought flow without attaching anything to it. No labels, no judgement, and no anxiety.
Steve Leasock (Love Will Show You the Way: Choosing the Path of Least Resistance)
He spent the morning at the beach. He had no idea which one, just some open stretch of coastline reaching out to the sea. An unbroken mantle of soft grey clouds was sitting low over the water. Only on the horizon was there a glimmer of light, a faint blue band of promise. The beach was deserted, not another soul on the vast, wide expanse of sand that stretched out in front of him. Having come from the city, it never ceased to amaze Jejeune that you could be that alone in the world. He walked along the beach, feeling the satisfying softness as the sand gave way beneath his slow deliberate strides. He ventured as close to the tide line as he dared, the white noise of the waves breaking on the shingles. A set of paw prints ran along the sand, with an unbroken line in between. A small dog, dragging a stick in its mouth. Always the detective, even if, these days, he wasn’t a very good one. Jejeune’s path became blocked by a narrow tidal creek carrying its silty cargo out to the sea. On each side of it were shallow lagoons and rock pools. When the tide washed in they would teem with new life, but at the moment they looked barren and empty. Jejeune looked inland, back to where the dark smudge of Corsican pines marked the edge of the coast road. He traced the creek’s sinuous course back to where it emerged from a tidal salt flat, and watched the water for a long time as it eddied and churned, meeting the incoming tide in an erotic swirl of water, the fresh intermingling with the salty in a turbulent, roiling dance, until it was no longer possible to tell one from the other. He looked out at the sea, at the motion, the color, the light. A Black-headed Gull swooped in and settled on a piece of driftwood a few feet away. Picture complete, thought Jejeune. For him, a landscape by itself, no matter how beautiful, seemed an empty thing. It needed a flicker of life, a tiny quiver of existence, to validate it, to confirm that other living things found a home here, too. Side by side, they looked out over the sea, the man and the bird, two beating hearts in this otherwise empty landscape, with no connection beyond their desire to be here, at this time. Was it the birds that attracted him to places like this, he wondered, or the solitude, the absence of demands, of expectations? But if Jejeune was unsure of his own motives, he knew this bird would have a purpose in being here. Nature always had her reasons. He chanced a sidelong glance at the bird, now settled to his presence. It had already completed its summer molt, crisp clean feathers having replaced the ones abraded by the harsh demands of eking out a living on this wild, windswept coastline. The gull stayed for a long moment, allowing Jejeune to rest his eyes softly, unthreateningly, upon it. And then, as if deciding it had allowed him enough time to appreciate its beauty, the bird spread its wings and effortlessly lifted off, wheeling on the invisible air currents, drifting away over the sea toward the horizon. p. 282-3
Steve Burrows (A Siege of Bitterns (Birder Murder Mystery, #1))
Peter told him that for the Incas the center of the universe wasn’t a point but a line where the two halves of the universe meet. Is this the scene unfolding before Richard’s eyes at the entrance to the asylum seekers’ residence? And are the two groups of people facing off here something like the two halves of a universe that actually belong together, but whose separation is nonetheless irrevocable? Is the rift dividing them in fact a bottomless chasm; is that why such powerful turbulences have been released? And is it a rift between Black and White? Or Poor and Rich? Stranger and Friend? Or between those whose fathers have died and those whose fathers are still alive? Or those with curly hair and those with straight? Those who call their dinner fufu and those who call it stew? Or those who like to wear yellow, red, and green t-shirts and those who prefer neckties? Or those who like to drink water and those who prefer beer? Or between speakers of one language and another? How many borders exist within a single universe?
Jenny Erpenbeck (Go, Went, Gone)
Revenged with hate on my own proud inanities. In the mild end of the afternoon, later, at the waterside in Woods Hole, waiting for the ferry, he looked through the green darkness at the net of bright reflections on the bottom. He loved to think about the power of the sun, about light, about the ocean. The purity of the air moved him. There was no stain in the water, where schools of minnows swam. Herzog sighed and said to himself, "Praise God - praise God." His breathing had become freer. His heart was greatly stirred by the open horizon; the deep colors; the faint iodine pungency of the Atlantic rising from weeds and mollusks; the white, fine, heavy sand; but principally by the green transparency as he looked down to the stony bottom webbed with golden lines. Never still. If his soul could cast a reflection so brilliant, and so intensely sweet, he might beg God to make such use of him. But that would be too simple. But that would be too childish. The actual sphere is not clear like this, but turbulent, angry. A vast human action is going on. Death watches. So if you have some happiness, conceal it. And when your heart is full, keep your mouth shut also.
Saul Bellow (Herzog)
At this point, the sequence of my memories is disrupted. I sank into a chaos of brief, incoherent and bizarre hallucinations, in which the grotesque and the horrible kept close company. Prostrate, as if I were being garrotted by invisible cords, I floundered in anguish and dread, oppressively ridden by the most unbridled nightmares. A whole series of monsters and avatars swarmed in the shadows, coming to life amid draughts of sulphur and phosphorus like an animated fresco painted on the moving wall of sleep. There followed a turbulent race through space. I soared, grasped by the hair by an invisible hand of will: an icy and powerful hand, in which I felt the hardness of precious stones, and which I sensed to be the hand of Ethal. Dizziness was piled upon dizziness in that flight to the abyss, under skies the colour of camphor and salt, skies whose nocturnal brilliance had a terrible limpidity. I was spun around and around, in bewildering confusion, above deserts and rivers. Great expanses of sand stretched into the distance, mottled here and there by monumental shadows. At times we would pass over cities: sleeping cities with obelisks and cupolas shining milk-white in the moonlight, between metallic palm-trees. In the extreme distance, amid bamboos and flowering mangroves, luminous millennial pagodas descended towards the water on stepped terraces.
Jean Lorrain (Monsieur de Phocas)
I don’t know what it was about menopause, specifically, that caused me all of a sudden to become a gatherer of “found objects.” But now, wherever I went in this bleakly untamed and often inhospitable landscape in the wild western extremes of Ireland, I seemed to hear things calling out to me. I was rooting for something — I didn’t know what. For fragments of myself, perhaps; my life, my loves. For fragments which reflected something of myself back at me — whatever I might be becoming now, at this turbulent, shapeshifting time of my life. And all the fragments I seemed to need came from this new place, from the ancient, uncompromising earth around me: that land which I walked compulsively, day after day after day. I would come home from the woods reverently carrying strangely shaped sticks, from the lough with pebbles and water-bird feathers, from the beach with seashells and mermaid’s purses — as if I were reassembling myself from elements of the land itself. After the deep dissolutions of menopause, I was refashioning myself from those calcinated ashes; I was growing new bones. It’s something we all have to do at this time in our lives; somehow, with whatever tools are available to us, we have to begin to curate the vision of the elder we will become. It’s an act of bricolage. And so now I had become like the bright-eyed, cackling magpies which regularly ransacked our garden: a collector — though not of trinkets, but of clues. I was gathering them together in the safety of my new nest. The clues were there in the pieces; those clues are threaded through this book. Scattered in shadowy corners and brightly lit windows, these objects I’ve selected are so much more than random gatherings of whatever it was that I happened to come across in my wanderings. They’re so much more than mere clutter. They are active choices, carefully selected objects that mirror my sense of myself as a shapeshifting, storied creature. Because the clues to our re-memberings are in the stories, and the stories are always born from the land.
Sharon Blackie (Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life)
The unhappy priest was breathing hard; sincere horror at the foreseen dispersal of Church property was linked with regret at his having lost control of himself again, with fear of offending the Prince, whom he genuinely liked and whose blustering rages as well as disinterested kindness he knew well. So he sat down warily, glancing every now and again at Don Fabrizio, who had taken up a little brush and was cleaning the knobs of a telescope, apparently absorbed. A little later he got up and cleaned his hands thoroughly with a rag; his face was quite expressionless, his light eyes seemed intent only on finding any remaining stain of oil in the cuticles of his nails. Down below, around the villa, all was luminous and grandiose silence, emphasised rather than disturbed by the distant barking of Bendicò baiting the gardener’s dog at the far end of the lemon-grove, and by the dull rhythmic beat from the kitchen of a cook’s knife chopping meat for the approaching meal. The sun had absorbed the turbulence of men as well as the harshness of earth. The Prince moved towards the priest’s table, sat down and began drawing pointed little Bourbon lilies with a carefully sharpened pencil which the Jesuit had left behind in his anger. He looked serious but so serene that Father Pirrone no longer felt on tenterhooks. “We’re not blind, my dear Father, we’re just human beings. We live in a changing reality to which we try to adapt ourselves like seaweed bending under the pressure of water. Holy Church has been granted an explicit promise of immortality; we, as a social class, have not. Any palliative which may give us another hundred years of life is like eternity to us. We may worry about our children and perhaps our grandchildren; but beyond what we can hope to stroke with these hands of ours we have no obligations. I cannot worry myself about what will happen to any possible descendants in the year 1960. The Church, yes, She must worry for She is destined not to die. Solace is implicit in Her desperation. Don’t you think that if now or in the future She could save herself by sacrificing us She wouldn’t do so? Of course She would, and rightly.
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (The Leopard)
3 INCIDENT IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL Not long afterwards, a Belgian ferry, the Oudenbourg, was steaming its way from Ostende to Ramsgate. In the straits of Dover the duty officer noticed that half a mile south of its usual course there was something going on in the water. He could not be sure that there was no-one drowning there and so he ordered a change of course down to where the perturbance was taking place. Two hundred passengers on the windward side of the ship were shown a very strange spectacle: in some places a vertical jet of water shot out from the surface, and in some of those vertical jets there could be seen something like a black body thrown up with it; the surface of the sea for one or two hundred yards all around was tossing and seething wildly while, from the depths, a loud rattling and humming could be heard. "It was as if there was a small volcano erupting under the sea." As the Oudenbourg slowly approached the place an enormous wave rose about ten yards ahead of it and a terrible noise thundered out like an explosion. The entire ship was lifted violently and the deck was showered with a rain of water that was nearly boiling hot; and landing on the deck with the water was a strong black body which writhed and let out a sharp loud scream; it was a newt that had been injured and burnt. The captain ordered the ship full steam astern so that the ship would not steam straight into the middle of this turbulent Hell; but the water all around had also begun to erupt and the surface of the sea was strewn with pieces of dismembered newts. The ship was finally able to turn around and it fled northwards as fast as possible. Then there was a terrible explosion about six hundred yards to the stern and a gigantic column of water and steam, perhaps a hundred yards high, shot out of the sea. The Oudenbourg set course for Harwich and sent out a radio warning in all directions: "Attention all shipping, attention all shipping! Severe danger on Ostende-Ramsgate lane. Underwater explosion. Cause unknown. All shipping advised avoid area!" All this time the sea was thundering and boiling, almost as if military manoeuvres had been taking place under the water; but apart from the erupting water and steam there was nothing to see. From both Dover and Calais, destroyers and torpedo boats set out at full steam and squadrons of military aircraft flew to the site of the disturbance; but by the time they got there all they found was that the surface was discoloured with something like a yellow mud and covered with startled fish and newts that had been torn to pieces. At first it was thought that a mine in the channel must have exploded; but once the shores on both sides of the Straits of Dover had been ringed off with a chain of soldiers and the English prime-minister had, for the fourth time in the history of the world, interrupted his Saturday evening and hurried back to London, there were those who thought the incident must be of extremely serious international importance. The papers carried some highly alarming rumours, but, oddly enough, this time remained far from the truth; nobody had any idea that Europe, and the whole world with it, stood for a few days on the brink of a major war. It was only several years later that a member of the then British cabinet, Sir Thomas Mulberry, failed to be re-elected in a general election and published his memoirs setting out just what had actually happened; but by then, though, nobody was interested.
Karel Čapek (War with the Newts)
Poor children, typhoons (the turbulent waters) washed their house collapsed, their homelessness, family members dead. Do not you want to help them? If you want to help them, please donate the money to typhoon Haiyan
Yanis Yingnan JI
There is a place I have visited on the coast of North Carolina where two barrier islands come close together. In the narrow passageway between them, the waters of the Atlantic Ocean meet the waters of the huge and shallow sound that lies behind the islands. There is turbulence in that place and waves appear to break even though no land is visible. I imagine that the leaders of the Department of Justice stand at that spot, between the turbulent waters of the political world and the placid waters of the apolitical sound.
James Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
At the Gorge of Lu, the great waterfall plunges for thousands of feet, its spray visible for miles. In the churning waters below, no living creature can be seen. One day, K'ung Fu-tse was standing at a distance from the pool’s edge, when he saw an old man being tossed about in the turbulent water. He called to his disciples and together they ran to rescue the victim. But by the time they reached the water, the old man had come out onto the bank and was walking along, singing to himself. K'ung Fu-tse hurried up to him. ‘You would have to be a Ghost to survive that,’ he said, ‘but you seem to be a man, instead. What secret power do you have?’ ‘Nothing special,’ the old man replied. ‘I began to learn while young, and grew up practicing it. Now I am certain of success. I go down with the water and come up with water. I follow It and forget myself. I survive because I don’t struggle against the water’s superior power. That’s all.
Benjamin Hoff (The Tao of Pooh)
All beings of the world are in a constant state of either coming into being or going out of being. Resignation of the soul is the final act in a one-character play. Given our genetic defect of mortality, it is impossible not to question the why and wherefore of our existence. It is understandable why each of us must ask what life is all about, and for that matter, constantly inquire what is next. Where does the headwater of our existence spring from and where will the divergent stream of life take us? Do the still waters that gently slide by compose the tranquil waters relished by lentic lakeside creatures? What lies ahead in the burbling headwaters of tomorrow? Does nourishing brain food wait for lotic inhabitants to feast upon in the turbulent rapids and airy froth of the future? Vagueness, doubt, and insecurity shroud the future. The only thing certain is that the effervescence culled from our dynamic immersion in the firth of today will expose our material composition.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
The ocean is a good metaphor for our interconnected life. With a regular meditation practice, we can learn to surf life’s waves, but chances are good that we will sometimes be overpowered by them for a while. A technique like following your breath is a great surfboard for riding these waves. But when the surf is up and you’re being submerged in wave after wave of fear, anger, and anxiety, you may need a more specialized surfboard, possibly adding counting your breath, repeating a mantra or phrase that is meaningful to you, or doing walking meditation rather than simply sitting still. Sometimes Jerry and I felt as if we were wasting our time trying to surf—we were just getting knocked over by one wave after another. Days and sometimes even weeks went by when we weren’t making any progress at all—very discouraging. Life can be like that, but with a regular meditation practice, you learn to experience each wave not as an obstacle to your real life but as your real life. Eventually you may learn to enjoy the surf directly, with no board at all, experiencing the joy of being fully immersed in the water, regardless of its turbulent energies. Each wave has its own unique nature. It also has the nature of the entire ocean, because a wave is not separate from the ocean. You learn to be patient when you’re riding the energy of the entire ocean. Jerry and I surfed on calm days and on stormy days. Surfing on stormy days isn’t easy, but the storm is never separate from the calmness down below. Even so, for every thrilling swell that lifts you upward toward the sky, there is a trough that can send you reeling into the darkest depths. Troughs are part of the ocean, too. When you’re in a deep trough, you can’t go forward and you can’t retreat. Nor can you predict what will come next, because you can’t see beyond the trough. In the troughs, you learn to trust, to have courage, and to be patient—qualities that come naturally if you’re committed to surfing the entire ocean.
Tim Burkett (Zen in the Age of Anxiety: Wisdom for Navigating Our Modern Lives)
Another quality that comes naturally as you learn to surf is renunciation. Jerry and I had to practice renunciation every day. Because we wanted to surf in the afternoons, we renounced driving our souped-up cars up and down the street in front of Palo Alto High after school where everyone could see us. Jerry renounced smoking so he could keep his lungs in good shape to handle the strong currents and mammoth waves. We even had to renounce hanging out with girls in the afternoons. It wasn’t easy to give up these things that we liked, but we had fallen in love with surfing, so we did it. Renunciation is a matter of putting aside our immediate desires just a little bit so we can stay focused on something bigger. As Jerry and I waited in the water, watching the horizon for a wave big enough to carry us all the way in to shore, we were often tempted to take whatever wave came along. Resisting that temptation was another form of renunciation. Training in renunciation involves seeing our immediate desires as they arise without indulging them. If you indulge a desire, what happens next? Another desire arises. And another and another. The faster you indulge your desires, the faster they come. You’ll never learn to surf if you are distracted by the small waves that constantly lap at your surfboard. After a while, the small steady waves of desire no longer distract you. Eventually, even the surfboard begins to dissolve because you no longer need it. Suddenly, you realize that you are right there in the surf with no gap, no separation between you and the waves, completely immersed in the ocean. Wave by wave is how we stay engaged with life. It is the only way to experience the immediacy and vigor that real life offers. Sure, it’s raw. But we don’t need to protect ourselves from the moods and nuances of life’s great ocean. We can stay right with it, in placid times and in turbulent times. Life is always offering us the energy and vitality we need—just let the salt water seep into your pores.
Tim Burkett (Zen in the Age of Anxiety: Wisdom for Navigating Our Modern Lives)
A rock, a large piece of rock weathers off a cliff and dives deep into a pool of gushing water. Back washed, It journeys roughly and knocks of other rocks, smashing through the waves as it loses itself in scattered pieces except for its core. That core travels far and wide, it coarsely gets ground by gravel pieces smaller than itself and bullied by boulders all of which it bears up as it withstands the pressure of a distant journey off the shore. At some point, it gets dry and it encounters mud, it gets smeared dirty but the mud doesn't stick, the rain washes of the mud and it rolls off into the sand. It dances in the sand and dives into the bottom of the waves. Rising like a phoenix through the ashes, it emerges polished, looking more beautiful than it did when it got edged of the cliff. It rises a pebble, smooth and sleek. Coveted by rocks starting their dive. To be a pebble you have to run the turbulent tidal race.
Victor Manan Nyambala
To grow is not to timidly sit on some safe shore at water’s edge and clumsily grab whatever happens to float by me. Rather, it is to deliberately step into waters both calm and turbulent in order to wrestle great things to shore.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Having the ability to discern between perception and reality can make the difference between making the right moves on the global business chess board and moving forward, or making a critical mistake. Gone are the days when the job of successfully managing the turbulent waters of international business was the domain of just a risk manager. In a world that has become increasingly defined by unpredictable events with severe and lasting consequences--and where those consequences can impact an organization’s ability to survive--it is every manager’s job to be a risk ‘navigator’.
Daniel Wagner
Just like water can’t remain in a shaken glass, money can’t remain in a turbulent mind. When you’re comfortable, the water stays perfectly still where it is.
Suh Yoon Lee (The Having: The Secret Art of Feeling and Growing Rich)
A large looming wave crashed down on the aircraft, slamming it into the water. The fuselage tumbled into the swell as it began to rise again. Both Nick and Gail were tossed inside the deathtrap. The crew in back must have lost their mics because they were radio silent. With one final hit,
Melody Anne (Turbulent Desires (Billionaire Aviators, #2))
The thoughts are like links in a chain, then the chains start pulling you by the wrists as you stagger along, picking up speed until you start to jog, race, careen and this is how turbulence becomes the bumpiness of a road that I’m rattling along in a giant vehicle, massive firs on either side casting occasional shadows within ( my dream making sense of people passing down the aisle), my mind skimming the surface of sleep like a wake in water, lightly enough that it churns up real events into surreal dreams.
Namwali Serpell (The Furrows)
Like the feather she’d seen floating along the river the day he left her, he’d disappeared from view, entered choppy water, and been pulled under. But he had emerged, bedraggled but intact, farther downstream. There would be more turbulence ahead—that much was certain. But now they would face it together.
Lindsay Jayne Ashford (A Feather on the Water)
By placing ourselves in the myth of the hero's journey, we contextualize these transformational moments within the broader contours of our lives, cultivate attitudes in which we reframe our problems as “tests” and learning opportunities, and more easily locate the meaning in our suffering. My goal in this essay is to explore how the myth of the hero's journey can be a resource for self-discovery and a guide through the turbulent waters of life.
Wayne Mellinger, "The Hero's Journey as a Guide to Life"
One cannot reflect himself in tumultuous and flowing water. The more turbulent the situation, the more distorted your reflection.
Shree Shambav (Journey of Soul - Karma)
throughout my life I’ve steered an uneasy course between the Scylla of solitude and the Charybdis of politics, between my desire to help change the world and my impulse to escape it. The vessel in which I navigate these turbulent waters is music.
John Luther Adams (Silences So Deep: Music, Solitude, Alaska)
The waters of Skilak are notoriously cold and turbulent. It isn’t unusual to have water temperatures hovering around thirty-eight degrees, even in the summer. The mix of cold water and the glacial ice of the massive Harding Icefield, along with the high mountains that support it and work like a giant wind tunnel, make for a deadly combination that can turn a mirror-smooth lake into the frothing mouth of a monster in an instant. Within minutes, summer warmth combining with the cold can create winds that explode off the ice field in what Alaskans refer to as williwaws—strong gusts that tear down from glacial valleys, often wreaking havoc.
Jimmy Settle (Never Quit: From Alaskan Wilderness Rescues to Afghanistan Firefights as an Elite Special Ops PJ)
All these years she had been secretly proud of her calm, controlled behavior when Sula was uncontrollable, her compassion for Sula's frightened and shamed eyes. Now it seemed that what she had thought was maturity, serenity and compassion was only the tranquillity that follows a joyful stimulation. Just as the water closed peacefully over the turbulence of Chicken Little's body, so had contentment washed over her enjoyment.
Toni Morrison (Sula)
that, instead of being fused to the skull, hangs loosely beneath the brain case. This enables the upper jaw to push forward and hyperextend open—wide enough to engulf, and crush, an adult bull elephant. As if the size and voraciousness of its feeding orifice were not enough, nature has endowed this monster with a predatory intelligence, honed by 400 million years of evolution. Six distinct senses expose every geological feature, every current, every temperature gradient … and every creature occupying its domain. The predator’s eyes contain a reflective layer of tissue situated behind the retina. When moving through the darkness of the depths, light is reflected off this layer, allowing the creature to see. In sunlight, the reflective plate is covered by a layer of pigment, which functions like a built-in pair of sunglasses. While black in normally pigmented members of the species, this particular male’s eyes are a cataract-blue—a trait found in albinos. As large as basketballs, the sight organs reflexively roll back into the skull as the creature launches its attack on its prey, protecting the eyeball from being damaged. Forward of the eyes, just beneath the snout, are a pair of directional nostrils so sensitive that they can detect one drop of blood or urine in a million gallons of water. The tongue and snout provide a sense of taste and touch, while two labyrinths within the skull function as ears. But it is two other receptor organs that make this predator the master of its liquid domain. The first of these mid-to-long-range detection systems is the lateral line, a hollow tube that runs along either flank just beneath the skin. Microscopic pores open these tubes to the sea. When another animal creates a vibration or turbulence in the water, the reverberations stimulate tiny hairs within these sensory cells that alert the predator to the source of the disturbance—miles away! Even more sensitive are the hunter’s long-range receptor cells, located along the top and underside
Steve Alten (Hell's Aquarium (Meg #4))
and he relished a day at Lake George in the Adirondacks on his trip through the north with James Madison in 1791.26,27,28 “An abundance of speckled trout, salmon trout, bass and other fish with which it is stored, have added to our other amusements the sport of taking them,” Jefferson had written Patsy. He had been as unhappy with Lake Champlain as he had been happy with Lake George, noting that the larger Champlain was “a far less pleasant water.29 It is muddy, turbulent, and yields little game”—all things Jefferson disliked in fishing as in life.
Jon Meacham (Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power)
As Secretary of State I thought of our choices and challenges in three categories: The problems we inherited, including two wars and a global financial crisis; the new, often unexpected events and emerging threats, from the shifting sands of the Middle East to the turbulent waters of the Pacific to the uncharted terrain of cyberspace; and the opportunities presented by an increasingly networked world that could help lay the foundation for
Hillary Rodham Clinton (Hard Choices)
To stretch yourself more than you have to. To dive into the deep end because, you can swim. Through still water, muddy water and extreme turbulence. That is what it takes, to rock with it, roll with it, stand tall, above it all. And feel truly alive from within.
Rashmi Bansal (Follow Every Rainbow)
In high water, fish migrate to the banks to stay out of the fast currents and to take advantage of the worms, beetles, ants, and other terrestrials being swept into the river by the floodwaters. If the water is very dirty, they position themselves right next to the bank, a rock, or the bottom in order to keep their equilibrium. In warm water, they move to the deeper cooler waters or place themselves near a cool spring or tributary. Alternately, they could be under the fastest turbulent cascades where there is more dissolved oxygen.
Yvon Chouinard (Simple Fly Fishing: Techniques for Tenkara and Rod and Reel)
The most important thing is that you turn to Me, trusting that I am indeed with you. When you cannot sense My Presence, it is enough to know that I love you with compassionate, unfailing Love. If your heart is sinking under waves of panic, don’t focus on those feelings. Instead, look up to Me! As your soul clings to Me, My right hand will uphold you—keeping you safe in turbulent waters. See also Isaiah 43:2–4; Matthew 6:10; Lamentations 3:32; Psalm 63:8 (From Jesus Lives by Sarah Young) FOR MORE ON THIS TOPIC, SEE PAGE 1283.
Anonymous (Jesus Calling Devotional Bible, NKJV: Enjoying Peace in His Presence)
water under the bridge,' although fluid, is not necessarily a solution. Turbulent currents within can damage all shorelines it contacts as it meanders downsteam to be dissipated in an endless sea of tranquility.
Shark2th
He sat down, mind empty for the first time in days, and watched the water for a while. Gradually, without really trying, he began hearing the voices of the waves. They trilled like little birds as they approached the shore. Each had its own name, but otherwise they were impossible to tell apart. They rolled humming towards Jordan, then fell silent without fanfare as they licked the sand. It was like solid music converging on him where he sat. He had never heard anything so beautiful or delicately fragile. He didn’t even notice the failing light or the cold as he sat transfixed. His mind could not remain focused forever, though, and after a while he made up a little game, trying to follow individual waves with both his eyes and his inner sense. He tried to follow the eddies of a particular wave as it broke around a nearby rock, and in doing so discovered something new. It seemed like such an innocent detail at first: as the wave split, so did its voice. From one, it became many, then each tinier individuality vanished in turbulence. As they did, they cried out, not it seemed in fright, but in tones almost of... delight. Urgent delight--as if at the last second they had discovered something important they needed to tell the world.
Karl Schroeder
Look into the future with me. People will tire of colas. Their color is dark, ominous. They bring to mind shadows and doubt, things untrustworthy, the hidden rivers of the mind.* In this more optimistic decade, under the leadership of The Great Communicator, Americans will demand a beverage that is clear, something that steers us away from the turbulent sixties and all the turbid years that followed. Seltzer water. It is a beacon of purity. Observing its clear, colorless liquid and believing it will work on the soul, consumers will drink three, maybe four units a day. This is no false Cassandra’s cry. Raspberry. Root beer. Vanilla. Black Cherry. Shoppers will leave the supermarket with multiple six-packs and go home to tell their friends and families what they have found.
Stephan Eirik Clark (Sweetness #9)
Bullets do not discriminate. They are equal-opportunity projectiles.
Peter Duysings (Turbulent Waters)
When I put my stethoscope to a person’s chest what I’m listening for are signs of the heart’s flaws. In a normal adult heart, all you hear are the sounds of the heart valves snapping shut after the blood flows across them. The blood’s flow, as it moves across normal heart valves and around cardiac structures that are smooth and without abnormal perforations, is smooth and silent. It’s called laminar flow, the same quiet, unbroken stream you get if you turn on a faucet just a little. If the edge of a heart valve is rough with scar or calcium, the aperture is leaky or fused shut, or there is a hole in a septum of the heart, the blood will flow through with a whoosh. This is turbulent flow, and it’s also what happens across a water faucet that is clogged or opened wide. When doctors hear a murmur, they’re hearing turbulent flow across something abnormal in the heart. That
Pamela Nagami (The Woman with a Worm in Her Head: And Other True Stories of Infectious Disease)
Far out over the water a flock of boats moved by, heading south to the Keys, or east to Bimini, the Gulf Stream, and even beyond. A large sportfisher went roaring right over the deep spot where I had put Patrick, kicking up a high rooster tail in its wake. I wondered whether it would make enough turbulence to rip him free of his anchor; perhaps he would shoot up to the surface like a nightmare cork, and bob along behind the speeding boat, all the way to the Bahamas.
Jeff Lindsay (Dexter's Final Cut (Dexter, #7))
Once again I am riding my bike on the streets of loneliness. Your thoughts are the anchor that make me ride fast yet not lose my balance. You had promised me that you would never leave me alone. But I do know that the love that you have bestowed on me is more precious than the biggest pearls discovered by the sailors on their voyages of prosperity. I too sail on myriad voyages in the ocean of my life. And your love holds my ship steady on those turbulent waters of life when the moon even does not show her face to me!
Avijeet Das
Once again I am riding my bike on the streets of loneliness. Your thoughts are the anchor that make me ride fast yet not lose my balance. You had promised me that you would never leave me alone. But I do know that the love that you have bestowed on me is more precious than the biggest pearls discovered by the sailors on their voyages of prosperity. I too sail on myriad voyages in the ocean of my life. And your love holds my ship steady in those turbulent waters of life when even the moon does not show her face to the world!
Avijeet Das
The experts explained to me that when someone drowns in a flood, they do not float downstream like many people believe. They actually sink underneath the turbulent water where it is calmer, and then they rise to the top very close to where they drowned.
Sarah A. Denzil (Silent Child (Silent Child, #1))
Generally speaking, our mind is predominantly directed towards external objects. Our attention follows after the sense experiences. It remains at a predominantly sensory and conceptual level. In other words, normally our awareness is directed towards physical sensory experiences and mental concepts. But in this exercise, what you should do is to withdraw your mind inward; don’t let it chase after or pay attention to sensory objects. At the same time, don’t allow it to be so totally withdrawn that there is a kind of dullness or lack of mindfulness. You should maintain a very full state of alertness and mindfulness, and then try to see the natural state of your consciousness—a state in which your consciousness is not afflicted by thoughts of the past, the things that have happened, your memories and remembrances; nor is it afflicted by thoughts of the future, like your future plans, anticipations, fears, and hopes. But rather, try to remain in a natural and neutral state. “This is a bit like a river that is flowing quite strongly, in which you cannot see the riverbed very clearly. If, however, there was some way you could stop the flow in both directions, from where the water is coming and to where the water is flowing, then you could keep the water still. That would allow you to see the base of the river quite clearly. Similarly, when you are able to stop your mind from chasing sensory objects and thinking about the past and future and so on, and when you can free your mind from being totally ‘blanked out’ as well, then you will begin to see underneath this turbulence of the thought processes. There is an underlying stillness, an underlying clarity of the mind. You should try to observe or experience this ...
Dalai Lama XIV (The Art of Happiness)
Sekarang dunia tidak lagi menjadi dunia dua kutub, maka istilah kita sebut, navigating in turbulence water. Ada badai, ada topan, banyak karang, dan ini, dan itu. We have to be able to navigate terus mencapai pantai tujuan. Tentu more challenging, more demanding, more complex dibandingkan tatanan dunia di era pasca-perang dingin.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Most of the water rushed downward, turning from blue to white as gravity mixed in air. But some defiant droplets splashed upward into a rainbow banner that proclaimed the nonconformists beautiful. While my eyes watched the water, and my body felt the misty edge, my ears filled with the noise of turbulent current. Loud and proud, the water was unapologetic
Sara Dykman
I gave up complaining, because I saw how it caused me to be angry and blaming. Instead, I try to pay close attention to my thoughts through mindfulness practices. I insert positive, affirming, and grateful thoughts into the stream, and ride them like a raft on the white water of a turbulent mind.
Ina May Gaskin (Ina May's Guide to Childbirth: Updated With New Material)
Try to think of it this way,” he began. “You should feel very lucky. StarClan has given you the chance to choose your own destiny: to be a warrior, a mate, a mother—all the things that you were denied as Cinderpelt.” “But is it a real choice?” Cinderheart asked miserably. “What about my duty to my Clan?” “There are many ways to fulfill your duty,” Jayfeather murmured. Cinderheart turned to him; he could feel the force of her gaze. “It’s true, I’m lucky to be here at all!” she burst out. “I know what a debt I owe to my ancestors. But I’m so confused. . . . I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” “What do you want?” Jayfeather asked quietly. He felt a small start of surprise from Cinderheart, as if no cat had ever asked her that before. “I wanted Lionblaze,” she whispered. “But I can’t have him.” “Oh? Really?” Great StarClan, mouse-brain, he’s been padding after you for moons! “Why not?” “Because of his destiny,” Cinderheart replied. Jayfeather gave an awkward wriggle; he wasn’t comfortable discussing another cat’s relationship problems. But he remembered Half Moon, and felt again the piercing pain he had suffered when he realized that he couldn’t stay with her in her long-ago Tribe. “You have a destiny, too,” he mewed gently. “But that isn’t the whole of who you are. You can still shape your own life.” Cinderheart was silent for a long time; Jayfeather could sense a tiny seed of hope stirring inside her. “You have a chance to be happy,” he prompted, “and to make Lionblaze happy, too. Don’t throw that away because you spent too long trying to figure out the right thing to do.” “Thank you, Jayfeather,” Cinderheart responded with a long sigh. Together they sat on the bank overlooking the lake; Jayfeather could hear the soft lapping of the water on the pebbly shore. For a few moments he and Cinderheart seemed to be wrapped in a cocoon of peace. It can’t last, Jayfeather thought. Not in these turbulent times. But I’m glad of it now, that’s for sure.
Erin Hunter (The Forgotten Warrior (Warriors: Omen of the Stars #5))
Mombasah-city, with her brave array of sumptuous palace, proudest edifice, defaced, deformed by fire and steel shall pay in kind the tale of byegone malefice. Thence on those Indian shores which proud display their hostile fleets, and warlike artifice 'gainst the Lusians, with his sail and oar shall young Lourenço work th' extremes of war. What mighty vessels Sam'orim's orders own covering Ocean, with his iron hail poured from hot copper-tube in thunder-tone all shall he shatter, rudder, mast and sail; then with his grapples boldly, deftly thrown, the hostile Ammiral he shall assail, board her, and only with the lance and sword shall slay four hecatombs of Moors abhor'd. But God's prevision 'scaping human sight, alone who knows what good best serves His end, shall place the Hero where ne toil ne might his lost young life availeth to forfend. In Cháúl-bay, where fierce and furious fight with fire and steel shall fervid seas offend, th' Infidel so shall deal that end his days where Egypt's navy doth conjoin Cambay's. There shall the pow'er of man'ifold enemies, — for only stronger force strong force can tire,— and Winds defaulting and fierce injuries of Ocean, 'gainst a single life conspire : Here let all olden men from death arise to see his Valour, catch his noble fire : A second Scæva see who, hackt and torn, laughs at surrender, quarter holds in scorn. With the fierce torture of a mangled thigh, torn off by bullet which at random past, his stalwart arms he ceaseth not to ply, that fiery Spirit flaming to the last : Until another ball clean cuts the tie so frail that linkèd Soul and Body fast ;— the Soul which loosed from her prison fleets whither the prize eterne such Conqueror greets. Go, Soul! to Peace from Warfare turbulent wherein thou meritedst sweet Peace serene ! for those torn tortured limbs, that life so rent who gave thee life prepareth vengeance keen : I hear een now the furious storm ferment, threating the terrible eternal teen, of Chamber, Basilisco, Saker-fire, to Mameluke cruel and Cambayan dire. See with stupendous heart the war to wage, driven by rage and grief the Father flies, paternal fondness urging battle-gage, fire in his heart and water in his eyes : Promise the sire's distress, the soldier's rage, a bloody deluge o'er the knees shall rise on ev'ry hostile deck: This Nyle shall fear, Indus shall sight it, and the Gange shall hear.
Richard Francis Burton (The Lusiads)
Above, they were the colour of the sea’s deepest blue; below, like the soiled whiteness of shadowed chalk. In the turbulent air above the cliffs and shallows they soared for hours, hoping perhaps to lure away intruders from their nesting place. Invisible even in a telescope magnifying sixty times, even in purest summer sky, they drifted idly above the glittering Channel water. They had no song. Their calls were harsh and ugly. But their soaring was like an endless silent singing. What else had they to do? They were sea falcons now; there was nothing to keep them to the land. Foul poison burned within them like a burrowing fuse. Their life was lonely death, and would not be renewed. All they could do was take their glory to the sky. They were the last of their race.
J.A. Baker (The Peregrine)
The connections that Leonardo made across disciplines served as guides for his inquiries. The analogy between water eddies and air turbulence, for example, provided a framework for studying the flight of birds. “To arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air,” he wrote, “it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water.
Walter Isaacson (Leonardo da Vinci)
In the quiet turbulence of relationships, storms of problems swirl, leaving us to navigate through the wreckage with the hope of finding calm waters once more.
Shree Shambav (Twenty + One - 21 Short Stories - Series II)
Beyond the mountain lay untrodden tracks. Great unseen rains fell on those timeless springheads and the waters avalanched down muddy and turbulent, leaving the silt of age on the enfeebled pilgrim.
O.V. Vijayan
He walked out onto the frozen lake—cautiously, at first, but when he found that the icy surface seemed solid, he walked and slid ahead more quickly, until he reached a point where he could no longer make out the lakeshore through the night around him. Now he was surrounded on all sides by smooth ice. This distanced him somewhat from earthly complexity and chaos, and by imagining that the icy plane extended infinitely in every direction, he obtained a simple, flat world; a cold, planar mental platform. Cares vanished, and soon his perception reentered that state of rest, where the stars were waiting for him.... Then, with a crunch, the ice beneath Luo Ji’s feet broke and his body plunged straight into the water. At the precise instant the icy water covered Luo Ji’s head, he saw the stillness of the stars shatter. The starfield curled up into a vortex and scattered into turbulent, chaotic waves of silver. The biting cold, like crystal lightning, shot into the fog of his consciousness, illuminating everything. He continued to sink. The turbulent stars overhead shrank into a fuzzy halo at the break in the ice above his head, leaving nothing but cold and inky blackness surrounding him, as if he wasn’t sinking into ice water, but had jumped into the blackness of space. In the dead, lonely, cold blackness, he saw the truth of the universe.
Liu Cixin (The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2))
Evolution is the floating bridge on turbulent waters. Any time an organization misses a change step, it will face extinction.
Sukant Ratnakar (Quantraz)