Doors of Perception

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks in his cavern

William  Blake

Matthaei Gardens, Michigan

Come, Gentle Night, Loving Night

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-browed night,
Give me my Romeo. And when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Happy Valentine’s Day from W. Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

Newburgh Lake, Michigan

 

Better Angels of Our Nature

On his birthday, a beautifully written statement of patriotism from Abraham Lincoln, written on the brink of a Civil War. And apropos these days.

I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
(1st Inaugural, 1861)

Hartwick Pines, Michigan

 

 

I Hear It in the Deep Heart’s Core

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

William B. Yeats, Lake Isle of Innisfree

On this February day, my thoughts drift to summer memories.

Newburgh Lake, Michigan

Looking Ahead to Magic

And who shall say–whatever disenchantment follows–that we ever forget magic; or that we can ever betray, on this leaden earth, the apple-tree, the singing, and the gold?

Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel

Anticipating Spring on a winter’s day.

Matthaei Gardens, Michigan

That Mildly Intoxicating Feeling of Beauty

The enjoyment of beauty has a peculiar, mildly intoxicating quality of feeling. Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.
–Sigmund Freud

So, as winter sets in and the trees rest in their dormant shade of gray, memories of summers past and summers to come beguile the time.

 

Tasting Life Twice

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.”
– Anais Nin