God. No God. Bottom Line? Stupefaction.

watermelon

I have observed the power of the watermelon seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight. When you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art, and then forms inside of it a white rind and within that again a red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which in turn is capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight – when you can explain to me the mystery of a watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God.

~ William Jennings Bryan


Quote Source: Thank you Steve Layman. Image: Wallyes.com. Definition for Stupefaction.

Related Post: Love ya. All Seasons. All Forms. All meals.

 

Something inside seems to be waiting, holding its breath

Alice-Walker

“Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.”

Autumn Lights

autumn lights


Love these. What are they?


Source: Elinka via German Photographer stefanie-d-b. Her bio with google translation: “i photograph. much. passionate. whatever I want, and how I want it. I show the things not as they are, but then, as I see it.”


What is a quote?

Orange-Slice-Spray-Water-Fruit-485x728

“What is a quote? A quote (cognate with quota) is a cut, a section, a slice of someone else’s orange. You suck the slice, toss the rind, skate away. Part of what you enjoy in a documentary technique is the sense of banditry. To loot someone else’s life or sentences and make off with a point of view.”

— Anne Carson, “Foam (Essay with Rhapsody)” (from Decreation)


(Sources: Quotes – leopoldgursky, via othernotebooksareavailable.  Image Credit)

Waking up is unpleasant, you know

shawshank-redemption-rain

“Waking up is unpleasant, you know. You are nice and comfortable in bed. It is irritating to be woken up. That’s the reason the wise guru will not attempt to wake people up. I hope I’m going to be wise here and make no attempt whatsoever to wake you up if you are asleep. It is really none of my business, even though I say to you at times, “Wake up!” My business is to do my thing, to dance my dance. As the Arabs say, “The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens.”

– Anthony de Mello


Anthony “Tony” de Mello (4 September 1931, Bombay, British India – 2 June 1987, New York City) was a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist who became widely known for his books on spirituality. An internationally acclaimed spiritual guide, writer and public speaker, de Mello hosted many spiritual conferences. The few talks which he allowed to be filmed, such as “A Rediscovery of Life” and “A Way to God for Today,” have inspired many viewers and audiences since being released; and have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of TV watchers throughout the United States, Canada, and Central America; in colleges, universities, Newman centers, and communities. De Mello established a prayer center in India. He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1987, at age 56.  Source (Wiki)


Quote Source: Thank you Whiskey River.  Image Source: bplusmovieblog (Tim Robbins as Andy DeFresne in Shawshank Redemption)