Song/Quote/Poem/Picture of the Day 4/8/2013

Song of the Day:

Quote of the Day:

Poem of the Day:Alice and The White Knight

by: Lewis Carroll 

Alice was walking beside the White Knight in Looking Glass Land.

'You are sad.' the Knight said in an anxious tone: 'let me sing you a song to comfort you.'

'Is it very long?' Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.

'It's long.' said the Knight, 'but it's very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it -
either it brings tears to their eyes, or else -'

'Or else what?' said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.

'Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.''

'Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to feel interested.

'No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little vexed. 'That's what the name
is called. The name really is 'The Aged, Aged Man.''

'Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?' Alice corrected herself.

'No you oughtn't: that's another thing. The song is called 'Ways and Means' but that's only
what it's called, you know!'

'Well, what is the song then?' said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.

'I was coming to that,' the Knight said. 'The song really is 'A-sitting On a Gate': and the
tune's my own invention.'

So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: then slowly beating time
with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting up his gentle, foolish face, he began:

I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged, aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
'Who are you, aged man?' I said,
' And how is it you live?'
And his answer trickled through my head
like water through a sieve.

He said 'I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,' he said,
'Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread -
A trifle if you please.'

But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, 'Come tell me how you live!'
And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale:
He said, 'I go my ways,
And when I find a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland's Macassar Oil -
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.'


But I was thinking of a way
To feed one's self on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side
Until his face was blue:
'Come tell me how you live,' I cried,
'And what it is you do!'

He said 'I hunt for haddocks' eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.

'I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search for grassy knolls
For wheels of hansom-cabs.
And that's the way' (he gave a wink)
'By which I get my wealth -
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honour's noble health.'

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai Bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for the wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

And now if e'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know -
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo -
That summer evening long ago
A-sitting on a gate.


As the Knight sang the last words of the ballad, he gathered up the reins, and turned his horse's head along the road by which they had come.

Picture of the Day: 

Live Below The Line Campaign

   This is the part where most people say "I was inspired to do this by so and so." While many great people are sponsoring UNICEF's Live Below The Line campaign, I have far greater reasons for doing this; the main one being that I lived like this at one time. For the first eight years of my life all I knew was peanut butter and Jelly, Bandanna's, Hot dogs, sometimes a neighbor taking pity on a young mother with five kids would stop by with odds and ends after cleaning out their pantry. The food was always way past the expiration date, when you are hungry you don't care.

    I remember standing in line from youngest to oldest as my mother handed out bread and butter as a snack. We were poor and filthy; many times we would wear the same clothes to school because we did not have a washer or dryer, nor the "abundance" of money to spend on detergent, and as many of you suppose correctly we got mercilessly picked on. Kids can be so cruel and yet I don't blame my tormentors because they in all likelihood did not know any better, it was up to their parents to teach them. My mother is actually an avid reader of my blogs, and I know she will be ashamed in my relating this, however there is no shame in trying to survive while raising five kids, none-what-so-ever. I am not ashamed, in fact I wear my earlier years as a badge of honor.

   My siblings and I can count ourselves among the lucky ones. When I was eight years old my grandparents took all five of my siblings under their roof and helped to clothe us and feed us. In my mind we feasted like kings! There was always fresh vegetables from the garden, and always a variety of food (or Smörgåsbord as my grandma called it.). We never went to bed hungry after that. My Grandma always said to eat was what given to us because there are people in the world who don't have much and would gladly eat what was served at her table. So perhaps I am doing this to remind myself that I have not risen so high to forget where I came from as well as calling attention to world hunger. 

(My food for six days)

 £5 is $7.67. While I know I went over the limit I have found a way to remedy this: Instead of going for five days, I am going to go for six. I start this challenge tomorrow Monday and end on Saturday. 

  Today for one of my last meals I decided to eat at Burger King. If you compare the two receipts, one meal is about as much as those living below the poverty line eat in two weeks. (I bought a friends meal, I don't eat this much!)I did feel ashamed afterwards, what a luxury this is! An eye opener and I have not even begun the challenge yet. My plan is to post a blog a day for the next six weeks detailing my progress. I am going into this with a positive, open mind hoping to grow from this experience, and perhaps in my own way make a difference. 

Head on over to UNICEF's website: http://www.unicef.org.uk/Fundraise/live-below-the-line/

Song/Quote/Poem/Picture of the Day 4/7/2013

Song of the Day:

Quote of the Day:

Poem of the Day: Vanitas Vanitatum

All the Flowers of the Spring
Meet to perfume our burying:
These have but their growing prime,
And man does flourish but his time.
Survey our progresse from our birth—
We are set, we grow, we turne to earth.
Courts adieu, and all delights,
All bewitching appetites!
Sweetest Breath and clearest eye
Like perfumes goe out and dye;
And consequently this is done
As shadowes wait upon the Sunne.
Vaine the ambition of Kings
Who seeke by trophies and dead things
To leave a living name behind,
And weave but nets to catch the wind.

          by:John Webster (1623)

Picture of the Day: 

Paris France

Song/Quote/Poem/Picture of the Day 4/5/2013

Song of the Day:

Quote of the Day: 

Poem of the Day: Spring Wind in London

by: Katherine Mansfield

I Blow across the stagnant world,
I blow across the sea,
For me, the sailor's flag unfurled,
For me, the uprooted tree.
My challenge to the world is hurled;
The world must bow to me.

I drive the clouds across the sky,
I huddle them like sheep;
Merciless shepherd-dog am I
And shepherd-watch I keep.
If in the quiet vales they lie
I blow them up the steep.

Lo! In the tree-tops do I hide,
In every living thing;
On the moon's yellow wings I glide,
On the wild rose I swing;
On the sea-horse's back I ride,
And what then do I bring?

And when a little child is ill
I pause, and with my hand
I wave the window curtain's frill
That he may understand
Outside the wind is blowing still;
...It is a pleasant land.

O stranger in a foreign place,
See what I bring to you.
This rain--is tears upon your face;
I tell you--tell you true
I came from that forgotten place
Where once the wattle grew,--

All the wild sweetness of the flower
Tangled against the wall.
It was that magic, silent hour....
The branches grew so tall
They twined themselves into a bower.
The sun shown... and the fall

Of yellow blossom on the grass!
You feel that golden rain?
Both of you could not hold, alas,
(both of you tried, in vain)
A memory, stranger. So I pass....
It will not come again

Picture of the Day: 

St. Giles, Oxford, United Kingdom at 4pm. Photo by © Darrell Godliman

Song/Quote/Poem/Picture of the Day 4/4/2013

Song of the Day:

Quote of the Day:

Poem of the Day:Fireflies

                      By: Rabindranath Tagor

My fancies are fireflies, -
Specks of living light
twinkling in the dark.

he voice of wayside pansies,
that do not attract the careless glance,
murmurs in these desultory lines.

In the drowsy dark caves of the mind
dreams build their nest with fragments
dropped from day's caravan.

Spring scatters the petals of flowers
that are not for the fruits of the future,
but for the moment's whim.

Joy freed from the bond of earth's slumber
rushes into numberless leaves,
and dances in the air for a day.

My words that are slight
my lightly dance upon time's waves
when my works havy with import have gone down.

Mind's underground moths
grow filmy wings
and take a farewell flight
in the sunset sky.

The butterfly counts not months but moments,
and has time enough.

My thoughts, like spark, ride on winged surprises,
carrying a single laughter.
The tree gazes in love at its own beautiful shadow
which yet it never can grasp.

Let my love, like sunlight, surround you
and yet give you illumined freedom.

Days are coloured vbubbles
that float upon the surface of fathomless night.

My offerings are too timid to claim your remembrance,
and therefore you may remember them.

Leave out my name from the gift
if it be a burden,
but keep my song.

April, like a child,
writes hieroglyphs on dust with flowers,
wipes them away and forgets.

Memory, the priestess,
kills the present
and offers its heart to the shrine of the dead past.

From the solemn gloom of the temple
children run out to sit in the dust,
God watches them play
and forgets the priest.

My mind starts up at some flash
on the flow of its thoughts
like a brook at a sudden liquid note of its own
that is never repeated.

In the mountain, stillness surges up
to explore its own height;
in the lake, movement stands still
to contemplate its own depth.

The departing night's one kiss
on the closed eyes of morning
glows in the star of dawn.

Maiden, thy beauty is like a fruit
which is yet to mature,
tense with an unyielding secret.

Sorrow that has lost its memory
is like the dumb dark hours
that have no bird songs
but only the cricket's chirp.

Bigotry tries to keep turth safe in its hand
with a grip that kills it.
Wishing to hearten a timid lamp
great night lights all her stars.

Though he holds in his arms the earth-bride,
the sky is ever immensely away.

God seeks comrades and claims love,
the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

The soil in return for her service
keeps the tree tied to her,
the sky asks nothing and leaves it free.

Jewel-like immortal
does not boast of its length of years
but of the scintillating point of its moment.

The child ever dwells in the mystery of ageless time,
unobscured by the dust of history.

Alight laughter in the steps of creation
carries it swiftly across time.

One who was distant came near to me in the morning,
and still nearer when taken away by night.

White and pink oleanders meet
and make merry in different dialects.

When peace is active swepping its dirt, it is storm.

The lake lies low by the hill,
a tearful entreaty of love
at the foot of the inflexible.

There smiles the Divine Child
among his playthings of unmeaning clouds
and ephemeral lights and shadows.

The breeze whispers to the lotus,
"What is thy secret?"
"It is myself," says the lotus,
"Steal it and I disappear!"

The freedom of the storm and the bondage of the stem
join hands in the dance of swaying branches.

The jasmine's lisping of love to the sun is her flowers.

The tyrant claims freedom to kill freedom
and yet to keep it for himself.

Gods, tired of their paradise, envy man.

Clouds are hills in vapour,
hills are clouds in stone, -
a phantasy in time's dream.

While God waits for His temple to be built of love,
men bring stones.

I touch God in my song
as the hill touches the far-away sea
with its waterfall.

Light finds her treasure of colours
through the antagonism of clouds.

My heart to-day smiles at its past night of tears
like a wet tree glistening in the sun
after the rain is over.

I have thanked the trees that have made my life fruitflul,
but have failed to remember the grass
that has ever kept it green.

The one without second is emptiness,
the other one makes it true.

Life's errors cry for the merciful beauty
that can modulate their isolation
into a harmony with the whole.

They expect thanks for the banished nest
because their cage is shapely and secure.

In love I pay my endless debt to thee
for what thou art.

The pond sends up its lyrics from its dark in lilies,
and the sun says, they are good.

Your calumny against the great is impious,
it hurts yourself;
against the small it is mean,
for it hurts the victim.

The first flower that blossomed on this earth
was an invitation to the unborn song.

Dawn-the many-coloured flower-fades,
and then the simple light-fruit,
the sun appears.

The muscle that has a doubt if its wisdom
throttles the voice that would cry.

The wind tries to take the flame by storm
only to blow it out.

Life's play is swift,
Life's playthings fall behind one by one
and are forgotten.

My flower, seek not thy paradise
in a fool's buttonhole.

Thou hast risen late, my crescent moon,
but my night bird is still awake to greet thee.

Darkness is the veiled bride
silently waiting for the errant light
to return to her bosom.

Trees are the earth's endless effort to
speak to the listening heaven.

The burden of self is lightened
when I laugh at myself.

The weak can be terrible
because they try furiously to appear strong.

The wind of heaven blows,
The anchor desperately clutches the mud,
and my boat is beating its breast against the chain.

The spirit of death is one,
the spirit of life is many,
Whe God is dead religion becomes one.

The blue of the sky longs for the earth's green,
the wind between them sighs, "Alas."
Day's pain muffled by its own glare,
burns among stars in the night.

The stars crowd round the virgin night
in silent awe at her loneliness
that can never be touched.

The cloud gives all its gold
to the departing sun
and greets the rising moon
with only a pale smile.

He who does good comes to the temple gate,
he who loves reaches the shrine.

Flower, have pity for the worm,
it is not a bee,
its love is a blunder and a burden.

With the ruins of terror's triumph
children build their doll's house.

The lamp waits through the long day of neglect
for the flame's kiss in the night.

Feathers in the dust lying lazily content
have forgotten their sky.

The flowers which is single
need not envy the thorns
that are numerous.

The world suffers most from the disinterested tyranny
of its well-wisher.

We gain freedom whrn we have paid the full price
for our right to live.

Your careless gifts of a moment,
like the meteors of an autumn night,
catch fire in the depth of my being.

The faith waiting in the heart of a seed
promises a miracle of life
which it cannot prove at once.

Spring hesitates at winter's door,
but the mango blossom rashly runs our to him
before her time and meets her doom.

The world is the ever-changing foam
thet floats on the surface of a sea of silence.

The two separated shores mingle their voices
in a song of unfathomed tears.

As a river in the sea,
work finds its fulfilment
in the depth of leisure.

I lingered on my way till thy cherry tree lost ist bossom,
but the azalea brins to me, my love, thy forgiveness.

Thy shy little pomegranate bud,
blushing to-day behind her veil,
will burst into a passionate flower
to-morrow when I am away.

The clumsiness of power spoils the key,
and uses the pickaxe.

Birth is from the mystery of night
into the grerater mystery of day.

These paper boats of mine are meant to dance
on the ripples of hours,
and not to reach any destination.

Migratory songs wing from my heart
and seek their nests in your voice of love.

The sea of danger, doubt and denial
around man's little island of certainty
challenges him to dare the unknown.

Love punishes when it forgives,
and injured beauty by its awful silence.

You live alone and unrecompensed
because they are afraid of your great worth.

The same sun is newly born in new lands
in a ring of endless dawns.

God is world is ever renewed by death,
a Titan's ever crushed by its own existence.

The glow-worm while exploring the dust
never knows that stars are in the sky.

The tree is of to-day, the flower is old,
it brings with it the message
of the immemorial seed.

Each rose that comes brings me greetings
from the Rose of an eternal spring.
God honours me when I work,
He loves me when I sing.

My love of to-day finds no home
in the nest deserted by yesterday's love.

The fire of pain tracse for my soul
a luminous path across her sorrow.

The grass survives the hill
through its resurrections from countless deaths.

Thou hast vanished from my reach
leaving an impalpable touch in the blue of the sky,
an invisible image in the wind moving
among the shadows.

In pity for the desolate branch
spring leaves to it a kiss that fluttered in a lonely leaf.

The shy shadow in the farden
loves the sun in silence,
Flowers guess the secret, and mile,
while the leaves whisper.

I leave no trace of wings in the air,
but I am glad I have had my flight.

The fireflies, twinkling among leaves,
make the stars wonder.

The mountain remains unmoved
at its seeming defeat by the mist.

While the rose said to the sun,
"I shall ever remember thee,"
her petals fell to the dust.

Hills are the earth's gesture of despair
for the unreachable.

Though the thorn in thy flower pricked me,
O Beauty,
I am grateful.

The world knows that the few
are more than the many.

Let not my love be a burden on you, my friend,
know that it pays itself.

Dawn plays her lute before the gate of darkness,
and is content to vanish when the sun comes out.

Beauty is truth's smile
when she beholds her own face
in a perfect mirror.

The dew-drop knows the sun
only within its own tiny orb.

Forlorn thoughts from the forsaken hives of all ages,
swarming in the air, hum round my heart
and seek my voice.

The desert is imprisoned in the wall
of its unbounded barrenness.

In the thrill of little leaves
I see the air's invisible dance,
and in their glimmering
the secret heart-beats of the sky.

You are like a flowering tree,
amazed when I praise you for your gifts.

The earth's sacrifical fire
flames up in her trees,
scattering sparks in flowers.

Foretsts, the clouds of earth,
hold up to the sky their silence,
and clouds from above come down
in resonant showers.

The world speaks to me in pictures,
my soul answers in music.

The sky tells its beads all night
on the countless stars
in memory of the sun.

The darkness of night, like pain, is dumb,
the darkness of dawn, like peace, is silent.

Pride engraves his frowns in stones,
loe offers her surrender in flowers.

The obsequious brush curtails truth
in diference to the canvas which is narrow.

The hill in its longing for the far-away sky
wishes to be like the cloud
with its endless urge of seeking.

To justify their own spilling of ink
they spell the day as night.

Profit smiles on goodness
when the good is profitable.

In its swelling pride
the bubble doubts the turth of the sea,
and laughs and bursts into emptiness.

Love is an endless mystery,
for it has nothing else to explain its.

My clouds, sorrowing in the dark,
forget that they themselves
have hidden the sun.

Man discovers his own wealth
when God comes to ask gifts of him.

You leave your memory as a flame
to my lonely lamp of separation.

I came to offer thee a flower,
but thou must have all my garden,-
It is thine.

The picture-a memory of light
treasured by the shadow.

It is easy to make faces at the sun,
He is exposed by his own light in all
directions.

History slowly smothers its truth,
but hastily struggles to revive it
in the terrible penance of pain.

My work is rewarded in daily wages,
I wait for my final value in love.

Beauty knows to say, "Enough,"
barbarism clamours for still more.

God loves to see in me, not his servant,
but himself who serves all.

The darkness of night is in harmony with day,
the morning of mist is discordant.

In the bounteous time of roses love is wine,-
it is food in the famished hour
when their petals are shed.

An unknown flower in a strange land
speaks to the poet:
"Are we not of the same soil, my lover?"

I am able to love my God
because He gives me freedom to deny Him.

My untuned strings beg for music
in their anguished cry of shame.

The worm thinks it strange and foolish
that man does not eat his books.

The clouded sky to-day bears the visior
of the shadow of a divine sadness
on the forehead of brooding eternity.

The shade of my tree is for passers-by,
its fruit for the one for whom I wait.

Flushed with the glow of sunset
earth seems like a ripe fruit
ready to be harvested by night.

Light accepts darkness for his spouse
for the sake of creation.

The reed waits for his master's breath,
the Master goes seeking for his reed.

To the blind pen the hand that writes is unreal,
its writing unmeaning.

The sea smites his own barren breast
because he has no flowers to offer to the moon.

The greed for fruit misses the flower.

God in His temple of stars
waits for man to bring him his lamp.

The fire restrained in the tree fashions flowers.
Released from bonds, the shameless flame
dies in barren ashes.

The sky sets no snare to capture the moon,
it is her own freedom which binds her.
The light that fills the sky
seeks its limit in a dew-drop on the grass.

Wealth is the burden of bigness,
Welfare the fulness of being.

The razor-blade is proud of its keenness
when it sneers at the sun.

The butterfly has leisure to love the lotus,
not the bee busily storing honey.

Child, thou bringest to my heart
the babble of the wind and the water,
the flower's speechless secrets, the clouds' dreams,
the mute gaze of wonder of the morning sky.

The rainbow among the clouds may be great
but the little butterfly among the bushes is greater.

The mist weaves her net round the morning,
captivates him, and makes him blind.

The Morning Star whispers to Dawn,
"Tell me that you are only for me."
"Yes," she answers,
"And also only for that nameless flower."

The sky remains infinitely vacant
for earth there to build its heaven with dreams.

Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubt
at being told that it is a fragment
awaiting perfection.

Let the evening forgive the mistakes of the day
and thus win peace for herself.

Beauty smiles in the confinement of the bud,
in the heart of a sweet incompleteness.

Your flitting love lightly brushed with its wings
my sun-flower
and never asked if it was ready to surrender its honey.

Leaves are silences
around flowers which are their words.

The tree bears its thousand years
as one large majestic moment.

My offerings are not for the temple at the end of the road,
but for the wayside shrines
that surprise me at every bend.

Hour smile, my love, like the smell of a strange flower,
is simple and inexplicable.

Death laughs when the merit of the dead is exaggerated
for it swells his store with more than he can claim.

The sigh of the shore follows in vain
the breeze that hastens the ship across the sea.

Truth loves its limits,
for there it meets the beautiful.

Between the shores of Me and Thee
there is the loud ocean, my own surging self,
which I long to cross.

The right to possess boasts foolishly
of its right to enjoy.

The rose is a great deal more
than a blushing apology for the thorn.

Day offers to the silence of stars
his golden lute to be tuned
for the endless life.

The wise know how to teach,
the fool how to smite.

The centre is still and silent in the heart
of an enternal dance of circles.

The judge thinks that he is just when he compares
The oil of another's lamp
with the light of his own.

The captive flower in the King's wreath
smiles bitterly when the meadow-flower envies her.

Its store of snow is the hill's own burden,
its outpouring if streams is borne by all the world.

Listen to the prayer of the forest
for its freedom in flowers.

Let your love see me
even through the barrier of nearness.

The spirit of work in creation is there
to carry and help the spirit of play.

To carry the burden of the insturment,
count the cost of its material,
and never to know that it is for music,
is the tragedy of deaf life.

Faith is the bird that feels the light
and sings when the dawn is still dark.

I bring to thee, night, my day's empty cup,
to be cleansed with thy cool darkness
for a new morning's festival.

The mountain fir, in its rustling,
modulates the memory of its fights with the storm
into a hymn of peace.

God honoured me with his fight
when I was rebellious,
He ignored me when I was languid.

The sectarina thinks
that he has the sea
ladled into his private pond.

In the shady depth of life
are the lonely nests of memories
that shrink from words.

Let my love find its strength
in the service of day,
its peace in the union of night.

Life sends up in blades of grass
its silent hymn of praise
to the unnamed Light.

The stars of night are to me
the memorials of my day's faded flowers.

Open thy door to that which must go,
for the loss becomes unseemly when obstructed.

True end is not in the reaching of the limit,
but in a completion which is limitless.

The shore whispers to the sea:
"Write to me what thy waves struggle to say."
The sea writes in foam again and again
and wipes off the lines in a boisterous despair.

Let the touch ofthy finger thrill my life's strings
and make the music thine and mine.

The inner world rounded in my life like a fruit,
matured in joy and sorrow,
will drop into the darkness of the orogonal soil
for some further course of creation.

Form is in Matter, rhythm in Force,
meaning in the Person.

There are seekers of wisdom and seekers of wealth,
I seek thy company so that I may sing.

As the tree its leaves, I shed my words on the earth,
let my thoughts unuttered flower in thy silence.

My faith in truth, my vision of the perfect,
help thee, Master, in thy creation.

All the delights that I have felt
in life's fruits and flowers
let me offer to thee at the end of the feast,
in a perfect union of love.

Some have thought deeply and explored the
meaning of thy truth,
and they are great;
I have listened to catch the music of thy play,
and I am glad.

The tree is a winged spirit
released from the bondage of seed,
pursuing its adventure of life
across the unknown.

The lotus offers its beauty to the heaven,
the grass its service to the earth.

The sun's kiss mellows into abandonment
the miserliness of the green fruit clinging to its stem.

The flame met the earthen lamp in me,
and what a great marvel of light!

Mistakes live in the neighbourhood of truth
and therefore delude us.

The cloud laughed at the rainbow
saying that is was an upstart
gaudy in its emptiness.
The rainbow calmly answered,
"I am as inevitably real as tha sun himself."

Let me not grope in vain in the dark
but keep my mind still in the faith
that the day will break
and truth will appear
in its simplicity.

Through the silent night
I hear the returning vagrant hopes of the morning
knock at my heart.

My new love comes
bringing to me the eternal wealth of the old.

The earth gazes at the moon and wonders
that she sould have all her music in her smile.

Day with its glare of curiosity
puts the stars to flight.

My mind has itstrue union with thee, O sky,
at the window which is mine own,
and not in the open
where thou hast thy sole kingdom.

Man claims God's flowers as his own
when he weaves them in a garland.

The buried city, laid bare to the sun of a new age,
is ashamed that is has lost all its song.

Like my heart's pain that has long missed its meaning,
the sun's rays robed in dark
hide themselves under the ground.
Like my heart'spain at love's sudden touch,
they change their veil at the spring's call
and come out in the carnival of colours,
in flowers and leaves.

My life's empty flute
waits for its final music
like the primal darkness
before the stars came out.

Emancipation from the bondage of the soil
is no freedom for the tree.

The tapestry of life's story is woven
with the threads of life's ties
ever joining and breaking.

Those thoughts of mine that are never captured by words
perch upon my song and dance.

My soul to-night loses itself
in the silent heart of a tree
standing alone among the whispers of immensity.

Pearl shells cast up by the sea
on death's barren beach,-
a magnificent wastefulness of creative life.

The sunlight opens for me the word's gate,
love's light its terasure.

My life like the reed with ist stops,
has its play od colours
through the gaps in its hopes and gains.

Let not my thanks to thee
rob my silence of its fuller homage.

Life's aspirations come
in the guise of children.

The faded flower sighs
that the spring has vanished for ever.

In my life's garden
my wealth has been of the shadows and lights
that are never gathered and stored.

The fruit that I Have gained for ever
is thet which thou hast accepted.

The jasmine knows the sun to be her brother
in the heaven.

Light is young, the ancient light;
shadows are of the moment, they are born old.

I feel that the ferry of my songs at the day's end
will brong me across to the other shore
from where I shall see.

The butterfly flitting from flower to flower
ever remains mine,
I lose the one that is netted by me.

Your voice, free bird, reaches my sleeping nest,
and my drowsy wings dream
of a voyage to the light
above the clouds.

I miss the meaning of my own part
in the play of life
because I know not of the parts
that others play.

The flower sheds all its petals
and finds the fruit.

I leave my songs behind me
to the bloom of the ever-returning honeysuckles
and the joy of the wind from the south.

Dead leaves when they lose themselves in soil
take part in the life of the forest.

The mind ever seeks its words
from its sounds and silence
as the sky from its darkness and light.

The unseen dark plays on his flute
and the rhythm of light
eddies into stars and suns,
into thoughts and reams.

My songs are to sing
that I have loved Thy singing.

When the voice of the Silent touches my words
I know him and therefore I know myself.

My last salutations are to them
who knew me imperfect and loved me.

Love's gift cannot be given,
it waits to be accepted.

When death comes and whispers to me,
"Thy days are ended,"
let me say to him, "I have lived in love
and not in mere time."
He will ask, "Will thy songs remain?"
I shall say, "I know not, but this I know
that often when I sang I found my eternity."

"Let me light my lamp,"
say the star,
'and never debate
if it will help to remove the darkness."

Before the end of my journey
may I reach within myself
the one which is the all,
leaving the outer shell
to float away with the drifting multitude
upon the current of chance and change.

Picture of the Day: 

London Street scene, 1920s

Song/Quote/Poem/Picture of the Day 4/3/2013

Song of the Day:

Quote of the Day:

Poem of the Day: The Heroic Enthusiast Part 1: Third Dialogue

 By Giordano Bruno

TANSILLO.


There are several varieties of enthusiasts, which may all be reduced to
two kinds. While some only display blindness, stupidity, and irrational
impetuosity, which tend towards savage madness, others by divine
abstraction become in reality superior to ordinary men. And these again
are of two kinds, for some having become the habitation of gods or
divine spirits, speak and perform wonderful things, without themselves
understanding the reason. Many such have been uncultured and ignorant
persons, into whom, being void of spirit and sense of their own, as into
an empty chamber, the divine spirit and sense intrude, as it would have
less power to show itself in those who are full of their own reason and
sense. This divine spirit often desires that the world should know for
certain, that those do not speak from their own knowledge and
experience, but speak and act through some superior intelligence; for
such, the mass of men vouchsafe more admiration and faith, while others,
being skilful in contemplation and possessing innately a clear
intellectual spirit, have an internal stimulus and natural fervour,
excited by the love of the divine, of justice, of truth, of glory, and
by the fire of desire and the breath of intention, sharpen their senses,
and in the sulphur of the cogitative faculty, these kindle the rational
light, with which they see more than ordinarily; and they come in the
end to speak and act, not as vessels and instruments, but as chief
artificers and experts.

CIC. Of these two which dost thou esteem higher?

TANS. The first have more dignity, power, and efficacy within
themselves, because they have the divinity; the second _are_ themselves
worthy, potential, and efficacious, and _are_ divine. The first are
worthy, as is the ass which carries the sacraments; the second are as a
sacred thing. In the first is contemplated and seen in effect the
divinity, and that is beheld, adored, and obeyed; in the second is
contemplated and seen the excellency of humanity itself. But now to the
question. These enthusiasms of which we speak, and which we see
exemplified in these sentences, are not oblivion, but a memory; they
are not neglect of one's self, but love and desire of the beautiful and
good, by means of which we are able to make ourselves perfect, by
transforming and assimilating ourselves to it. It is not a
precipitation, under the laws of a tyrannous fate, into the noose of
animal affections, but a rational impetus, which follows the
intellectual apprehension of the beautiful and the good, which knows
whom it wishes to obey and to please, so that, by its nobility and
light, it kindles and invests itself with qualities and conditions
through which it appears illustrious and worthy. He (the enthusiast)
becomes a god by intellectual contact with the divine object, and he has
no thought for other than divine things, and shows himself insensible
and impassive towards those things which are commonly felt, and about
which others are mostly tormented; he fears nothing, and for love of the
divine he despises other pleasures and gives no thought to this life. It
is not a fury of black bile which sends him drifting outside of
judgment, reason, and acts of prudence, and tossed by the discordant
tempest, like those who, having violated certain laws of the divine
Adrastia, are condemned to be scourged by the Furies, in order that they
may be excited by a dissonance as corporeal through seditions,
destructions, and plagues, as it is spiritual, through the forfeiture of
harmony between the perceptive and enjoying powers; but it is aglow
kindled by the intellectual sun in the soul, and a divine impetus which
lends it wings, with which, drawing nearer and nearer to the
intellectual sun, and ridding itself of the rust of human cares, it
becomes a gold tried and pure, has the perception of divine and internal
harmony, and its thoughts and acts accord with the symmetry of the law,
innate in all things. Not, as drunk from the cups of Circe, does he go
dashing and stumbling, now in this and then in that ditch, now against
this or that rock, or like a shifting Proteus, changing now to this, now
to the other aspect, never finding place, fashion, or ground to stay and
settle in; but, without spoiling the harmony, conquers and overcomes the
horrid monsters, and however much he may swerve, he easily returns to
himself by means of those inward instincts that, like the nine Muses,
dance and sing round the splendours of the universal Apollo, and under
tangible images and material things, he comes to comprehend divine laws
and counsels. It is true that sometimes, having love for his trusty
escort, who is double, and because sometimes through occasional
impediments he finds himself defrauded of his strength, then, as one
insane and furious, he squanders away the love of that which he cannot
comprehend; whence, confused by the obscurity of the divinity, he
sometimes abandons the work, and then again returns, to force himself
with his will thither, where he cannot arrive with the intellect. It is
true also that he commonly wanders, and transports himself, now into
one, now into another form of the double Eros; therefore, the principal
lesson that Love gives to him is, that he contemplate the divine beauty
in shadow, when he cannot do so in the mirror, and, like the suitors of
Penelope, he entertain himself with the maids when he is not permitted
to converse with the mistress. Now, in conclusion, you can comprehend,
from what has been said, what is this enthusiast whose picture is put
forth, when it is said:

12.

  If towards the shining light the butterfly,
  Winging his way knows not the burning flame,
  And if the thirsty stag, unmindful of the dart,
  Runs fainting to the brook,
  Or unicorn, unto the chaste breast running,
  Ignores the snare that is for him prepared,
  I, in the light, the fount, the bosom of my love
  Behold the flames, the arrows, and the chains.
  If it be sweet in plaintiveness to droop,
  Why does that lofty splendour dazzle me?
  Wherefore the sacred arrow sweetly wound?
  Why in this knot is my desire involved?
  And why to me eternal irksomeness
  Flames to my heart, darts to my breast and snares unto my soul?


Here he shows his love not to be like that of the butterfly, of the
stag, and of the unicorn, who would flee away if they had knowledge of
the fire, of the arrow, and of the snares, and who have no other sense
than that of pleasure; but he is moved by a most sensible and only too
evident passion, which forces him to love that fire more than any
coolness; more that wound than any wholeness; more those fetters than
any liberty. For this evil is not absolutely evil, but, through
comparison with good (according to opinion), it is deceptive, like the
sauce that old Saturn gets when he devours his own sons; for this evil
absolutely in the eye of the Eternal, is comprehended either for good,
or for guide which conduces to it, since this fire is the ardent desire
of divine things, this arrow is the impression of the ray of the beauty
of supernal light, these snares are the species of truth which unite our
mind to the primal verity, and the species of good which unite and join
to the primal and highest good. To that meaning I approached when I
said:

13.

  With such a fire and such a noble noose,
  Beauty enkindles me, and pureness binds,
  So that in flames and servitude I take delight,
  Liberty takes flight and dreads the ice.
  Such is the heat, that though I burn yet am I not destroyed,
  The tie is such, the world with me gives praise.
  Fear cannot freeze, nor pain unshackle me;
  For soothing is the ardour, sweet the smart.
  So high the light that burns me I discern,
  And of so rich a thread the noose contrived
  That, thought being born, the longing dies.
  And since, within my heart shines such pure flames,
  And so supreme a tie compels my will,
  Let my shade serve, and let my ashes burn.

All the loves, if they be heroic and not purely animal, or what is
called natural, and slaves to generation, as instruments of nature in a
certain way, have for object the divinity, tend towards divine beauty,
which first is communicated to souls and shines in them, and from them,
or rather through them, it is communicated to bodies; whence it is that
well-ordered affection loves the body or corporeal beauty, insomuch as
it is an indication of beauty of spirit. Thus that which causes the
attraction of love to the body is a certain spirituality which we see in
it, and which is called beauty, and which does not consist in major or
minor dimensions, nor in determined colours or forms, but in harmony and
consonance of members and colours. This shows an affinity between the
spirit and the most acute and penetrative senses; whence it follows that
such become more easily and intensely enamoured, and also more easily
and intensely disgusted, which might be through a change of the deformed
spirit, which in some gesture and expressed intention reveals itself in
such wise that this deformity extends from the soul to the body, and
makes it appear no longer beautiful as before. The beauty, then, of the
body has power to kindle, but not to bind, and the lover, unless aided
by the graces of the spirit, such as purity, gratitude, courtesy,
circumspection, is unable to escape. Therefore, said I, beautiful is
that fire which burns me, and noble that tie which binds.

CIC. I do not believe it is always like that, Tansillo; because,
sometimes, notwithstanding that we discover the spirit to be vicious, we
remain heated and entangled; so that, although reason perceives the evil
and unworthiness of such a love, it yet has not power to alienate the
disordered appetite. In this disposition, I believe, was the Nolano when
he said:

14.

  Woe's me! my fury forces me
  To union with the bad within,
  And makes it seem a love supreme and good.
  Wearied, my soul cares nought
  That I opposing counsels entertain,
  And with the savage tyrant
  Nourished with want,
  And made to put myself in exile,
  More than with liberty contented am.
  I spread my sails to the wind,
  To draw me forth from this detested bliss,
  And to reclaim me from the cloying hurt.

TANS. This occurs when spirits are vicious and tinged as with the same
hue; since, through conformity, love is excited, enkindled, and
confirmed. Thus the vicious easily concur in acts of the same vice; and
I will not refrain from repeating that which I know by experience, for
although I may have discovered in a soul vices very much abominated by
me--as, for instance, filthy avarice, base greediness for money,
ingratitude for favours and courtesies received, or a love of quite vile
persons, of which this last most displeases, because it takes away the
hope from the lover, that by becoming or making himself more worthy he
may become more acceptable--in spite of all this, it is true that I did
burn for corporeal beauty. But how? I loved against my will; for, were
it not so, I should have been more saddened than cheered by troubles and
misfortunes.

CIC. It is a very proper and nice distinction that is made between
loving and liking.

TANS. Truly; because we like many--that is, we desire that they be wise
and just; but we love them not because they are unjust and ignorant;
many we love because they are beautiful, but we do not like them,
because they do not deserve it; and amongst other things of which the
lover deems the loved one undeserving, the first is, being loved; and
yet, although he cannot abstain from loving, nevertheless he regrets it,
and shows his regret like him who said, "Woe is me! who am compelled by
passion to coalesce with evil." In the opposite mood was he, either
through some corporeal object in similitude or through a divine subject
in reality, when he said:

15.

  Although to many pains thou dost subject me,
  Yet do I thank thee, love, and owe thee much,
  That thou my breast dost cleave with noble wound,
  And then dost take my heart and master it.
  Thus true it is, that I, on earth, adore
  A living object, image most beautiful of God.
  Let him who will think that my fate is bad
  That kills in hope and quickens in desire.
  My pasture is the high emprise,
  And though the end desired be not attained,
  And though my soul in many thoughts is spent,
  Enough that she enkindle noble fire,
  Enough that she has lifted me on high,
  And from the ignoble crowd has severed me.

Here his love is entirely heroic and divine, and as such, I wish it to
be understood; although he says that through it he is subject to many
pangs, every lover who is separated from the thing loved (to which being
joined by affection he would also wish to be actually), being in anguish
and pain, he torments himself, not forsooth because he loves, since he
feels his love is engaged most worthily and most nobly, but because he
feels deprived of that fruition which he would obtain if he arrived at
that end to which he tends. He suffers, not from the desire which
animates him, but from the difficulty in the cultivation of it which so
tortures him. Others esteem him unhappy through this appearance of an
evil destiny, as being condemned to these pangs, for he will never cease
from acknowledging the obligation he is under to love, nor cease from
rendering thanks to him because he has presented before the eyes of his
mind such an intelligible conception through which, in this earthly
life, shut in this prison of the flesh, wrapped in these nerves and
supported by these bones, it is permitted to him to contemplate the
divinity in a more suitable manner than if other conceptions and
similitudes than these had offered themselves.

CIC. The divine and living object, then, of which he speaks, is the
highest intelligible conception that he has been able to form to himself
of the divinity, and is not some corporeal beauty which might overshadow
his thought and appear superficially to the senses.

TANS. Even so; because no tangible thing nor conception of such can
raise itself to so much dignity.

CIC. Why, then, does he mention that conception as the object, if, as
appears to me, the true object is the divinity itself?

TANS. The divinity is the final object, the ultimate and most perfect,
but not in this state, where we cannot see God except as in a shadow or
a mirror, and therefore He cannot be the object except in some
similitude, but not in such as may be extracted or acquired from
corporeal beauty and excellence, by virtue of the senses, but such as
may be formed in the mind, by virtue of the intellect. In which state,
finding himself, he comes to lose the love and affection for every other
thing senseful as well as intellectual, because this, conjoined to that
light, itself also becomes light, and in consequence becomes a god:
because it contracts the divinity into itself, it being in God through
the intention with which it penetrates into the divinity so far as it
can, and God being in it, so that after penetrating, it comes to
conceive, and so far as it can, receive and comprehend the divinity in
its conception. Now in such conceptions and similitudes the human
intellect of this lower world nourishes itself, till such time as it
will be lawful to behold with purer eye the beauty of the divinity. As
happens to him, who, absorbed in the contemplation of some elaborate
architectural work, goes on examining one thing after another in it,
enchanted and feeding in a wonder of delight; but if it should happen
that he sees the lord of all those pictures, who is of a beauty
incomparably greater, leaving all care and thought of them, he is turned
intently to the examination of him. Here, then, is the difference
between that state where we see divine beauty in intelligible
conceptions apart from the effects, labours, works, shadows, and
similitudes of it, and that other state in which it is lawful to behold
it in real presence. He says: "My pasture is the high emprise," because
as the Pythagoreans remark, "The soul moves and turns round God, as the
body round the soul."

CIC. Then the body is not the habitation of the soul?

TANS. No; because the soul is not in the body locally, but as intrinsic
form and extrinsic framer, as that which forms the limbs indicates the
internal and external composition. The body, then, is in the soul, the
soul in the mind, the mind either is God or is in God, as Plotinus said.
As in its essence it is in God who is its life, similarly through the
intellectual operation, and the will consequent upon such operation, it
agrees with its bright and beatific object. Fitly, therefore, this
rapture of heroic enthusiasm feeds on such "high emprise." For the
object is infinite, and in action most simple, and our intellectual
power cannot apprehend the infinite except in speech or in a certain
manner of speech, so to say in a certain potential or relative
inference, as one who proposes to himself the infinity, so that he may
constitute for himself a finality where no finality is.

CIC. Fitly so, because the ultimate ought not to have an end seeing
that it is ultimate. For it is infinite in intention, in perfection, in
essence, and in any other manner whatsoever of being final.

TANS. Thou sayest truly. Now in this life, that food is such that
excites more than it can appease, as that divine poet shows when he
says: "My soul is wearied, longing for the living God," and in another
place; "Attenuati sunt oculi mei suspicientes in excelsa." Therefore he
says, "And though the end desired be not attained, And that my soul in
many thoughts is spent, Enough that she enkindle noble fire:" meaning to
say that the soul comforts itself, and receives all the glory which it
is able in that state to receive, and that it is a participator in that
ultimate enthusiasm of man, in so far as he is a man in this present
condition, as we see him.

CIC. It appears to me that the Peripatetics, as explained by Averroes,
mean this, when they say that the highest felicity of man consists in
perfection through the speculative sciences.

TANS. It is true, and they say well; because we, in this state, cannot
desire nor obtain greater perfection than that in which we are, when our
intellect, by means of some noble and intelligible conception, unites
itself either to the substance of things hoped for, as those say, or to
the divine mind, as it is the fashion to say of the Platonists. For the
present, I will leave reasoning about the soul, or man in another state
or mode of being than he can find himself or believe himself to be in.

CIC. But what perfection or satisfaction can man find in that knowledge
which is not perfect?

TANS. It will never be perfect, so far as understanding the highest
object is concerned; but in so far as our intellect can understand it.
Let it suffice that in this and other states there be present to him the
divine beauty so far as the horizon of his vision extends.

CIC. But all men cannot arrive at that, which one or two may reach.

TANS. Let it suffice that all "run well," and that each does his utmost,
for the heroic nature is content and shows its dignity rather in
falling, or in failing worthily in the high undertaking, in which it
shows the dignity of its spirit, than in succeeding to perfection in
lower and less noble things.

CIC. Truly a dignified and heroic death is better than a mean, low
triumph.

TANS. On that theme I made this sonnet:

16.

  Since I have spread my wings to my desire,
  The more I feel the air beneath my feet,
  So much the more towards the wind I bend
  My swiftest pinions,
  And spurn the world and up towards heaven I go.
  Not the sad fate of Daedalus's son
  Does warn me to turn downwards,
  But ever higher will I rise.
  Well do I see, I shall fall dead to earth;
  But what life is there can compare with this my death?
  Out on the air my heart's voice do I hear:
  "Whither dost thou carry me, thou fearless one?
  Turn back. Such over-boldness rarely grief escapes."
  "Fear not the utmost ruin then," I said,
  "Cleave confident the clouds and die content,
  That heaven has destined thee to such illustrious death."

CIC. I understand when you say: "Enough that thou hast lifted me on
high;" but not: "And from the ignoble crowd hast severed me;" unless it
means his having come out from the Platonic groove on account of the
stupid and low condition of the crowd; for those that find profit in
this contemplation cannot be numerous.

TANS. Thou understandest well; but thou mayst also understand, by the
"ignoble crowd," the body, and sensual cognition, from which he must
arise and free himself who would unite with a nature of a contrary
kind.

CIC. The Platonists say there are two kinds of knots which link the soul
to the body. One is a certain vivifying action which from the soul
descends into the body, like a ray; the other is a certain vital
quality, which is produced from that action in the body. Now this active
and most noble number, which is the soul, in what way do you understand
that it may be severed from the ignoble number, which is the body?

TANS. Certainly it was not understood according to any of these modes,
but according to that mode whereby those powers which are not
comprehended and imprisoned in the womb of matter, sometimes as if
inebriated and stupefied, find that they also are occupied in the
formation of matter and in the vivification of the body; then, as if
awakened and brought to themselves, recognizing its principle and
genius, they turn towards superior things and force themselves on the
intelligible world as to their native abode, and from thence, through
their conversion to inferior things, they are thrust into the fate and
conditions of generation. These two impulses are symbolized in the two
kinds of metamorphosis expressed in the following:

17.

  That god who shakes the sounding thunder,
  Asteria as a furtive eagle saw;
  Mnemosyne as shepherd; Danae gold;
  Alcmene as a fish; Antiope a goat;
  Cadmus and his sister a white bull;
  Leda as swan, and Dolida as dragon;
  And through the lofty object I become,
  From subject viler still, a god.
  A horse was Saturn;
  And in a calf and dolphin Neptune dwelt;
  Ibis and shepherd Mercury became;
  Bacchus a grape; Apollo was a crow;
  And I by help of love,
  From an inferior thing, do change me to a god.

In Nature is one revolution and one circle, by means of which, for the
perfection and help of others, superior things lower themselves to
things inferior, and, by their own excellence and felicity, inferior
things raise themselves to superior ones. Therefore the Pythagoreans and
Platonists say it is given to the soul that at certain times, not only
by spontaneous will, which turns it towards the comprehension of Nature,
but also by the necessity of an internal law, written and registered by
the destined decree, they seek their own justly determined fate; and
they also say that souls, not so much by determination of their own will
as through a certain order, by which they become inclined towards
matter, decline as rebels from divinity; wherefore, not by free
intention, but by a certain occult consequence, they fall. And this is
the inclination that they have to generation, as towards a minor good.
Minor, I say, in so far as it appertains to that particular nature; not
in so far as it appertains to the universal nature, where nothing
happens without the highest aim, and which disposes of all things
according to justice. In which generation finding themselves once more
through the changes which permutably succeed, they return again to the
superior forms.

CIC. So that they mean, that souls are impelled by the necessity of
fate, and have no proper counsel which guides them at all.

TANS. Necessity, fate, nature, counsel, will, those things, justly and
rightfully ordained, all agree in one. Besides which, as Plotinus
relates, some believe that certain souls can escape from their own evil,
if knowing the danger, they seek refuge in the mind before the corporeal
habit is confirmed; because the mind raises to things sublime, as the
imagination lowers to inferior things. The mind always understands one,
as the imagination is one in movement and in diversity; the mind always
understands one, as the imagination is always inventing for itself
various images. In the midst is the rational faculty, which is a
mixture of all, like that in which the one agrees with the many,
sameness with variety, movement with fixedness, the inferior with the
superior. Now these transmutations and conversions are symbolized in the
wheel of metamorphosis, where man sits on the upper part, a beast lies
at the bottom, a half-man, half-beast descends from the left, and a
half-beast, half-man ascends from the right. This transmutation is shown
where Jove, according to the diversity of the affections and the
behaviour of those towards inferior things, invests himself with divers
figures, entering into the form of beasts; and so also the other gods
transmigrate into base and alien forms. And, on the contrary, through
the knowledge of their own nobility, they re-take their own divine form;
as the passionate hero, raising himself through conceived kinds of
divine beauty and goodness, with the wings of the intellect and rational
will, rises to the divinity, leaving the form of the lower subject. And
therefore he said, "I become from subject viler still, a god. From an
inferior thing do change me to a god."

Picture of the Day: Kirby Hall, England

Photo(s) by: Robert Kilpin & Keith Evans 

 Here’s one abandoned building you don’t need to be an urban explorer to check out.  Built over the course of a decade from 1570, Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire survives in a semi-ruined state and is managed by English Heritage.  Due to astronomical maintenance bills, Kirby Hall is one of many abandoned stately homes in England.  But it still came in handy as a film location for Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and the 1999 adaptation of A Christmas Carol.  Visitors can also enjoy the expansive gardens.

Source: <http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2011/05/global-urbex-12-haunting-abandoned-buildings-places/>

Photo Shoot Saturday 3/30/2013

       So here are some photo's from this weekends shoot. I shared some on twitter and fbook. Great photo shoot with great friends. Hope y'all enjoy!