Tag Archives: ralph waldo emerson

The 08/12/13 Joy Jar

11 Aug

Moi has begun walking more to build up endurance to eventually start running. She is slowly getting healthier. A summer in Seattle is green and verdant. One thing moi notices that no matter the season of the year the fir trees and evergreens are green all year long. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are the evergreens which are green even in the grayest of winters.

“The pine tree seems to listen, the fir tree to wait: and both without impatience — they give no thought to the little people beneath them devoured by their impatience and their curiosity.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
Henry David Thoreau

You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night.
Denise Levertov

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
Henry David Thoreau

The trees are God’s great alphabet:
With them He writes in shining green
Across the world His thoughts serene.
Leonora Speyer

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!
John Muir

Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend,
Unnerves his strength, invites his end.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Woodnotes”

Trees are your best antiques.
Alexander Smith

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
Robert Louis Stevenson

He who plants a tree
Plants a hope.
Lucy Larcom, “Plant a Tree”

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
Kahlil Gibran

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
Nelson Henderson

The best part of happiness is the pines.
Terri Guillemets

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The 07/31/13 Joy Jar

31 Jul

As moi walked this evening, she looked up at the night sky and wondered at the various shades of the midnight blue hue and the dark outlines of clouds. There was just enough night light to highlight the beauty of the night sky. Tonight’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a beautiful night sky.

“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays

“Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day. But when I follow at my pleasure the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth.”
Ptolemy

“Some praise the Lord for Light,
The living spark;
I thank God for the Night
The healing dark.”
Robert W. Service

“Night is a world lit by itself.”
Antonio Porchia; Translator W.S. Merwin, Voices

“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

Night time is really the best time to work.  All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep.  Catherine O’Hara

There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light.
N.P. Willis

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
Vincent Van Gogh

“Without the dark, we’d never see the stars. There also would be no use for the moon if there was never a night.” Tessa Emily Hall, Purple Moon

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The 07/23/13 Joy Jar

23 Jul

Moi got a mosquito bite and aside from cursing the thing, she started thinking about the order of things. This tiny thing can cause to focus on it and it can inflict not only pain and discomfort, but in some cases, death. It shows that no matter how small one is perceived to be, one can have an impact. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the lesson that everyone and everything can have an impact.

If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.
Anita Roddick

I believe more in precision, when you have the capability, like when you see a mosquito fly and you’re able to hit it, you’re able to hit it with a couple of short sharp shots… it’s a beautiful thing.
Alexis Arguello

If a mosquito has a soul, it is mostly evil. So I don’t have too many qualms about putting a mosquito out of its misery. I’m a little more respectful of ants.
Douglas Hofstadter

“The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Probably the saddest thing you’ll ever see is a mosquito sucking on a mummy. Forget it, little friend.”
Jack Handy

“Mosquitoes remind us that we are not as high up on the food chain as we think”
Tom Wilson

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

The 07/09/13 Joy Jar

9 Jul

This is the year of the ‘Joy Jar’ exercise. The ‘Joy Jar’ is finding something to be grateful for every day. One of the revelations of the exercise is that happiness is not dependant on what one has or will have. Happiness is not dependent upon one’s circumstances. Happiness is the quality of what is. The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 4:11:

New International Version (©2011)
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is happiness.

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Abraham Lincoln

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“Seven Deadly Sins

Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Science without humanity
Knowledge without character
Politics without principle
Commerce without morality
Worship without sacrifice.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“No medicine cures what happiness cannot.”
Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”
Mark Twain

“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.”
Mother Teresa

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
Dalai Lama XIV

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The 05/14/13 Joy Jar

14 May

 

Every Tuesday moi joins a prayer group in the morning. Today, after leaving the group, moi thought about the Bible passage Joshua 24:15:

New International Version (©2011)
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is service.

Galatians 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.


The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”Martin Luther King Jr

“Prayer in action is love, and love in action is service. Try to give unconditionally whatever a person needs in the moment. The point is to do something, however small, and show you care through your actions by giving your time … We are all God’s children so it is important to share His gifts. Do not worry about why problems exist in the world – just respond to people’s needs … We feel what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but that ocean would be less without that drop.“

Mother Teresa

“If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?”-

John Adams

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The 04/27/13 Joy Jar

26 Apr

 

Rhododendrons and azaleas grow in most parts of the world, but they grow especially well in Seattle. Gardens all over the city are adorned with these beautiful flowers. They are a sure sign of the arrival of Spring and early summer. Today;s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ are the beautiful rhododendrons and azaleas.

And in the woods a fragrance rare
Of wild azaleas fills the air,
And richly tangled overhead
We see their blossoms sweet and red.
Dora Read Goodale—Spring Scatters Far and Wide.

“The earth laughs in flowers.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I must have flowers, always, and always.”
Claude Monet

“In joy or sadness flowers are our constant friends.”
Kakuzō Okakura, The Book Of Tea

“A flower blossoms for its own joy.”
Oscar Wilde

Now Spring returns with leaf and blade,
Some seek the garden, some the glade;
And all to Nature turn, but I
To the fresh fields of Poetry,

Sweet are the first green leaves, and sweet
The scents, and genial the first heat;
And backed by pine or cypress glooms
How rich the rhododendron blooms!

Yet rich or sweet as these appear,
They were as wonderful last year;
And all as then move without pause
Through the same course by the same laws….

Archibald Young Campbell

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The 03/04/13 Joy Jar

3 Mar

Walking down a street lined on both sides by trees that all winter were like skeleton arms reaching for the sky. Today on the the skeleton arms were, bumps, mounds, there were so many buds on the branches it looked like a full sports stadium. The bumps, buds seemed to make the branches happy, there was definitely no urge to scratch. There seemed to be more birds as well. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ are the buds that have formed on tree branches.

 

“Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it”                   

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

“Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us; there have been many circulation of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.”                                                                       

George Eliot

 

 

“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.”                                                             

John Quincy Adams

 

 

 

“The bud may have a bitter taste, / But sweet will be the flower.”                      

William Cowper

 

 

 

“Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold.”                                                                                

William Carlos Williams

 

 

“Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid A million buds but stay their blossoming And trustful birds have built their nests amid The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing Till one soft shower from the south shall bid And hither tempt the pilgrim steps of Spring.”                                                                                         

Robert Bridges

 

 

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.                              

Seneca

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The 02/02/13 Joy Jar

1 Feb

The Winter Solstice in December marks the beginning of the march toward Spring. Slowly the days get longer and there seems to be more light. In January, people are acting like it’s Wednesday and there is too much week or too much winter left. Almost defiantly those who weren’t wearing bright colors before, start testing the waters in expectation of Spring. Bright, vibrant colors start appearing as accessories in the form of a hat, gloves, or a scarf. Some are bold and wear a neon coat or sweater. Everyone is waiting for the Primroses to appear, the first sure sign of Spring. Meanwhile random bright colors will suffice for now. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the bright colors of winter.

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.
Marc Chagall

Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.                    Murasaki Shikibu

Colors are the smiles of nature.                                                                     

Leigh Hunt

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.                                                            

Paul Gauguin

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors.  I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.                                                            

Winston Churchill

 

Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.
Pablo Picasso

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The 01/17/13 Joy Jar

16 Jan

Walking through downtown Seattle this evening, moi noticed how bright all the lights were. Crossing through Westlake Park, moi noticed the trees were still wrapped in the strings of white lights that had shown brightly through the Christmas season. They were still sparkling now. As this reflection is written, the computer and the illumination in the form of a lamp are all powered by electricity. Today’s deposit in the ‘Joy Jar’ is electricity which powers so many things moi takes for granted.

We believe that electricity exists, because the electric company keeps sending us bills for it, but we cannot figure out how it travels inside wires.
Dave Barry

Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity.
L. Frank Baum

I believe talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. Electricity will do all that. It makes no judgment. I think talent is like that. I believe every person is born with talent.
Maya Angelou

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you look at the inner workings of electrical things, you see wires. Until the current passes through them, there will be no light. That wire is you and me. The current is God. We have the power to let the current pass through us, use us, to produce the light of the world, Jesus, in us. Or we can refuse to be used and allow darkness to spread.

Mother Teresa

Tags: , , , ,

Newer Entries →