Red Poppy VI by Georgia O’Keeffe
“I think it’s so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary–you’re happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.”
~ Georgia O’Keeffe
Kiva 2011 by Drea Jensen
Every person has creativity in them whether they can see it or not. Some show it on the outside and some keep it hidden, but everyone has the capability of letting it out.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/kiva-2011-drea-jensen.html
“We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined.”
~ N. Scott Momaday
Mosaic 2012 by Drea Jensen
Even the most different of things, shape, size, etc, can come together to form something beautiful.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/mosaic-2012-drea-jensen.html
Mosaic
BY LINDA PASTAN
1. THE SACRIFICE
On this tile
the knife
like a sickle-moon hangs
in the painted air
as if it had learned a dance
of its own,
the way the boy has
among the vivid
breakable flowers,
the way Abraham has
among the boulders,
his two feet heavy
as stones.
2. NEAR SINAI
God’s hand here
is the size of a tiny cloud,
and the wordless tablets
he holds out
curve like the temple doors.
Moses, reaching up
must see on their empty surface
laws chiseled in his mind
by the persistent wind
of the desert, by wind
in the bulrushes.
3. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT
We know by the halos
that circle these heads
like rings around planets
that the small donkey
has carried his burden
away from the thunder
of the Old Testament
into the lightning
of the New.
4. AT THE ARMENIAN TILE SHOP
Under the bright glazes
Esau watches Jacob,
Cain watches Abel.
With the same heavy eyes
the tilemaker’s Arab assistant
watches me,
all of us wondering
why for every pair
there is just one
blessing.
Inspiration 2012 by Drea Jensen
One small stone in a pond can create a ripple as large as the pond, just like a small idea can grow into a masterpiece.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/inspiration-2012-drea-jensen.html
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”
~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Daydream 2012 by Drea Jensen
Often, the most wonderful emotions in our lives come from the most unexpected situations.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/daydream-2012-drea-jensen.html
On a sunny brae alone I lay
One summer afternoon;
It was the marriage-time of May,
With her young lover, June.
From her mother’s heart seemed loath to part
That queen of bridal charms,
But her father smiled on the fairest child
He ever held in his arms.
The trees did wave their plumy crests,
The glad birds carolled clear;
And I, of all the wedding guests,
Was only sullen there!
There was not one, but wished to shun
My aspect void of cheer;
The very gray rocks, looking on,
Asked, “What do you here?”
And I could utter no reply;
In sooth, I did not know
Why I had brought a clouded eye
To greet the general glow.
So, resting on a heathy bank,
I took my heart to me;
And we together sadly sank
Into a reverie.
We thought, “When winter comes again,
Where will these bright things be?
All vanished, like a vision vain,
An unreal mockery!
“The birds that now so blithely sing,
Through deserts, frozen dry,
Poor spectres of the perished spring,
In famished troops will fly.
“And why should we be glad at all?
The leaf is hardly green,
Before a token of its fall
Is on the surface seen!”
Now, whether it were really so,
I never could be sure;
But as in fit of peevish woe,
I stretched me on the moor,
A thousand thousand gleaming fires
Seemed kindling in the air;
A thousand thousand silvery lyres
Resounded far and near:
Methought, the very breath I breathed
Was full of sparks divine,
And all my heather-couch was wreathed
By that celestial shine!
And, while the wide earth echoing rung
To that strange minstrelsy
The little glittering spirits sung,
Or seemed to sing, to me:
“O mortal! mortal! let them die;
Let time and tears destroy,
That we may overflow the sky
With universal joy!
“Let grief distract the sufferer’s breast,
And night obscure his way;
They hasten him to endless rest,
And everlasting day.
“To thee the world is like a tomb,
A desert’s naked shore;
To us, in unimagined bloom,
It brightens more and more!
“And, could we lift the veil, and give
One brief glimpse to thine eye,
Thou wouldst rejoice for those that live,
BECAUSE they live to die.”
The music ceased; the noonday dream,
Like dream of night, withdrew;
But Fancy, still, will sometimes deem
Her fond creation true.
~ Emily Brontë
Abundance 2012 by Drea Jensen
With everything that is out there in the world, we must remember to push through, and get what really matters and is important to us.
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Love Sorrow
Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must
take care of what has been
given. Brush her hair, help her
into her little coat, hold her hand,
especially when crossing a street. For, think,
what if you should lose her? Then you would be
sorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness
would be yours. Take care, touch
her forehead that she feel herself not so
utterly alone. And smile, that she does not
altogether forget the world before the lesson.
Have patience in abundance. And do not
ever lie or ever leave her even for a moment
by herself, which is to say, possibly, again,
abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult,
sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.
And amazing things can happen. And you may see,
as the two of you go
walking together in the morning light, how
little by little she relaxes; she looks about her;
she begins to grow.
~ Mary Oliver
“If nothing saves us from death, may love at least save us from life.”
~ Pablo Neruda
“It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, is already in our bloodstream. And we don’t know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can’t say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Jagged 2012 by Drea Jensen
Powerful outside forces can make it seem like your life is a battle, but creating and finding space between struggles is what will ease your mind.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/jagged-2012-drea-jensen.html
“Laughter isn’t even the other side of tears. It is tears turned inside out. Truly the suffering is great, here on earth. We blunder along, shredded by our mistakes, bludgeoned by our faults. Not having a clue where the dark path leads us. But on the whole, we stumble along bravely, don’t you think?”
~ Alice Walker
Tree of Life 2013 by Drea Jensen
Like trees, we as people are always growing. Though the growth may not be seen such as in height or weight, our hearts and minds will never stop reaching for the sky.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/tree-of-life-2013-drea-jensen.html
“I am interested in the way that we look at a given landscape and take possession of it in our blood and brain. None of us lives apart from the land entirely; such an isolation is unimaginable. If we are to realize and maintain our humanity, we must come to a moral comprehension of earth and air as it is perceived in the long turn of seasons and of years.”
~ N. Scott Momaday
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