Pelican Limerick

"A wonderful bird is the Pelican,

His beak can hold more than his belly can.

He can hold in his beak

Enough food for a week!

But I'll be darned if I know how the hellican?"

- Dixon Lanier Merrit

c. 1912

Seething

"The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface.

The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to dessicate into dust.

The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.

Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water.

Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life.

The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage.

Dare to breach the surface and sink." 

- Vera Nazarian 

The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Maybe

"I may be going nowhere, but what a ride."

- Shaun Hick

The voice of the salt

" I shivered in those solitudes

when I heard the voice of the salt

in the desert."

- Pablo Neruda

Friendship

Distance seem so little

when someone means so much.

You know who you are...  This one's for you.

Those mad intensities

"It's not all bad.  Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self loathing - they are not all bad.  Those devils have been my angels.  Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me."

- Stephen Fry

Moab Is My Washpot

Pay attention

"What did you say, Gram? About there being no church out here?" 

"I said that the sky was the roof of my cathedral and the desert was its floor and any time I paid attention, I could feel a Higher Power all around me."

- Terry Farley

Blue Wings

The surrounding hullabaloo

"I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo."

- Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar

Raise

"Raise your words, not your voice.  It is the rain that grows flowers, not the thunder."

- Rumi

In the end

"The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God."

- Victor Hugo

Les Miserables

Unspoken

"That was one of the saddest things about people - their most important thoughts and feelings often went unspoken and barely understood."

-Alexandra Adornetto

Halo