Maura's Wee Whimsical World ❀⊱╮

“If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The...

[mythicalepochasylum]

Sea

@sea-blue-blog

[mythicalepochasylum]

[the-enchanted-little-star]

[highlandvalley]

[jeffsullivan]

The “super blue blood” lunar eclipse on January 31 was particularly interesting as the moon descended towards the Golden Gate Bridge! Www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com

[nicrwilson]

Rainy afternoons at Brúarfoss (02.10.24)

by Nic Wilson

[sisterofiris]

One of the most powerful moments I experienced as an ancient history student was when I was teaching cuneiform to visitors at a fair. A father and his two little children came up to the table where I was working. I recognised them from an interfaith ceremony I’d attended several months before: the father had said a prayer for his homeland, Syria, and for his hometown, Aleppo.

All three of them were soft-spoken, kind and curious. I taught the little girl how to press wedges into the clay, and I taught the little boy that his name meant “sun” and that there was an ancient Mesopotamian God with the same name. I told them they were about the same age as scribes were when they started their training. As they worked, their father said to them gently: “See, this is how your ancestors used to write.”

And I thought of how the Ancient City of Aleppo is almost entirely destroyed now, and how the Citadel was shelled and used as a military base, and how Palmyran temples were blown up and such a wealth of culture and history has been lost forever. And there I was with these children, two small pieces of the future of a broken country, and I was teaching them cuneiform. They were smiling and chatting to each other about Mesopotamia and “can you imagine, our great-great-great-grandparents used to write like this four thousand years ago!” For them and their father, it was more than a fun weekend activity. It was a way of connecting, despite everything and thousands of kilometres away from home, with their own history.

This moment showed me, in a concrete way, why ancient studies matter. They may not seem important now, not to many people at least. But history represents so much of our cultural identity: it teaches us where we come from, explains who we are, and guides us as we go forward. Lose it, and we lose a part of ourselves. As historians, our role is to preserve this knowledge as best we can and pass it on to future generations who will need it. I helped pass it on to two little Syrian children that day. They learnt that their country isn’t just blood and bombs, it’s also scribes and powerful kings and Sun-Gods and stories about immortality and tablets that make your hands sticky. And that matters.

[indomitablemegnolia]

Yes

[thenatsdorf]

Cat gives owl friend a bath. (via hukuloucoffee)

[montereybayaquarium]

Smooch 💋 Happy Mother’s Day!

[ntasceken]

Şuraya mutlu olmamız için bir sebep çizelim😇

[simplelindo-deactivated20210109]

[mauras-whimsies]

Though I cannot flee From the world of corruption, I can prepare tea With water from a mountain stream And put my heart to rest.~Ueda Akinari

[mauras-whimsies]

The Thing About Fairy Tales

We all know about Once. It is the start of our lives, the mistaken old woman of the wood, the one we forgot to give half our sandwich, all of our brisket, most of the chocolate mousse. It is the fox we did not brush, the sparrow we did not save, a lion who's thorny paw we did not doctor. The oven into which we did not push the witch. It all leads to the After, which is not death, but inconsequence; not dancing in red hot iron shoes, but living past our sell-by date, hating the husband, bored with the wife. It is the princess growing fat, the king unfaithful, and no children write home to ask us how we are doing, only a postcard of need.~ Jane Yolen  Artist~Milo Winter

[mauras-whimsies]

My Bear....

[mauras-whimsies]

The only little journey we have to make -- the only little moment of transition -- is the moment where we actually become aware of the dignity and beauty and light of the presence in which we already are. I think that being here in this graced planet of landscape, nature, presence, and person is the miracle -- is the journey.

John O'Donohue

[jeffsullivan]

The “super blue blood” lunar eclipse on January 31 was particularly interesting as the moon descended towards the Golden Gate Bridge! Www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com

[mauras-whimsies]

Does the giraffe know what he's for? Or care? Or even think about his place in things? A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.

Robert Fulghum

[mauras-whimsies]

Hint of Baby Giraffe by Steve Pereira

[mauras-whimsies]

Collin Bogle