A Few Brief Moments

I used to hate the fool in me, but only in the morning. Now I tolerate him all day long.

[oryx2046]

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Wild Geese - Mary Oliver

[oryx2046]

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The Peace of Wild Things - Wendell Berry

[xxfallintowinterxx]

[littlealienproducts]

[gloomytreehouse]

[psychodelictea]

[yourmajestyofthebooty-xo-deacti]

[theportablefaulkner]

you you you 

[tinnacriss]

[truly-hisx]

[delta-breezes]

[whip-itsbeforebreakfast]

~

[souhailbog-deactivated20240510]

Dreams of Winter snows to come | © Amanda Tromp 

[oryx2046]

Missing summer. Glacier National Park, 07/2015

[oryx2046]

Discovery first flew in 1984, the third orbiter to join the fleet. It was named for one of the ships commanded by Captain James Cook. Space shuttle Discovery is the most-flown orbiter; today will be its thirty-ninth and final launch. By the end of this mission, it will have flown a total of 365 days in space, making it the most well traveled spacecraft in history. Discovery was the first orbiter to carry a Russian cosmonaut and the first to visit the Russian space station Mir. On that flight, in 1995, Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot an American spacecraft. Discovery flew twelve of the thirty-eight missions to assemble the International Space Station, and it was responsible for deploying the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990. This was perhaps the most far reaching accomplishment of the shuttle program, as Hubble has been called the most important telescope in history and one of the most significant scientific instruments ever invented. It has allowed astronomers to determine the age of the universe, postulate how galaxies form, and confirm the existence of dark energy, among many other discoveries. Astronomers and astrophysicists, when they are asked about the significance of Hubble, will simply say that it has rewritten the astronomy books. In the retirement process, Discovery will be the "vehicle of record," being kept as intact as possible for future study. Discovery was the return-to-flight orbiter after the loss of Challenger and then again after the loss of Columbia. To me, this gives it a certain feeling of bravery and hope. 'Don’t worry,' Discovery seemed to tell us by gamely rolling her snow-white self out to the launchpad. 'Don't worry, we can still dream of space. We can still leave the earth.' And then she did.

Margaret Lazarus Dean,  Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight

[oryx2046]

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

[folklifestyle]

Photo by rodtrvn

[hemorrhage]

What I Scene by Steve Vu

ig: sayonarasteve

[oryx2046]

And Sarah still looked like the sexiest librarian on earth, which is as those of you who frequent libraries know means very sexy indeed, but with that added owlish touch that drives you wild.

Kim Stanley Robinson, Escape From Kathmandu