Spring in Giverny and a little snow (tiger) on my shoulder

Last night I did some touring and shopping on Giverny, Soliel Snook and Kaye Robbiani's new sim. It is spectacularly beautiful - a mere reflection of the wonderful ladies who have created it. I encourage all of you to take time to walk around this wonderful land. Perhaps even take time to stop and smell the roses. (and buy them, too) Thank you Kaye and Soliel for sharing your gifts with the rest of us.

(in the style of Monet)

Imagine my surprise once I was back working and chatting last night as a small crate was delivered to me. There were air holes and the shipment invoice suggested that whatever this creature was it might require some milk upon arrival.




I carefully opened the box to find the cutest little snow tiger I had ever seen. I am so happy to care for him and we have already become fast friends. Now to think of a suitable name.......




Thank you, my friend, for such a cuddly gift.

Beauty II

Once again I am honoured to have poetry find it's way to me. I present three diverse poems below - all having to do with beauty of one kind or another. (The pictures are some that I have taken in fairly recent days and, I think, punctuate the poems themselves.)

I hope you enjoy.

Dust of Snow by: Robert Frost

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.

Beauty Clear and Fair
by: John Fletcher

BEAUTY clear and fair,
Where the air
Rather like a perfume dwells;
Where the violet and the rose
Their blue veins and blush disclose,
And come to honour nothing else:

Where to live near
And planted there
Is to live, and still live new;
Where to gain a favour is
More than light, perpetual bliss--
Make me live by serving you!

Dear, again back recall
To this light,
A stranger to himself and all!
Both the wonder and the story
Shall be yours, and eke the glory;
I am your servant, and your thrall.

A Lady
by Amy Lowell

You are beautiful and faded
Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded silks
Of an eighteenth-century boudoir.
In your eyes
Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes,
And the perfume of your soul
Is vague and suffusing,
With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.
Your half-tones delight me,
And I grow mad with gazing
At your blent colours.

My vigour is a new-minted penny,
Which I cast at your feet.
Gather it up from the dust,
That its sparkle may amuse you

Dark Beauty

What a wonderful surprise to find such beauty as I was traveling through Winterfell the other evening. My favorite spot of the night was at Santa Maria. The tower is pictured below.
The whole place set me to thinking of beauty.....

Gathering Leaves

by Robert Frost

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?

Ode to Autumn

by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

As I Walk with Beauty

As I walk, as I walk
The universe is walking with me
In beauty it walks before me
In beauty it walks behind me
In beauty it walks below me
In beauty it walks above me
Beauty is on every side
As I walk, I walk with Beauty.


Traditional Navajo Prayer

Ode to Beauty
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who gave thee, O Beauty!
The keys of this breast,
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?
Say when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old;
Or what was the service
For which I was sold?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of thirst;
Thou intimate stranger,
Thou latest and first!
Thy dangerous glances
Make women of men;
New-born we are melting
Into nature again.
Lavish, lavish promiser,
Nigh persuading gods to err,
Guest of million painted forms
Which in turn thy glory warms,
The frailest leaf, the mossy bark,
The acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc,
The swinging spider's silver line,
The ruby of the drop of wine,
The shining pebble of the pond,
Thou inscribest with a bond
In thy momentary play
Would bankrupt Nature to repay.

Ah! what avails it
To hide or to shun
Whom the Infinite One
Hath granted his throne?
The heaven high over
Is the deep's lover,
The sun and sea
Informed by thee,
Before me run,
And draw me on,
Yet fly me still,
As Fate refuses
To me the heart Fate for me chooses,
Is it that my opulent soul
Was mingled from the generous whole,
Sea valleys and the deep of skies
Furnished several supplies,
And the sands whereof I'm made
Draw me to them self-betrayed?
I turn the proud portfolios
Which hold the grand designs
Of Salvator, of Guercino,
And Piranesi's lines.
I hear the lofty Pæans
Of the masters of the shell,
Who heard the starry music,
And recount the numbers well:
Olympian bards who sung
Divine Ideas below,
Which always find us young,
And always keep us so.
Oft in streets or humblest places
I detect far wandered graces,
Which from Eden wide astray
In lowly homes have lost their way.

Thee gliding through the sea of form,
Like the lightning through the storm,
Somewhat not to be possessed,
Somewhat not to be caressed,
No feet so fleet could ever find,
No perfect form could ever bind.
Thou eternal fugitive
Hovering over all that live,
Quick and skilful to inspire
Sweet extravagant desire,
Starry space and lily bell
Filling with thy roseate smell,
Wilt not give the lips to taste
Of the nectar which thou hast.

All that's good and great with thee
Stands in deep conspiracy.
Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely
To report thy features only,
And the cold and purple morning
Itself with thoughts of thee adorning,
The leafy dell, the city mart,
Equal trophies of thine art,
E'en the flowing azure air
Thou hast touched for my despair,
And if I languish into dreams,
Again I meet the ardent beams.
Queen of things! I dare not die
In Being's deeps past ear and eye,
Lest there I find the same deceiver,
And be the sport of Fate forever.
Dread power, but dear! if God thou be,
Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me.

Beauty

I have been thinking a lot these past few days about beauty and beautiful things. Experiences that I have had in SL (in Caledon and outside of her lovely boundaries) and in RL have been on my mind.


Beauty is defined in the Merriam Webster Dictionary in this way:

Pronunciation: 'byü-tE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural beauties
Etymology: Middle English beaute, bealte, from Anglo-French, from bel, beau beautiful, from Latin bellus pretty; akin to Latin bonus good -- more at BOUNTY
1 : the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit : LOVELINESS
2 : a beautiful person or thing; especially : a beautiful woman
3 : a particularly graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality
4 : a brilliant, extreme, or egregious example

Please allow me now set forward some examples for you.

Sitting in the open air beside a loved one at a summer outdoor concert, enjoying the music, watching the interactions of others around you. As you look up to the setting sun, the colors of the clouds are changing. Orange, peach, pink, purple. The rays of the sun falling through breaks in the clouds. The moon begins to rise. The wind is cool and gentle and you feel the kiss of it on your cheeks. As the sun falls below the horizon, the glow left behind caresses you and your loved one, and all those around you. Things that perhaps were not lovely before, have suddenly be recreated in this glow.

****

The smile in your lover's eyes as you embrace...as you look at one another unable to fathom how or why this love has come to pass, but oh so thankful that it has.

***

A Thing of Beauty

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.



- By: John Keats

***

Journeying with a friend and finding new and lovely places to explore.

Somewhere in Metatheria

***

The grins on the faces of your children as you play Pirate with them. Little do they know how very much you enjoy being "Captain Puffy Pants" or the "Dread Pirate Roberts" as they create the story around you. You enjoy rescuing "Cheerleader Girl" as much as you enjoy capturing her and shooting your cannon at the good guys' ship.

***

Babies

Cygnets in Metatheria

***

Playing with friends

There is beauty even in being sunk by Miss Virrginia Tombola

Conducting an informal AAR on the iron clad battles with Miss Tombola and Colonel O'Toole

***


IV


Do not go to the garden of flowers!
O Friend! go not there;
In your body is the garden of flowers.
Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus,
and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty.

From: Songs Of Kabir
Translated by Rabindranath Tagore
New York, The Macmillan Company 1915

Sitting on a Lilly Pad in Metatheria

***

Coming together to fight a terrible disease. A disease which has snuffed out the candles of many beautiful friends, and many more that we cannot know.

The crowd in Loch Avie for the SLRFL Compliments Contest

Sitting and listening to the fine compliments being handed out by Colonel Somme and Mr Drinkwater. Erasmus Margulis, Eva, Shylah Garmes, Zealot Benmergui (and others whom I do not recall - my apologies)

***

The thrill and beauty of competition

Mr Drinkwater compliments the Colonel's shoes

***

Friends

Colonels Somme and O'Toole, Loch Avie's Own; Mr JJ Drinkwater, and Sir ZenMondo Wormser

Many more friends listen as the turn of phrase leans to the dramatic...but only in a complimentary way

***

An embrace of a friend

Colonel Somme is declared the winner of the Compliments Contest

Good Sportsmen and good friends

***

Long-lasting love

My dear friends, (and the humans behind their avatars) celebrate 17 years of marriage. Calli and Exrex

***

Song of the Mystic - Beauty

BEAUTY

And the child spoke unto the Mystic:

"Master speak to me of Beauty, for I have
yet to see the face of Her sacred soul."

And the Mystic answered, saying:

You are wrong my child; many were the
days when She smiled upon you, and you knew
it not.
Many were the nights when She whispered
the song of Life unto your ear, but always were
you asleep.
Be there something of more innocence than
the gentle cooing of a newborn babe?
Be there something of more purity than the
shadow of a woman's alluring smile?
Be there something of more tenderness
than the endearing look held in the eyes of a mother?
And is not the sum of such innocence, purity
and tenderness the essence of all Beauty?
Open the eyes of your soul, and Beauty shall
reveal Herself unto you.
Listen with the ears of your heart, and She
will sing Her silent melody.
And if you see Beauty where all others see
naught but ugliness, then truly do you look through
the loving eyes of God.



Excerpts from “The Prophet’s Candle” by Daniel