Poems, Paintings, Sculptures, Analects, Prophecies, Plays, Quotes, Axioms, Photographs....

From Parabola:

ARCS

A young Oglala girl sitting in front of a tipi, with a puppy beside her, probably on or near Pine Ridge Reservation, 1891. From the John C.H. Grabill collection, Library of Congress

‎"Long ago when white people came to our villages, it looked to them as if we only worked when we wanted to, which was in essence true. You didn't have to hunt unless you wanted to eat, or needed something to put on when winter was coming on. But we had time for the necessary things; the development of the mind and heart; we had the time to be contemplative. We had the time to see the relationship of all things to each other."
—Esther Nahgahnub, "They're Trying to Sell Our Treaties," inMessengers, Jane Katz, ed., p.239.

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Claude Monet, Branch of the Seine near Giverny, 1897

“Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity, - the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heavens artillery, - but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice. Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his is a maggots life, nothing more. Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance. And the fear of death, of God, of the universe, comes over him, - the hope of the Resurrection and the life, the yearning for immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence, - it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God.”

—Jack London, The White Silence. With thanks to Reflejos.

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Dome of Stavropoleos Church,Stavropoleos Monastery, Bucharest, Romania by fusion-of-horizons on Flickr

“The motivating force of a seeker is always that which he seeks. The reality he is seeking is always there in his search. He could never search for the divine if he did not carry the divine within him. There are many seekers among us today who have not yet had that experience and do not know what they are seeking, but are haunted by a great longing and desire to find something they have lost. They turn to miracles and to the wondrous, the most direct way to awaken in primitive souls a belief in superior beings. But we should ask where miracles begin. What is there that is not miraculous? The simple fact that things exist, that a color is a color that a sound is a sound — this is all miraculous. Does it cease to become miraculous because it is known by everyone? And why is it only miraculous when it goes beyond the frontiers of the known?"

—Alphonse Goetmann, Dialogue on The Path of Initiation: An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Karlfried Graf Durckheim(New York, NY: Globe Press Books, 1991), p. 70

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Image of Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean at night, shot by astronauts aboard the International Space Station

Skyline

The water has traveled a long way
To get here where the tourists can see it
And be appreciated; buildings are placed
Just where cameras need them.
Everything is as it should be
To create the best and most exciting
Possibilities.

Somewhere else there are fields, and rice growing,
But not here.
Somewhere else, there are children playing,
Women hanging laundry,
But not here.

Where shall we put them?

Perhaps behind the buildings, where their activities
Will not disturb the visitors.

—Lee Van Laer is the Poetry Editor at Parabola.