Best 267 quotes in «awe quotes» category

Everyone started to file toward the door, crowding each other in their attempt to get the hell out of this flying deathtrap. I stood and waited for my turn, hefting my purse over my shoulder, and turned my cell phone back on. The second it lit up and I was able, I shot out a text. Landed. Getting off now. Romeo's response was instant, and I smiled. I'm waiting.

Everything exists as information in a field of infinite possibilities, and it is our Consciousness that renders the information and causes it to appear as the material world.

Everything we perceive to be solid and static is made up of almost entirely empty space.

...fjældene slutter sig tættere og tættere omkring os, det synes som om alt håp er ute, bare litt himmel er synlig ret over vore hodet. Det virker beklemmende på os, vi overvældes og tier. Pludselig ved en skarp dreining av veien åpner sig et svært gap tilhøire og vi ser aldeles nær os istinden Kasbek med sine bræer som hvitgnistrer i solen. Den står os kloss ind på livet, stille og høi, stum. Det rykker en sælsom følelse gjennom os, berget står der opsvoren av de andre berge, det er som et væsen fra en anden verden som står der og ser på os.

For thousands of years, it had been nature--and its supposed creator--that had had a monopoly on awe. It had been the icecaps, the deserts, the volcanoes and the glaciers that had given us a sense of finitude and limitation and had elicited a feeling in which fear and respect coagulated into a strangely pleasing feeling of humility, a feeling which the philosophers of the eighteenth century had famously termed the sublime. But then had come a transformation to which we were still the heirs.... Over the course of the nineteenth century, the dominant catalyst for that feeling of the sublime had ceased to be nature. We were now deep in the era of the technological sublime, when awe could most powerfully be invoked not by forests or icebergs but by supercomputers, rockets and particle accelerators. We were now almost exclusively amazed by ourselves.

Flash after flash across the horizon: Tourists trying to take the Grand Canyon By night. They don’t know Every last shot will turn out black. It takes Rothko sixty years to arrive At the rim of his canyon. He goes there only after dark. As he stands at the railing, his pupils open Like a camera shutter at the slowest speed. He has to be patient. He has to lean Far over the railing To see the color as of darkness: Purple, numb brown, mud-red, mauve -an abyss of bruises. At first, you’d think it was black on black Something you son’t want to look at, he says As he waits, The colors vibrate in the chasm Like voices: You there with the eyes, Bring back something from The brink of nothing to make us see.

Genuine awe connects us with the world in a new way.

He reached across the car and took my hand. "I know I haven't been around as much," he said, "but after today, my schedule won't be so busy." "I understand," I said softly. And I did. "Football is your life. It's your dream." He made a sound. "You're just as important to me." I smiled. "I have to admit I won't be upset when this game is over and all the girls around here stop wearing your number all over their bodies." His white teeth flashed. "Is someone jealous?" I snorted. His smile grew wider. "Maybe a little," I admitted. He lunged forward and in seconds had me in his lap, my legs straddling him so we were face to face. He buried his hands in my tangled disaster of hair. I admit I hadn't even brushed it when we got out of bed this morning. "You're my favorite girl," he whispered. "I better be your only girl." He smiled. "That too.

God is the ultimate ground of Being, and this ultimate ground of Being is YOU. For one who realizes their true nature as God, as Consciousness, life becomes a joy without end.

Goods were arranged in glass cabinets as if they were ancient Egyptian artefacts. I was a contaminant, a fly in the gourmet soup, a spanner in the golden machine that sparkled and hummed before my eyes." Reid, A. J. (2012-11-08). A Smaller Hell (Kindle Locations 319-321). . Kindle Edition.

Having in our childhood felt primal awe for the spectacle of the holiday, we are told to age into feeling sullen and resentful. You are supposed to proclaim Santa dead like preadolescent Nietzsches and decry the whole month as an orgy of crass commercialism.

He exhaled with a deep, contented sigh, speaking in a hushed voice. “I love you, Abby. I’m going to make you happy, I swear it.

He reached down and fingered his hoodie on the bed. 'You sleeping with this?' His voice grew raspy. I shrugged. 'Maybe.' He growled, wrapped his arms around me, and buried his face in my shoulder. 'You really test my limits,' he said. Then I heard him mumble, 'Already.' 'Your limits?' I asked, pulling back to look at him. 'If you were any other girl, I would already have you naked and beneath me.' His words should have shocked me. Maybe made me angry. They didn't. They turned me on. I shivered with newfound desire. He groaned and sat me aside and stood from the bed. 'You're killing me, Smalls.' 'Smalls?' I giggled. He grinned. 'That's what we call the small players on the team.' 'I'm not on your team.' I pointed out. 'No. But you are mine.'" "- Romeo & Rimmel

He slammed his cup down. Coffee splashed over the rim and puddled around the base. “What on earth gave you the idea I want space? I want you here. With me. All the time. I want to come home and hear the shower running and get excited because I know you’re in it. I want to struggle every morning to get up and go to the gym because I hate the idea of leaving your warm body behind in bed. I want to hear a key turn in the lock and feel contented knowing you’re home. I don’t want fucking space, Harper.” Harper laughed. “What’s funny?” “I didn’t mean space. I meant space, like closet space, a drawer in the bedroom, part of the counter in the bathroom.” Trent’s mouth twitched, a slight smile making its way to his lips. “Like a compromise. A commitment that I want more. I seem to recall you telling me in the car about something being a step in the right direction to a goal we both agreed on. Well, I want all those things you just said, with you, eventually. And if we start to leave things at each other’s places, it’s a step, right?” Trent reached up, flexing his delicious tattooed bicep, and scratched the side of his head. Without speaking, he leapt to his feet, grabbing Harper and pulling her into a fireman’s lift. “Trent,” she squealed, kicking her feet to get free. “What are you doing?” He slapped her butt playfully and laughed as he carried her down the hallway. Reaching the bedroom, Trent threw her onto the bed. “We’re doing space. Today, right now.” He started pulling open his drawers, looking inside each one before pulling stuff out of the top drawer and dividing it between the others. “Okay, this is for your underwear. I need to see bras, panties, and whatever other girly shit you have in here before the end of the day.” Like a panther on the prowl, Trent launched himself at the bed, grabbing her ankle and pulling her to the edge of the bed before sweeping her into his arms to walk to the bathroom. He perched her on the corner of the vanity, where his stuff was spread across the two sinks. “Pick one.” “Pick one what?” “Sink. Which do you want?” “You’re giving me a whole sink? Wait … stop…” Trent grabbed her and started tickling her. Harper didn’t recognize the girly giggles that escaped her. Pointing to the sink farthest away from the door, she watched as he pushed his toothbrush, toothpaste, and styling products to the other side of the vanity. He did the same thing with the vanity drawers and created some space under the sink. “I expect to see toothbrush, toothpaste, your shampoo, and whatever it is that makes you smell like vanilla in here.” “You like the vanilla?” It never ceased to surprise her, the details he remembered. Turning, he grabbed her cheeks in both hands and kissed her hard. He trailed kisses behind her ear and inhaled deeply before returning to face her. “Absolutely. I fucking love vanilla,” he murmured against her lips before kissing her again, softly this time. “Oh and I’d better see a box of tampons too.” “Oh my goodness, you are beyond!” Harper blushed furiously. “I want you for so much more than just sex, Harper.

Her voice is so soft. If it were a food item, it’d be a marshmallow.

Het oog wordt niet verzadigd met zien – maar in Noorwegen, in juni, zag je die bijbelse waarheid stranden. Want na weer een smetteloze bergketen en het zoveelste fonkelende zeegezicht werd het domweg onmogelijk nog meer op te nemen, helemaal wanneer je je zo in een gammele Ford Taunus langs de kust noordwaarts liet slingeren – een oneindige afwisseling van verlaten landwegen, peilloze tunnels en dommelende veerdiensten over Oorden.

He wouldn't give up on her. He was prepared to do anything, fight any battle. No matter if the act was forbidden or not, if he could get her back, he would humble himself, put himself in any kind of jeopardy or fight any battle to save her." - Dimitri's thoughts

His hand lightly pressed to the small of my back, and I turned. His arm slid around me and I was brought up against him. 'You're shaking,' he said, a frown lacing his tone. 'I know.' 'We don't have to,' he said. 'I'm a patient man.' 'Are you really?' I asked, my tone slightly rueful. His white teeth flashed. 'For you I would be.' The sincerity in his voice was my undoing. 'No more talking,' I whipered." - Romeo & Rimmel

His voice gentled and his touch became more like a caress. "I love you," he whispered. "Romeo..." "I love your glasses, your clumsiness, your wild hair, even the way you snort when you laugh." He smiled. "I love you in spite of yourself, Rim. Can't you love me in spite of myself?" I couldn't help it, I smiled. "You do come with a lot of baggage." I sighed. "You're impossibly good-looking, terrible at math, and you like to drink that swill you call beer." I mock shuddered. He smiled, but I saw the relief in his eyes. "Me being good-looking is a bad thing?" he teased. "You have a lot of options," I said seriously. "I'm not the best one." "No." He agreed. "You're not." Geez, he could have said it a little nicer. "You're the only one." Oh, well, that was much better. - Romeo & Rimmel

Have you ever had a dream that you were certain was real, only to wake up and realize that everyone and everything in the dream was really you? Well this is how many mystics describe the nature of our reality, as a dream in which we think we are individual personalities existing in the physical universe. But eventually, like in all dreams, we will wake up. Except in this dream we do not wake up to realize we are still in the world, we awake from the world to realize that we are God.

He was just a loser with a credit card. Maybe in the past I never realized that. Hell, maybe I'd been the kind of guy who thought money equaled class. Maybe I thought the air of arrogance Zach wore as armor made him superior to others. And then I fell in love with a girl who was the epitome of the opposite of my world. She shattered everything I thought I knew. And though she might be the one wearing glasses, it was me who was finally seeing clearly.

He wasn’t certain how this woman had come to mean so much to him. It seemed that one day she was a stranger, and the next she was as indispensable as air. And yet it hadn’t happened in a blinding flash. It had been a slow, sneaky process, quietly coloring his emotions until he realized that without her, his life lacked all meaning. -Benedict's thoughts about Sophie

I do not know, really, how we will survive without places like the Inner Gorge of the Grand Canyon to visit. Once in a lifetime, even, is enough. To feel the stripping down, an ebb of the press of conventional time, a radical change of proportion, an unspoken respect for others that elicits keen emotional pleasure, a quick intimate pounding of the heart. The living of life, any life, involves great and private pain, much of which we share with no one. In such places as the Inner Gorge the pain trails away from us. It is not so quiet there or so removed that you can hear yourself think, that you would even wish to; that comes later. You can hear your heart beat. That comes first.

I don’t know how to talk to you, Mrs. Huntingdon . . . you are only half a woman--your nature must be half human, half angelic. Such goodness overawes me; I don’t know what to make of it.

I could hold you prisoner here for the rest of the day and list everything I love about you, but that’s only half of it,” he explained, turning toward me. “The other half is something I can’t put into words. Something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to. It’s something that ties me to you, and you to me. Call it chemistry, call it fate, call it whatever you want. All I know is that I’m yours just as much as you’re mine, Luce. That’s the surest thing I’ve ever known.

I felt deep within me that the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!” - The Narrator.

If you had the chance to visit paradise or heaven, would you? Are you thinking you'll get another chance later? What if you reach the Pearly Gates, and Saint Peter says, 'Hey, you had plenty of opportunities to spend time in heavenly places down there. Sorry.

If your consciousness is without form, without quality, and without characteristics of any kind, would that not imply that the consciousness in every other being is also formless? And if they are all without form, how can you distinguish their consciousness from your own? What forms would you use to compare them? Isn’t the observing you exactly the same as the observing them?

I gaze out, to the stars. I remember the first time I saw real stars, through the hatch window. They were beautiful then, but now, seeing them here, all around me, beautiful feels like an inadequate word. I see the stars as a part of the universe, and having spent my life behind walls, suddenly having none fills me with both awe and terror. Emotion courses through my veins, choking me. I feel so insignificant, a tiny speck surrounded by a million stars. A million suns. Centuries away is Sol. Circling around it is Sol-Earth, the planet Amy came from. And one of these other stars is the Centauri binary system, where the new planet spins, waiting for us. And here we are, in the middle, surrounded by a sea of stars. Any of them could hold a planet. Any of them could hold a home. But all of them are out of reach.

He watched her closely. “Why did he leave you?” “How did you—” She broke off and scowled as she understood what he was doing, throwing out provocative questions and gleaning the truth from her reactions. “Bother. All right, I’ll tell you. He left me for another woman. A prettier, younger woman who happened to be his employer’s daughter. It would have been a very advantageous marriage for him.” “You’re wrong.” Amelia gave him a perplexed glance. “I assure you, it would have been an enormously advantageous—” “She couldn’t possibly have been prettier than you.” Her eyes widened at the compliment. “Oh,” she whispered.

I had come to the canyon with expectations. I wanted to see snowy egrets flying against the black schist at dusk; I saw blue-winged teal against the green waters at dawn. I had wanted to hear thunder rolling in the thousand-foot depths; I heard the guttural caw of four ravens…what any of us had come to see or do fell away. We found ourselves at each turn with what we had not imagined.

I had the impulse to look over my shoulder, to make sure he was not striding across the sky already, his gilded arrow pointed at my heart. But there was something in me that was sick of fear and awe, of gazing at the heavens and wondering what someone would allow me. 'Come in,' I said, and led him through my door.

I have so much love for you , I could fill rooms with it. Buildings. You're surrounded by it wherever you go, you walk through it, breathe it… it's in your lungs, and under your tongue, and between your fingers and toes…" -Harry

I have talked with many pastors whose real struggle isn’t first with the hardship of ministry, the lack of appreciation and involvement of people, or difficulties with fellow leaders. No, the real struggle they are having, one that is very hard for a pastor to admit, is with God. What is caused to ministry become hard and burdensome is disappointment and anger at God. We have forgotten that pastoral ministry is war and that you will never live successfully in the pastorate if you live with the peacetime mentality. Permit me to explain. The fundamental battle of pastoral ministry is not with the shifting values of the surrounding culture. It is not the struggle with resistant people who don't seem to esteem the Gospel. It is not the fight for the success of ministries of the church. And is not the constant struggle of resources and personnel to accomplish the mission. No, the war of the pastor is a deeply personal war. It is far on the ground of the pastor’s heart. It is a war values, allegiances, and motivations. It's about the subtle desires and foundational dreams. This war is the greatest threat to every pastor. Yet it is a war that we often naïvely ignore or quickly forget in the busyness of local church ministry. When you forget the Gospel, you begin to seek from the situations, locations and relationships of ministry what you already have been given in Christ. You begin to look to ministry for identity, security, hope, well-being, meeting, and purpose. These things are already yours in Christ. In ways of which you are not always aware, your ministry is always shaped by what is in functional control of your heart. The fact of the matter is that many pastors become awe numb or awe confused, or they get awe kidnapped. Many pastors look at glory and don't seek glory anymore. Many pastors are just cranking out because they don't know what else to do. Many pastors preach a boring, uninspiring gospel that makes you wonder why people aren't sleeping their way through it. Many pastors are better at arguing fine points of doctrine than stimulating divine wonder. Many pastors see more stimulated by the next ministry, vision of the next step in strategic planning than by the stunning glory of the grand intervention of grace into sin broken hearts. The glories of being right, successful, in control, esteemed, and secure often become more influential in the way that ministry is done than the awesome realities of the presence, sovereignty, power, and love of God. Mediocrity is not a time, personnel, resource, or location problem. Mediocrity is a heart problem. We have lost our commitment to the highest levels of excellence because we have lost our awe.

I landed on my side, my hip taking the brunt of the fall. It burned and stung from the hit, but I ignored it and struggled to sit up quickly. There really was no point in hurrying so no one would see. Everyone already saw A pair of jean-clad legs appeared before me, and my suitcase and all my other stuff was dropped nearby. "Whatcha doing down there?" Romeo drawled, his hands on his hips as he stared down at me with dancing blue eyes. "Making a snow angel," I quipped. I glanced down at my hands, which were covered with wet snow and bits of salt (to keep the pavement from getting icy). Clearly, ice wasn't required for me to fall. A small group of girls just "happened by", and by that I mean they'd been staring at Romeo with puppy dog eyes and giving me the stink eye. When I fell, they took it as an opportunity to descend like buzzards stalking the dead. Their leader was the girl who approached me the very first day I'd worn Romeo's hoodie around campus and told me he'd get bored. As they stalked closer, looking like clones from the movie Mean Girls, I caught the calculating look in her eyes. This wasn't going to be good. I pushed up off the ground so I wouldn't feel so vulnerable, but the new snow was slick and my hand slid right out from under me and I fell back again. Romeo was there immediately, the teasing light in his eyes gone as he slid his hand around my back and started to pull me up. "Careful, babe." he said gently. The girls were behind him so I knew he hadn't seen them approach. They stopped as one unit, and I braced myself for whatever their leader was about to say. She was wearing painted-on skinny jeans (I mean, really, how did she sit down and still breathe?) and some designer coat with a monogrammed scarf draped fashionably around her neck. Her boots were high-heeled, made of suede and laced up the back with contrasting ribbon. "Wow," she said, opening her perfectly painted pink lips. "I saw that from way over there. That sure looked like it hurt." She said it fairly amicably, but anyone who could see the twist to her mouth as she said it would know better. Romeo paused in lifting me to my feet. I felt his eyes on me. Then his lips thinned as he turned and looked over his shoulder. "Ladies," he said like he was greeting a group of welcomed friends. Annoyance prickled my stomach like tiny needles stabbing me. It's not that I wanted him to be rude, but did he have to sound so welcoming? "Romeo," Cruella DeBarbie (I don't know her real name, but this one fit) purred. "Haven't you grown bored of this clumsy mule yet?" Unable to stop myself, I gasped and jumped up to my feet. If she wanted to call me a mule, I'd show her just how much of an ass I could be. Romeo brought his arm out and stopped me from marching past. I collided into him, and if his fingers hadn't knowingly grabbed hold to steady me, I'd have fallen again. "Actually," Romeo said, his voice calm, "I am pretty bored." Three smirks were sent my way. What a bunch of idiots. "The view from where I'm standing sure leaves a lot to be desired." One by one, their eyes rounded when they realized the view he referenced was them. Without another word, he pivoted around and looked down at me, his gaze going soft. "No need to make snow angels, baby," he said loud enough for the slack-jawed buzzards to hear. "You already look like one standing here with all that snow in your hair." Before I could say a word, he picked me up and fastened his mouth to mine. My legs wound around his waist without thought, and I kissed him back as gentle snow fell against our faces.

I’m sick of them. I never want to see them again. Except Aros; he smells nice. And Rome; because he’s so strong I’m pretty sure not even Rau can get past him. I don’t need the others. Except Siret. I’m pretty sure he hates me, but he’s really good at catching me like just before I face-plant into something. But the others, I don’t need them. Not at all.” I paused, my brow furrowing, my mouth pursing, and then I quickly blurted, “Except Coen and Yael. Coen is really good at making decisions, and if I leave out Yael he’ll probably hunt me down and haunt me-” “That's all of them,” Emmy interrupted smoothly.

In Advaita Vedanta, and in many other ancient wisdom traditions, the world is said to be an illusion. This illusion is commonly referred to as maya, a Sanskrit name which refers to the apparent, or objective reality which is superimposed on the ultimate reality in order to generate the phenomena of what we call the material world. Maya is the magic by which we create duality—by which we create two worlds from one. This creation is an illusory creation—it is not real—it is an imaginary manifestation of the one Universal Consciousness, appearing as all of the various phenomena in objective reality. Maya is God’s, or Consciousness’s, creative power of emptying or reflecting itself into all things and thus creating all things—the power of subjectivity to take on objective appearance.

I focused on him. Everything still seemed blurry, but he was close enough that I could see him. He was completely soaked. His jeans, shoes, jacket, and shirt. He was just as wet as I was. His normally messy blond hair was darker and flat to his head from the weight of the water. Dark shadows haunted his eyes and his lips were pale from the cold. "You jumped in after me," I whispered. "I'd jump into the pits of hell for you, Rim.

I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that this delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it. I remember, in the winter of our first experiments, just seven years ago, looking on snow with new eyes. There the snow lay around my doorstep — great heaps of protons quietly precessing in the earth's magnetic field. To see the world for a moment as something rich and strange is the private reward of many a discovery.

I know you deserve better than me. You think I don’t know that? But if there was any woman made for me … it’s you.

I only want her to feel safe. No’just with me, but with all of us.” Marcum smiled thoughtfully from behind the desk. “She will, son. It will simply take time.”He sipped at his whisky, studying his son closely for a long while. “Are ye willin’to wait?” From what his father told him, it could be years before Laurin felt safe enough to allow him entry into her heart. Years. “It be true, that I be no’gettin’any younger,”he answered. “None of us are,”Marcum replied dryly. There was not another young lass on their island, within their clan, who had ever made his heart thrum so feverishly against his chest. Laurin’s beauty, her smile, were rivaled by none. From the first moment he’d set eyes on her, he simply knew. Knew to his bones, that she was the one. He’d settle for no other. “Aye, I can wait. As long as she needs.” Marcum quirked a questioning brow. “Years if need be?” He gave a curt nod of his head before downing the last of his whisky. “A lifetime if she needs it.

I pressed forward, pushing my body along hers, and wrapped my arms around her waist. Some of the intensity of my anger dissipated and drained away. After a very long, steamy kiss, I broke away, breathing hard. Rimmel's head collapsed against the wall and she stared up at me with unfocused hazel eyes. The flecks of color in the center were green today. "Romeo," she gasped. I pulled back enough so I could lift her arm and grasp her fingers. She made a sound of protest when I pushed back the material of the shirt once more and stared down at the dark blotches marring her skin. "How were you going to explain this to me?" I rumbled. "I wasn't going to lie, it that's what you're implying," she snapped. "Ah, baby." I groaned and lifted her wrist to press my lips to the marks. "I'm being a jerk." "You said it…" She agreed, letting the rest of her sentence fall away. I smiled against her skin and then kissed her inner wrist once more.

In contrast to your usual minions, I imagine, I’m a bit more awed by your conceit and arrogance than I am by your supposed magnificence.

I stood there, battered by the raw power and sheer magnificence of a land I'd never known

I suspect that it was simply that I had admired the earth, and the universe. The more I say and think that I admire it, and love it, the more it gives me what I admire, or strange coincidences that leave me in more awe than I was before.

Is it like this everywhere you go?” Gary asked. “Pretty much.” Savannah shrugged calmly. “I don’t really mind. Peter always—” She broke off abruptly and brought the steaming cup to her mouth. Gregori could feel sorrow beating at her, a crushing stone weighing down her heart. His hand slipped down her arm to lace his fingers through hers. At once he poured warmth and comfort into her mind, the sensation of his arms around her body, holding her close. “Peter Sanders always took care of the details surrounding Savannah’s shows. He was very good at shielding her. He was murdered after her last show out in San Francisco.” He provided the information quietly to Gary. “I’m sorry,” Gary said instantly, meaning it. Her distress was evident in her large blue eyes. They shimmered with sorrow. Gregori brought Savannah’s hand to the warmth of his mouth, his breath heating the pulse beating in her wrist. The night is especially beautiful, mon petit amour. Your hero saved the girl, walks among the humans, and converses with a fool. That alone should bring a smile to your face. Do not weep for what we cannot change. We will make certain that this human with us comes to no harm. Are you my hero, then? There were tears in her voice, in her mind, like an iridescent prism. She needed him, his comfort, his support under her terrible weight of guilt and love and loss. Always, for all eternity, he answered instantly, without hesitation, his eyes hot mercury. He tipped her chin up so that she met the brilliance of his silver gaze. Always, mon amour.

She is beautiful. The thought came out of nowhere and shocked me into next week. - Romeo about Rimmel

[The Old Astronomer to His Pupil] Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how We are working to completion, working on from then to now. Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete, Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet, And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true, And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you. But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn, You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn, What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles; What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles. You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late, But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate. Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. What, my boy, you are not weeping? You should save your eyes for sight; You will need them, mine observer, yet for many another night. I leave none but you, my pupil, unto whom my plans are known. You 'have none but me,' you murmur, and I 'leave you quite alone'? Well then, kiss me, -- since my mother left her blessing on my brow, There has been a something wanting in my nature until now; I can dimly comprehend it, -- that I might have been more kind, Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind. I 'have never failed in kindness'? No, we lived too high for strife,-- Calmest coldness was the error which has crept into our life; But your spirit is untainted, I can dedicate you still To the service of our science: you will further it? you will! There are certain calculations I should like to make with you, To be sure that your deductions will be logical and true; And remember, 'Patience, Patience,' is the watchword of a sage, Not to-day nor yet to-morrow can complete a perfect age. I have sown, like Tycho Brahe, that a greater man may reap; But if none should do my reaping, 'twill disturb me in my sleep So be careful and be faithful, though, like me, you leave no name; See, my boy, that nothing turn you to the mere pursuit of fame. I must say Good-bye, my pupil, for I cannot longer speak; Draw the curtain back for Venus, ere my vision grows too weak: It is strange the pearly planet should look red as fiery Mars,-- God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars.

It is the mythic experience, the mythic imagination that opens, reveals depth and mystery, which places the human in the context of the nonhuman, and so, forces retreat, humility, and awe, in the presence of spaces beyond our will.

I think of two landscapes- one outside the self, the other within. The external landscape is the one we see-not only the line and color of the land and its shading at different times of the day, but also its plants and animals in season, its weather, its geology… If you walk up, say, a dry arroyo in the Sonoran Desert you will feel a mounding and rolling of sand and silt beneath your foot that is distinctive. You will anticipate the crumbling of the sedimentary earth in the arroyo bank as your hand reaches out, and in that tangible evidence you will sense the history of water in the region. Perhaps a black-throated sparrow lands in a paloverde bush… the smell of the creosote bush….all elements of the land, and what I mean by “the landscape.” The second landscape I think of is an interior one, a kind of projection within a person of a part of the exterior landscape. Relationships in the exterior landscape include those that are named and discernible, such as the nitrogen cycle, or a vertical sequence of Ordovician limestone, and others that are uncodified or ineffable, such as winter light falling on a particular kind of granite, or the effect of humidity on the frequency of a blackpoll warbler’s burst of song….the shape and character of these relationships in a person’s thinking, I believe, are deeply influenced by where on this earth one goes, what one touches, the patterns one observes in nature- the intricate history of one’s life in the land, even a life in the city, where wind, the chirp of birds, the line of a falling leaf, are known. These thoughts are arranged, further, according to the thread of one’s moral, intellectual, and spiritual development. The interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of an exterior landscape; the shape of the individual mind is affected by land as it is by genes. Among the Navajo, the land is thought to exhibit sacred order…each individual undertakes to order his interior landscape according to the exterior landscape. To succeed in this means to achieve a balanced state of mental health…Among the various sung ceremonies of this people-Enemyway, Coyoteway, Uglyway- there is one called Beautyway. It is, in part, a spiritual invocation of the order of the exterior universe, that irreducible, holy complexity that manifests itself as all things changing through time (a Navajo definition of beauty).