#am

There will never be slaves in Britain,' Godalming continued, 'but those who stay warm will naturally serve us, as the excellent Bessie has just served me. Have a care, lest you wind up the equivalent of some damned regimental water-bearer.' In India, I knew a water-bearer who was a better man than most. ↗

— Kim Newman

#horror #vampires #nature

You can only fight what you are for so long. Eventually the hand that nature has dealt you will make you become what you were meant to be. You have no control over it. ↗

— Lindsay J. Pryor

#paranormal #paranormal-romance #pnr #urban-fantasy #vampire

...the values ascribed to the Indian will depend on what the white writer feels about Nature, and America has always had mixed feelings about that. At one end of the spectrum is Thoreau, wishing to immerse himself in swamps for the positive vibrations; at the other end is Benjamin Franklin, who didn't like Nature. [p.91] ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#native-americans #nature #nature

Of all America’s natural resources, its richest is an inexhaustible vein of irony. ↗

— Markham Shaw Pyle

#american-history #history #nature

Just as there’s usually a space or interval between people passing on the street, even if it sometimes seems very small, a space also exists between thoughts. In your meditation, see if you can perceive this gap between thoughts. What is it, and does it belong to the realm of time? If it does not, then it’s unborn and undying, beyond all conditioning, which is a psychological carry-over from the past to the present. Whatever thoughts or internal conflicts come up—do nothing. Do not try to force them to cease or change. And don’t “do nothing” to still the mind, quiet fears, or resolve conflicts—all of this is doing something. It only leads to more struggling and prevents you from seeing the actual nature of thought and internal conflict. Genuine attention has no motive. This observation or listening doesn’t involve effort. Effort merely distracts you from what’s taking place in the instant. A kind of concentration exists that’s not forced. We’ve all experienced listening or paying attention to something we truly enjoyed. At that moment, was effort required for concentration to take place? ↗

— H.E. Davey

#effort #ki #meditation #nakamura-tempu #shin-shin-toitsu-do

Nature is richer than billionaires – its assets are so much more uncontaminated. Especially when oil spills expose corporate corruption. ↗

— Bauvard

#corporate-greed #environmentalism #nature #oil-spills #wealth

I speculate over some of the Anglo nomenclature of birds: Wilson's snipe, Forster's tern . . . : What natural images do these names conjure up in our minds? What integrity do we give back to the birds with our labels. ↗

— Terry Tempest Williams

#names #naming #nomenclature #nature

The barometer of his emotional nature was set for a spell of riot. ↗

— James Joyce

#nature

The objective of learning is not necessarily to remember. It may even be salutary to forget. It is only when we forget the early pains and struggles of forming letters that we acquire the capacity for writing. The adult does not remember all the history s/he learned but s/he may hope to have acquired a standard of character and conduct, a sense of affairs and a feeling of change and development in culture. Naturally there is nothing against having a well-stocked mind provided it does not prevent the development of other capacities. But it is still more important to allow knowledge to sink into one in such a way that it becomes fruitful for life; this best done when we feel deeply all we learn. For the life of feeling is less conscious, more dream-like, than intellectual activity and leads to the subconscious life of will where the deep creative capacities of humanity have their being. It is from this sphere that knowledge can emerge again as something deeply significant for life. It is not what we remember exactly, but what we transform which is of real value to our lives. In this transformation the process of forgetting, of allowing subjects to sink into the unconscious before "re-membering" them is an important element. ↗

— Henning Hansmann

#education #feeling #forgetting #learning #memory

There is the subtler music, the clear light Where time burns back about th'eternal embers. We are not shut from the thousand heavens: Lo, there are many gods whom we have seen, Folk of unearthly fashion, places splendid, Bulwarks of beryl and of chrysophrase. Sapphire Benacus, in thy mists and thee Nature herself's turned metaphysical, Who can look at that blue and not believe? ↗

— Ezra Pound

#music