
Thomas Moran , Moonlit Shipwreck at Sea , 1901

Félix Vallotton , Soleil Couchant dans la Brume, 1911

Félix Vallotton , Coucher de Soleil Jaune et Vert , 1911
”The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” ~ Antonio Gramsci
"For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!" ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Journey into the Interior by Theodore Roethke
In the long journey out of the self,
There are many detours, washed-out interrupted raw places
Where the shale slides dangerously
And the back wheels hang almost over the edge
At the sudden veering, the moment of turning.
Better to hug close, wary of rubble and falling stones.
The arroyo cracking the road, the wind-bitten buttes, the canyons,
Creeks swollen in midsummer from the flash-flood
roaring into the narrow valley.
Reeds beaten flat by wind and rain,
Grey from the long winter, burnt at the base in late summer.
-- Or the path narrowing,
Winding upward toward the stream with its sharp stones,
The upland of alder and birchtrees,
Through the swamp alive with quicksand,
The way blocked at last by a fallen fir-tree,
The thickets darkening,
The ravines ugly.
My Religion by Santōka Taneda My Three Precepts: Do not waste anything. Do not get angry. Do not complain. My Three Vows: Do not attempt the impossible. Do not feel regret for the past. Do not berate oneself. My Three Joys: Study. Contemplation. Haiku.