fallslikesnow

"...when he chose the median floors it was a decision that had evolved over many thousands of years, and that had its origins in one great event when something huge, broken, and laced with flame had tumbled through the air after being hurled from a place so bright that compared to it the sun straight on seemed as black as pitch." from Winter's tale By Mark Helprin

"The peninsula Avalon in Newfoundland is separated by 4000 km of ocean from legendary Avalon in Wales. Trilobites show that the two Avalons were conjoined half a billion years ago. Fortuitous congruence of names? Or the influence of the Arthurian magician Merlin?"

Summers butterflies Black with gray wings and Black stars. Alien Rainbow butterflies with Black scary dots Roses shaped like swords Grasshoppers and caterpillars Spiderwebs, snails and worms And those little worms called maggots written by Summer, age five

by Gerard Manley Hopkins Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough; And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.

The Mantra Om Mani Padme Hum The Mani mantra is the most widely used of all Buddhist mantras, and open to anyone who feels inspired to practice it -- it does not require prior initiation by a lama (meditation master). The six syllables of the mantra, as it is often pronounced by Tibetans -- Om Mani Padme Hum -- are here written in the Tibetan alphabet: Reading from left to right the syllables are: Om (ohm) Ma (mah) Ni (nee) Pad (pahd) Me (may) Hum (hum) The vowel in the sylable Hu (is pronounced as in the English word 'book'. The final consonant in that syllable is often pronounced 'ng' as in 'song' -- Om Mani Padme Hung. There is one further complication: The syllable Pad is pronounced Pe (peh) by many Tibetans: Om Mani Peme Hung. "There is not a single aspect of the eighty-four thousand sections of the Buddha's teachings which is not contained in Avalokiteshvara's six syllable mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum", and as...

Trinitite, also known as Atomite or Alamogordo Glass, is the name given to the glassy residue left on the desert floor after the plutonium-based Trinity nuclear bomb test on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

The image shows the transition zone between Iani Chaos and Ares Vallis. Ares Vallis is one of several big outflow channels on Mars in this region that formed billions of years ago. Many surface features suggest that erosion of large water flows had carved Ares Vallis in the Martian landscape. Most likely gigantic floods ran downhill, carving a deep canyon into Xanthe Terra. Rocks eroded from the valley flanks were milled into smaller fractions and transported in the running water. "We'll all say that. We'll all go on and make the place safe. Roads, cities. New sky, new soil. Until it's some kind of Siberia or Northwest Territories, and Mars will be gone and we'll be here, and we'll wonder why we feel so empty. Why when we look at the land we can never see anything but our own faces." Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars

Serenity Prayer God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference; Living one day at a time; Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it: Trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you forever in the next. See here for a brief history of the Serenity Prayer. (taken from here ).

animcube Originally uploaded by thatwhichfalls Here is a computer rendering of the rotation of the hypercube.

Music by Afro Celt Soundsystem

Coming up on the 26th I still feel disappointed I didn't succeed. The medications have allowed me to feel normal for much of the time - the first time in almost a decade or longer I can say that. There have been highs caused by circumstances rather than chemicals and lessons to learn that have made my life immeasurably richer. The lows, however, have been corrosive, eating away at my new-found confidence and etching patterns of despair into the boundaries I realised I needed to maintain. I won't do it now. I just wish I could.

"It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone. " - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played about the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse; You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: Two small people, without dislike or suspicion. At fourteen I married My Lord you. I never laughed, being bashful. Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back. At fifteen I stopped scowling, I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever. Why should I climb the lookout? At sixteen you departed, You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies, And you have been gone five months. The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead. You dragged your feet when you went out. By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, Too deep to clear them away! The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. The paired butterflies are already yellow with...