JunoMagic ~ satismagic

“Art defector” by Polpolux !!!,
Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial” licence.

“The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it’s dead for you.”
– Oscar Wilde

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
– Carl Jung

Understanding

I understood the rest too well,
And all their thoughts have come to be
Clear as grey sea-weed in the swell
Of a sunny shallow sea.

But you I never understood,
Your spirit’s secret hides like gold
Sunk in a Spanish galleon
Ages ago in waters cold.

– Sarah Teasdale

By -stephantasy-,
Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives-ShareAlike” licence.

“The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.”
– Philip Sidney

“Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.”
– Thomas Paine

“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.”
– Oscar Wilde

Tomb – Womb – Moon: the power of that round vowel at the heart of these three pervades the Path of Temperance. It holds the infinite zero of the Void, which is also the Nothing from which the Divine Spark created All in our universe. So, after death, after the dissolution of the body to bone-seed and watery chaos, new life begins again in the tomb-womb of Earth.

Harmony, balance and unity must first be restored. (Read more …)

– The Path of Temperance – Samekh, Tarot card 14, Tree Path 15, Joining Sephiroth 6 (Tiphereth) and 9 (Yesod), ‘The Owl’, ‘Fishing Bridge’, ‘Apprehensions’, ‘The Hands’, by Ann Skea.

“Loyalty Fidelity Broccoli digitally cross processed” by roland,
Creative Commons “Attribution” licence at Flickr.

“Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise.”

– Hannah Arendt

Loyalty is usually seen as a virtue, albeit a problematic one. It is constituted centrally by perseverance in an association to which a person has become intrinsically committed. Its paradigmatic expression is found in friendship, to which loyalty is integral, but many other relationships and associations seek to encourage it as an aspect of affiliation or membership: families expect it, organizations often demand it, and countries do what they can to foster it. (Read more …)

– “Loyalty” at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

“The Prayer” by TaMiMi Q8,
Creative Commons “Attribution-ShareAlike” licence at Flickr..

“If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

“Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.”

– Dag Hammarskjold

Forgiveness Lane

FORGIVENESS LANE is old as youth,
You cannot miss your way;
’T is hedged with flowering thorn forsooth
Where white doves fearless stray.

You must walk gently with your Love,
Frail blossoms dread your feet—
And bloomy branches close above
Make heaven near and sweet.

Some lovers fear the stile of pride
And turn away in pain—
But more have kissed where white doves hide
And blessed Forgiveness Lane!

– Martha Gilbert Dickinson

Three Quatrains

THE CUP

SHE said, “Lift high the cup!”
Of her arm’s weariness she gave no sign,
But, smiling, raised it up
That none might see or guess it held no wine.

FORGIVE ME NOT!

FORGIVE me not! Hate me and I shall know
Some of Love’s fire still burns within your breast!
Forgiveness finds its home in hearts at rest,
On dead volcanoes only lies the snow.

THE ROSE

ONE deep red rose I dropped into his grave,
So small a thing to give so great a friend!
Yet well he knew it was my heart I gave
And must fare on without it to the end,

– Lilla Cabot Perry

(Click me! I am a song!)

“This Grudge”
by Alanis Morissette

by felix macpherson,
Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike” licence at Flickr.

“Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profundity.
Kindness in giving creates love.”

– Lao Tse

Kindness

Kindness glides about my house.
Dame Kindness, she is so nice!
The blue and red jewels of her rings smoke
In the windows, the mirrors
Are filling with smiles.

What is so real as the cry of a child?
A rabbit’s cry may be wilder
But it has no soul.
Sugar can cure everything, so Kindness says.
Sugar is a necessary fluid,
Its crystals a little poultice.

O kindness, kindness
Sweetly picking up pieces!
My Japanese silks, desperate butterflies,
May be pinned any minute, anesthetized.

And here you come, with a cup of tea
Wreathed in steam.
The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.
You hand me two children, two roses.

– Sylvia Plath

---

Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.

When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities, and so on. When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. And there are ways in which we can consciously work to develop feelings of love and kindness. For some of us, the most effective way to do so is through religious practice. For others it may be non-religious practices. What is important is that we each make a sincere effort to take our responsibility for each other and for the natural environment we live in seriously.

– HH the Dalai Lama, The Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1989

(Click me! I am a song!)

“Random Acts of Kindness”
by Robbie Williams

And … take a look at the website of the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation!

“You are welcome” by stephyfullofgrace,
Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial” licence at Flickr.

“The only true source of politeness is consideration.”
– William Gilmore Simms

“Courteousness is consideration for others; politeness is the method used to deliver such considerations.”
– Bryant H. McGill

Politeness

If people ask me,
I always tell them:
“Quite well, thank you, I’m very glad to say.”
If people ask me,
I always answer,
“Quite well, thank you, how are you to-day?”
I always answer,
I always tell them,
If they ask me
Politely…..
BUT SOMETIMES

I wish

That they wouldn’t.

– Alan Alexander Milne

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POLITENESS

COURTESY and urbanity of manners have been noticed by every foreign tourist as a marked Japanese trait. Politeness is a poor virtue, if it is actuated only by a fear of offending good taste, whereas it should be the outward manifestation of a sympathetic regard for the feelings of others. It also implies a due regard for the fitness of things, therefore due respect to social positions; for these latter express no plutocratic distinctions, but were originally distinctions for actual merit.

In its highest form, politeness almost approaches love.

(Read more …)

– BUSHIDO, The Soul of Japan – An Exposition of Japanese Thought, by Inazo Nitobe [1905]

(Click me! I am a song!)

“A Polite Tango”
by The Alexandria Kleztet

“Critical Thinking” by Moe_,
Creative Commons “Attribution” licence at Flickr.

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
– Winston Churchill

“Study without reflection is a waste of time; reflection without study is dangerous.”
– Confucius

“The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. … these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into depths of confusion you didn’t know existed.”
– a character in “Brideshead Revisited” by Evelyn Waugh
(the bonus quote for all educators on my flist)

There is nothing more practical than sound thinking. No matter what your circumstance or goals, no matter where you are, or what problems you face, you are better off if your thinking is skilled. As a manager, leader, employee, citizen, lover, friend, parent — in every realm and situation of your life — good thinking pays off. Poor thinking, in turn, inevitably causes problems, wastes time and energy, engenders frustration and pain.

(Read more …)

– “Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking” by Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul

More about critical thinking may be found at http://www.criticalthinking.org/

Critical Thinking Poet

The critical thinking poet
Thought about his poem for five minutes
Then he rolled over and went to sleep

– allan james saywell

(Click me! I am a song!)

“Critical Thinking”
by Rochambeaux