Thinking of You Harmony

Harmony, I made this card for you and am sending it your way with happy wishes for a speedy recovery.

Blessings and Best Wishes,
Lisa

Poetry Thursday - "Every Child"

Every
Child
Has known God
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don'ts,
Not the God who ever does
Anything weird,
But the God who only knows four
words
And keeps repeating them,
saying:
"Come dance with Me."
Come
Dance

-Hafiz

Song of the Universal

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.



COME, said the Muse,

Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,

Sing me the Universal.


In this broad Earth of ours,

Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,

Enclosed and safe within its central heart,

Nestles the seed Perfection.


By every life a share, or more or less,

None born but it is born—conceal’d or unconceal’d, the seed is waiting.


Lo! keen-eyed, towering Science!

As from tall peaks the Modern overlooking,

Successive, absolute fiats issuing.


Yet again, lo! the Soul—above all science;

For it, has History gather’d like a husk around the globe;

For it, the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.

In spiral roads, by long detours,

(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,)

For it, the partial to the permanent flowing,

For it, the Real to the Ideal tends.


For it, the mystic evolution;

Not the right only justified—what we call evil also justified.


Forth from their masks, no matter what,

From the huge, festering trunk—from craft and guile and tears,

Health to emerge, and joy—joy universal.


Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow,

Out of the bad majority—the varied, countless frauds of men and States,


Electric, antiseptic yet—cleaving, suffusing all,

Only the good is universal.


Over the mountain growths, disease and sorrow,

An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,

High in the purer, happier air.


From imperfection’s murkiest cloud,

Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,

One flash of Heaven’s glory.


To fashion’s, custom’s discord,

To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,

Soothing each lull, a strain is heard, just heard,

From some far shore, the final chorus sounding.


the blest eyes! the happy hearts!

That see—that know the guiding thread so fine,

Along the mighty labyrinth!


And thou, America!

For the Scheme’s culmination—its Thought, and its Reality,

For these, (not for thyself,) Thou hast arrived.


Thou too surroundest all;

Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, Thou too, by pathways broad and new,

To the Ideal tendest.


The measur’d faiths of other lands—the grandeurs of the past,

Are not for Thee—but grandeurs of Thine own;

Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,

All eligible to all.


All, all for Immortality!

Love, like the light, silently wrapping all!

Nature’s amelioration blessing all!

The blossoms, fruits of ages—orchards divine and certain;

Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual Images ripening.


Give me, O God, to sing that thought!

Give me—give him or her I love, this quenchless faith

In Thy ensemble. Whatever else withheld, withhold not from us,

Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space;

Health, peace, salvation universal.


Is it a dream?

Nay, but the lack of it the dream,

And, failing it, life’s lore and wealth a dream,

And all the world a dream.

Type and path buttons

I thought these pictures might be helpful they are a little small but as soon as I enlarged them they lost the detail. My path button only appears after I've clicked a pen or shape tool.

Getting Text To Follow A Path

I've had several requests for how-to information on editing photos so I thought I'd try a post and see if people find it helpful.

I usually edit photos in Adobe Photoshop CS. Here is how I add text to a picture:
I select the “Pen tool” from the tool bar then I selected the “Paths button.” Drawing left to right this tool draws a straight line but by clicking the mouse to place anchor points you can create a long row of points for the line to curve on. Next, from the toolbox I selected the Horizontal Type Tool. Put the base of the type tool on the beginning of the path and click the mouse. A dot will appear. The dot should be on the path line. If its off the line, undo the dot and try again. Type your words; if the text lays straight and doesn’t follow the line, undo the dot and try again. When you are happy with the way the text looks press Ctrl plus Enter.
These directions are for Windows; for more information or directions for Mac, click on “help.” When that opens, click on “how to work with type,” then click on “put type on a path.” If you work with text in your images or if you use these directions, we would love to have you share the link to your work in the comments

When I Met My Muse

When I Met My Muse
I glanced at her and took my glasses
off—they were still singing.
They buzzed like a locust on the coffee table
and then ceased.
Her voice belled forth, and the sunlight bent.
I felt the ceiling arch,
and knew that nails up there
took a new grip on whatever they touched.
"I am your own way of looking at things,"
she said.
"When you allow me to live with you,
everyglance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

—William Stafford

More of William Stafford

William Safire

Do not put statements in the negative form.And don't start sentences with a conjunction.If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that agreat deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.De-accession euphemisms.If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

~William Safire, "Great Rules of Writing"

Looking for inspiration try The Soul Food Cafè