Refuse to let the darkness win.
“There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical … The other is an outpouring of everything good in you … The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.”
s e r e n d i p i t y
ORIGIN 1754: coined by Horace Walpole in a letter, stating that he formed the word “serendipity” from a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.” The fairy tale dates back to a famous poem, The Eight Paradises, written in 1302 AD by Amir Khusro.
this.
(via papillonland)
More than anything I must have flowers, always and always.
~ Claude Monet
Thank you.
(via teaintheafternoon)
“The cure for anything is salt water – tears, sweat, or the sea.”
- Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales
(via npr)
The Poppy is the most transparent and delicate of all blossoms… The rest, nearly all of them, depend on the texture of their surface for colour. But the Poppy is painted glass; it never glows as brightly as when the sun shines through it…it is a flame, and warms the wind like a blown ruby…. When the flower opens, it seems a deliverance from torture. ~ John Ruskin
Happy Floral Design Day: February 28th (pictured: Bromeliad, Orchid)
As if we needed an excuse to talk about flowers! More than sixty years ago, Carl Rittner founded the Rittners School of Floral Design in Boston, MA. February 28th is Carl Rittner’s birthday, and is now the designated day we celebrate the art form of flower arranging.
The ancient Egyptians were probably the first to decorate with flowers, as early as 2500 BC, by placing cut flowers in vases. Formal arrangements were also created for burial processions, and garlands were left in the tombs of loved ones.
The Greeks made laurel wreaths and presented them to the winners of ancient Olympic competitions, and to military commanders after successful victories. Laurel wreaths were also presented to notable poets of ancient academia (the word “laureate” in “poet laureate” refers to the honor of being acknowledged with a laurel wreath). The Europeans didn’t begin the techniques of flower arranging until 1000 AD, after emerging from the Dark Ages.
As the world emerges from a Recession, the importance of flowers is ever more relevant: they are beautiful, affordable, readily available, and make meaningful gifts for dozens of special occasions - not to mention for our own personal pleasure. And it seems it has always been this way.
“I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.” - Claude Monet
…..by doing the right thing.
(via destroywhatboresyou)
