stream of life

 

 .

The same stream of life that runs through the world 
runs through my veins night and day in rhythmic measure. 

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth into numberless waves of flowers.

—Rabindranath Tagore

 .

properties of water

 

.

Lee Chee Wai is a self taught photographer whose work delicately documents man’s relationship with nature. His series ‘Water’ looks at the element in its myriad forms against the landscape of his homeland, Malaysia.


In ‘Water’, Wai explores the many ways that this element ebbs and flows. Wai explains that for him, “The element of water is feminine, soft and flexible. It can manifest many faces, from rain to mist, rivers to sea, ripples to reflections.” 

Utilising extreme long exposure and infrared light, he illustrates the different forms that water takes. Tides breaking against a jetty are still, and the flow of rivers become a blur. The high contrast of the water in these black and white images helps delineates ripples, oil slicks and the insects and sunlight that dance atop them.

—Rosie Flanagan, for Ignant

.

ignant

wait - what ?

.

Diatom Microscopy

.

The wafer like object featured above is a diatom.

It was taken from a water sample in the Gulf of Maine and is seen here edge on, as observed through a microscope — think of viewing a galaxy edgewise in a telescope. 

A diatom is an aquatic, photosynthetic algae. 
This one is about 100 microns across; approximately the width of a human hair.

Aquatic plants constitute 10 percent of the Earth’s biomass and may produce as much as 50 percent of the Earth’s oxygen. 

Diatoms may also be very significant in the field of nanotechnology; they produce micro-scale valves that may, someday, be components in solar panels on our roofs.

These little creatures appear in the fossil record as far back as the Jurassic Period – more than 144 million years ago.

—John Stetson

.

 

hush

 

.

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of the oceans. 

–Kahlil Gibran 

.

traveller

 

 .



Rivers are roads which move,  
and which carry us whither we desire to go.

 

—Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) 
 


. 

in(finite

    

 

.

 

My whole life is mine, but whoever says so
will deprive me, for it is infinite.

The ripple of water, the shade of the sky
are mine; it is still the same, my life.

No desire opens me: I am full,
I never close myself with refusal-
in the rythm of my daily soul
I do not desire-I am moved;

by being moved I exert my empire,
making the dreams of night real:
into my body at the bottom of the water
I attract the beyonds of mirrors...


—Rainer Maria Rilke

.

the Universe is singing

.

My grandma told me that the Universe is singing in the snowflakes, the raindrops, in the trees, the water, and all Creation. Physicists call this holistic holographic universe. 

Lakotas call it Taku Wakan Skan Skan/Mitakuye Oyasin, which means everything is connected and related in divine rhythm, vibration. Remember the Lakotas know that the song sings the singer. The Spirit sings the song.

—Basil Braveheart

.

wait - what ?

Tanakit Suwanyangyaun photo

.

thirst

 

.

Water, is taught by thirst.

Land — by the Oceans passed.

Transport — by throe — 

Peace — by its battles told —

Love, by Memorial Mold —

Birds, by the Snow.

—Emily Dickinson 

. 

five things you didn't know about water

 .

The surface tension in a drop of water is enough to hold a world in, 
if the world is small enough, 

A cubic meter of salt water contains seventy billion tears and tears 
are what you are made of -- salt and water and pain and relief 

The distance between you and me can be measured in drowned 
fishermen, ships lost at sea, shipboard romances, and tidal waves 

When you sweat, your frustration comes out in rivulets, meaning 
you have many avenues for relieving your stress: heat and hard work 
are not your only choices, but they do the job if you let them 

I brought you this glass of water because I don't have any comfort 
to give you so I comfort myself with this wet gift


—Serene Vannoy

.

excerpt

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

I love rains which carry desires
to 
oceans

  

—Etel Adnan
The Manifestations of the Voyage

.

 

questions

.

I have been thinking of the difference between 
water and the waves on it. 

Rising, water's still water, 
falling back, it is water, 
will you give me a hint how to tell them apart? 

Because someone has made up the word 

"wave," 
do I have to distinguish it from water? 

There is a Secret One inside us; 

the planets in all the galaxies pass through 
his hands like beads.

That is a string of beads one should look at 

with luminous eyes. 

—Kabir

.

water dance

.

Water is the most extraordinary substance!

Practically all its properties are anomalous,
which enabled life to use it as building material for its machinery.

Life is water dancing to the tune of solids.


—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

.

syllables of water

 

.

Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.

Let us discover some new alphabet, For this, the often praised; and be ourselves, The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf, The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone, And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,- Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion, Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.

There is an oriole who, upside down, Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing,- Under a tree as dead and still as lead;

There is a single leaf, in all this heaven Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig: The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;

There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.

The timid bee goes back to the hive; the fly Under the broad leaf of the hollyhock Perpends stupid with cold; the raindark snail Surveys the wet world from a watery stone... 
And still the syllables of water whisper:

The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait In the dark room; and in your heart I find One silver raindrop,-on a hawthorn leaf,- Orion in a cobweb, and the World.

—Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)

.

roll on

 

.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! 

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; 

Man marks the earth with ruin, – his control 

Stops with the shore.  

—Lord Byron

.

so

 

.

So a river can exist inside the sea.

And the sea will have no reverie

inside the letters of a name… 

—Elizabeth Willis
Cursive, excerpt 

.

love is always too much

 

 

.

Like the water
of a deep stream,
love is always too much.

We did not make it.

Though we drink till we burst,
we cannot have it all,
or want it all.

In its abundance
it survives our thirst.

In the evening 
we come down to the shore
to drink our fill,

and sleep,
while it flows
through the regions of the dark.

It does not hold us,
except we keep returning 
to its rich waters

thirsty.

We enter,
willing to die,
into the commonwealth 
of its joy. 

—Wendell Berry

.

the sea is everything

.

The sea is everything. 

It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. 

Its breath is pure and healthy. 

It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, 
for he feels life stirring on all sides. 

The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and 
wonderful existence. 

It is nothing but love and emotion; 
it is the Living Infinite. 

 

—Jules Verne

.

 

miraculous

   .   

Water flows from high in the mountains

Water runs deep in the Earth

Miraculously, water comes to us,
And sustains all life.

—Thich Nhat Hanh

. 

    

# 1619 The Taste Of Water

.

Scott Bergey

.

in excelsis, excerpt

.

we stand on the shore
loving its pulse
as it swallows the stars,
and has since it all began
and will continue into oblivion,
past our knowing
 

—anne sexton

.

 

to drink

 

 .

I want to gather your darkness
in my hands, to cup it like water
and drink.

I want this in the same way
as I want to touch your cheek -
it is the same -

the way a moth will come
to the bedroom window in late September,
beating and beating its wings against cold glass,

the way a horse will lower
his long head to water, and drink,
and pause to lift his head and look,
and drink again,

taking everything in with the water,
everything.

—Jane Hirshfield

.




 

 

not to worry

 

.

Water is something you cannot hold. 

Like men. 
I have tried.

—Anne Carson
The Anthropology of Water 

.

my dear

. 

my dear,
we are all made of water.
it’s okay to rage. sometimes
it’s okay to rest. to recede.

—Sanober Khan

.

we are that

 

.

We forget we’re 
mostly water
till the rain falls
and every atom
in our body
starts to go home

  
—Albert Huffstickler

.

question

.

It is mist and rose of eternal morning. 

Moon-honey that flows from buried stars. 

What is holy baptism but God become water?

—Federico García Lorca

Collected Poems

.

body water

.

Previously we thought body movement was accomplished by a series of ratchets, levers, and pulleys. Lately, this machine model has begun to break down.

Connective tissue is the ocean within us, and, in fact, contains the same basic proportions of elements, salts, and carbon compounds found in sea water…it becomes more fluid the more it is moved; the more sedentary, the more ‘dried out’ it becomes. We literally moisten ourselves and make more variations of movement and action possible.

The water within us seems to have a sort of mind […]

The new model sees the body water itself shaping us. That is, we do not contain it like a bottle; it holds itself together like 'standing waves’ and shapes our more solid structures around it.

—Neil Douglas-Klotz

.

wait - what ?

.

the sea

.

Before our human dream (or terror) wove
Mythologies, cosmogonies, and love,
Before time coined its substance into days,
The sea, the always sea, existed: was.

Who is the sea? Who is that violent being,
Violent and ancient, who gnaws the foundations
Of earth? He is both one and many oceans;
He is abyss and splendor, chance and wind. 

Who looks on the sea, sees it the first time,

Every time, with the wonder distilled
From elementary things—from beautiful
Evenings, the moon, the leap of a bonfire.

Who is the sea, and who am I? The day
That follows my last agony shall say.


—Jorge Luis Borges
Alastair Reid version

.