Mermaid Altered Art - Believe And You Shall See

If you wish to be a mine of jewels,

open the deep ocean within your heart.

~Rumi

WHO would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

~excerpt from The Mermaid, by Tennyson

  Greetings to all who gather in goodness and light.  I hope you enjoy the beautiful quote and except from "The Mermaid" poem by Tennyson.  I just re-listed this magical mermaid at my Etsy shop.  Feel free to take a peek.  

May Your Days Be Filled With Wonder and Delight !

Still Discovering My Spiritual Path - Discovering More Emerson

When I read the following I recognized myself …. I have to delve more into Transcendentalism, it sounds so right to me.  I have to say I am really enjoying my spiritual journey lately, even though life has been very hard … I know in my heart that it’s my perception that makes it so.  FAITH and knowing all is and always will be well is what I am striving for among a ton of other things.  Although I am truly one with the Goddess …. that is my personal path … the Divine doesn’t care a fig what you call Her … and I guess I really call it LOVE.  I hope you find this interesting and enlightening.   
 “Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882) was an American philosopher, essayist, and poet who was the leader of the transcendentalist movement in the mid-19th century. Transcendentalism was a collection of new ideas about literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that originated in New England. One of the main beliefs of transcendentalism was that there was an ideal spiritual state which transcended the material world and could be realized through intuition only, and not through studying religious doctrine.   

Emerson believed that all things were one, and that we were all connected to God. His views were therefore radical at the time. He believed that God did not have to reveal truth, but that truth could be directly experienced from nature on an intuitive level.  

Emerson's essay Nature is considered to be the event that marked the beginning of transcendentalism as a major cultural movement. At the end of the essay he calls for a revolution in human consciousness.  “  

NATURE - To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.  

When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet. The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title. 
To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, -- master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.  

The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right.  

Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance. For, nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then, there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wow ... who writes like this today?  I have to read it again and again.  I think we have lost a lot with technology and our busy modern times ... writing being one of the beautiful gifts of the Divine.  

I'll be out and about for the next few days and I hope you in the US enjoy your long weekend, that is if you have the day off ... many do not alas.  

I wish you all Goodness and Light all of your days and A Tub Of LOVE to give you comfort and joy.

 

I was featured at Jill's Blog - Scatter Kindness

Hi everyone.  Just wanted to write a quick post about how nice Jill was to highlight my Etsy shop.  I always appreciate kindness.  I don't know why, but am always surprised when this kind of thing happens to me.  You can find the post here:

http://jillstreasures.blogspot.com/2012/05/artsings1946.html

Here's the words to the "Exactly" video from the other day ... LOVE them !   

i am exactly where i need to be
i need to be exactly where i am
i am a blessing manifest
i can undress the moment
naked time unwinds beneath my mind
and from within i find the kind of beauty
only i can find
i am exactly where i need to be
i need to be exactly where i am
i am surrendering so willingly
to be the perfect me inside this now
and truly how else could it be
destiny she blesses me
when i try to fight or run
i only wind up back at square one
when i think i know what's best for me
fate she takes me back
to exactly where i need to be
i am exactly where i need to be
i need to be exactly where i am
i am divinely timed and shining brightly
yes i believe that there's a purpose just for me
yes i believe that we are light
and we shine infinitely
i am exactly where i need to be
i need to be exactly where i am
i am not aimlessly existing see
i am in perfect harmony with universal energy
and i am truly free when i accept my own divinity
look at me look at me closely
what exactly do you see
if you are paying attention you will now begin ascension of the mind
why, because if you look at me just right you will see a kiss
for it took a kiss to make this breath exist
the intersection of my mother's and father's lips
to touch twist and perfect what came next to produce me
look at me and you will see the breeze
the breeze it took to shake the leaves to make
my mother's hair move, my father dare touch it and say
please may i have a kiss
yes the breeze made me exist
and if you want to get even deeper into this
when you look at me you will see a cloud
the cloud it took to form the storm to shake the leaves to
inspire the liplock - yes a raindrop will pop up out these words
you heard me right
if you look at me close enough you will see a dark stormy night
and what is night without it's polar opposite of sunlight
so if you watch the way my hands sway
you'll see the light of day
and everyday is a testament to the sediment of the earth's core
it's ever spinning enormous force so if you look at me just right
you will see a spark of the source
but the most fascinating thing about this, and it's true
is that if you look at me close enough, you see you
it's only what you perceive how you believe the space between
you and me
that creates reality
so when i sing you can feel it
when i cry you can heal it
when i speak words you can be the words i speak by singing with me
peace love free
peace love free
peace love free
and when i am alone and full of fear
i just remember the rising sun always appears
everyday miracles that i see
well they take me back to exactly where i need to be

                                                                                                                   

Scatter Kindness And Watch The World Transform

Happiness And Peace to all.