... imprisoned splendor ...

Everything transitory is a metaphor.

~Goethe

... the boundless resolve,

no longer limitable in any direction,

to achieve one's purest inner possibility.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

The one who wants to understand the mystery

must turn toward the eternal light

in the depths of his own spirit,

where the hidden truth reveals itself

without intermediary.

~Jan Ruysbroeck

Truth is within ourselves;

it takes no rise from outward things,

Whatever you may believe

There is an inmost center in us all,

Where truth abides in fullness ... and to know

Rather consists in opening out a way

Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,

Than in effecting entry for a light

Supposed to be without.

~Robert Browning

I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough,

None has ever yet adored or worshipped half enough,

None has begun to think how divine he himself is ...

~Walt Whitman

Fall Beauties

... help ...

I'm hoping one of you savvy computer aficionados out there can help me. 

After Irene caused our electricity to go down for 12 hours, I suddenly cannot save my work from Photoshop Elements 8 into Picasa (where I usually store all my edited images).  Have never encountered this problem before. 

If I save to my desktop then I can move images into the proper folders but that is an couple of extra unnecessary steps I would prefer to avoid.  I closed down everything on the computer and re-booted it, but the problem persists.

Any ideas?  Anyone?  Please .... :)

... la vie en rose ...

Looks like it will be anything but 'la vie en rose' for all of you living along

 the eastern seaboard of North America. 

Hope you follow all the commonsense precautions 

for 'weathering' such a major storm

and do not experience too much loss, damage or discomfort.

 

Stay safe dear friends.

I have linked one of the images in this post to Lisa's "The Creative Exchange".

...one scene, four ways...

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

It is the source of all art and science.

~Albert Einstein

A painting has a life of its own.

I try to let it come through.

~Jackson Pollack

Characteristics should take off their hats to one another

not judge one another.

~Bertold Brecht

(Texture designed par moi.)

artificial island countries for libertarians?

I know this post may be controversial, but I could not believe this little news article when I read it, and my knickers are now in a knot.

Here is what the wealthy, who are being exempted from paying appropriate rates of taxes due to partisan intransigence, are thinking of doing with some of the saved money - instead of investing it in America.    Time for those who are unwittingly doing the bidding of these crafty, wealthy capitalists to wake up, me thinks.

~~~~~~~~~

Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian islands

 

 

By Liz Goodwin | The Lookout – Tue, 16 Aug, 2011

Seasteading Institute city design (Anthony Ling)

"Pay Pal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters, according to a profile of the billionaire in Details magazine.

"Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."

"There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible," Thiel said at a Seasteading Institute Conference in 2009, according to Details. (His first donation was in 2008, for $500,000.) "That's a good thing. We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late."

"The Seasteading Institute's Patri Friedman says the group plans to launch an office park off the San Francisco coast next year, with the first full-time settlements following seven years later...."

~~~~~~~~~

Political zealots are allowing the wealthy to not pay their fair share of taxes thinking that with the money the wealthy save, they will surely create jobs for middle and lower classes of Americans.  Looks like a few of them have other plans for the millions and billions they are saving.  Of course these people want less government interference in their plans.  Heads up, peeps. 

 (Bolding in news article added by me.)

... all in an afternoon ...

Hi Everyone - hope you are enjoying your weekend.  The weather is simply gorgeous up here in the Montreal area and I want to finish this post so that I can get outside and enjoy it! 

DH is already on the golf course and apart from his golf buddy coming back to regale me with a hole by hole lament, we have no guests for supper tonight - SO with no entertaining prep to do, I can indulge myself in doing whatever I want.  Ah - what luxury!

Last weekend while en route to my daughter's condo in The Plateau area of Montreal, we stopped in Old Montreal so that I could get a few photographs.  As I went through the lot of photos, I noticed that I had several of different modes of transportation that I saw that afternoon.  Let me share them with you.

The quintessential 'caleche' taking tourists down the cobblestone streets in the old section of the city.

And, of course, just to prove they can travel in both directions AND also on paved streets ...

Giant, bright buses bringing more tourists in to enjoy our cosmopolitan city.

Another giant, bright bus.  Can you guess what is the claim to fame for this monstrosity?  After a little tour around Old Montreal streets, this bus drives straight into the St. Lawrence River for a little boat tour.  Yes, it is an amphibious vehicle.  Frankly, I prefer to keep my wheels on the pavement.

This mode of transport seems to be getting this fellow nowhere fast!

Perhaps he is happy to sit and imagine himself being chauffered around in the Rolls Royce parked in front of this exclusive boutique hotel.

What is that red reflection in the grill of the Rolls Royce?

A little red Ferrari, of course.  Oh, oh - did I spell it correctly?  Forgive my ignorance, but what is a mustang doing on the back of a Ferrari?

Then there are those of us who are a little less into an ostentatious display of our means and a little more green when it comes to our mode of transportation.  Is the man in the doorway, blushing because of something he said to the pretty biker, or something she said to him?

I think this is another Ferrari, of the white variety, but you can correct me in your comments if I am wrong.

And, of course, somebody has to maintain order and safety on the streets with all these vehicles!

Last, but not least, this looks like a sports car but is actually a motorbike.  See how it has only one wheel in the back?  Don't quote me, but I think I overheard my DH say they are made here in Montreal.  But we Montrealers do like to claim that everything great is made, done or seen here.  ;)  Don't you do that with your town, city, country too?

Have a fabulous rest of the weekend, no matter how you travel. 

And travel safely!

... tread lightly ...

"St. Francis tended to see the world as a place as light as a flower.

Resting within his own boundaries,

he did not want to weigh more

than a nectar-seeking bee."

~Gabriela Mistral

what a little digital processing can do ...

This piece of digital art began with the photograph of a white cleome in my garden.  It was processed it in Photoshop with a texture of mine made from 'brushes'. 

If you would like to try experimenting with using textures on your photographs, you need not look far to find some free fine art textures.  I offer many for free downloads on my other blog, Pixel Dust Photo Art.  Just click on my Free For You here or when you visit there.  :)

Hope you are all finding a way to enjoy summer and the many simple pleasures available to you, in spite of the distressing news coming at us from around the globe.  Be well.

P.S.  I am sharing this image with dear Lisa Gordon's "The Creative Exchange".  Everyone is welcome to share - click on her button and check it out.  Oh, btw, Lisa's photograph in her Monday post of The Creative Exchange uses one of my textures.

...more digital art...

This is a piece of digital art created from copyright free images and textures on the Web.  Jerry Jones and Nick Fortune provided some of the textures.  Other edits of this image are now posted on my other blog, Pixel Dust Photo Art if you would like to check them out.

If you use textures to enhance your photographs, do check out my Free For You page on Pixel Dust Photo Art.  There are lots of free downloads waiting for you there.

... digital art from paintings, photographs and collage ...