Молчи, скрывайся и таи --Ф.И. Тютчев

                                        Молчи, скрывайся и таи --Ф.И. Тютчев

                                        Молчи, скрывайся и таи

                                        И чувства и мечты свои –

                                        Пускай в душевной глубине

                                        Встают и заходят оне

                                        Безмолвно, как звезды в ночи, –

                                        Любуйся ими – и молчи.

                                        Как сердцу высказать себя?

                                        Другому как понять тебя?

                                        Поймет ли он, чем ты живешь?

                                        Мысль изреченная есть ложь.

                                         Взрывая, возмутишь ключи, –

                                        Питайся ими – и молчи.

                                        Лишь жить в себе самом умей –

                                        Есть целый мир в душе твоей

                                        Таинственно-волшебных дум;

                                        Их оглушит наружный шум,

                                        Дневные разгонят лучи, –

                                        Внимай их пенью – и молчи!..

                                        Silentium!  Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev

                                        Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
                                        the way you dream, the things you feel.
                                        Deep in your spirit let them rise
                                        akin to stars in crystal skies
                                        that set before the night is blurred:
                                        delight in them and speak no word.

                                         How can a heart expression find?
                                         How should another know your mind?
                                         Will he discern what quickens you?
                                         A thought once uttered is untrue.
                                          Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
                                         drink at the source and speak no word.

                                          Live in your inner self alone
                                          within your soul a world has grown,
                                          the magic of veiled thoughts that might
                                          be blinded by the outer light,
                                          drowned in the noise of day, unheard...
                                          take in their song and speak no word.

Note: 

Silentium! is an archetypal poem by Tyutchev. Written in 1830, it is remarkable for its rhythm crafted so as to make reading in silence easier than aloud toward others. wiki

Ascending

Pilgrims at the House of 'Abbud

Akka, Israel  1990

Holy places are undoubtedly centres of the outpouring of Divine grace, because on entering the illumined sites associated with martyrs and holy souls, and by observing reverence, both physical and spiritual, one’s heart is moved with great tenderness.

From a Tablet by ‘Abdu’l-Baha

Carmel Dunes

CHRISTIAN A. JORGENSEN (1860-1935)

1921, OIL ON CANVAS, 21 X 27 INCHES.

Monterey Museum of Art

Remembering Dave

Dave was my best friend and proof that the good die young.  I met him in high school, and a year or so after graduation he dropped by my apartment to tell me that he had joined the Navy "for security".

The Navy trained him as a corpsman,  and he served a year in Okinawa before being reassigned to the Marines. After training at Camp Pendleton, he was sent to Vietnam.  How the men of his platoon must have wept when the mortar fragments ripped through his body, killing him so soon after he had rendered them aid while being wounded himself and for which he was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star for valor. 

I've been to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., and found his name among the 56,000 etched into that solemn black granite wall. 

Yet it only represents a portion of the tears shed in that needless war.  If that five hundred foot long wall was extended to include all Vietnamese combat fatalities, it would be over a mile in length.  And for what?  Here are a few photos that make the sacrifices of so many seem that much more tragic:

"Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the 'Most Great Peace' shall come."   --Bahá’u’lláh 

Work by Francis McComas

Francis McComas (1875-1938)

From the Monterey Museum of Art

The Gate

"I am, I am, I am the Promised One! I am the One whose name you have for a thousand years invoked, at whose mention you have risen, whose advent you have longed to witness, and the hour of whose Revelation you have prayed to God to hasten." - The Báb

Prairie Meadows Burning on the Missouri --George Catlin

Missouri prairie fire --George Catlin 

Clay Shoe

Clay shoe

Backdoor

Carmel River Beach

PHOTOS BY LORI D'AMBROSIO