BMW R18

BMW is drawing on it's heritage with the new R18.

I've read that the enormous heads limit foot placement, more so for tall riders.  The 1800cc engine seems unnecessarily large to me.

Exposed shaft drive.

Machine art.

Bridge at Büyükçekmece

Bridge at Büyükçekmece, Turkey

When Religion is Shorn of Superstitions

"When religion, shorn of its superstitions, traditions, and unintelligent dogmas, shows its conformity with science, then will there be a great unifying, cleansing force in the world which will sweep before it all wars, disagreements, discords and struggles -- and then will mankind be united in the power of the Love of God."

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks

Forest Edge

Watercolor, Artist unknown

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

 

THEN: Mizpah at Chenery, 1972

From a 'San Francisco Remembered' post:



Tony Holiday is in San Francisco, California.

July 9, 2012

Garden in Late April

The new red growth of the photinia is turning green, while the redbud shows off with a delicate pink display.  Meanwhile, hosta begins to grow beneath the maple as its leaves appear.  Irises have found a home this year, and will dominate a little corner above the lamb's ears in years to come. 

Land and Sea

I'll cross land and sea

To follow Thee

Take me on a journey of love

Lead my steps aright

By your light and your life

Fill me with the fire of love

How you came to me

Even only in a dream

Shining light on what

I could not see

I will follow Thee

In discomfort or in ease

I'll cross land and sea

I have heard your call

And set out from my home

Restless and ablaze I will go

When my time has come

And my service is done

Let me circle round where you lay

How you came to me

Even only in a dream

Shining light on what

I could not see

I will follow Thee

In discomfort or in ease

I'll cross land and sea

The Sower

With days fleeting, I'm grateful for having found this painting and verse today.                   

The Sower - Vincent Van Gogh

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.     Galatians 6:7 

nob hill neo-classical iPhoneX

nob hill neo-classical

iPhoneX

Ronaldo Farelli

Moon Transits the Earth

The relative sizes are distorted by the distance of the station point  a million miles away, but it's quite a perspective.

Source: NASA/NOAA

This is a five-hour time lapse of the far side of the Moon, illuminated by the Sun, as it crosses between the DSCOVR spacecraft's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) camera and telescope, and the Earth - one million miles away.

(It) was taken between 3:50 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. EDT showing the moon moving over the Pacific Ocean near North America. The North Pole is in the upper left corner of the image. It is in the original orientation as taken by the spacecraft.  LINK

Paris Talks

October 24th, 1911

"The perfect love needs an unselfish instrument, absolutely freed from fetters of every kind.

The love of family is limited; the tie of blood relationship is not the strongest bond. Frequently members of the same family disagree, and even hate each other.

Patriotic love is finite; the love of one’s country causing hatred of all others, is not perfect love! Compatriots also are not free from quarrels amongst themselves.

The love of race is limited; there is some union here, but that is insufficient. Love must be free from boundaries! To love our own race may mean hatred of all others, and even people of the same race often dislike each other.

Political love also is much bound up with hatred of one party for another; this love is very limited and uncertain.

The love of community of interest in service is likewise fluctuating; frequently competitions arise, which lead to jealousy, and at length hatred replaces love.

A few years ago, Turkey and Italy had a friendly political understanding; now they are at war!

All these ties of love are imperfect. It is clear that limited material ties are insufficient to adequately express the universal love.

The great unselfish love for humanity is bounded by none of these imperfect, semi-selfish bonds; this is the one perfect love, possible to all mankind, and can only be achieved by the power of the Divine Spirit. No worldly power can accomplish the universal love.

Let all be united in this Divine power of love! Let all strive to grow in the light of the Sun of Truth, and reflecting this luminous love on all men, may their hearts become so united that they may dwell evermore in the radiance of the limitless love.

Remember these words which I speak unto you during the short time I am amongst you in Paris. I earnestly exhort you: let not your hearts be fettered by the material things of this world; I charge you not to lie contentedly on the beds of negligence, prisoners of matter, but to arise and free yourselves from its chains!"

Abdu'l-Bahá  Paris Talks

Nice Touch

Pope John Paul at the Golden Gate

A remarkable image of Pope John Paul in 1987.

Jon Wolf's Work

Art by Jon Wolf

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