As a lotus grows and blooms in the murkiest of waters, so can we. Rise above your gloom and darkness and bloom gloriously like a Lotus flower (Anon)

Thursday, December 3, 2015

A new Poetry blog
THE SONGS AND SONNETS OF JOHN DONNE
begins on Sunday 6th December at

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Thursday, September 27, 2012

These unusual pictures are taken from my new blog
"taking the one less travelled by"




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Tuesday, September 18, 2012


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Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and the rain to make its colours appear.
 (Anon)

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Rainbow at Maraetai Beach, Auckland, New Zealand. 
[This picture is in public domain from An American’s Perspective on New Zealand.]

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Walk on a rainbow trail, walk on a trail of song
And all about you will be beauty.
There is a way out of every dark mist
Over a rainbow trail. 
(Navajo Poem)

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There was a time when civil wars were common in Japan. The story is told of a Zen master who refused to flee from his village despite the approach of a ruthless invading army.

Seeing that all the villagers had fled and curious about the one person who had stayed, the general sought out the Zen master. When the latter didn’t show any deference to him, the general was angry.

“You fool,” he shouted, reaching for his sword, “don’t you realise you are standing before a man who could run you through without blinking an eye?"

"And do you realize," the master replied softly, "that you are standing before a man who can be run through without blinking an eye?"
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The music here is Angel's Serenade by Gaetano Braga. Yuli Lavrenov is the pianist and the video was uploaded by Liebenslilie . 


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This brings to an end the present series of BY THE LOTUS POND.
Perhaps you would find my new blog interesting. TAKING THE ONE LESS TRAVELLED BY  began a fortnight ago and each post consists of
a picture to admire, a poem to ponder, music to meditate by
and a saying by Lao-Tzu

http://takingtheonelesstravelledby.blogspot.com  

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Tuesday, September 11, 2012


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The summer-flower has run to seed,
And yellow is the woodland bough;
And every leaf of bush and weed
Is tipped with autumn’s pencil now.

And I do love the varied hue,
And I do love the browning plain;
And I do love each scene to view,
That’s marked with beauties of her reign.
(John Clare)

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Use what you have, use what the world gives you. Use the first day of fall: bright flame before winter's deadness; harvest; orange, gold, amber; cool nights and the smell of fire. Our tree-lined streets are set ablaze, our kitchens filled with the smells of nostalgia: apples bubbling into sauce, roasting squash, cinnamon, nutmeg, cider, warmth itself. The leaves as they spark into wild colour just before they die are the world's oldest performance art, and everything we see is celebrating one last violently hued hurrah before the black and white silence of winter.
( Shauna Niequist from Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way)

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"Autumn Wood"
by Albert Bierstadt

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A haiku

roses in autumn -
their beauty far surpasses
roses in June

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Thanks to FreeFoto.com

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taking the one less travelled by
a picture to admire, a poem to ponder, music to meditate by
and a saying by Lao-Tzu

http://takingtheonelesstravelledby.blogspot.com


Tuesday, September 4, 2012


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Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the light of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
(Buddha)


When you enter a dark room you turn on the light to dispel the darkness and see what is in the room - to see the “true nature” of the room. Ignorance is a “darkness” of the mind and a candle symbolizes the Buddha’s teaching; it’s the “light” of truth that dispels the darkness of ignorance. Just as a flame can pass from one candle to another, so too can the truth be given from one person to another.

Thanks to http://thistimethisspace.com/ for the above paragraph.

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There was once a Zen master who was famous as a skilled archer.

On one occasion a young man who had gained an enviable reputation at the sport challenged the old man to a contest. A large crowd gathered to see the event and their sympathy was all for the Zen master for his opponent turned out to be rather a conceited fellow.

The latter hit a bull’s eye on his first try and followed that up by splitting the first arrow with his second shot.

When the old man’s turn came, he said he knew a far better place to have the contest. The crowd followed the pair up the mountain side till they came to a deep chasm spanned by a rather thin and shaky log.

Calmly stepping out on to the middle of the unsteady and certainly perilous bridge, the old master chose a distant tree as a target, drew his bow and fired a clean, direct hit. "Now it is your turn," he said, returning to safe ground.

Staring with terror into the abyss, the young man couldn’t force himself to step out on to the log, never mind shoot at the target.

"You have much skill with your bow," the master said softly, "but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot."

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NOW ONLINE - taking the one less travelled by - NOW ONLINE
This new blog can be found at -
http://takingtheonelesstravelledby.blogspot.com

Tuesday, August 28, 2012


in the Japanese
garden, just the soft whisper
of running water

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The Flowers
by Robert Louis Stevenson

All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, lady's smock,
And the lady hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames -
These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fairies weave a house;
Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,
Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where, if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all.

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The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind,
but the goodness of a person spreads in all directions.
(Chanakya)

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This is a short slide show of Monet’s Garden at Giverny
uploaded by lynnvm



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NEXT POST HERE TUESDAY 4TH SEPT