Beauty Reigns

"Where the glacier meets the sky,
the land ceases to be earthly, and the
earth becomes one with the heavens;
no sorrows live there anymore, and
therefore joy is not necessary;
beauty alone reigns there,
beyond all demands."

- Halldór Laxness (1902 - 1998)

Shapeless Like Water

"I think love is the
greatest force in the universe.
It's shapeless like water.
It only takes the shape of things it becomes."

- Guillermo del Toro (1964 - )

Spirits

"Mountains are for me, a conservatory. It's there, that I am able to exist in the presence of transcendent sentient and symbiotic beings. From the mountains to the flora and fauna that lives on the mountains, I am both an awed witness to, and a humble beneficiary of their sprits. Sprits which are filled with life enriching light."

- Mekael Shane (1970 - )

Things in Their Very Essence

"l do not wish to impose my personality upon nature (any of life’s manifestations), but without prejudice or falsification to become identified with nature, to know things in their very essence, so that what I record is not an interpretation – my idea of what nature should be but a revelation – a piercing of the smoke screen artificially cast over life by irrelevant, humanly limited exigencies, into an absolute, impersonal recognition."

- Edward Weston (1886 - 1958)

Mirror of Water

"The light constantly changes,
and that alters the atmosphere
and beauty of things every minute.

...

The essence of the motif is the mirror of water,
whose appearance alters at every moment..

...

What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence."

- Claude Monet (1840 - 1926)

Dancing Soul

"One Autumn day I was in a park and I looked at a very small beautiful leaf, it’s color was almost red. It was barely hanging o the branch nearly ready to fall down. I spent a long time with it and I asked the leaf a number of questions. I found out the leaf had been a mother to the tree.

We usually think that the tree is the mother and the leaves are just children but as I looked at the leaf I saw that the leaf is also a mother to the tree. The sap that the roots take up is only water and minerals, not sufficient to nourish the tree, so the tree distributes the sap to the leaves, and the leaves transform the rough sap into an elaborated sap with the help of the sun and air and then send it back to the tree for nourishment. Therefore leaves are also a mother to the tree.

I asked the leaf whether it was scared because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, 'No. During the whole spring and summer I was very alive. I worked hard and helped nourish the tree, and much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, ‘I will see you again very soon….'

And after a while I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soul dancing joyfully. Because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree. It was so happy. I have a lot to learn from the leaf because it is not afraid – it knew nothing can be born and nothing can die.'"

- Thich Nhat Hanh (1926 - 2022)

Angle of Totality

"Guo Xi, a painter and writer who lived some four centuries after Xie He, indicated that the painter’s ability to see the spiritual meaning of things depended on his or her own spiritual character: 'A virtuous man takes delight in landscapes so that in a rustic retreat he may nourish his nature, amid the carefree play of streams and rocks, he may take delight.' To see in nature the qualities of excellence and virtue, the artist must be attuned to receive them.

...

Chinese painters ... often abandon normal limitations of perspective and unity of composition; they are emphasizing a scene not as it presents itself to the eye, but as it inhabits the soul. In a photograph, our vision is limited by the lens. In a painting ... we see the mountain, not as it appears from one vantage point at one time, but as it appears to a man who has walked among its nooks and crannies, loved it, and come to associate it with the various events of his life. Guo Xi called this freedom of perspective the 'angle of totality.' For the artist who lived in these mountains, each part of the scene has become a friend and reveals a personality."

- Nathan Beacom
The Prayers of the Chinese Nature Painters