I have a collection of quotes and poetry that beautifully express the longing, and wonder I try to draw upon in my art. These quotes have gone on long walks with me, comforted me during dark nights, and bolstered me when in despair over the state of the earth, my art, and the seemingly all encompassing spirit of not caring.
After all, what can I do?
These quotes remind me. I can paint an inner moment, I can share the enchantment I find in nature. I can hopefully pass it on. Maybe I’ll be able to connect to my inner green woman.
Maybe you will too.
“I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better. -from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver
“..I scream into the wind,
race after cattle,
pluck the black river fruit,
and reach so high my dress tears,
and no one can say
I am not a lady”
~Glad to be Gone, Ann Turner Grass Songs
“The girl down in the garden had sparrows in her heart.
When she dug down deep into dirt,
roots reached out from her fingertips as if calling for home.
The girl down in the garden had secrets in her smile, and
when she talked to flowers sometimes they whispered back.”
~The girl in the Garden, by Autumn Rozario Hall
”The oaths we mouth boldly to the wolves and wild places within us are the epiphanies hard-won through previous shedding of older skins and the toughening we met in earlier pilgrimages...
...And now the time comes to reach further in, to darker forests, wilder places, wider spaces, through an initiation of shedding blood and skin.”
- Sarah La Rosa, of Her Strange Angels
"Does all the beauty of the world stop when you die?" "No," said the Old Oak; "it will last much longer - longer than I can even think of." "Well, then," said the little May-fly, "we have the same time to live; only we reckon differently.” ~ The Complete Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen
“The only way to build hope is through the earth” ~Vandana Shiva
“Sometimes there is a seed in your heart. It might feel like a stone, or like a bud ready to blossom. It might feel like a heavy little egg, and you have no idea what's inside. It might feel like a hard, burning ember. No seed is the same. But if you let that seed, that feeling-sound, take root, then it will grow. Sometimes it grows quickly, or sometimes very slowly, especially if you don't tend it. It could take months or even years to grow up through your throat and out your mouth. But when you do finally speak it, the birds call that a heart-song.” ~ Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird
“And the day came
when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than
the risk it took to blossom.”
~Anais Nin
“She was like a girl in a fairy tale. Something magical, and lonely, and fierce. Her eyes shone like water droplets, and gossamer wings sprung from her back. She danced in puddles and her hair hung heavy like rain. She sang me back to that wild green place I’d only glimpsed while dreaming.”
~Autumn Rozario Hall
“The universe is full of magical things,
patiently waiting for our wits to sharpen”
~ Eden Phillpotts
“Forget not that
the earth delights
to feel your bare feet,
and the winds long
to play with your hair.”
~Kahlil Gibran
“Listen dear heart, to the chitter of sparrows, the cooing of morning doves,
the swell of the red-wing black bird. Listen, but do not forget yourself.”
~Autumn Rozario Hall