Found two lilies open in the very shallow inlet of the meadow. Exquisitely beautiful, and unlike anything else we have, is the first white Lily just expanded in some shallow lagoon where the water is leaving it, – perfectly fresh and pure, before the insects have discovered it.
How admirable its purity! How innocently sweet its fragrance! How significant that the rich, black mud of our dead stream produces the water-lily, – out of that fertile slime springs this spotless purity! It is remarkable that those flowers which are most emblematical of purity should grow in the mud.

Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)

Thanks to the reader who emailed me this most wonderful image of tulips. Rare beauties!

It is only in exceptional moods that we realize
how wonderful are the commonest experiences of life.

It seems to me sometimes that these experiences
have an “inner” side, as well as the outer side we normally perceive.

At such moments one suddenly sees everything with new eyes;
one feels on the brink of some great revelation.

It is as if we caught a glimpse of some incredibly beautiful world
that lies silently about us all the time.

J:W:N:Sullivan

I’d say that the the moments described are less exceptional than one might at first think.

Hassock depicting Pendragon Castle Mallerstang

There will come a time when you believe everything is
finished. That will be the beginning.

~Louis L’Amour

This post marks the end of this series of photographs and quotes.

O Buddha
Going, going on beyond
Always going on beyond
Always becoming being Buddha.
Hail! Hail! Hail!

The Scripture of Great Wisdom