Awareness = knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.
“As a separate entity one always feels alone and, as such, life is a process of easing the pain of this loneliness through substances, objects, activities and relationships. As Awareness, one is also alone but only in the sense that there are no others to be either separate from or one with. This is the aloneness of love.”
~Rupert Spira
Art by Kinuko Y. Craft.
Fluster = to make somebody nervous and/or confused; to make hot and rosy, as with drinking.
“There is no whole self. It suffices to walk any distance along the inexorable rigidity that the mirrors of the past open to us in order to feel like outsiders, naively flustered by our own bygone days.”
– Jorge Luis Borges
Art by Magdalena Korzeniewska.
Transmute = to change or alter in form, appearance, or nature and especially to a higher form.
It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.
– E.M. Forster
Art by André Poffé.
Bowline = A rope fastened near the middle of the leech or perpendicular edge of the square sails, by subordinate ropes called bridles, and used to keep the weather edge of the sail tight forward when the ship is close-hauled.
…
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
– Mark Twain
Art by Carl Brandt.
Accord = to be consistent or in harmony ; to reconcile.
“Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others.”
–Alan Watts
Art by Eric Roux-Fontaine.
Widen = to increase the width, scope, or extent of.
“Our task must be to free ourselves … by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
– Albert Einstein
Art by Toshio Ebine.
Zest = enthusiasm, eagerness, energy, interest.
“True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.”
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Art by James R. Eads
Respite = a short break or escape from something difficult or unpleasant.
“I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death.” –Ernest Hemingway
Art by Marianne von Werefkin – Russian-German-Swiss Expressionist painter (1860-1938).
Tenet = a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true; one of the principles on which a belief or theory is based:
“Love is my religion — I could die for that — I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet.”
– John Keats
Art – “Lady in a Garden by Moonlight” by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 – 1893).
Worthwhile = useful, important, or good enough to be a suitable reward for the money or time spent or the effort made.
*Does the sun ask itself, “Am I good? Am I worthwhile? Is there enough of me?” No, it burns and it shines. Does the sun ask itself, “What does the moon think of me? How does Mars feel about me today?” No, it burns, it shines. Does the sun ask itself, “Am I as big as other suns in other galaxies?” No, it burns, it shines.*
— Andrea Dworkin
Art – Enclosed Field with Rising Sun by Vincent van Gogh.