A liquid jewel/held in the sacred chalice/upon which rests/the pierced spoon — Peggy Amond, “Rimbaud’s Poison”, 1998 . . . I love preparing it in the spoon, drawing it up into the needle, putting the tourniquet on. Sliding it into my vein. i love that part. . . …

Standing on his deck on a late summer afternoon, the physicist Alan Lightman had an unexpected encounter. Two baby ospreys of that season took flight for the first time. . . . All summer long, they had watched me on the deck as I watched them. . . . …

A quest is a journey in the course of which one advances spiritually and mentally, as well as physically travelling miles. . . . It is an excellent plot device and ideally everyone’s life should have a plot. — Robert Irwin, author of Memoirs of a Dervish Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Musashi…

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. — Attributed to Joseph Campbell Stay-at-home guidance may be enforcing a different, more subtle kind of togetherness, one that we’re not even aware of. …

To this crib I always took my doll. Human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. — Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre In times of confinement…

The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender . . . …

The current situation sees us all swiping, swiffing, and swabbing like never before. But within the shelter of home, one can only spic ‘n’ span so often, before it begins to feel OCD. If, as Henry Ward Beecher once said, “the art of being happy lies in the power of…

Are Valentine’s Day Flowers the Apex Seducers? Come Valentine’s Day, US buyers will give and get some 250 million roses, on this the busiest day of the year for the floral industry. Flowers and lovers are natural allies. So is a beautiful bouquet just a means to a romantic end…

how to turn a liability into an asset Man does my mouth run on. It’s weird for an introvert, but there you have it — my gums flap faster than my better judgement can keep up. So I gaffe. A lot. Recent example — when with a crowd of friends…