Shadow is the blue patch where the light doesn’t hit. It is mystery itself, and mystery is the ancients’ ultima Thule, the modern explorer’s Point of Relative Inaccessibility, that boreal point most distant from all known lands. There the twin oceans of beauty and horror meet. The great glaciers are calving. Ice that sifted to earth as snow in the time of Christ shears from the pack with a roar and crumbles to water. It could be that our instruments have not looked deeply enough. The RNA deep in the mantis’s jaw is a beautiful ribbon. Did the crawling Polyphemus moth have in its watery heart one cell, and in that cell one special molecule, and that molecule one hydrogen atom, and round that atom’s nucleus one wild, distant electron that split showed a forest, swaying? . Annie Dillard
About This Quote

The Greek poet, Archilochus, said that “the best poems are like the shadows of eclipses.” In this quote, he is talking about the power of poetry and how it can bring out the hidden truth. He also illustrates how there is always something beyond our knowledge and understanding; there is always mystery. Later in history, the Greek poet, Heraclitus, would state: “The only thing we can know is that we know nothing.” Science and religion both agree that there is no way to truly know anything. However, we can make guesses based on our observations and experience; we can make educated guesses based on past events and current trends.

Source: Pilgrim At Tinker Creek

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  1. How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

  2. Spend the afternoon, you can't take it with you.

  3. You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

  4. Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?

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