collection of poems, quotes and phrases i found or wrote myself
a poem is not ornament. it is oracle - vital opening into wonder
In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa
~Ada Limón
Arching under the night sky inky with black expansiveness, we point to the planets we know, we pin quick wishes on stars.
From earth, we read the sky as if it is an unerring book of the universe, expert and evident.
Still, there are mysteries below our sky: the whale song, the songbird singing its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.
We are creatures of constant awe, curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom, at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.
And it is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of space, but the offering of water, each drop of rain,
each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made of water, of vast and beckoning seas.
We, too, are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, of a need to call out through the dark.
As part of her laureateship, Ada Limón wrote this poem dedicated to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. On June 1, 2023, it debuted to kick off the NASA “Message in a Bottle” campaign, which invites people around the world to sign their names to the poem. It will, along with the participants' names, be etched onto microchips mounted on the Clipper. Together, the poem and the participant’s names will travel 2.9 billion kilometers on the Clippers voyage to the Jupiter orbit.
per aspera ad astra - ad astra per aspera
through hardships to the stars
per audacia ad astra - ad astra per audacia
through boldness to the stars
per ardua ad astra - ad astra per ardua
through adversity to the stars
per amor ad astra - ad astra per amor
through love to the stars
per aspera ad astra: Included within the Sounds of the Earth audio portion on the Voyager Golden Record is a track containing this phrase in Morse code. ad astra per aspera: Motto of the Starfleet as of S2E2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. per audacia ad astra: Motto of the United States Space Force's Launch Enterprise Directorate. per ardua ad astra: Motto of the Royal Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force. per amor ad astra: I found the whole hardship and struggle stuff a bit meh, and I do think it is through love of exploration and existence that we do reach for the stars so I changed the phrase a bit and I really love it now.
As the Secretary General of the United Nations, an organization of 147 member states who represent almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth, I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of this immense universe that surrounds us and it is with humility and hope that we take this step. ~ Kurt Waldheim
This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilazations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe. ~ Jimmy Carter
These are the printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim includet on the Voyager Golden Record. The Voyager Golden Record also contains 116 images and a variety of sounds, including: nature sounds (also animal sounds), musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings in 55 languages and human sounds like footsteps and laughter. The Voyager spacecrafts have left our solar system in 2012 and as of now their mission is still ongoing and considert active by NASA even after 47 years in space.
To many it would no doubt appear foolish and superstitious to believe in any improvement for the better. Sometimes in winter it’s so bitterly cold that one says,
it’s simply too cold, what do I care whether summer comes, the bad outweighs the good.
But whether we like it or not, an end finally comes to the hard frost, and one fine morning the wind has turned and we have a thaw.
~Vincent van Gogh
This quote was taken from one of Van Goghs letters to his brother Theo in August 1879. It is preceedet by his musings about being a burden on his loved ones after a visit from his brother and that this makes him wish for a short life, however he believes these thoughts will fade and in the end there will be a thaw. He writes this:
If I must seriously feel that I’m annoying or burdensome to you or those at home, useful for neither one thing nor another, and were to go on being forced to feel like an intruder or a fifth wheel in your presence, so that it would be better I weren’t there, and if I should have to continue trying to keep further and further out of other people’s way — if I think that indeed it would be so and cannot be otherwise, then I’m overcome by a feeling of sorrow and I must struggle against despair.
It’s difficult for me to bear these thoughts and more difficult still to bear the thought that so much discord, misery and sorrow, in our midst and in our family, has been caused by me.
If it were indeed so, then I’d truly wish that it be granted me not to have to go on living too long. Yet whenever this depresses me beyond measure, all too deeply, after a long time the thought also occurs to me: it’s perhaps only a bad, terrible dream, and later we’ll perhaps learn to understand and comprehend it better. But is it not, after all, reality, and won’t it one day become better rather than worse?
And he ends his letter (after the quote) with this:
Comparing the natural state of the weather with our state of mind and our circumstances, subject to variableness and change, I still have some hope that it can improve. If you write, soon perhaps, you will make me happy.
this site is a work in progress! i have just started learning html and css and its.. a journey. however i'm having fun and stumblin and tumblin ever on! this website has been coded for firefox and not been optimized for mobile - do with that what you will.