Nimavenl - Nicole's Random Ramblings

Each of us Is all of us. I signed up for Chabad's Daily Dose emails a while ago and love reading them. These wonderful pearls of wisdom always make me think about life, humanity, religion, faith, God, the world, myself... They make me think about what truly matters in this life and in this world, about the difference between what is actually and truly important and what is only important because we (or the world) make it so. Your Daily Dose of Jewish Wisdom: A team, a society, a world is healthy when each member says, "If I don't add in my two bits, the whole system will fail." Not just any two bits, but the two bits that belong to you alone. No one is here just because everyone else is here. No system can function from the top-down alone. Because each of us—and everything that was created—has a spark of the Divine. So that each of us is all of us. A photo posted by Chabad.org (@chabadorg) on Mar 7, 2016 at 10:53am PST

A photo posted by dg (@mr.danielgillies) on Sep 9, 2015 at 11:06am PDT

These quotes were all found through Goodreads' Popular Quotes section. “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson “We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods “The poetry of the earth is never dead.” ― John Keats “I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.” ― E.B. White, Letters of E. B. White “Looking at beauty in the world, is the first step of purifying the mind.” ― Amit Ray, Meditation: Insights and Inspirations “We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have...

Upon deciding to post a photo to Twitter yesterday, the idea of adding an interesting and inspirational quote wasn't far behind. After all, I like quotes! I considered several quotes, most of them too long for Twitter. Yet I have a blog as well as a Twitter account, which means I can just post some of the quotes I would have liked to add, right here. The photo is a cropped and slightly edited version of a photo I shared for last week's two-part Photo Challenge - part one: Birds and part two: Ducks . The colours in this version feel a little more alive than in the previous / original version. As it was a warm and sunny day when I took the photo, the sunnier look of this version feels fitting. Small wings, big ripples “We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill.” “He was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all” After considering the two quotes above...

Reading about ongoing acts of terror and destruction around the world and people who use their interpretation of religious teachings as an excuse to hurt or kill others makes me wonder about humanity, makes me wonder if we are really as smart, special and evolved as we like to believe. With all we think we know, with all we've learnt about the world and about the universe, everything we've achieved in fields like science, technology and medicine, somehow many of us still seem to believe that it is right or just to kill living beings, to keep people as slaves, to treat others as property and hurt people for not following rules some believe are right. Last week, I wrote this post entitled Violence, Death, Destruction... in which I wrote about a number of horrible attacks that took place, attacks by people who support terror, brutality and injustice. Wanting to write about what's going on in the world yet desiring to write something positive and inspiring instead of a do...

The bird photos have been posted. Here are the duck photos... There's something about these first two photos that makes me want to quote a song. Oh you know what, I will - It's a great song that always makes me smile! It's just a jump to the left And then a step to the right With your hands on your hips  You bring your knees in tight Okay, after the second line the lyrics no longer match the photos, so I'll stop quoting Time Warp lyrics from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Although, now that I'm quoting lyrics I might as well keep going... It's just a jump to the left And then a step to the right With your hands on your hips You bring your knees in tight So, lyrics. Unless Dakota Moon want to sing "I want to be a duck" instead of "I want to be an eagle," quoting Another Day Goes By doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Although, neither did quoting Time Warp with regards to ducks. So, what if we just p...

A sea of green, leaves, sunshine, water and a bit of a blurry background. Not sure which of these two photos I prefer, which is why I'm sharing them both! I like adding quotes to my posts, quotes that mean something to me, that speak to me. Today, I looked for a quote about nature or about water, about green leaves and plants and the beauty of nature. I found many quotes I loved, however the one that stayed with me is the one I'm sharing. Somehow, it fits with my mood today. I found it at the Sustainable Baby Steps website. "For 200 years we've been conquering Nature. Now we're beating it to death."  - Tom McMillan Beauty of Nature #01 Beauty of Nature #02

This made me laugh. And nod. A lot. And exclaim "Oh God, that's amazing" in a high-pitched voice. Not sure why that last bit was important but hey, I felt like tellin' the world... A photo posted by Kristin Chenoweth (@kchenoweth) on Apr 15, 2015 at 10:25pm PDT

If only humans thought more like flowers... Errr acted like... Errr wait no, is that what I meant?... "A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms." #quote pic.twitter.com/iWQ2lftpwh — The Quote Today (@TheQuoteToday) June 9, 2015

Such a simple message... Yet so hard for so many... Different does not equal wrong or less. Different simply means unique and special!   Don't Hate What You Don't Understand! #imagequote #quoteoftheday pic.twitter.com/R7zjfZnJxm — The Quote Today (@TheQuoteToday) June 10, 2015

If you truly love Nature,  you will find Beauty everywhere.  ~Vincent Van Gogh Vincent van Gogh and the Beauty of Nature | Nimavenl

"It's a beautiful dream, stopping the wheel." #GoTSeason5 pic.twitter.com/QDZhzFVU9Y — Game Of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) June 3, 2015

"Remember, each one of us has the power to change the world. Just start thinking peace, and the message will spread quicker than you think."  ~ Yoko Ono

“It isn't all over; everything has not been invented; the human adventure is just beginning.” “The Strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.” “If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear.” “Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.” “Reality is incredibly larger, infin...

Mind Body Green shared thirteen inspirational JFK quotes in honour of John F. Kennedy's birthday. The 35th President of the United States would have been 98 today, the article states. "Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly." "...we can have faith in the future only if we have faith in ourselves."   "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."  "If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live." "The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask 'why not?'." Happy Birthday, JFK! 13 Of His Greatest Quotes To Inspire You Today | Mind Body Green

“There are two types of writers: those who make you think and those who make you dream”  ~ Brian Aldiss In context: “There are two types of writers: those who make you think and those who make you dream” says Brian Aldiss, who made me dream for such a long time with his science-fiction books. In principle I believe that every human being on this planet has at least one good story to tell his neighbor. Paulo Coelho on How You Can Become a Better Writer | Time Magazine I've read my fair share of books - good ones, great ones, unforgettable ones, awful ones, tearjerkers, page-turners... Some books resonate with me more than others, some I remember better than others, some I simply can't put down. When it comes to my favourite writers, they all write books that fall into the 'can't put down' category. Because I want to know what happens next, on the next page and in the next chapter. All writers on my 'favourite writers' list write books that make me ...

These words were written thousands of years ago, in a book known and read by millions upon millions over the years - possible the most well-known book in the entire world. This knowledge is not something we only figured out yesterday, so to speak. How sad that humanity still doesn't seem to get this basic truth. “Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath . . .” — Ecclesiastes 3:19 (A Quote from the Bible / Tanakh) The heartbreaking effects that humans have on our planet | Mashable Providing a little more context: I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all c...

"Earth laughs in flowers." — "Hamatreya" "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." “It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” — Self-Reliance Source: Happy Birthday, Ralph Waldo Emerson! 20 Of His Greatest Quotes To Inspire You | Mind Body Green

“All of our current environmental problems are unanticipated harmful consequences of our existing technology. There is no basis for believing that technology will miraculously stop causing new and unanticipated problems while it is solving the problems that it previously produced.”  —Jared Diamond The heartbreaking effects that humans have on our planet | Mashable If we don't find ways to deal with the impact we are having on our only home, what will we be left with? What kind of a planet will our children and grandchildren be left with? Planet earth is beautiful, breathtaking, amazing and stunning, yet our greed and our quest for more more more are destroying it. Will we ever figure out that the world we have is perfect as it is, without feeling the need to destroy it, wreck it and turn it into an ugly concrete jungle? We think of ourselves as the smartest and most evolved beings on the planet, yet prove time and time again that we are irresponsible, greedy and destr...

“I don’t understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.”  —Ed Begley, Jr. The heartbreaking effects that humans have on our planet | Mashable