Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.
Diane AckermanRead
A flower's fragrance declares to all the world that it is fertile, available, and desirable, its sex organs oozing with nectar. Its smell reminds us in vestigial ways of fertility, vigor, life-force, all the optimism, expectancy, and passionate bloom of youth. We inhale its ardent aroma and, no matter what our ages, we feel young and nubile in a world aflame with desire.
Interpretation
The fragrance of flowers symbolizes fertility and evokes feelings of youth and desire.
Diane Ackerman's quote highlights how the scent of flowers not only signifies their fertility and availability but also serves as a profound reminder of life's vigor and the youthful passions we all carry within us. The aroma of flowers transcends age, allowing everyone to connect with feelings of vitality and desire, enriching our experiences in a world filled with beauty and longing.
In practice
In a speech about nature's beauty, one could cite this quote to emphasize the impact of flowers on human emotions.
Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.
We try to exile ourselves more and more from nature - not always consciously: We build houses; we dismiss nature; nature has to be outside, because we're inside. God forbid something like a cockroach comes inside, or some dust.
We ogle plants and animals up close on television, the Internet and in the movies. We may not worship the animals we see, but we still regard them as necessary physical and spiritual companions. Technological nature can't completely satisfy that yearning.
Because IQ tests favor memory skills and logic, overlooking artistic creativity, insight, resiliency, emotional reserves, sensory gifts, and life experience, they can't really predict success, let alone satisfaction.
American writer_x000D_ _x000D_ 1803-1882_x000D_ _x000D_ Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.
In rare moments of deep play, we can lay aside our sense of self, shed time's continuum, ignore pain, and sit quietly in the absolute present, watching the world's ordinary miracles. No mind or heart hobbles. No analyzing or explaining. No questing for logic. No promises. No goals. No relationships. No worry. One is completely open to whatever drama may unfold.
When we walk upon Mother Earth,_x000D_ we always plant our feet carefully_x000D_ because we know the faces of our future generations_x000D_ are looking up at us from beneath the ground._x000D_ we never forget them.
The wooing of the Earth thus implies much more than converting the wilderness into humanized environments. It means also preserving natural environments in which to experience mysteries transcending daily life and from which to recapture, in a Proustian kind of remembrance, the awareness of the cosmic forces that have shaped humankind.
As a child, I used to have a secret dread - and a recurring nightmare - of the whole world becoming city, being covered with cement and buildings and streets. No more country. No more woods.
A trail through the mountains, if used, becomes a path in a short time, but, if unused, becomes blocked by grass in an equally short time.
Nothing is really small; whoever is open to the deep penetration of nature knows this.
What have they done to the earth? What have they done to our fair sister? Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn And tied her with fences and dragged her down
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