CREATIVITY AND OTHER LIFE QUALITIES: Honoring Those Who Served Us With Their Lives

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Honoring Those Who Served Us With Their Lives

While we honor those who have fallen, let us also remember the veterans who are still with us, who are impacted every day by the lingering harshness of war.

These are a few of my photos from Arlington Cemetery. We're heading back to D.C. soon. I'm hoping to get out to Virginia to experience the sacredness of this space in autumn.

8 comments:

MaureenNovember 11, 2012 at 12:16 PM
Thank you for this. My father is buried at Arlington. He was a WWII veteran, a member of the famous Merrill's Marauders that fought in China, Burma, and India under unimaginable conditions.
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D.M. SOLISNovember 12, 2012 at 10:08 AM
Dear Maureen,

It's my honor to post it. Your father's story is an important one that we need to hear, so we'll remember. I hope you will tell it for him one day. As I listen to the stories of the men and women who have served, whether from their own mouths or their children's, I can't help but be moved by the courage and selflessness in what they went through, what some of them are still going through--all so that we can enjoy the freedoms we treasure. Thank you so very much, Maureen, for sharing a little bit of your father's history here.

Sincerely,
Diane
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Julie Grace VallanteNovember 17, 2012 at 7:09 PM
It won't be as green, but if you cometo DC, I'll be here. Safe travels always.
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D.M. SOLISNovember 19, 2012 at 7:16 AM
Dear Julie,

Yes, we're hoping to catch it with autumn foliage, or even with the starkness of the leaves fallen. I'll message you at FB about a possible meet up. It would be so good to see you again! Thanks, peace,

Diane
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D.M. SOLISDecember 11, 2012 at 2:48 PM
Dear Madrid Anon,

Thank you for the kind words. Good luck with your work too. Peace,

Diane
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D.M. SOLISDecember 11, 2012 at 2:50 PM
Dear H.A. Anon,

Thank you, that means a lot. I look forward to your return. Peace and all good,

Diane
ReplyDelete

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Diane Solis, Brief Bio:

Poet, science writer, visual artist, singer of story songs--my recent work appears or is forthcoming in Avocet, Packingtown Review, G&L Review/Worldwide, Short, Fast, and Deadly, and elsewhere. I've taught English, art, and religious studies at public and private high schools and have held a few other positions over the years to support my creative habits, including lab tech, science writer, and technical editor in the Pacific Southwest, most recently at Caltech. I practice contemplative and Zen forms of meditation and am few places happier than out hiking the trails. Many of the pics you see here are from my travels through remote places to photograph and write about the natural world. www.dmsolis.blogspot.com

The Latest Quotes for Contemplation:

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, age after age, forever. ~ Tagore

I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world.... ~ Frank O'Hara

Of all fires love is the only inexhaustible one. ~Pablo Neruda

Prophets are so dangerous because they cry in season and out of season, politely and impolitely, loud and long. ~Joan Chittister

When I say be creative, I don't mean you should all go and become great painters and great poets. I simply mean let your life be a painting, let your life be a poem. ~ Osho

There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier? ~ Mary Oliver

Without warning, as a whirlwind swoops on an oak, Love shakes my heart. ~ Sappho

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
T.S. Eliot, from "Little Gidding"

Love many things, for therein lies your true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well... ~ Vincent van Gogh

I have found that to love and be loved is the most empowering and exhilarating of all human emotions. ~ Jane Goodall

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone--we find it with another. ~Thomas Merton

I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for our victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.
~John F. Kennedy

I cannot write convincingly about anything that I am not passionate about. ~Darrell Bourque, Poet Laureate of Louisiana

In the lover's heart is a lute which plays the melody of longing. ~Rumi

But perhaps the most important thing about my father was that he taught us the simplest things -- Navajo things -- like how to just sit and be quiet, to blend in and watch, or to move so silently we'd become a part of the forest. My father taught us how to live the concepts of our culture, especially the importance of communicating with the natural world. ~Lori Arviso Alvord, M.D.

CREATIVITY AND OTHER LIFE QUALITIES

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Honoring Those Who Served Us With Their Lives

8 comments:

"Peace Now, Justice Now, Equality Now."

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