Detail - Angels “Ghent Altarpiece” Finished 1432, Jan Van Eyck.

Until I come to understand that to be saved doesn't mean to save but to survive.

Dagna Ślepowrońska, tr. Regina Grol

While I haven’t updated this blog in a bit (I finished my MSc degree which left little room for enjoyment reading), I have begun to pleasure read again (I cannot describe how much I’ve missed Austen) and will be updating shortly.

I also am fully planning on diving headfirst into religious studies as a hobby in 2024, so forthcoming content will reflect this in due time.

It is a mistake therefore to compare someone writing about his own life to an exhibitionist, since the latter has only one desire: to show himself and be seen at the same time.

Annie Ernaux, Simple Passion

of burning but unwasting fire

- Virginia Woolf, Orlando

For what more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment?

- Virginia Woolf, Orlando

Winter is king, raindrops sing, gardens drip with loss.

Nancy Milford, Savage Beauty

For, when what he knows as art is relegated to the museum and gallery, the unconquerable impulse towards experiences enjoyable in themselves finds such outlet as the daily environment provides.

- John Dewey, Art as Experience

- take it all / - it’s too little

- Agata Tuszyńska, tr. Regina Grol

In a moment I could destroy the entire legend, from beginning to end, destroy everything, except the fundamentals

Anaïs Nin, Henry and June

Love like the horse chestnut loves carbon,

like the sun isn’t millions of miles away

or doomed. Love like a blue fir amongst white pines,

like a wide shovel opening the earth. Rewind

your favorite moments over early dinners:

the correct identification of an olive tree, climbing

65 feet up a fat trunk, turning backpack pockets

into houses for leaves. Love as eagerly as sprouting seeds,

as hungry as a goat up an argan tree. Love like you are

spotting a red squirrel for the first time. Relish in your blooming

knowledge of Latin, wood chopping, propagation. Love as easy as

hibiscus roots drink rain. Breathe in the smell

of earth-drenched boots. Savor the quick-flowing photos of pheasants and hedgehogs and newts.

Live like a pioneer species. Love like sempervirents: evergreen.

Love like every green thing ever planted

will live long and never burn

- Christina Thatcher, How to Love a Gardener