How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

Light and Dark, connected   / Lunaladee “Our work is to integrate and eventually transend darkness and light altogether by holding them equally in a state of interconnection.” —Sasha Graham

vacuum by Enaston

Hoai Nam 

Roberto de Mitri

Absolution [Holy places are dark places [...] -C. S. Lewis] ©Lunaladee

“The depths I craved, the darkness, the finality, the absolution.”

— Anaïs Nin, Henry and June: From “A Journal of Love” — The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin 

ph Nona Limmen

Sacred grove

Heart and Soul Nebulae, Hydrogen Alpha -via Get yours

By Tomasz Alen Kopera

edit.bnw

A sphinx moth enjoying moonflowers in the garden.

Cochise County, Arizona, September 2023.

Marcia Lippman, Journey by Moonlight (series).  

“Beyond the thousand mountains / a setting moon shines in solitude.”

— Zhou Mengdie, tr. by Lloyd Haft, from “Prisoner,” published c. May 1964 (via violentwavesofemotion)

Ingmar Bergman The Silence, 1963

"I veil myself with silence."

Nazik al-Mala'ika

The Veil Is Thinning

By Lia Luna

Vulture Culture ©Lunaladee