paradise

Kessler depicts his developing intimacy with a handful of dairy goats and offers an enviable glimpse of the pastoral good life. Yet he also cautions, "Wherever the notion of paradise exists, so does the idea that it was lost. Paradise is always in the past." The title Goat Song is a literal rendering of the Greek word traghoudhia, tragedy. Reading it, I was reminded of Leo Marx's analysis of Thoreau's Walden. In The Machine in the Garden, Marx names Thoreau a tragic, if complex pastoralist. After failing to make an agrarian living raising beans for commercial trade (although his intent was always more allegorical than pecuniary), Thoreau ends Walden by replacing the pastoral idea where it originated: in literature. Paradise, Marx concludes, is not ultimately to be found at Walden Pond; it is to be found in the pages of Walden.

Feathers!" spluttered Sargatanas. "Feathers are for the birds, my boy. Flaking, peeling, scale-ridden wings, now that's what real beings wear. I'll tell you a secret." He said, and drew me closer. "The eternal pain at having known Paradise and lost it is priceless. I wouldn't swap it for anything.

She'd created her own hell, and now that she had learned to control her fear, she knew how to create her own paradise.

This is a paradise of rising to the occasion that points out by contrast how the rest of the time most of us fall down from the heights of possibility, down into diminished selves and dismal societies. Many now do not even hope for a better society, but they recognize it when they encounter it, and that discovery shines out even through the namelessness of their experience. Others recognize it, grasp it, and make something of it, and long-term social and political transformations, both good and bad, arise from the wreckage. The door to this ear's potential paradises is in hell.

I know paradise has many gates, just as hell does. One has to learn to distinguish between them, or one is lost.

The earth is neither fabulous nor paradisal. And therefore it is not hell.

The mind is a universe and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

The possibility of paradise hovers on the cusp of coming into being, so much so that it takes powerful forces to keep such a paradise at bay. If paradise now arises in hell, it's because in the suspension of the usual order and the failure of most systems, we are free to live and act another way.

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.

God made salvation the most precious gift for humanity which is why only a few are chosen for God's Paradise in heaven. Matthew 22:11-14

Now comes the mystery! (last words)

she ran away in her sleep and dreamed of paradise

I will survive: if the hell rejects me, there is always the paradise.

O, weary angels, don__ look at me with those eyes.If that is your state then what of our cries?What can I tell you of goodness that you don__ already know?What can I tell you of faith,of hope and lovethat you yourselves bestow?O, angels, don__ pluck another feather,this isn__ the sky, it__ just the weather.Please, angels, try.We are one all together.Look up and listen, I__l say it once and then put down my pen:We are sorry for our ignoranceand even though we are worldly,it might happen again.We are sorry for your wearinessand even though you aren__ worldly,we are no more than human.

Just past hell lies paradise.Sometimes we have to remind ourselves of that.Serina Hartwell Author of The Hidden Saga

I don__ know why everyoneis still trying to find out whether heaven and hell exist.Why do we need more evidence?They exist here on this very Earth.Heaven is standing atop Mount Qasiounoverlooking the Damascene sightswith the wind carrying Qabbani__dulcet words all around you.And hell is only four hours away in Aleppo where children__ cries drown out the explosions of mortar bombsuntil they lose their voice,their families, and their limbs.Yes, hell certainly does existright now, at this moment,as I pen this poem. And all we__e doingto extinguish this hellfireis sighing, shrugging, liking, and sharing.Tell me: what exactly does that makeus? Are we any better than the gatekeepers of hell?

When the sun goes down, melting away his caresses into the sky which consonants with the ocean, lively colors are scattered through the deep pale depth during some short sensuous instants. Later, as by art of magic, light is consumed into the infinite horizon giving space to the poked voidness and its full-cristal-covered vastness. Then, to mystify the night, a marvelous and alluring sentinel rests next to us through the vivid night, just until the next prismatic fest arrives with its celebrating aperture.

I continuously see myself on an airplane that has unlimited fuel. I go here and there but can't stop. Always flying over my destination. I've come to realize I must jump off with my parachute on of course. That is how I'm viewing my life right now.Once I find that loophole than I've reached my destination to success.