Vincent Van Gogh's letter to Theo 1888

The Flowering Orchard, 1888 

 ...Even if it is some time before anyone comes here to stay with me, it won't make me change my mind about this step being urgent and being useful in the long run. This art that we are working in, we feel that it has a long future before it and one must be quietly settle, like steady people, and not like decadents. Here my life will become more an more like a Japanese painter's, living close to nature like a tradesman. And that, you well know is a less lugubrious affair than the decadent's way. If I can live long enough, I shall be something like old Tanguy. After all, we don't really know anything about our own personal future, but we nevertheless feel that impressionism will last...

... In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism and sceptism and humbug, and we shall want to live more musically. How will that come about, and what will we really find? It would be interesting to be able to prophesy, but it is even better to be able to feel that kind of foreshadowing, instead of seeing absolutely nothing in the future beyond the disasters that are all the same bound to strike the modern world and civilization like terrible lightning, through a revolution or a war, or the bankruptcy of worm-eaten states. If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. He studies a single blade of grass. 

But this blade of grass leads him to draw every plant and then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure. So he passes his life, and life is too short to do the whole. 

Come now, isn't it almost a true religion which these Japanese teach us, who live in nature as though they themselves were flowers?

Mary Magdalene, the 13th Apostle

Digital Collage of Mary Magdalene, the 13th Apostle.

Bibliomancy

The Bible works good for practicing Bibliomancy.  I use it to comfort me when life is overwhelming. I ask a question in myself and pick up the Bible to see what it says. It tends to be spot on. I use a small bible that can be held. So I have two Bibles. A huge heavy beautiful one that is illustrated and a small leather bound one. I ask a question in my mind and pick up the Bible and flip through it and where my hand lands and my finger touches I read the passage and apply it to the here and now. The words are old and have real power. Sometimes the words are outdated and don't work and other times they will never be outdated. Because there will always be evil men who do evil things to others. 

Psalm 140
Prayer for Deliverance from Evil Men
Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men;
Preserve me from violent men,
Who plan evil things in their hearts;
They continually gather together for war.
They sharpen their tongues like a serpent;
The poison of asps is under their lips.

Keep me from the hands of the wicked;
Preserve me from violent men.
Who have purposed to make my steps stumble,
The proud have hidden a snare for me, and cords;
They have spread a net by the wayside;
They have set traps for me.

I said to the high power; You are my God,
Hear the voice of my supplications.
God, the higher power, the strength of my salvation.
You have covered my head in the day of battle.
Do not grant the desires of the wicked.
Do not further his wicked scheme,
Lest they be exalted.

"As for the head of those who surround me,
Let the evil of their lips cover them;
Let them be cast in to fire,
Into deep pits, that they rise not up again.
Let not a slanderer be established in the earth,
Let evil hunt the violet man to overthrow him."

I know that the higher power for good will maintain 
The cause of the afflicted,
and justice for the poor.
Surely, the righteous shall give thanks
and the upright shall dwell in your presence.

SWAN PLANNER

Swan Planner Cover

November Title Page with Illustration

Swan Illustration with Year at A Glance

December Daily Plans with Full Page Illustration

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