Aquarium, Part 2

Aquarium of the Pacific, Part 1

Into the Night

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope,

for hope would be hope for the wrong thing.

And wait without love.

For love would be love of the wrong thing.

Yet there is faith.

But the faith and the hope and the love, are all in the waiting.

And the darkness shall be the light

and the stillness the dancing.

~ T.S. Eliot, from The Four Quartets

Hiding, Seeking, Lost and Found

I have entered into the Desert, the place of desolation.

The Desert confronts me haughtily and assails me with solitude.

She sits on a throne of light,

Her hands clasped, her eyes solemnly questioning.

I have come into the lean and stricken land

Which fears not God, that I may meet my soul

Face to face, naked, as the Desert is naked;

Bare as the great silence is bare:

I will question the Silent Ones who have gone before and are forgotten,

And the great host which shall come after,

By whom I also shall be forgot.

As the Desert is defiant unto all gods,

So am I defiant of all gods,

Shadows of Man cast upon the fogs of his ignorance.

As a helpless child follows the hand of its mother,

So I put my hand into the hand of the Eternal.

~ From The Poet in the Desert by Charles Erskine Scott Wood