A gust of wind snatches a reprint of a famous painting away from the hands of a tour guide and forces it to tumble end over end across the dusty ground. With the wind behind it, it blows away like a dried sagebrush. It’s as if the spirit of Georgia O’Keeffe is blowing through her beloved Ghost Ranch. She drew inspiration for many of her paintings from the rugged land around her. I take it all in – the blue sky, the billowy clouds, the colors, shapes and lines of the land. Viewing the incredible geological formations, I can’t help but share her infatuation with the part of New Mexico she called her home.
#1 – Flowers and Fashion
Like Georgia O’Keeffe, Singaporean artist Grace Ciao derives creative inspiration from flowers. She uses real flower petals to illustrate her fashion designs. See more of her design work on BuzzFeed.
#2 – Powerful Pairings
Can healthy food be made even more healthy? Many nutritionists claim that when certain foods are paired up with other specific foods a food synergy is created. The Most Powerful Food Combinations, an article for Men’s Health, lists 14 examples of food synergy and explains why the combinations work. Here are the combinations, but do yourself a favor and read the individual descriptions in the article:
1. Tomatoes and avocados
2. Oatmeal and orange juice
3. Broccoli and tomatoes
4. Blueberries and grapes
5. Apples and chocolate
6. Lemon and kale
7. Soy and salmon
8. Peanuts and whole wheat
9. Red meat and rosemary
10. Tumeric and black pepper
12. Garlic and fish
13. Eggs and cantaloupe
14. Almonds and yogurt
#3 – Luxury Train Tours
I bet touring the world by train does not conjure up notions of romance for many of us. After reading See the World Inside a Romantic Rail Car With These 6 Luxury Train Tours, some of us may change our minds. Chase the Aurora Borealis on the Arctic Explorer or visit the supposed birthplace of Dracula on the Danube Express. The fees for these wondrous trips are steep, but we can always dream. Can’t we?
#4 – Kubrick on Life
In a Playboy Magazine interview, after the release of his movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, director Stanley Kubrick discussed his views on why life is worth living. Here’s a portion of that interview as presented in Brainpickings:
Playboy: If life is so purposeless, do you feel it’s worth living?
Kubrick: The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism — and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But, if he’s reasonably strong — and lucky — he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s elan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
#5 – Make Your Unknown Known
“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”
― Georgia O’Keeffe
Go now and spread joy!
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