Just a little something for your day. Kenneth C. Steven

"How great is the dignity of the soul, that each person has received from birth an angel to protect it." ~ St. Jerome of Stridon Study for an angel (1515–16) Raphael • Red chalk on laid paper

Profound Words to Sprinkle On Your Christmas Week ✨️ (No need to choose a winner. Take them all. Share them all.)

"In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer." ~ Albert Camus, 'Return to Tipasa' 🎨 Joseph Farquharson

Pause for a moment, and read...

It's the Saturday for them! 😄

"May the roof above us Never fall in, And may us friends beneath Never fall out." ~ An Old Irish Toast A December Night (1890) 🎨 Theodor Kittelsen

Day nineteen of #ArtAdventCalendar. Tonight, I’m sharing a collection of raven stones.

182 years ago this very day, 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens hit the streets of old London Town.

"Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand—and melting like a snowflake." ~ Francis Bacon Rays of Light in the Forest 🎨 Igor Sakharov

Takes the breath away... R.S. Thomas

"Do not interrupt the flight of your soul; do not distress what is best in you; do not enfeeble your spirit with half wishes and half thoughts. Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer." ~ Søren Kierkegaard Winter, near Saint-Siméon 🎨 Claude Monet (1867)

Winter Winds • Helen Braid

Tearing up. 🥹 • Wendy Cope •

Your Mid-Week Treat of Fantastic Words 🤓 Choose your champion 🏆 A B C D (Next Selection: Soon!)

I'm absolutely certain that recalling the sentiment of this note has been the saving of many a life.

"It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy, as the mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky A Village Street in Winter 🎨 Alfred Sisley (1893)

Magic is...

"Look for me in the trees. I will be there in the trees." A letter worth reading? ✅️🤍 (Sent into The Irish Times)

Day fifteen of #ArtAdventCalendar Here’s a little watercolour of a Jenny Wren.

Your Sunday Poem ✨️ • Kenneth C. Steven •

Heard an amazing poem on the radio today! x.com/i/status/199...

"I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward." ~ Charlotte Brontë A December Day (1877) 🎨 Fidelia Bridges

"Our great thoughts, our great affections, the truths of our life, never leave us ... and are of their nature divine and immortal." ~ William Makepeace Thackeray 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗴𝗽𝗶𝗲 (1868) • Claude Monet

🛋🔥✨️

Little trip into Saints Peter and Paul's Roman Catholic Church in Cork City after some early morning shopping. The winter light coming through the stained glass was glorious. And a candle was lit for all.

"The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have." ~ Henry James The Seine at Bougival in Winter 🎨 Alfred Sisley (1872)

A potent paragraph courtesy of J.R.R. Tolkien, containing a Truth that one would do well to ever remember.

"I love the dark hours of my being. My mind deepens into them. There I can find, as in old letters, the days of my life, already lived, and held like a legend, and understood." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke Winter Night in the Forest (1888) 🎨 Ladislav Mednyánszky

This pleases me...

Pause for a moment, and read... • Seamus Heaney •

"It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats."

"She seemed to walk in an atmosphere of things about to happen." ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery Decorating the Christmas Tree 🎨 Marcel Rieder (1898)

The dedication C.S. Lewis placed at the start of 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' is something rather wonderful.

"Your battles inspired me — not the obvious material battles, but those that were fought and won behind your forehead." ~ James Joyce Snow at Argenteuil (1875) 🎨 Claude Monet

This is just stupendous...

Day eight of #ArtAdventCalendar. Tonight’s offering is this coloured pencil drawing of a kestrel I drew for my mum.

"Grace is the permanent climate of divine kindness; the perennial infusion of springtime into the winter of bleakness." ~ John O'Donohue Full Moon over Winter Landscape 🎨 J. G. Lange (1846)

"Live up to the best that is in you: Live noble lives, as you all may, in whatever condition you may find yourself." ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Song of the Starling 🎨 Elin Manon

... and into The Week we go! (You got this 💪)

"Wilderness is a necessity ... there must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls." ~ John Muir In the Forest at Winter (1885) 🎨 Isaac Levitan

'Those Winter Sundays' by Robert Hayden

Whisper it... • J.R.R. Tolkien •

🎶 It's Beginning to Look a Lot...

"May you be forever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart. Isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of one's life?" ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky The Road in Vetheuil in Winter 🎨 Claude Monet (1879)

Day five of #ArtAdventCalendar. Here’s a stone I painted a reeeeeally long time ago.

Robert Frost 🖎

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ✨️ "We always hope, and in all things it is better to hope than to despair." "Magic is believing in yourself; if you can do that, you can make anything happen." "Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds." 🎨 J.G. Lange (1811–1887)

Give this a read... Kenneth C. Steven

"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm." ~ Aldous Huxley The Tow Path at Argenteuil 🎨 Claude Monet (1875)