532. Oh darkly, deeply, beautifully blue… ~Lord Byron

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The touch of an infinite mystery
passes over the trivial and the familiar,
making it break out into ineffable music…
The trees, the stars, and the blue hills
ache with a meaning
which can never be uttered in words.
~Rabindranath Tagore

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The world is blue at its edges and in its depths. This blue is the light that got lost. Light at the blue end of the spectrum does not travel the whole distance from the sun to us. It disperses among the molecules of the air, it scatters in water.

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Water is colorless, shallow water appears to be the color of whatever lies underneath it, but deep water is full of this scattered light, the purer the water the deeper the blue.

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The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue of land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance.

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This light that does not touch us, does not travel the whole distance, the light that gets lost, gives us the beauty of the world, so much of which is in the color blue. ~Rebecca Solnit

In the eyes, windows to the soul, of some and even in the color of our unique, blue marble of a planet one comes upon the divine mystery that “can never be uttered in words” at the “edges and in the depths” of the “deeply, beautifully blue” of which Byron, Tagore, Solnit, and “Holy Writ” speak.

They are to take a blue cloth and cover the lamp-stand that is for light, together with is lamps, its wick trimmers and trays, and all its jars for the olive oil used to supply it. ~Numbers 4:9   ✝

**Images via Pinterest

31 thoughts on “532. Oh darkly, deeply, beautifully blue… ~Lord Byron”

      • Interesting you should mention that. I figured I’d have to have math too, so my best friend and I took college Algebra our freshman year to get it out of the way while it was still fairly fresh in memory. Then in my senior year as my advisor was working on the final details of my graduation, he says, “Hmmmm what are we going to do with this math credit?” I asked, “Don’t I need a math credit to graduate?” He says, “No, so we’ll just have to use it to meet an elective requirement.” I nearly fell out of my chair. I certainly would have taken something a lot less challenging than math for an elective credit. Hugs, N ❤

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      • Oh my…yes, if I didn’t need one (or Four, as was the case at the time I was looking into it) I certainly would have taken Elective Poetry 101 or something lol 😉

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  6. Again, a lovely deep provoking post. When I was in the classroom, eyes were such a keen part of my approach to art and such a fascination for the kids. We viewed them as key captures in portraits, we discussed them when talking about shape, curves, convex, concave. . . and we explored them in the color unit when looking at translucency, even delving into their functions as to how we see and perceive color or how some do not—stunning as always Natalie–
    Today is rainy, as a cold front is to be forthcoming so that means I must prepare the little calamondin and meyer lemon tree to move south for the winter, as into the basement by a window 🙂
    —plus a man is coming to give us a thought on fixing the yard now sans the trees—fingers crossed it will be something we can afford as I need something done!!!
    Hugs and love on this wet Georgia Wednesday—-
    Julie

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    • Merci beaucoup, Madame! Oh I loved the way you described as you discussed and drew them in your art classes. I love eyes. They are so intriguing and do look like wells that lead deep down inside to the human soul. I hope you got you two babies in the basement without any problems or mishaps. And I pray that the man gave you some great ideas and at reasonable prices. I’m glad you’re getting some rain. We sure need some. Hugs and love, N
      ❤

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  7. As a brown-eyed person in a family circle of mostly other brown-eyed (or hazel-eyed) people, I find the blue in baby eyes the most miraculous blue of all. Windows of not-quite-fully-born souls? Thanks so much for the enchanting photographs.

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  10. Beautiful pictures of beautiful blue eyes. My eyes are blue, but not nearly as stunning as these ones you’ve posted here.
    I have been seeing a number of quotes by Rabindranath Tagore lately. I think I should start googling more of his stuff. I like what he says. Do you know much about him? Is he a known poet?
    Lovely N.
    🙂 ❤

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    • All blue eyes are gorgeous I think. Mine were bluish when I was young but as I’ve aged they’ve become greenish. Here’s some info on Tagore:
      Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of Gitanjali and its “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse,” he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his “elegant prose and magical poetry” remain largely unknown outside Bengal. Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. Hugs, N ❤

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