“According to my view the problem of why the particles of living material get together as they do to make bodies of the shape we see everywhere among plants and animals, is a problem of the same class though of vastly greater complexity, as that of why the particles of water get together to make crystals of the many shapes in which ice crystals occur.”
Ritter, William Emerson. The Probable Infinity of Nature and Life: Three Essays. Boston, MA: Gorham Press, 1918. pp. 93-94.
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Google Books
“Ever and anon, avalanches are falling from yonder peaks. These cliff-bound glaciers, seemingly wedged and immovable, are flowing like water and grinding the rocks beneath them.”
Muir, John. The Writings of John Muir: Sierra Edition. Vol. I. The Mountains of California. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. p. 80.
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Internet Archive
“And what real reasons have we for supposing that conditions of light, oxygen, water, and salt, favorable for supporting life, should not also be favorable for the primal origination of it? So far as I can see, the only reason offered by the protagonists of the primal-favoring-conditions hypothesis is that the evidence at hand is not favorable for such origin now.”
Ritter, William Emerson. The Probable Infinity of Nature and Life: Three Essays. Boston, MA: Gorham Press, 1918. p. 25.
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Google Books
“The animal, placed on a glass slide in a drop of water, is cut across with a small scalpel, the operation being performed under a dissecting microscope. The slide with the drop of water containing the animal is then kept in a moist chamber and examined at short intervals as development proceeds.”
Ritter, William Emerson, and Edna M. Congdon. On the Inhibition by Artificial Section of the Normal Fission Plane in Stenostoma. San Francisco: Academy, 1900. p. 366.
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Google Books
“A great wind is blowing,
heavy rain—
thick darkness;
the sailors running here and there,
shouting at one another
to pull at this and at that rope,
and the waves pouring over the ship;
landing in the rain—
the cold rain
falling steadily;
the ground wet,
all the leaves dripping,
and the rocks running with water;
the sky is cloud on cloud
in which the brief sun barely shines,
the ground snow on snow,
the cold air
wind and blast;
we have followed our God
into this wilderness
of trees heavy with snow,
rocks seamed with ice,
that in the freezing blasts
the remnant of this remnant
kindle so bright, so lasting a fire
on this continent,
prisoners of ice and darkness everywhere
will turn and come to it
to warm their hands and hearts.”
Reznikoff, Charles, edited by Seamus Cooney. “New Nation.” The Poems of Charles Reznikoff 1918-1975. Boston: David R. Godine, 2005. p. 166.
Catalog Record
WorldCat
“Nearly a third of all solar energy reaching the earth's surface goes to evaporate seawater. The thermal inertia of the sea, the circulation of the water and the geographic distribution of ocean and land profoundly influence our planet's weather and climate.”
Revelle, Roger. "The Ocean." Scientific American 221, no. 3 (1969): 64. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0969-54.
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JSTOR
“To these must be added the narrow isthmuses that join the continents, Panama and Suez.
The fluid character of water on our planet is the miracle that makes life possible, but it also means that the oceans fill all the low places of the earth. Because of this geographical fact the oceans are the ultimate receptacle of the wastes of the land, including the wastes that are produced in ever increasing amounts by human beings and their industries.”
Revelle, Roger. "The Ocean." Scientific American 221, no. 3 (1969): 64. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0969-54.
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JSTOR
“The ocean has an impact on all our senses: the unique sea smell, the crashing sound of breakers, the glitter of waves dancing under the sun and the moon, the feel of spindrift blowing across one's face, the salty, bitter taste of the water. Yet the spell of the ocean is more than mystery and sensory delight. Part of it must come from outside the senses, from half-forgotten memories and images beyond imagining, deep below the surface of consciousness.”
Revelle, Roger. "The Ocean." Scientific American 221, no. 3 (1969): 55. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0969-54.
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JSTOR
“For those who live by foraging—the original forest botanists and zoologists—the jungle is a rich supply of fibers, poisons, medicines, intoxicants, detoxicants, containers, waterproofing, food, dyes, glues, incense, amusement, companionship, inspiration, and also stings, blows, and bites.”
Snyder, Gary. The Practice of the Wild. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990. p. 142.
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BeWild ReWild
“The biological-ecological sciences have been laying out (implicitly) a spiritual dimension. We must find our way to seeing the mineral cycles, the water cycles, air cycles, nutrient cycles as sacramental—and we must incorporate that insight into our own personal spiritual quest and integrate it with all the wisdom teachings we have received from the nearer past.”
Snyder, Gary. "Reinhabitation." Manoa 25, no. 1 (2013): 47. Accessed May 27, 2021.
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JSTOR
“Frozen water to liquid water is one. Liquid water to gaseous water (steam) is another. But they are not confined to chemistry examples.”
Ramachandran, V. S. The Tell-tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011. p. 13.
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W.W. Norton
“Which is the world—
O if the streets
seem bright enough,
fold within fold
Of residence…
Or see thru water
Clearly the pebbles
Of the beach
Thru the water, flowing
From the ripple, clear
As ever they have been”
Oppen, George. “Of Being Numerous.” New Collected Poems. Edited by Michael Davidson and Eliot Weinberger. New York: New Directions, 2008. p. 179.
Catalog Record
New Directions Books
“sands dazzling under the near
and not less brutal feet journey
in light
and wind
and fire and water and air the five
bright elements
the marvel
of the obvious and the marvel
of the hidden is there
in fact a distinction dance”
Oppen, George. "Disasters." The American Poetry Review 5, no. 5 (1976): 14. Accessed May 26, 2021.
JSTOR
“Move to another location if there are no nibbles or bites.
There are sounds in the air like sounds in the water.
When the water is clear you might see the fish.
When the air is clear, you might hear the sounds.”
Oliveros, Pauline. “Sound Fishes (1992).” Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice. New York: iUniverse, 2005. p. 50.
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iUniverse
“as much is the same folded leaves a bud I was suddenly in a damp cave and could smell the damp and could hear the water dripping dark and gray black and blue and gray there is the cave of light ahead it is round and full of gold golden light…”
Notley, Alice. "Grave of Light." Chicago Review, Christopher Middleton: Portraits, 51, no. 1/2 (Spring 2005): 165.
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JSTOR
“The play of the lights among the crystal angles of these snow-cliffs, the pearly white of the outswelling bosses, the bergs drifting in front, aglow in the sun and edged with green water, and the deep blue disk of the lake itself extending to your feet,— this forms a picture that enriches all your after life, and is never forgotten.”
Muir, John. The Writings of John Muir: Sierra Edition. Vol. I. The Mountains of California. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. p. 142.
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Internet Archive
“Here are the roots of all the life of the valleys, and here more simply than elsewhere is the eternal flux of Nature manifested. Ice changing to water, lakes to meadows, and mountains to plains. And while we thus contemplate Nature's methods of landscape creation, and, reading the records she has carved on the rocks, reconstruct, however imperfectly, the landscapes of the past, we also learn that as these we now behold have succeeded those of the pre-glacial age, so they in turn are withering and vanishing to be succeeded by others yet unborn.”
Muir, John. The Writings of John Muir: Sierra Edition. Vol. I. The Mountains of California. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. pp. 80-1.
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Internet Archive
“A very different mental state is experienced when we come upon something to which no limits can be as signed. Put yourself to the test this way: Here you sit beside that vast body of water, the Pacific Ocean. How many drops are there in it?”
Ritter, William Emerson. The Probable Infinity of Nature and Life: Three Essays. Boston, MA: Gorham Press, 1918. p. 48.
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Google Books
“Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer, or nearly so, for thousands of feet, advance their brows in thoughtful attitudes beyond their companions, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly conscious yet heedless of everything going on about them, awful in stern majesty, types of permanence, yet associated with beauty of the frailest and most fleeting forms; their feet set in pine groves and gay emerald meadows, their brows in the sky; bathed in light, bathed in floods of singing water, while snow-clouds, avalanches, and the winds shine and surge and wreathe about them as the years go by, as if into these mountain mansions Nature had taken pains to gather her choicest treasures to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.”
Muir, John. The Writings of John Muir: Sierra Edition. Vol. I. The Mountains of California. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. pp. 7-8.
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Internet Archive
“It is, therefore, very hot, radiating a lot of energy into the space around it. Any planet with liquid water on its surface must be further away from such a star than we are from the sun.”
Crick, Francis. Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature. New York: Touchstone, 1982. p. 97.
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“Whatever the details of the process, it seems likely that at some point the earth settled down with sufficient liquid water to form the primitive oceans, seas, rivers, lakes and pools.
Whatever the nature of the atmosphere, it was undoubtedly the recipient of a large flux of energy from the sun.”
Crick, Francis. Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature. New York: Touchstone, 1982. p. 76.
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“As carbon is the atom which, above all others, excels in bonding with other atoms, thus producing an almost infinite variety of organic molecules, and as water is the most abundant molecule in the universe which is likely to be found in any quantity in the liquid state, it is not too surprising that life as we know it is based on carbon compounds in solution in water.”
Crick, Francis. Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature. New York: Touchstone, 1982. p. 61.
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“HAVE A HEART
Have heart Find head
Feel pattern Be wed
Smell water See sand
Oh boy Ain’t life grand
OH OH
Now and then
Here and there
Everywhere
On and on”
Creeley, Robert. “Gnomic Verses.” The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1975-2005. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006. p. 422.
Catalog Record
University of California Press
“For No Clear Reason
I dreamt last night
the fright was over, that
the dust came, and then water,
and women and men, together
again, and all was quiet
in the dim moon’s light.”
Creeley, Robert. “For No Clear Reason.” Selected Poems of Robert Creeley. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991.
Catalog Record
University of California Press
“Similarly, it is of the essence of water that it can wash everything that exists, and if it does not wash it is not water. Yet the one thing water cannot wash is water: it cannot exist inside the self-enclosure of entity, circumscribed by a boundary or outline, in a single location that excludes the surrounding field.”
Bryson, Norman. "The Gaze in the Expanded Field." In Vision and Visuality, edited by Hal Foster, 87-113. Dia Art Foundation: Discussions in Contemporary Culture, Number 2. Seattle: Dia Art Foundation and Bay Press, 1988. p. 99.
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Dia Art Foundation
“At the top the lines of glyphic form may be clear; but as the waterfall descends, random shapes within the water multiply, shapes without geometry and impossible to name in language; at the lower tiers of the cascade they break up into particles even more elusive to apprehension, and at the base the schema eventually fades into the amorphous.”
Bryson, Norman. "Enhancement and Displacement in Turner." Huntington Library Quarterly 49, no. 1 (1986): 47-65. doi:10.2307/3817191. p. 58
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JSTOR
“This seems to emerge from the interior itself, which is suffused with quiet routines, of bringing up children, drawing water, polishing metal, sweeping floors, pressing linen. The people in Chardin's works manage their attention as carefully as they manage the affairs of the house, giving their tasks just the right degree of attention, never too little or too much, as though consciousness were itself measured out as a substance, the real substance of the household.”
Bryson, Norman. "Chardin and the Text of Still Life." Critical Inquiry 15, no. 2 (1989): 248, 251. Accessed May 31, 2021.
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JSTOR
“but then you reach again and find it
after a number of trys and you realized that the water is
a medium as the air is a medium and the lens of your eye is
a medium”
Antin, David. “Real Estate.” Tuning. New York: New Directions, 2001. p. 56.
Catalog Record
New Directions Books
“you start out to reach for something
thats under water and your hand goes to the wrong place
and after a while you realize that the object under the
water is differently situated than you would have imagined
it to be if it were outside the water and under the air”
Antin, David. “Real Estate.” Tuning. New York: New Directions, 2001. p. 56.
Catalog Record
New Directions Books