Quotes

"A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse -
A spring shut up - a fountain sealed.
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates,
With pleasant fruits, camphire, and spikenard,
Spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
With all trees of frankincense; Myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices;
A fountain of gardens,
A well of living waters,
And streams from Lebanon."
Psalms

Can you tell that I am in love with my village? I find this love poem from the Old Testament very much applicable to my native home town of Ain Zhalta; this small village in the Lebanese mountain is plum full of wonderful natural surprises if one takes the time to look and appreciate.

"...pines seem to me the best interpreters of the winds. They are mighty waving golden-rods, ever in tune, singing and writing wind music all their long century lives."
John Muir, "A Wind Storm in the Forests of the Yuba," 1878

"But, ah! the needles of the pine, how they shine.......Every tree is lit with the most subdued, but clear ethereal light......And as they rock and wave in the strong wind, the light courses up and down......like looms above the forest, when the shuttle is thrown between the light woof and the dark web."
Henry David Thoreau, March 1858

Ain Zhalta in a winter coat

Ain Zhalta the rest of the time