Beauty and Peonies in Pastel

There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace.

You will find that deep place of silence right in your room,

your garden or even your bathtub.

~Elizabeth Kubler Ross

Pastel on LaCarte September 2011

The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn

is unconditional love,

which includes not only others

but ourselves as well.

~Elisabeth Kubler Ross

People are like stained-glass windows.

They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,

but when the darkness sets in,

their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.

~Elizabeth Kubler Ross

I first learned about Elizabeth Kubler Ross (1926-2004) when I started working at the VA Hospital in West Los Angeles, as a hospice volunteer in the late 1990s. I ran across a quote by her and decided to share a little of her life and words.

From her website ...

"a Swiss-born psychiatrist, a pioneer in Near-death studies ... Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, humanitarian, physician, and hospice pioneer wrote the landmark “On Death and Dying” in 1969. Still the best selling work in the field, this book raised the consciousness of the world about the plight of dying people and their families... In this work she proposed the now famous Five Stages of Grief as a pattern of adjustment.These five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance."

If you want to know more about Her and her work, check out her website here.

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known

defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss,

and have found their way out of the depths.

These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity,

and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion,

gentleness, and a deep loving concern.

Beautiful people do not just happen.

~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

For more beauty ... here is the amazing musician and singer/songwriter Loreena McKennitt...

I am off to do laundry and study for Italian class tonight!

Hope you all have an amazing week full of beauty and light!