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archiemcphee:

Because sometimes what you need most is the sight of over 2000 dolphins swimming together at sunrise through False Bay, off the southwest coast of South Africa.

This breathtaking footage was captured by cinematographer Morne Hardenberg of Shark Explorers.

[via Twisted Sifter]

Very soon then the fëa and hroa of a Man in Aman would not be united and at peace, but would be opposed, to the great pain of both. The hroa being in full vigour and joy of life would cling to the fëa, lest its departure should bring death; and against death it would revolt as would a great beast in full life either flee from the hunter or turn savagely upon him. But the fëa would be as it were in prison, becoming ever more weary of all the delights of the hroa, until they were loathsome to it, longing ever more and more to be gone, until even those matters for its thought that it received through the hroa and its senses became meaningless. The Man would not be blessed, but accursed; and he would curse the Valar and Aman and all the things of Arda. And he would not willingly leave Aman, for that would mean rapid death, and he would have to be thrust forth with violence. But if he remained in Aman, what should he come to, ere Arda were at last fulfilled and he found release? Either his fëa would be wholly dominated by the hroa, and he would become more like a beast, though one tormented within. Or else, if his fëa were strong, it would leave the hroa. Then one of two things would happen: either this would be accomplished only in hate, by violence, and the hroa, in full life, would be rent and die in sudden agony; or else the fëa would in loathing and without pity desert the hroa, and it would live on, a witless body, not even a beast but a monster, a very work of Melkor in the midst of Aman, which the Valar themselves would fain destroy.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The History of Middle-Earth X: Morgoth’s Ring. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. (London: HarperCollins, 2002.) 429-30. (Myths Transformed, Text XI, “Aman and Mortal Men"
(via literallyeverythingaboutsauron)

nixiegenesis:

Olórin in the Gardens of Lórien. 

I kind of HC the Gardens of Lórien to be like the movie “What Dreams May Come,” they’re kind of surreal. I used my “Springtime in Arda” fluid painting as the background. 

“… though he loved the Elves, he walked among them unseen, or in form as one of them, and they did not know whence came the fair visions or the promptings of wisdom that he put into their hearts. In later days he was the friend of all the Children of Ilúvatar, and took pity on their sorrows; and those who listened to him awoke from despair and put away the imaginations of darkness.” Unfinished Tales, “The Istari.”