A PAGE TO SOOTHE THE SOUL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know. Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity. Be like the Tao. It can’t be approached or withdrawn from, benefited or harmed, honored or brought into disgrace. It gives itself up continually. That is why it endures.
-Tao Te Ching
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.
Diane Ackerman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”
- John Lennon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are all of us living in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. you are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.
Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Women’s values are gradually beginning to shift the zeitgeist in this country, though, not just through political action, but through doing what women do naturally, relation to other women…Midlife women are thoroughly engaged in the process of life evaluation, emptying, and moving toward authenticity…Jane O’Reilly..said, ‘Fifty is not a delayed forty. let there be less marveling at our wonderful preservation and more respect for the maturity of our minds and spirit.” Joan Borysenko, PhD, A Woman’s Book of Life: The Biology, Psychology, and Spirituality of the Feminine Life Cycle
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.”
~~~ Sarah Bernhardt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Never compromise a dream. Do what you must. The fears, beasts, and mountains before you are part of the plan; stepping-stones to a promised land; to a time and place that is so much closer than you even suspect. don’t let your eyes deceive, for even as you read these words, your ship swiftly approaches.”
~~~ Mike Dooley, Notes from the Universe: New Perspectives From an Old Friend
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
there is a girl inside.
she is randy as a wolf.
she will not walk away
and leave these bones to an old woman
she is a green tree
in a forest of kindling
she is a green girl
in a used poet.
she has waited
patient as a nun
for the second coming
when she can break
through gray hairs
into blossom
and her lovers will harvest
honey and thyme
and the woods
will be wild
with the damn wonder of it.
~~~Lucille Clifton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“There are four questions of value in life…
What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made?
What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for?
The answer to each is the same.
Only love.”
~Johnny Depp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.”
~~~Anais Nin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By observing the cycles of nature, we know ourselves, by observing our own cycles, we know nature. Following the cycles we are one with Tao….
Becoming aware of our daily cycles can help us live more creatively.
~~~ Diane Dreher, The Tao of Inner Peace
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who we are. We face surprises. And disappointments. The crucial fact is that we are different from anybody we know or admire. This is hard to accept in a standardized society like ours, …It takes all one’s courage to be the person one is, fulfilling one’s odd and unique possibilities. Though the urge toward conformity may reflect a deeper urge toward union, still local customs do tend to make us dress alike, talk alike, think alike. And indeed we are all members of the same species and there are bound to be basic similarities. Yet in the middle of life we find that we are more than this life has ever taught us. ~~~M.C. Richards, Centering: In Pottery, Poetry and the Person
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me
By Mary Oliver
Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,
smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,
and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain –
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The only people for me are the mad ones
the ones that are mad to live,
mad to talk,
mad to be saved
desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say commonplace things,
but burn like fabulous roman candles
exploding like spiders across the stars
and in the middle you see the blue center light pop
and everybody goes “Awww!”
~~~~~Jack Kerouac
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The greatest achievement was at first,
and for a time, a mere dream.
The oak sleeps in the acorn,
the bird waits in the egg;
and in the highest vision of the soul,
a waking angel stirs.
Dreams are the seedlings of realities.” — James Allen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”~~~~~A.Einstein
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The future is called “perhaps”, which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the only important thing to call the future. And the only important thing is not to allow that to scare you.”
~~~Tennessee Williams
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“There comes a point when a dream becomes reality and reality becomes a dream.”
~~~Frances Farmer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I don’t want to live — I want to love first, and live incidentally.”
~~~Zelda Fitzgerald
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Forgiveness is the sweet scent that a flower gives when it is being crushed.”Anonymous
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly, this is religiousness.” ~~~Albert Einstein
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
