The question is “can you stand erect in your pain, in your loneliness, your fears, and your experience of being rejected?”
from The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen
Stand erect in your sorrow
Possess
“They think if people can possess enough things they will be content to live in prison”
From The dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin
To be whole
“To be whole is to be part; true voyage is to return.”
From The dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Work
“Wasn’t it immoral to do work you didn’t enjoy?”
From The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Sharing
“Speech is sharing — a cooperative art”
From The dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Good bones by Maggie Smith
Mysteries, yes by Mary Oliver
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
By Mary Oliver
Simple
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
Henry David Thoreau
Acrylic on cardboard
Quiet
“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind”
Albert Einstein
Unselfish work
Unselfish work leads to silence, for when you work selflessly, you don’t need to ask for help. Indifferent to results, you are willing to work with the most inadequate means. You do not care to be much gifted and well equipped. Nor do you ask for recognition and assistance. You just do what needs to be done, leaving success and failure to the unknown. For everything is caused by innumerable factors, of which your personal endeavor is but one. Yet such is the magic of man’s mind and heart that the most improbable happens when human will and love pull together.
– I Am That By Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
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