I had the pleasure of hearing Alice Walker speak at the
"And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see -- or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read."
"The quietly pacifist peaceful
always die
to make room for men
who shout."
"Tell the truth, have you ever found God in a church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God."
"Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me. "
by Ani DiFranco
Squint your eyes and look closer
I’m not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I’m beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you’re going to get hungry
And eat most of the words you just said
Both my parents taught me about good will
And I have done well by their names
Just the kindness I’ve lavished on strangers
Is more than I can explain
Still there’s many who’ve turned out their porch lights
Just so I would think they were not home
And hid in the dark of their windows
Til I’d passed and left them alone
And God help you if you are an ugly girl
Course too pretty is also your doom
Cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
For the prettiest girl in the room
And God help you if you are a pheonix
And you dare to rise up from the ash
A thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
While you are just flying back
I’m not trying to give my life meaning
By demeaning you
And I would like to state for the record
I did everything that I could do
I’m not saying that I’m a saint
I just don’t want to live that way
No, I will never be a saint
But I will always say
Squint your eyes and look closer
I’m not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I’m beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you might find you’re starving
And eating all of the words you said
~~~ paul newman ~ (1925-2008)~~~
"I beg you... to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms
or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers,
which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually,
without even noticing it, live your way into the answer..."
~Rainer Maria Rilke
Wanting to reform the world
without discovering one's true self
is like trying to cover the world with leather
to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns.
It is much simpler to wear shoes.
~Sri Ramana Maharshi
Again and again
Some people in the crowd wake up.
They have no ground in the crowd
And they emerge according to broader laws.
They carry strange customs with them,
And demand room for bold gestures.
The future speaks ruthlessly through them.
~Rainer Maria Rilke
It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death
stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air --
there's the rub, the task. ~Virgil, 'Aeneid'
next time you meet a 'foreigner',
remember it's only like a window
with a different shape to it
and the person who's sitting inside
is you.
~~~ yoko ono ~ liner notes: 'feeling the space', 1973 ~~~
"This is all writing."
"What's writing?"
"Words that stay. My master taught me."
-Kira and Jen, respectively, from The Dark Crystal
- Mood:
content
"I don't know. The usual. Life. Family. Politics. It's called friendship. It's like therapy for poor people."
~Without a Trace
- Mood:
bouncy
Dorothea Smartt
'medusaspeak'
'How can [a poet] speak to you / gently of hard things?'
Blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch,
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul...
- Mood: chipper
from Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
Chapter 126: “Journey Toward the Starry Sky, in Present Tense”
(pg 558) “We are kin to stars.
“I reach out my hands towards them, spread my fingers and see those diamonds in the black V’s between my fanning fingers. To think that I could gather them into my hands, stuff them in my pockets, is folly. But I can reach. It is I myself, alive now, who reach into the night toward the stars. Their light is on my hands.
“Their light is in my hands. I grasp at the crisp air of earth and know that I am made of what makes stars! Those atoms burning bright – I lower my hands – why, they are here within me. I am as old as they and will continue as long as they, and after our demise, we will all be born again, eons from now. What atoms they have I cannot know. I cannot call their names, but they are not strangers to me. I know them in my being, and they know me.
“Little scrap, little morsel, the stars sing to me, we are the same.”
- Mood:
exhausted
~Luisah Teish
- Mood:
contemplative
I woke up this morning to an article on a new machine that will scan your shoes at the airport, eventually providing for a quicker check in- when they get the kinks worked out. All you have to do is have a biometric card, and then get a retina and fingerprint scan (that part of it in in the kiosk). Then this machine bombards your shoes with something weird, and vibrationally checks for substances which are used in bombs. The quote above is the one they used in the article, promoting it.
While the idea alone of more technology frightens me, the quote disturbed me the most.
- Mood:
disturbed
Not for any other reason than I thought you'd appreciate it...
"Walk as if you're walking through hell in gasoline soaked pajamas."
~ J. Alexander, runway coach, Top Model
- Mood: bouncy
Eric, to his mother.... "May I suggest the teachings of the jedi?"
"And may I suggest the footings of your ass?" ... Red
Eric... "These aren't the ass you're looking for."
- Mood: bouncy
Written by Malidoma P. Some
In Issue Three of Sacred Fire.
"A vital aspect to alleviating the pressures of this crisis [pollution] involves reclaiming our relationship to water. In order to invoke peace, we have to notice what water is: it is that which takes the path of least resistance; it reflects, flows, cleanses, purifies, cools, quenches, soothes, dissolves, crystallizes. These characteristics imbue water with the power of reconciliation when it seems all hopes are lost. The water that washes away humanity's capacity for rigidity and conflict waits for us to check in for a radical healing. It alone has what it takes to restore the purity of being, the brightness of our genius and the flow most wanted by the human community."
"Water is a way-finder in this world."
"About Libation: Libation cleanses human actions from impurities, obstacles and unwanted surprises with the simple act of pouring water. This gesture acknowledges water's intrinsic power to act as a preventive initiative prior to engaging in a project with the vision to see it conclude positively. Libation is therefore a rite of purification, similar to baptism, in which the water is poured on the body of the intention of a human undertaking. An offering of water before a meeting, a journey, or anything meaningful in human affairs prepares the way for a peaceful and successful conclusion."
Malidoma Patrice Some (so-MAY) is one of my heroes in this world (Jane Goodall is the other).
- Mood: content
-The Initiation of Sarah, Alpha Nu Gamma president/demon Corrina to her second in command, on how to get the "Chosen One" back from Psi Epsilon Delta.
Even better because they meant it literally.
;-P
- Mood: bouncy
No one rides for free.
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