But little by little,  as you left their voices behind,  the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds  and there was a new voice,  which you slowly  recognized as your own,  that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper  into the world,  determined to do  the only thing you could do...

I haven't told my garden yet ... Lest that should conquer me. I haven't quite the strength now  To break it to the Bee ... I will not name it in the street  For shops would stare at me ... That one so shy ... so ignorant  Should have the face to die.  (The poetry of Emily Dickenson)

Thirty spokes are joined together in a wheel, but it is the centre hole  that allows the wheel to function.  We mould clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside  that makes the vessel useful.  We fashion wood for a house,  but it is the emptiness inside  that makes it liveable.  We work with the substantial,&...

If you want to become whole,  first let yourself become broken.  If you want to become straight, first let yourself become twisted.  If you want to become full,  first let yourself become empty.  If you want to become new,  first let yourself become old.  Those whose desires are few get them,  those whose des...

​In the end, what matters is not whether letting go of a wrong is a question of forgiveness, it's having the capacity to break out of a destructive cycle, to find our unique path to healing and the courage to face a different future.   Cynthia Ransley & Terri Spy

This being human is a guest house,  Every morning a new arrival.  A joy, a depression, a meanness,  some momentary awareness comes  as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,  who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honourably.&nb...

I stand  And suddenly understand  That you, Deep Night,  Surround me and play with me,  And I am stunned ... Your breath comes over me.  And from a vast. distant solemnity Your smile enters me.  Rainer Maria Rilke

"Where have you been?" I asked nature.  "Why, we have always been here" nature replied. "Don't you remember?" "I tickled your toes when you took your first steps" said the grass. "And I caught you when you fell." "I landed on your knee in the schoolyard" said the ladybird.  "And listened patiently as you talked to me." "I came to dan...

Pain bowls blindly down the path of life,  Thrown by the hand of fate. It crushes all within it's way,  Leaves destruction in it's wake. It indiscriminately soldiers on,  Rain or hail or shine,  Not caring who, or what, or why,  Lies in the firing line.  Life and spirit lay squashed and broken, Not understanding why,&n...

 Imagining the wondrous treasures that lay within and surrendering to her curiosity, Pandora opened the sacred box which she had sworn never to do.  In doing so she released upon the world all the terrible evils of disease, misery and death.  As they flew from the box, the evils stung and wounded Pandora in the face causing her to sc...

 One day you finally knew  what you had to do, and began,  though the voices around you  kept shouting  their bad advice - though the whole house  began to tremble  and you felt the old tug at your ankles.  "Mend your life!" each voice cried.  But you didn't stop.  You knew what you had to do, ...

When I am among the trees,  especially the willows and the honey locust,  equally the beech the oaks and the pines,  they give off such hints of gladness.  I would almost say that they save me, and daily.  I am so distant from the hope of myself,  in which I have goodness, and discernment,  and never hurry through...

The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath your feet ... 

Simplicity, patience, compassion,  These three are your greatest treasures,  Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are,  Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.  Lao Tzu ... Tao Te Ching 

Shock brings success. Shock comes ... oh oh! Laughing words ... ha ha!.  The shock terrifies for a hundred miles. And he does not let fall the sacrificial spoon and chalice.  When a man has learned within his heart what fear and trembling mean, he is safeguarded against any terror produced by outside influences.  Let the thunder roll...

​It is not necessary to venture so far as to trust the Unknown, but it is essential to dispense our distrust of it ... We know that the situation is important and therefore we distrust ourself and Fate to carry us through.  We should resist this fear before it turns into desire and ambition to do something.  

Heading into 2020,the Christmas festivities behind us, how quickly we can forget those wishes for peace we extended to friends and family.  Already planning the year ahead; planning to get on, to get ahead, to move forward.  We live in a world of activity; the message "faster ... faster", "more ... more".  No wonder so many collapse ...

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our Life's Star Hath had elsewhere it's setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness. And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home : Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upo...

How surely gravity's law, strong as an ocean current, takes hold of even the smallest thing  and pulls it toward the heart of the world ... This is what the things can teach us: to fall patiently to trust our heaviness. Rainer Maria Rilke: Book of Hours

We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the present  and let our illusions die. W. H. Auden