“And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five “It occurred to him that there must be some state institute, a kind of time bank, where he would be able to change at least some part of his shabby…
“In the soul of man,” Herman Melville wrote, in one of his terrifying flights of prophecy in Moby-Dick, “there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.” Cast off from that protected world, he’d gone on, and “thou canst never return!” But the…
Want the change. Be inspired by the flamewhere everything shines as it disappears.The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so muchas the curve of the body as it turns away.What locks itself in sameness has congealed.Is it safer to be gray and numb?What turns hard becomes rigidand is easily shattered.Pour yourself out like a fountain.Flow into…
“With each encounter with truth one draws nearer to reaching communion with it.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet What resonates? Doesn’t it change moment-to-moment as we ourselves change? As the world offers lessons, from subtle and brutal? Just what is our truth, our first principle? We try to arrive by sorting….
“We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our own terrors. If it has precipices, they belong to us. If dangers are present, we must try to love them: And if we fashion our life according to that principle, which advices us to…
I live my life in widening circlesthat reach out across the world.I may not complete this last onebut I will give myself to it. I circle around God, around the primordial tower.I’ve been circling for thousands of yearsand I still don’t know: am I a falcon,a storm, or a great song?— Rainer Maria Rilke This…
“Again, we are daily forced to choose between depression and anxiety. Depression results from the wounding of the individuation imperative; anxiety results from moving forward into the unknown. That path of anxiety is necessary because therein lies the hope of the person to more nearly become an individual. My analyst once said to me, “You…
“If there seems to be no communication between you and the people around you, try to draw close to those things that will not ever leave you. The nights are still there and the winds that roam through the trees and over many lands.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet We’re often…
Dove that ventured outside, flying far from the dovecote: housed and protected again, one with the day, the night, knows what serenity is, for she has felt her wings pass through all distance and fear in the course of her wanderings. The doves that remained at home, never exposed to loss, innocent and secure, cannot…
Look at the flowers, so faithful to what is earthly, to whom we lend fate from the very border of fate. And if they are sad about how they must wither and die, perhaps it is our vocation to be their regret. All Things want to fly. Only we are weighed down by desire, caught…