Let its weight fall back
into the earth;
for heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas.
The trees you planted in childhood have grown
too heavy. You cannot bring them along.
Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.
Rilke, Part I, Sonnet IV
We have so many allies in this world,
including just the colour blue in the sky.
David Whyte
I have a room all to myself;
it is nature.
Henry David Thoreau
Lovingkindness is a feeling that blesses others and oneself with the simple wish, “Be happy.”
The Japanese poet Issa [1763–1828] expresses this open-hearted feeling so well:
“In the cherry blossoms’ shade, there’s no such thing as a stranger.”
Joseph Goldstein, Triumph of the Heart
Surrender to the way things want to happen next,
even though this often involves a vast and terrifying loss of control.
Trust the magic that was born into your soul.
Martha Beck
“I’m never free of fear,” some people say, implying that there should be a state of mind and body that is free of fear.
How can we possibly be free from fear when we live in the conditioned mode of the me-story most of the time? We’re deeply programmed to believe in this separate me by inaccurate language and by growing up in a world of other mes, all of whom think of and experience themselves as separate entities. . . . With separation inevitably goes fear and pain.
Toni Packer, Touching Fear
