Tag: heart

White and black

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The start of November has traditionally been a time to reflect on themes of letting go and impermanence and for remembering those who have passed on on before us.

In life, nothing dwells. The wind blows and then stops. The blossoms burst forth and then fall.  Things come and go. The melody drifts back onto  an aching E flat and then back to E again. The song of your life is played on white and black keys. Sadness is … an essential truth of human life. But let’s not dwell there. Not while the song is still playing.

Karen Maizen Miller, Be Sad

A larger brightness

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On the Feast of All Saints

Strangely, all of life’s problems, dilemmas, and difficulties are not resolved not by negativity, attack, criticism, force, or logical resolution, but always by falling into a larger “brightness” – by falling into the good, the true, and the beautiful – by falling into God.

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Sunday Quote: Wholehearted

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The eve of the feast of Samhain, marking the end of the harvest season. It was the most important of the four Celtic Festivals, the start of winter and the darker part of the year. Bonfires were lit as a reminder of the victory of light over the increasing dark days.

When you do something,

you should burn yourself completely,

like a good bonfire,

leaving no trace of yourself.

Shunryu Suzuki

Sunday Quote: Limitation of words

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Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
 to be understood.

Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Yes

What we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence.

[Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen]


Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Saturday silence

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Silence can be a plan
rigorously executed
the blueprint to a life
It is a presence
it has a history a form
Do not confuse it
with any kind of absence.

It was an old theme even for me:
Language cannot do everything

Adrienne Rich, Cartographies of Silence, 3 and 7 [extracts]

Courage

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There are more things likely to frighten us than there are to crush us:

we suffer more often in imagination than in reality

Seneca the Younger, Letters from a Stoic