I do not write every day, I read every day, think every day, work in the garden every day, and recognize in nature the same slow complicity. The same inevitability.
The moment will arrive, always it does, it can be predicted but it cannot be demanded. I do not think of this as inspiration. I think of it as readiness.
Jeanette Winterson, Art Objects
You will never be able to escape from your heart.
So it is better to listen to what it has to say
Paolo Coehlo, The Alchemist
The peace that we are looking for is not peace that crumbles as soon as there is difficulty or chaos. Whether we’re seeking inner peace or global peace or a combination of the two, the way to experience it is to build on the foundation of unconditional openness to all that arises.
Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.
Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap, Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears
We are made, the scriptures of all religions assure us, in the image of God. Nothing can change that original goodness. Whatever mistakes we have made in the past, whatever problems we may have in the present, in every one of us this ‘uncreated spark in the soul’ remains untouched, ever pure, ever perfect. Even if we try with all our might to douse or hide it, it is always ready to set our personality ablaze with light.
Eknath Easwaran, Original Goodness
The first day of Spring yesterday was marked in Ireland with a fall of snow, heavy at times, but passing quickly.
Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity.
We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.
Marie Beynon Ray
A new month begins….
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 must make your fears your agenda.” When we do take on that agenda, for all the anxiety engendered, we feel better because we know we are living in ‘bonne foi’ [good faith] with ourselves.
Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the perception that some things are more important to us than what we fear.
James Hollis, Jungian Analyst, Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places
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