Your bliss station

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Our life has become so economic and practical in its orientation that, as you get older, the claims of the moment upon you are so great, you hardly know where the hell you are, or what it is you intended. You are always doing something that is required of you. Where is your bliss station? You have to try to find it.

Joseph Campbell

Learning from animals

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Love, love, love, says Percy.
And hurry as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.

Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.

Mary Oliver, I Ask Percy How I should live my Life

photo of dog hurrying to the beach by andrew thomas

The best we can

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In novels – as in life –  there is no perfection. We do the best we can with the tools we have at our disposal. Given that we are changing, the tools are changing, the thing itself is changing — there must be a moment when we stop. When we say, This is the best I can do for now… There is nobility in the effort, courage in the dailiness — the doggedness. It is a process of trying and failing. Of beginning again.

Dani Shapiro, Devotion

photo filiberto strazzari

Not caught up in ideas

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Among the sixteen types of meditation,

the baby’s practice is the best.

Yuan Wu, Chinese Chan monk, 1063–1135

photo zivya

Sunday Quote: Joy

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Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.

Karl Barth

Sunday Quote: No map….

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You must give up the life you planned

in order to have the life that is waiting for you

Joseph Campbell