Tag: Life

Sunday Quote: Change is a constant

Karl Duffy3 Comments

I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be

Joan Didion

Out of the depths

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross,  Death: The Final Stage of Growth,

Our surroundings

Karl Duffy1 Comment

As David Whyte says, we have many allies as we make our way through each day and each week – the blue sky, the wind on our face, the yellow daffodils blooming early because of the mild early Spring. If we can notice them we get some space from the worrying thoughts that accompany us 

To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings

David Whyte

Underneath

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Don’t base your identity on your imperfection.

You aren’t your imperfections,

you are the being that is aware of your imperfections.

Haemin Sunim

Sunday Quote: Listen

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.  

Anne Sexton, from Letter Written on a Ferry.

When death comes

Karl Duffy4 Comments

A predictable but sad post today on hearing of the death of Mary Oliver

When death comes 
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: 
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything 
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, 
and I look upon time as no more than an idea, 
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, 
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something 
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life 
I was a bride married to amazement. 
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder 
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, 
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver, When Death Comes