John Lewis

 "Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America."

Posthumous message from John Lewis

New Old Summer

…and she tried to discover wherein this summer had been different from any and every other summer of her life. She could only realize that she herself—her present self—was in some way different from the other self.
 

— Kate Chopin

And I Am Quite Free

"I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free." Georgia O'Keefe

New Yorks

"E.B. White said there were three New Yorks: the city of those who were born here, the city of those who commute in daily, and the city of those who come here 'in quest of something.' To this list, we may now add a fourth: The New York of those who stayed."

Close and Open Like a Hinge

I wanted
The past to go away, I wanted
To leave it, like another country; I wanted
My life to close, and open
Like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
Where it falls
Down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
To hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,
Whoever I was, I was

Alive
For a little while.

…mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
Or mean,
For a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
Swim through the fires to stay in
This world.”

― Mary Oliver

Successful Mothers

 "Somehow I know that women who stay home all the time have the most unpleasant homes there are. You give me a woman who thinks about something besides cook stoves and wash tubs and baby flannels, and I'll show you, nine times out of ten, a successful mother."

-Martha Hughes Cannon

Axis of the Soul

"...the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still."

Charles Morgan (via Gifts from the Sea)

On Something We Cannot Control

"Our self worth should never be given away or depend on something that we cannot control. It should rest in ourhands and our hearts. When we choose a life and the rituals that have us feeling amazing, we will naturally attract great love. The trick, is to not then give our heart away, but rather, share it."

Mark Groves

Clues

"The final answer, I know, is always inside. But the outside can give a clue, can help one to find the inside answer. One is free, like the hermit crab, to change one's shell."

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

Reactions

"How you react to people and situations, especially when challenges arise, is the best indicator of how deeply you know yourself."

Eckhart Tolle

It Listens to Brave

"She was never quite ready. But she was brave. And the universe listens to brave."

Rebecca Ray

Participate Relentlessly

"You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings."

Elizabeth Gilbert

Contour

"Believe in the holy contour of life."

Jack Kerouac

Land Art

Land really is the best art.



-Andy Warhol

Chiaroscuro

"All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade."

Leo Tolstoy

It is not weight; it is wings

"Some Christians carry their religion on their backs. It is a packet of beliefs and practices which they must bear. At times it grows heavy and they would willingly lay it down, but that would mean a break with old traditions, so they shoulder it again. But real Christians do not carry their religion, their religion carries them. It is not weight; it is wings. It lifts them up, it sees them over hard places, it makes the universe seem friendly, life purposeful, hope real, sacrifice worthwhile. It sets them free from fear, futility, discouragement, and sin--the great enslavers of men's woulds. You can know a real Christian, when you see him, by his buoyancy."

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Give up control and trust the soil

"It’s more about trusting your own instincts — recognizing that, even in your messiness, you are perfectly made, that you have these seeds, these gifts, that must be planted and trusted.

In many ways, eradicating self-doubt is the pathway to a deeper humility. When you don’t doubt the seed you have planted, you, in a sense, give up control. You admit how little you have to do with the fruits of your own labor. It’s the water and the air and the photosynthesis and maybe, depending on your belief system, it’s an inexplicable, jaw-dropping miracle. You trust that your biggest gifts may actually conspire to exist even without your careful cultivation, that perhaps they will have an even greater chance of appearing if you don’t obsess over them.

I’m going to try to heed Alonzo’s call. I’m going to try to forget time, like Maya. I’m going to try to trust the soil, like Louise. I’m going to give up thinking that I can micromanage miracles — big or small."

Courtney Martin, On Being

A Real Picture of Hope

"Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields...but in the impervious and quaking swamps."

-Henry David Thoreau

Get used to it

"Substantive change is anxiety provoking-- even those changes we are actively pushing for."

Harriet Lerner

Love is an Art

“Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.” 

"Falling in love is chemical...but to stay in love is an art. And like any art it requires understanding its theory, and then mastering its application."


― Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

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