"There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires."
Nelson Mandela
“There's not one person on the planet, even my greatest teachers, with whom I agree on every subject. I conclude that perfect accord is impossible, and that's a good thing.”
Rob Brezsny
A good reason to cultivate good conflict management skills . . .
"The human being is that space in which the comprehensive compassion that pervades the universe from the very beginning now begins to surface -- within consciousness. (As compared with the natural displays of compassion by other creatures that is not necessarily 'within consciousness.') That's the only difference. We didn't create compassion, but it's flowing through us -- or it could. The phase change that we're in seems, to me, to depend upon that comprehensive compassion unfurling in the human species."
Brian Swimme
An immensely important challenge for these times —
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
It’s been a few weeks since Mary Oliver died — I’ve been reading some of her poems, thinking about how so many of her words came from the grace and beauty of the natural world. We lost Mary, but we still have those words in a world desperate for such qualities . . . .
"Life is too important to be taken seriously.”
Oscar Wilde
I’m starting January 2019 off with one of my favorite quotes —
"Hope and optimism are different. Optimism tends to be based on the notion that there's enough evidence out there to believe things are gonna be better, much more rational ... whereas hope looks at the evidence and says, 'It doesn't look good at all. Doesn't look good at all. Gonna go beyond the evidence to create new possibilities based on visions that become contagious to allow people to engage in heroic actions, always against the odds, no guarantee whatsoever'."
Cornel West
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