Margaret Atwood
We
wake, if we ever wake at all,
to mystery.
Annie Dillard
Still,
what I want in my life is
to be willing to be dazzled – to cast aside the weight of facts and
maybe
even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to
believe
I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery.
Mary Oliver
With
every thought of fear or terror
set aside, may I recognize whatever visions appear as the reflections
of
mine own consciousness.
Tibetan Book of the Dead
What
we lose in our great human
exodus from the land is a rooted sense, as deep and intangible as
religious
faith, of why we need to hold on to the wild and beautiful places that
once surrounded us.
Barbara Kingsolver, Small
Wonder
The
things that have been lost to
women for centuries can be found again by following the shadows they
cast
... across our nightdreams and in our imaginal daydreams.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women
Who Run With the Wolves
Every
day I walk out into the world
to be dazzled, then to be reflective.
Mary Oliver, Long Afternoon
at the Edge of Little Sister Pond
In
practice, we explore this threshold,
this place where old and new meet in a body. We explore the
"liminal"
— the realm in which we're touched beyond personality, beyond the
limits
of what we understand or have assigned ourselves as our life. A
practitioner
of Zen is most basically one whose life is awakening each moment to
that
threshold, the still point where all possibilities exist.
Bonnie Myotai Treace,
Mountain
Record, Summer 2003
One
by one, in tiny increments,
candle by candle, gesture by effort, wish by prayer, concern by care,
we
feed the life-fires of the soul and light the infinite universe, little
by little from within.
Donna Henes
Maybe
instead of running away from
this darkness, we can sit with it for a little bit. We can let
ourselves
be in the moon of long nights, and let ourselves hope for a miracle.
Jessica Prentice, Stirring
the
Cauldron
Alas,
I do not know either the mystical
word or the mystical diagram, nor do I know the songs of praise to
thee,
nor how to welcome thee, nor how to meditate on thee . . . nor how to
inform
thee of my distress. But this much I know, O Mother, that to take
refuge in thee is to destroy all my miseries.
China Galland, Longing for
Darkness
The
rule of no realm is mine, but
all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are
my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail in my task if
anything
passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and
flower
again in days to come. For I too am a steward. Did you not know?"
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return
of
the King (spoken by Gandalf)
In
the places that call me out,
I know I'll recover my wordless childhood trust in the largeness of
life
and its willingness to take me in.
Barbara Kingsolver, Small
Wonder
Be
humble for you are made of dung;
be noble for you are made of stars.
Serbian Proverb
Every
life is a story. Depart on
a mythic journey, and go places you never dreamed existed.
Mythic Journeys
Each
of us is like a jeweled star
in the universal constellation called the greater Sangha, the complete
circle of all beings.
Surya Das, Awakening the
Buddha
Within
It
is our greatest treasure to be
able to wait for the right moment. There are times when the only thing
to do is to wait. All that is required is to be simply alert, and
patient,
letting nature take its course. Be ready for something momentous.
Osho Zen Tarot
Be
astonished. Be transformed.
The journey will be amazing.
Mythic Journeys
Myth
is the song of the imagination,
infinite and endless.
Joseph Campbell
Stories
make us more alive, more
human, more courageous, more loving. Why does anybody tell a story? It
does indeed have something to do with faith, faith that the universe
has
meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we
choose
or say or do matters, matters cosmically.
Madeleine L'Engle
And
this is what we dream: We dream
the archetype of Wild Woman, we dream of reunion. And we are born and
reborn
from this dream every day and create from its energy all during the
day-time.
We are born and reborn night after night from this same wild dream, and
we return to daylight grasping a coarse hair, the soles of our feet
black
with damp earth, our hair smelling like ocean, or forest or cook fire.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women
Who Run With the Wolves
When
things are properly understood,
one's whole life is like a ritual or ceremony.
Pema Chodron
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves
