"Every day that I wake up I think to myself you are still here and woke up again for a reason. Make the best of today because who knows what tomorrow will bring. Love your family and friends. Make sure they know it."
^^^Thanks for posting this Karmamatterz, it's a beautifully written reminder, especially meaningful to me right now.
Love And Death What time the mighty moon was gathering light Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise, And all about him roll'd his lustrous eyes; When, turning round a cassia, full in view, Death, walking all alone beneath a yew, And talking to himself, first met his sight: "You must begone," said Death, "these walks are mine." Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight; Yet ere he parted said, "This hour is thine: Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath, So in the light of great eternity Life eminent creates the shade of death; The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall, But I shall reign for ever over all."
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson ~
'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
~ Tennyson ~
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung
We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not Knows no release from little things: Knows not the livid loneliness of fear, Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear the sound of wings.
Nor can life grant us boon of living, compensate For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate Unless we dare The soul's dominion. Each time we make a choice, we pay With courage to behold the resistless day, And count it fair.
~ Amelia Earhart ~
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung
We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
There are psychologists who think that consciousness accompanies brain processes and is determined by them but doesn't itself exert any influence on them. Something like the reflection of a tree in water; it couldn't exist without the tree, but it doesn't in any way affect he tree.
~ W. Somerset Maugham ~ The Razor's Edge
Epiphenomenon
I spend a long time considering pillowcases. Which pillowcase does my head want for rest? A lace edge so that the cheek does not grow bored?
All night the face turns on its pillow, bridging the day gone with its divination of tomorrow. The brain sleeps but the body twitches and kicks,
lashes out, steals the sheets, twists the blankets into thick, furred knots. Thomas Huxley believed the mind’s shrill whistle contributed nothing
to the locomotive body; Plato, that the mind knows great truths while the body lives in shadows. What I know is how sleep releases the body
from me telling it where to put its feet, its fingers, how the tongue should roll its Rs, when the teeth may bite or gnash. I give it my consideration
of pillowcases, of lotions and textures it may like, or farther afield—an actual field—clover against the skin. The sound of insects rising as the sun sets,
the head leaned back into a cradle of hands, how the head adores the hands though they are separated by so much and the jealousy of arms.
Body, I will lay you down beside another body you have grown to love. I will bid you still in the moments before sleep
and then I will hand you the keys to the house and let you spend the night plying all the locks. In the morning I will wash you with care
and lead you around and treat you kindly and if there is sobbing it is not my sobbing and we will both pretend not to hear it.
~ Karen Skolfield ~
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung
We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
As a drenched, drowned bee Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower, So clings to me My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears And laid against her cheek; Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm Swinging heavily to my movements as I walk. My sleeping baby hangs upon my life, Like a burden she hangs on me. She has always seemed so light, But now she is wet with tears and numb with pain Even her floating hair sinks heavily, Reaching downwards; As the wings of a drenched, drowned bee Are a heaviness, and a weariness.
~ D. H. Lawrence ~
~ Paula Modersohn-Becker ~
“Don't you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up?
~ D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love ~
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung
We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
Along the avenue of cypresses, All in their scarlet cloaks and surplices Of linen, go the chanting choristers, The priests in gold and black, the villagers. . . .
And all along the path to the cemetery The round dark heads of men crowd silently, And black-scarved faces of womenfolk, wistfully Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery.
And at the foot of a grave a father stands With sunken head, and forgotten, folded hands; And at the foot of a grave a mother kneels With pale shut face, nor either hears nor feels
The coming of the chanting choristers Between the avenue of cypresses, The silence of the many villagers, The candle-flames beside the surplices.
~ D.H. Lawrence ~
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung
We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
Leaves of grass, what about leaves of grass? Grass blossoms, grass has flowers, flowers of grass dusty pollen of grass, tall grass in its midsummer maleness hay-seed and tiny grain of grass, graminiferae not far from the lily, the considerable lily;
even the blue-grass blossoms; even the bison knew it; even the stupidest farmer gathers his hay in bloom, in blossom just before it seeds.
Only the best matters; even the cow knows it; grass in blossom, blossoming grass, risen to its height and its natural pride in its own splendour and its own feathery maleness the grass, the grass.
Leaves of grass, what are leaves of grass, when at its best grass blossoms.
~ D.H. Lawrence ~
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung
We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
...she moved about in a mental cloud of many-coloured idealities, which eclipsed all sinister contingencies by its brightness.
Rain on a Grave
Clouds spout upon her Their waters amain In ruthless disdain, - Her who but lately Had shivered with pain As at touch of dishonour If there had lit on her So coldly, so straightly Such arrows of rain:
One who to shelter Her delicate head Would quicken and quicken Each tentative tread If drops chanced to pelt her That summertime spills In dust-paven rills When thunder-clouds thicken And birds close their bills.
Would that I lay there And she were housed here! Or better, together Were folded away there Exposed to one weather We both, - who would stray there When sunny the day there, Or evening was clear At the prime of the year.
Soon will be growing Green blades from her mound, And daisies be showing Like stars on the ground, Till she form part of them - Ay - the sweet heart of them, Loved beyond measure With a child's pleasure All her life's round.
~ Thomas Hardy ~
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung
We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
Today the heavens are sealed with clouds and blind, A leaping madman comes the pathless wind, The rains of deluge flee, a storm-tossed shade, Over thy breast of gloom. Loud and dismayed Thy lost enormous chant rolls purposeless Seeking its end in an unregioned space. O come, thou great mad sea, O surging come! My breast defenceless mates thy dolorous foam. Darkness the heavens, the wind doom’s signal breath, I shall float on through thee or sink in death.
O painted clouds ! sweet beauties of the sky, How have I view'd your motion and your rest, When like fleet hunters ye have left mine eye, In your thin gauze of woolly-fleecing drest; Or in your threaten'd thunder's grave black vest, Like black deep waters slowly moving by, Awfully striking the spectator's breast With your Creator's dread sublimity, As admiration mutely views your storms. And I do love to see you idly lie, Painted by heav'n as various as your forms, Pausing upon the eastern mountain high, As morn awakes with spring's wood-harmony; And sweeter still, when in your slumbers sooth You hang the western arch o'er day's proud eye: Still as the even-pool, uncurv'd and smooth, My gazing soul has look'd most placidly; And higher still devoutly wish'd to strain, To wipe your shrouds and sky's blue blinders by, With all the warmness of a moon-struck brain,-- To catch a glimpse of Him who bids you reign, And view the dwelling of all majesty.
~ John Clare ~
John Clare Cottage, in Helpston, between Stamford and Peterborough
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung
We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows, My friends forsake me like a memory lost; I am the self-consumer of my woes, They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost; And yet I am! and live with shadows tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life nor joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems; And e'en the dearest- that I loved the best- Are strange- nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod; A place where woman never smil'd or wept; There to abide with my creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept: Untroubling and untroubled where I lie; The grass below- above the vaulted sky.
The journey's over; another's just begun Beneath moonlight, but by the warming sun I seek to hold you in sunshine or rain Beneath the heavens, I'm coming home again
So far we drifted, like ships upon the sea Horizons fading, we lost to destiny Storm clouds hover; our vanity like pain Which held back the winds that bring us home again
Could I see, now, the swallows in their flight Watch the moon dance on oceans in the night The trees reach upward to help the birds to fly And of the creatures who'll hear them when they cry
We walk the hillside like lost souls in the night And in the darkness, we're searching for the light And in the morning, like freshly fallen dew Much like a moon's breath, I'm coming home to you
This journey's over; another's just begun Beneath moonlight or by the warming sun For I remember that if my heart be true Just like an eagle, I'm coming home to you
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung
We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'
You could probably convince me to take off my glasses
and rise from the ocean at dawn. We’d need to hash
out the details before I gave my consent – but I could say
“Hmmmm, maybe” and you could watch the snow squalls
disintegrate off my body as I whisper “Bon Voyage.”
Some incandescent man could tell us not to climb on
the ropes, which would be disappointing as a bottle of
Mountain Dew left spinning in the air. There’s this inner
core of anguish and our misplaced optimism is but
a diaphanous membrane disguising the black hole that
engulfs my bedside table and fills our champagne
glasses with embarrassing Google searches. We all know
owls are phantoms but, holy moly, this wind… You could
probably convince me they’re just twenty dollar bills
spilling out of your back pocket and into the valley
below. I’ll think about that tomorrow as we fill each
others’ mouths with ice and snow and melting.
Right now I’m in an Uber, watching the trees go wild.
~Elizabeth Young~
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
~Roy Batty~
The greatest sin is to be unconscious. ~ Carl Jung
We may not choose the parameters of our destiny. But we give it its content. ~ Dag Hammarskjold 'Waymarks'