When it's over, I want to say I have been a bride married to amazement; I've been a bridegroom taking the world into my arms.
When it is 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.
From "When Death Comes" by Mary Oliver
An Aesop Fable:An old labourer, bent double with age and toil, was gathering sticks in a forest. At last he grew so tired and hopeless that he threw down the bundle of sticks, and cried out:
"I cannot bear this life any longer. Ah, I wish Death would only come and take me!"
As he spoke, Death, a grisly skeleton, appeared and said to him:
"What wouldst thou, Mortal? I heard thee call me."
"Please, sir," replied the woodcutter, "would you kindly help me to lift this faggot of sticks on to my shoulder?"
Moral: We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified. Art by Egon Schiele
A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known autumn too long.
e.e. cummings
Art by J. Charles
However smart we be, however rich and clever or loving or charitable or spiritual or impeccable, it doesn't help us at all. The real power comes in to us from the beyond. Life enters us from behind, where we are sightless, and from below, where we do not understand. And unless we yield to the beyond, and take our power and might and honor and glory from the unseen, from the unknown, we shall continue empty.
D.H. Lawrence
Otherwise known as The Fates (The Daughters of Necessity), Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos determine when life begins, when it ends and what happens in between. Some say that they are eternal and more powerful than any of the Gods.
God heard the embattled nations sing and shout:
"Gott Strafe England"- "God save the King"-
"God this" - "God that" - and "God the other thing."
"My God," said God, "I've got my work cut out."
J. C. Squire
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Rumi
Up through the chimney and out, the smoke mingled with the mist that was gathering speed, sweeping in thicker and thicker, obscuring things in parts—half a hill, then the other half. The trees turned into silhouettes, loomed forth, were submerged again. Gradually the vapor replaced everything with itself, solid objects with shadow, and nothing remained that did not seem molded from or inspired by it.
Kiran Desai
In ancient Egypt, The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony was conducted by a priest who would utter a spell and touch the mummy or sarcophagus with a ceremonial adze. This was to ensure that the mummy could breathe and speak in the afterlife.
When it's over, I want to say I have been a bride married to amazement; I've been a bridegroom taking the world into my arms.
An Aesop Fable:
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known autumn too long.
However smart we be, however rich and clever or loving or charitable or spiritual or impeccable, it doesn't help us at all. The real power comes in to us from the beyond. Life enters us from behind, where we are sightless, and from below, where we do not understand. And unless we yield to the beyond, and take our power and might and honor and glory from the unseen, from the unknown, we shall continue empty.
God heard the embattled nations sing and shout:
Up through the chimney and out, the smoke mingled with the mist that was gathering speed, sweeping in thicker and thicker, obscuring things in parts—half a hill, then the other half. The trees turned into silhouettes, loomed forth, were submerged again. Gradually the vapor replaced everything with itself, solid objects with shadow, and nothing remained that did not seem molded from or inspired by it.
In ancient Egypt, The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony was conducted by a priest who would utter a spell and touch the mummy or sarcophagus with a ceremonial adze. This was to ensure that the mummy could breathe and speak in the afterlife.
