your presence

“Mrs. Schwarz” by Edvard Munch

What you do for yourself — any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself — will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.
~ Pema Chödrön
(Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living)

Portraits are to daily faces
As an Evening West,
To a fine – pedantic sunshine –
In a satin Vest!

~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #174)

Practice sharing the fullness of your being, your best self, your enthusiasm, your vitality, your spirit, your trust, your openness, above all, your presence. Share it with yourself, with your family, with the world.
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
(Jon Kabat-Zinn: In His Own Words)

a warm and helping hand

"Hooded Crows" by Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939) Swedish Wildlife Painter
“Hooded Crows” by Bruno Liljefors

Now as the last broad oak leaf falls, we beg, consider this:
there’s some who have no coin to save for turkey, wine or gifts.
No children’s laughter round the fire, no family left to know.
So lend a warm and a helping hand, say Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow.
~ Ian Anderson
♫ (Jack Frost & The Hooded Crow) ♫

Welcome Winter!

a need for solitude

“Sunlight in the Blue Room” by Anna Ancher
“Sunlight in the Blue Room” by Anna Ancher

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a “lone traveler” and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude – feelings which increase with the years.
~ Albert Einstein
(Einstein: His Life & Universe)