self – Page 8 – In the Woods

pomegranate seeds and stories

"Persephone" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti — “Persephone” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

We have all of us eaten the pomegranate seed of language, and we are its Persephones in its ways of structuring our experience of ourselves and the world.
~ John Moriarty
(Turtle Was Gone a Long Time)

They weren’t true stories; they were better than that.
~ Alice Hoffman
(The Story Sisters)

Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories – and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories. We can hardly manage our lives without a powerful on-going narrative.
~ Alice Munro
(Sport & Memory in North America)

The world is shaped by two things – stories told and the memories they leave behind.
~ Vera Nazarian
(Dreams of the Compass Rose)

what we are

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
~ Kurt Vonnegut
(Mother Night)

I find sometimes it’s easy to be myself
Sometimes I find it’s better to be somebody else
~ Dave Matthews
♫ (So Much to Say) ♫

beneath the trees

I have a need
For cool, verdant spaces
Beneath the trees
Secret empty places
Nobody knows
So no one will intrude
I have a need for solitude
~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
♫ (I Have a Need for Solitude) ♫

wonder in everything

“A Calling” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Wonder in everything
No matter how great or small…
Same thing that’s scrawled across the stars
Is written under our skin…
There’s a time to search for understanding
Sometimes you just got to sing
New horizons, new horizon within
~ David Gray
♫ (New Horizons) ♫

borrowing weighty words

I apologize to big questions for small answers.
O Truth, do not pay me too much heed.
O Solemnity, be magnanimous to me.
Endure, mystery of existence, that I pluck out the threads of your train.
Accuse me not, O soul, of possessing you but seldom.
I apologize to everything that I cannot be everywhere.
I apologize to everyone that I cannot be every man and woman.
I know that as long as I live nothing can justify me,
because I myself am an obstacle to myself.
Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,
and later try hard to make them seem light.
~ Wisława Szymborska
(Under a Certain Little Star)

a meaning for me

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
~ W. Somerset Maugham
(Of Human Bondage)

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!
~ Henry David Thoreau
(Walden)

trapped in error

"Johann Wolfgang von Goethe" by Joseph Karl Stieler — “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe” by Joseph Karl Stieler

Quite often, as life goes on, when we feel completely secure as we go on our way, we suddenly notice that we are trapped in error, that we have allowed ourselves to be taken in by individuals, by objects, have dreamt up an affinity with them which immediately vanishes before our waking eye; and yet we cannot tear ourselves away, held fast by some power that seems incomprehensible to us. Sometimes, however, we become fully aware and realize that error as well as truth can move and spur us on to action.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Maxims & Reflections)

human spirituality

“Soria Moria Castle” by Theodor Kittelsen

I am not interested in a spirituality that cannot encompass my humanness. I find little comfort or guidance in traditional dogma or unqualified New Age optimism. Because beneath the small daily trials are harder paradoxes, things the mind cannot reconcile but the heart must hold if we are to live fully: profound tiredness and radical hope; shattered beliefs and relentless faith; the seemingly contradictory longings for personal freedom and a deep commitment to others, for solitude and intimacy, for the ability to simply be with the world and the need to change what we know is not right about how we are living.
~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer
(The Invitation)

embrace all living creatures

“Harmony of Creatures”
by Margret Hofheinz-Döring

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe;” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
~ Albert Einstein
(Mathematical Circles: Mathematical Circles Adieu & Return to Mathematical Circles)