Saturday, March 16, 2019

Saturday ~ March 16, 2019

If you stay in comfort too long
you will not know
the weight of a water pot
on the bald head of a village woman...
If you stay in comfort too long
you will not know the pain
of childbirth without a nurse in white...
You will forget
the unfeeling bare feet
gripping the warm soil turned by the plow
You will forget
the voice of the season talking to the oxen.


(Chenjerai Hove, 1956 - 2015)

Friday, March 15, 2019

Friday ~ March 15, 2015

It is only through disruptions and confusion that we grow, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone else's private world with our own.

(Joyce Carol Oates, 1938 -  )

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Thursday ~ March 14, 2019 - Happy Birthday Albert Einstein

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose we know not, though we sometimes think we sense it. But even without deeper reflection, one knows from daily life that one exists for other people - first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of others, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

(Albert Einstein, 1879 - 1955)

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Wednesday ~ March 13, 2019

Nothing forced works. The Gordian knot just worsens if it's jerked at by a person. One of the main stations of the cross is patience. Another, of course, is impatience. There is such a thing as too much tolerance for unpleasant situations, a time when the gentle teasing out of threads ceases to be pleasing to a woman born for conquest. Instead she must assault the knot or alp or everest with something sharp and take upon herself the moral warp of sudden progress.


(Kay Ryan, 1945 -  )

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Tuesday ~ March 12, 2019

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and drear.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807 - 1882)

Monday, March 11, 2019

Monday ~ March 11, 2019

Remember how long you have procrastinated, and how consistently you have failed to put to good use your suspended sentence from the gods. It is about time you realized the nature of the universe (of which you are part) and of the power that rules it (to which your part owes its existence). Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.

(Marcus Aurelius, 121 - 180)

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Sunday ~ March 10, 2019

Back down these stairs to the same scene, to the moon, the stars, the night wind. Hours pass
and only the harp off in the distance and the wind moving through it. And soon the sun's gray disk,
darkened by clouds, sailing above. And beyond, as always, the sea of endless transparence, of utmost calm, a place of constant beginning that has within it what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, what has nor risen in the human heart. To that place, to the keeper of that place, I commit myself.

(Mark Strand, 1934 - 2014)

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