"Sweetie, if you're not living ...."

Sweetie, if you're not living on the edge, then you're taking up space.

Florynce Kennedy

"You do not have to be good ...."

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

"One day you will ask me ...."

One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours?

I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.

Khalil Gibran

"If you cannot find the truth ...."

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

Dogen Zenji

"I said to my soul ...."

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you

Which shall be the darkness of God….

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting….

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T S Eliot