Courage comes as we understand that no punishment anyone might inflict on us could possibly be worse than the punishment we inflict on ourselves by living a divided life. The divided life ends in the sadness of never having been one’s true self. But when we live “divided no more,” we always have the last laugh. That laugh is neither at other people nor with other people- it is at and with ourselves. It comes when we see that our walled-off loves are prisons of our own making, that we defied our own integrity because we feared illusions that now seem laughable.  ~ Parker Palmer

there is no remembering the mysteries….we can only dive into the unknowns after having settled into our real lives….

I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams — like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves.

Each man’s life represents the road toward himself, and attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that — one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can.   ~Hermann Hesse

reveal & hold the sacred trust

I don’t know where

such certainty comes from- the brave flesh

or the theater of the mind-

but if I had to guess

I would say that only

what the soul

is supposed to be

could send us forth

with such cheer.

~Mary Oliver