“We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the Cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff.”
- Carl Sagan

“Consciousness is evolving throughout the universe in billions of forms. So, even if we didn’t make it, this wouldn’t matter on a cosmic scale. No gain in consciousness is ever lost, so it would simply express itself through some other form. But the very fact that I am speaking here and you are listening or reading this is a clear sign that the new consciousness is gaining a foothold on the planet.”
- Eckhart Tolle (read the full post here)

(both of the above via @unfolding who keeps a wonderful tumblr over at metaconscious.tumblr.com)

——-

“The reasonable [person] adapts [themself] to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to [themself]. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable [person].”
- George Bernard Shaw (via @goatsfoot)

“It has been said: 95% of everyone you meet is sound asleep.
That remaining 5% live in permanent AWE. Choose.”
- @TWM71

“Being responsible and conscientious in accomplishing crap merely means you’ve increased the amount of crap in the world”
- @ClopenSet

“Don’t whine about not having enough time or energy to write; do not think that only under altered circumstances would you be able to write. Instead, go and write, and go and write some more; your circumstances will alter themselves.”
- Sheila Bender (via @theseance)

The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

– Charles Bukowski

Beautiful poem originally seen on Coilhouse.

“The mind is like an elastic band. The more you pull, the more it stretches. The mind-elastic will never break. Every time you feel limitations, close your eyes and say to yourself, “I am the Infinite,” and you will see what power you have.”

- Paramahansa Yogananda

“In each atom of the realms of the universe,
There exist vast oceans of world systems.”

- The Great Flower Ornament (ancient Buddhist scripture)

On my last weekend in NYC in April, I picked up a lovely book at Bluestockings – one of my absolute favourite places in the city.

Instead of writing a typical book review of You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear by Frances Lappe and Jeffrey Perkins, I’ll share some excerpts and let the book speak for itself:

“Thus the root of fear, the reason many people feel trapped, even despairing, about the direction of our world, is not what we’ve assumed it was. It’s not just a shaky economy or suicide bombers or ecological meltdown. It’s that we’ve been forced to deny who we are. To discover who we are means risk – of the unknown and of separation from others. Our culture of fear tells us not to risk; yet in our hearts, many of us know that the fear of death, however great, is nothing compared to the fear that we might not have lived authentically and fully.”

“Today an anticommunity, corporate-driven culture is going global. It’s eroding life’s essentials, from clean air and safe water to topsoil and diverse species. It’s fostering anonymous, competitive, fear-filled ways of relating to one another that deny the human need for community. While staying with the pack always meant salvation to our species, now a willingness to break with the pack may be our real hope. What a time to be alive!”

“We know that our own personal happiness, our need for meaning, depends on developing our unique gifts. But for many of us, the very awareness of our uniqueness brings with it an awareness of difference – and therefore the fear of disconnection. From there, it’s a quick step to the old thought beginning this chapter: “If I break connection, I’ll be alone forever.”…

The trick is not to deny our need for connection but to believe we can become conscious choosers of it. Not snooty, not judgemental – just choosers. We can choose to bring into our lives those who reinforce us on our truer paths.”

“Let me remind you who you really are: You’re an immortal freedom fighter in service to divine love. You have temporarily taken on the form of a human being, suffering amnesia about your true origins, in order to liberate all sentient creatures from suffering and help them claim the ecstatic awareness that is their birthright. You will accept nothing less than the miracle of bringing heaven all the way down to earth.”
- Rob Brezsny in Pronoia

“I learned that enough is enough. I have purpose here on this planet. That what I do has purpose. Even if the monetary “value” says differently.”
- The wonderful, inspiring & wise Connie, over at Dirty Footprints Studio

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even if its not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from The presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the sliver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you are and how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder May 1994
(seen on Yoga to the People, thanks to @theseance for sending this to me!)

- Wikipedia article on Wabi-sabi

“17. Life is bittersweet, and bittersweetness is greatly to be preferred to pure sweetness.
In the classic iconography of Heaven, everyone is 33 years old, everyone looks the same, and everything is oddly dead, like a plastic flower on a grave. In real life, we love imperfections, irregularities, beauty spots, and signs of frailty or age. The mortal actual is far more lovable than the ideal.”

- Don Cupitt, The Religion of Ordinary Life*

* This is quite fascinating to read in full and contains some ideas that I find very freeing. Thanks to James for sending this my way!

“I think criticism, more often than not, completely misses the point, yes. The critical impulse, demonstrated by the tone of many of your own questions, is to suspect, doubt, tear at, and to take something apart to see how it works. Which of course is completely the wrong thing to do to art. I used to tear books apart, and tear art exhibits apart – I was an art and book critic for a few years in San Francisco – but my urge to do that was born of bitterness and confusion and anger, not out of any real need to help or edify. When we pick at and tear into artistic output of whatever kind, we really have to examine our motives for doing so. What is it about art that can make us so angry? Is it healthy to rip to shreds something created by an artist? I would posit, if I may, that that’s not really a healthy impulse. Now, as far as I know, out of maybe 100 or so reviews that I’ve been made aware of, my own book has received only one negative example. That’s pretty lucky, especially when you consider that Wallace, for example, has gotten pretty abused by some people, people who for the most part don’t have the patience his work requires. But criticism, for the most part, comes from the opposite place that book-enjoying should come from. To enjoy art one needs time, patience, and a generous heart, and criticism is done, by and large, by impatient people who have axes to grind. The worst sort of critics are (analogy coming) butterfly collectors – they chase something, ostensibly out of their search for beauty, then, once they get close, they catch that beautiful something, they kill it, they stick a pin through its abdomen, dissect it and label it. The whole process, I find, is not a happy or healthy one. Someone with his or her own shit figured out, without any emotional problems or bitterness or envy, instead of killing that which he loves, will simply let the goddamn butterfly fly, and instead of capturing and killing it and sticking it in a box, will simply point to it – “Hey everyone, look at that beautiful thing” – hoping everyone else will see the beautiful thing he has seen. Just as no one wants to grow up to be an IRS agent, no one should want to grow up to maliciously dissect books. Are there fair and helpful book critics? Yes, of course. But by and large, the only book reviews that should be trusted are by those who have themselves written books. And the more successful and honored the writer, the less likely that writer is to demolish another writer. Which is further proof that criticism comes from a dark and dank place. What kind of person seeks to bring down another? Doesn’t a normal person, with his own life and goals and work to do, simply let others live? Yes. We all know that to be true.”

- from this email exchange between Dave Eggers and someone else (seen on the wonderful galadarling.com)

“Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.”
- Robert A. Heinlein

“The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.”
- Richard Dawkins

“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”
- Carl Sagan

(Thanks to @SaganSchools for these wonderful quotes)

“The right idea has the power to overcome any challenge. We can always find that idea.”

- Ray Kurzweil