Saturday, March 31, 2012

Your Life

RIC_2698-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_2698-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.



     What can it be that has never yet been seen?
     What has never yet been seen is your own unprecedented
     life fulfilled.
     Your life is what has yet to be brought into being. 

         Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

Friday, March 30, 2012

A frame

RIC_1358-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1358-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


A frame is a unit of space-time; i.e., a moment is not an abstraction, but is filled with what is seen by the eye.

Czeslaw Milosz,
A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Possibility

RIC_2406-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_2406-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


The power of Jesus's parables challenge and enabled his followers to co-create with God a world of justice and love, peace and nonviolence. The power of Jesus' historical life challenged his followers by proving at least one human being could cooperate fully with God. And if one, why not others? If some, why not all? "Ashes denote," wrote Emily Dickinson, "that fire was." And if fire ever was, fire can be again.

John Dominic Crossan, 
The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Students & Teachers

RIC_1307-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1307-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     Those who wake are the students.
     Those who stay awake are the teachers.

       Mark Nepo

Monday, March 26, 2012

Myths

RIC_2579-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_2579-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Myths derive from the visions of people searching their own most inward world. Out of myths cultures are founded.

Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

Sunday, March 25, 2012

God

RIC_1401-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1401-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.



     God is the One who is with us when we have to do

     something we don't think we are capable of doing.

       Harold S. Kushner, Overcoming Life's Disappointments

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Power

RIC_1424-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1424-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.




The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.


Alice Walker

Friday, March 23, 2012

Mythology

RIC_2085 by rchoephotoRIC_2085, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     A whole mythology is an organization of
     symbolic images and narratives,
     metaphorical of the possibilities of human
     experience and the fulfillment of a given
     culture at a given time. 

       Joseph Campbell, 
       "Metaphor and Religious Mystery," Thou Art That: Transforming
       Religious Metaphor

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Loneliness

RIC_1207-2 by rchoephoto
RIC_1207-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     I am vehemently grateful that, by whatever means, I
     learned to assume that loneliness should be in part
     pleasure, sensitizing and clarifying, and that it is even a
     truer bond among people than any kind of proximity. 

       Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Life of Compassion

RIC_1129-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1129-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.

Mark Nepo, Accepting This


.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Letting Go

RIC_2420-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_2420-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.



     Don't keep searching for the truth;
     Just let go of your opinions.

       Seng Ts'an

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Discipline of blessings

RIC_1971-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1971-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

But the discipline of blessings is to taste
each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet
and the salty, and be glad for what does not
hurt. The art is in compressing attention
to each little and big blossom of the tree
of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit,
its savor, its aroma and its use.


Marge Piercy, The art of blessing the day

Saturday, March 17, 2012

The inexpressible

RCC_0956 by rchoephoto
RCC_0956, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     
     The inexpressible is the only thing that is
     worthwhile expressing.

        Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing














Friday, March 16, 2012

Lost

RCC_6587 by rchoephoto
RCC_6587, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


"Lost" for me is when I separate myself from what I know
to be true about myself. I become blind to my shadows
and wall myself off from others.

Tom Beech in Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead
by Sam M. Instrator & Megan Scribner

Thursday, March 15, 2012

A Parable

RIC_1939-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1939-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     A parable, that is, a metaphorical story, always points
     externally beyond itself, points to some different and
     much wider referent. Whatever its actual content is, a
     parable is never about that content. Whatever is internal
     subject, a parable always points you toward and wants
     you to do to some external referent.

       John Dominic Crossan,
       The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Imagination

RIC_2009-1 by rchoephoto

RIC_2009-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The reality of all the arts is that of the imagination. ... The security of the imagination lies in calling, all our lives, for more liberty, more rebellion, more belief.

Muriel Rukeyser, "The Resistances," The Life of Poetry


.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Life Story

RIC_1455-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1455-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     How often do we tell our own life story? How often do
     we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life
     goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our
     account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely
     the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but
     - mainly - to ourselves.

       Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Monday, March 12, 2012

Poetry

RIC_1780-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1780-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

The universe of poetry is the universe of emotional truth.
Our material is the way we feel and the way we remember.

Muriel Rukeyser,
"The Universe of Poetry," The Life of Poetry


.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Hope

RIC_2013-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_2013-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     Princess Turandot: “What is born each night and dies
     each dawn?”
     Prince of Tartary: “Hope.”

       Giacomo Puccini, Turandot

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Blesssing

RIC_2384-1 by rchoephoto

RIC_2384-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Attention is love, what we must give
children, mothers, fathers, pets,
our friends, the news, the woes of others.
What we want to change we curse and then
pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can
with eyes and hands and tongue. If you
can’t bless it, get ready to make it new.

Marge Piercy, The art of blessing the day




.

Friday, March 9, 2012

The content of faith

RIC_2140-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_2140-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The content of faith, for us, is not opposed to,
     exclusive of, other faiths.

         Muriel Rukeyser, "Poetry and Belief," The Life of Poetry

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Doorways

RIC_1763-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1763-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Doorways are sacred to women for we are the doorways of life and we must choose what comes in and what goes out.

Marge Piercy



Celebrating International Women's Day - http://www.internationalwomensday.com/.


Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Monday, March 5, 2012

History

RIC_1726-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1726-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     History is that certainty produced at the point where the
     imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of
     documentation.  ...  It's more the memories of the
     survivors, most of whom are neither victorious nor
     defeated. 

       Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Miracle

RIC_1968-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1968-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     To live in the beauty of the ordinary, to live in the 
     holiness of simplicity, that is the miracle, the treasure to
     be found within the mundane. 

       Janelle Shantz Hertzler, The Mundane and the Miracle in Seasons of Solace

Friday, March 2, 2012

Seeing

RIC_2026-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_2026-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Seeing, in the finest and broadest sense, means using your senses, your intellect, and your emotions. It means encountering your subject matter with your whole being.

Freeman Patterson, Photography and the Art of Seeing

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Choice

RIC_1044-1 by rchoephoto
RIC_1044-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     When facing a dilemma, choose the 
     more morally demanding alternative. 

       Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters