A goodbye

RIC_0040, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

I have also learned that a goodbye is an opportunity for kindness, for forgiveness, for intimacy, and ultimately for love and a deepening acceptance of life as it is instead of what it was or what we may have wanted it to be. Goodbyes can be poignant, sorrowful, sometimes a relief, and, now and then, an occasion for joy. They are always transition moments that, when embraced, can be the door to a new life both for ourselves and for others.

Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye

Life

RIC_8420-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     Life is short, there is no time to leave important words unsaid.

     Recuerden: La vida es corta, no hay tiempo para dejar palabras

     importantes sin decir. 

        Paulo Coelho

At any given moment

RIC_0051, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

At any given moment you have the 
  power to say: This is not how the story is
  going to end.

Christine Mason Miller, Ordinary Sparkling Moments

Lost in the act of becoming

RIC_2012, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

… something is always

lost in the act of becoming —

as though necessity breeds

the loss of some universal truth ...

Michael Meyerhofer, Dinner Roll Zen in Illuminations, eds. by Mark L. Tompkins and Jennifer McMahon

Failure

RIC_0019 a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

You might never fail on the scale I did,
but some failure in life is inevitable.
It is impossible to live without failing at something,
unless you live so cautiously
that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case,
you fail by default.

J.K. Rowling

Destiny

RIC_3999
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made.  Destiny is made known silently. 

Agnes DeMille

Ignorance

DSC_9343
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Ignorance … is not a passive state of absence – a simple lack of information: it is an active dynamic of negation, an active refusal of information.

Shoshana Felman, Psychoanalysis and Education

Be Still

In the rush and noise of life,
as you have intervals,
step within yourself
and be still.
Wait upon God
and feel his good presence;
this will carry you through your day's business.

Be Still, William Penn