Touch

RIC_0506-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

To be touched, we must, in turn, touch.

Phil Cousineau, 

The Art of Pilgrimage

Self

RIC_0018-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     You are always yourself, moment to moment, 
     in nonstop flow. Your way is not a becoming 
     but a being, not a matter of now and then, 
     but always: you are the time of your life. 

        Robert Meikyo Rosenbaum, 
        Walking the Way: 81 Zen Encounters with the Tao Te Ching

Compassion

RIC_7778-2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


Unless compassion means the act of suffering with the other
in their otherness, it becomes meaningless.

Gregory Wolfe, Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith, and Mystery

By words

RCC_3986, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

By words our thoughts are given wings.

Glenn Dixon, Pilgrim in the Place of Words: A Journey Through the 6,000 Languages of Earth

Idea

DSC_1566, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr

It is better to die for an idea that will live
  than to live for an idea that will die. 

Steve Biko

Storytellers

RIC_8253-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Storytellers use fiction to tell the truth,

and the more stories you know,
the more ways you have to tell the truth,

and the more stories you know,

the more courage you have to make a difference in the world. 

Dan Yashinsky, The Tale of Rob Ford, Insight, Toronto Star, Saturday, August 20, 2011

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Peace & Freedom

DSC_1835
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. 

Malcolm X

Letting go

RCC_0812
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

Lao Tsu

The singer

RIC_5975
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The singer is always divided into I and I.

Stephen Scobie

Our own beauty

RIC_7615
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

To really accept the beauty of the world, we must have a place in ourselves that understands our own beauty, that accepts the experience of beauty and ecstasy from within.

Christina Baldwin, One to One

Live the questions

RIC_7391
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. … Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. 

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Stories

RCC_3984
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

The only thing that keeps us from floating off with the wind is our stories. They give us a name and put us in a place, allow us to keep on touching.

Tom Spanbauer

We

RCC_3939
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

We fly; we dream in darkness; we devour heaven in bites too small to be measured.

Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Life?

RCC_1077
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

Mary Oliver, Have you Ever Tried to End the Long Branches

Ideal Community

RCC_0933
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

An ideal community is one that has a place for every human gift.

Margaret Mead

Imperative of Humanity

To make pain real is the task of the writer.  To pursue the end of pain is the imperative of humanity.

Alice Sebold