Your Life

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

A frame

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

Silences

RIC_1468-1a, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

My silences have not protected me.

Your silence will not protect you.

Audre Lorde

Possibility

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

Students & Teachers

RIC_1307-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     Those who wake are the students.

     Those who stay awake are the teachers.

       Mark Nepo

Myths

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

God

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

Power

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

Mythology

RIC_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

Choice

RIC_8196-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

I am not what happened to me. 

I am what I choose to become. 

Carl Jung

Loneliness

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

Life of Compassion

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

.

Letting Go

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

Discipline of blessings

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

The inexpressible

RCC_0956, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     

     The inexpressible is the only thing that is

     worthwhile expressing.

        Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing

Lost

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

A Parable

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

Imagination

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

.

Life Story

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

Poetry

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

.