Artistic Growth
“Artistic growth is, more than anything else a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult that really is.”
Fear
“When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde
Dreams by Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
–From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
published by Alfred A. Knopf/Vintage.
Copyright © 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes.
He who flings mud loses ground
“Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intention to hurl it at your enemy; you are the one burned and harmed.”
Do you have emotions or do emotions have you?
If we learn to be aware of feelings without grasping or aversion, then they can move through us like changing weather and we can be free to feel them and move on like the wind. It can be a very interesting meditation exercise to focus specifically on our feelings for several days. We can name each one and see which ones we are afraid of, which we are entangled by, which generates stories, and how we become free. “Free” is not free from feeling, but free to feel each one and let it move on, unafraid of the movement of life. We can apply this to the difficult patterns that arise for us. We can sense what feeling is at the center of each experience and open to it fully. This is the movement toward freedom.
Jack Kornfield in A Path with Heart
See free, easy Meditation Instructions on this blog.
Silent Sin
To sin, by silence, when they should protest makes cowards of men.
Abraham Lincoln
Speak out
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Character
From PowerMinute,
a free cybercolumn
A friend told me he and his wife had recently gone to another state to bring his wife’s mother to live in a care facility near them. He had taken time off from work to move her. Since she had relocated, he had regularly stopped by to see her. It was also necessary for them to augment the mother-in-law’s income to cover the cost of her new residence.
I commented, “It’s nice of you to do all this.” A little sheepishly he said, “Down deep I really didn’t want to do it. I did it because it was the right thing to do.”
In one short, simple statement my friend defined character. “Doing what you should do when you don’t want to do it.”
Seeing Ourselves
That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no Gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is a grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.
Hero
The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.
Felix Adler, 1851-1933
American educator and founder of the Ethical Movement
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