small choices

Much of what shapes us can't be helped — gravity, weather, time, genetic makeup.

Small choices that flow with the arc of life

can move a person from feeling this is a dreary prospect,

to feeling it is a thrilling one.

fond of dancing

“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.” 

― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

every separation is a link

Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.

— Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, “Metaxu” 

hear the light

“Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.”


― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

now your life

“Your beloved and your friends were once strangers. Somehow at a particular time, they came from the distance toward your life. Their arrival seemed so accidental and contingent. Now your life is unimaginable without them. Similarly, your identity and vision are composed of a certain constellation of ideas and feelings that surfaced from the depths of the distance within you. To lose these now would be to lose yourself.”

― John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

full of flight

The bell is full of wind
though it does not ring.
The bird is full of flight
though it is still.
The sky is full of clouds
though it is alone.
The world is full of voice
though no one speaks it.
Everything is full of fleeing
though there are no roads.
Everything is fleeing
toward its presence.

— Roberto Juarroz, from Vertical Poetry, translated from the Spanish by W. S. Merwin 

flows everywhere

The great Tao flows everywhere,
to the left and to the right.
All things depend upon it to exist,
and it does not abandon them.
To its accomplishments it lays no claim.
It loves and nourishes all things,
but does not lord it over them.

— Chuang-tzu