Daily Affirmations

Union

On Friendship

      And a youth said, "Speak to us of Friendship."
      Your friend is your needs answered.
      He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
      And he is your board and your fireside.
      For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
      When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
      And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
      For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
      When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
      For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
      And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
      For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
      And let your best be for your friend.
      If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
      For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
      Seek him always with hours to live.
      For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
      And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
      For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

The sun and the sky

On Self-Knowledge

      And a man said, "Speak to us of Self-Knowledge."
      And he answered, saying:
      Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
      But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.
      You would know in words that which you have always know in thought.
      You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
      And it is well you should.
      The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
      And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
      But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
      And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
      For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
      Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
      Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."
      For the soul walks upon all paths.
      The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
      The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

Spring

From "After the Earthquake"

You changed the topography
Where valleys were, 
there now are mountains.
Where deserts were,
there are now seas. 
We rub each other
but we do not wear away.

Hoarded love

swollen with words you never said,
swollen with hoarded love.

I exist in two places,
               here and where you are.

From "Corpse Song" by Margaret Atwood   

Borges and I

The other one, Borges, is the one to whom things happen. I wander through Buenos Aires, and pause, perhaps mechanically nowadays, to gaze at an entrance archway and its metal gate; I hear about Borges via the mail, and read his name on a list of professors or in some biographical dictionary. I enjoy hourglasses, maps, eighteenth century typography, etymology, the savour of coffee and Stevenson’s prose: the other shares my preferences but in a vain way that transforms them to an actor’s props. It would be an exaggeration to say that our relationship is hostile; I live, I keep on living, so that Borges can weave his literature, and that literature justifies me. It’s no pain to confess that certain of his pages are valid, but those pages can’t save me, perhaps because good writing belongs to no one, not even the other, but only to language and tradition. For the rest, I am destined to vanish, definitively, and only some aspect of me can survive in the other. Little by little, I will yield all to him, even though his perverse habit of falsifying and exaggerating is clear to me. Spinoza understood that all things want to go on being themselves; the stone eternally wishes to be stone, and the tiger a tiger. I am forced to survive as Borges, not myself (if I am a self), yet I recognise myself less in his books than in many others, less too than in the studious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him, and passed from suburban mythologies to games of time and infinity, but now those are Borges’ games and I will have to think of something new. Thus my life is a flight and I will lose all and all will belong to oblivion, or to that other.

I do not know which of us is writing this page.

Tao

Tao means being. It believes in the moment; it has no idea of future. If you can live in this moment in purity, in silence, in spontaneity, then your life is transformed. Not that you transform it- Tao transforms it, the whole transforms it. You simply allow the river to take you to the ocean; you need not push the river. 

Warrior of Light

Warriors of light always keep a certain gleam in their eyes.They are of this world, they are part of the lives of other people and they set out on their journey with no saddlebags and no sandals.

They are often cowardly. They do not always make the right decisions. They suffer over the most trivial things, they have mean thoughts and sometimes believe they are incapable of growing.

They frequently deem themselves unworthy of any blessing or miracle. They are not always quite sure what they are doing here. They spend many sleepless nights, believing that their lives have no meaning.

That is why they are warriors of light.Because they make mistakes. Because they ask themselves questions. Because they are looking for a reason – and are sure to find it.

Our deepest fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. 

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. 

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children we do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. 

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

A Birthday Song

MY heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these,
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

Write!

The master says: Write! Whether it's a letter, a diary or just some notes as you speak on the telephone – but write! In writing, we come closer to God and to others.

 If you want to understand your role in the world better, write. Try to put your soul in writing, even if no one reads your words – or worse, even if someone winds up reading what you did not want to be read. 

The simple fact of writing helps us to organize our thoughts and see more clearly what is in our surroundings. 

A paper and pen perform miracles – they alleviate pain, make dreams come true and summon lost hope. The word has power. 

All these words

All these words are just a front. 

What I would really like to do

is chain you to my body, 

then sing for days and days and days.

                                       

Ecstasy-The Forgotten Language

Paint, sing, dance, compose poetry, make a statue.
Anything-but become creative. Plant a garden.
Anything-small, big, whatsoever; the proportion
is not the question. Anything-but be creative 

A zen koan

Once a fish went to a queen fish and asked: "I have always heard about the sea, but what is this sea? Where is it?"

The queen fish explained:"You live, move, and have your being in the sea. The sea is within you and without you, and you are made of sea, and you will end in sea. The sea surrounds you as your own being.

Another answer: SILENCE.

New Year Blessing

"On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life."

Opening Doors Within

Once you have taken a step forward in faith, never look backwards or start regretting what you have left behind. Simply expect the most wonderful future and see it come about. 

Leave all the old behind; it is finished. Be grateful for the lessons you have learnt and for all the experiences you have had, which have all helped you to grow and have given you a deeper understanding, but never try to cling on to them. 

What is waiting for you is far, far more wonderful than what you have left behind. When you have placed your life under My direct guidance and direction, how can anything go wrong?

It is when you have taken a step forward and then wonder if you have done right, and you allow doubts and fears in, that things begin to crowd in on you, and you find yourself bowed down by the weight of your decision. Therefore let go, release the past-and move forward with your heart filled with love and gratitude. 

From The Devil and Miss Prym

…there were two things that prevent us from achieving our dreams: believing them to be impossible or seeing those dreams made possible by some sudden turn of the wheel of fortune, when you least expected it. For at that moment, all our fears suddenly surface: the fear of setting off along a road heading who knows where, the fear of a life full of new challenges, the fear of losing for ever everything that is familiar.

People want to change everything and, at the same time, want it all to remain the same.

Perspective

I have come to believe that there are no new photos and few new stories, only unusual combinations of things that have been told before. But what is new, and fresh and original is the author’s lens through which these situations are viewed. Our gift, and consequently our responsibility as writers, is to view life situations in our naturally unique way and report the truth about their meanings and values to the reading public so they can have fresh insight into the human condition. We are each unique in the universe and, therefore, so are the stories we tell. 

Persistence

When nothing seems to help, I look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps 100 times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the 101st blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before."

Calling

I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint - and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you. 

Song of Myself

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if there was it led forward life, and does not
wait at the end to arrest it.
And ceased the moment life appear'd.  

I do not love thee!

I do not love thee!--no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.

I do not love thee!--yet, I know not why,
Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to me:
And often in my solitude I sigh
That those I do love are not more like thee!

I do not love thee!--yet, when thou art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.

I do not love thee!--yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.

I know I do not love thee! yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gazing where thou art.

Before You Came

(tr. by Agha Shahid Ali)

 

Before you came,
things were as they should be:
the sky was the dead-end of sight,
the road was just a road, wine merely wine.

 

Now everything is like my heart,
a color at the edge of blood:
the grey of your absence, the color of poison, or thorns,
the gold when we meet, the season ablaze,
the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of flames,
and the black when you cover the earth
with the coal of dead fires.

 

And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?
The sky is a shirt wet with tears,
the road a vein about to break,
and the glass of wine a mirror in which
the sky, the road, the world keep changing.

 

Don’t leave now that you’re here—
Stay. So the world may become like itself again:
so the sky may be the sky,
the road a road,
and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.

An Irish Blessing

May there always be work for your hands to do; 
May your purse always hold a coin or two; 
May the sun always shine on your windowpane; 
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain; 
May the hand of a friend always be near you; 
May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

Pride and Prejudice

When she was only fifteen, there was a gentleman at my brother Gardiner's in town, so much in love with her, that my sister-in-law was sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But however he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were.''

``And so ended his affection,'' said Elizabeth impatiently. ``There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!''

``I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,'' said Darcy.

``Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Every thing nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.''

Snowflakes

Out of the bosom of the Air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

even as our cloudy fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

In the white countenance confession,

The troubled sky reveals

The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

this is the secret of despair,

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

now whispered and revealed

to wood and field.

Gitanjali: Song 84

It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world and gives birth to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky. 

It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence all nights from star to star and becomes lyric among rustling leaves in rainy darkness of July. 

It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires, into sufferings and joy in human homes; and this it is that ever melts and flows in songs through my poet's heart.

Don't go far off, not even for a day

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

Pablo Neruda

Sonnets of Shakespeare: Sonnet 71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell; 

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so, 

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, 

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O, if (I say) you look upon this verse, 

When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,

But let your love even with my life decay,

Lest the wise world should look into your moan, 

And mock you with me after I am gone.

When I am dead, my dearest

When I am dead, my dearest,

         Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

         Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

         With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

         And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,

         I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

         Sing on, as if in pain:

And dreaming through the twilight

         That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

         And haply may forget. 

Christina G Rossetti

Mayan Prophecy 2012