Meditative Quotations for a Sunday Afternoon

A train of thought, in quotations...

"One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter." ~ James Earl Jones

"The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings." ~ The Buddha

"Every beginning, after all, is nothing but a sequel, and the book of events is always open in the middle." ~ Wislawa Szymborska

"Once you have loved, You will always love. For what's in your mind may escape, but what's in your heart will remain forever. There is no instinct like that of the heart." ~ Lord Byron.

"Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted." ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts." ~ Charles Dickens

"In those whom I like, I can find no common denominator; in those whom I love I can: they all make me laugh." ~ W. H. Auden

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

"Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet." ~ Plato

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding." ~ Yehuda Amichai

"Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." ~ Rumi

"Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries." ~ Theodore Roethke

Eternities Still Unsaid

A Thousand Years - Sting

A thousand years, a thousand more,
A thousand times a million doors to eternity
I may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times
An endless turning stairway climbs
To a tower of souls
If it takes another thousand years, a thousand wars,
The towers rise to numberless floors in space
I could shed another million tears, a million breaths,
A million names but only one truth to face

A million roads, a million fears
A million suns, ten million years of uncertainty
I could speak a million lies, a million songs,
A million rights, a million wrongs in this balance of time
But if there was a single truth, a single light
A single thought, a singular touch of grace
Then following this single point, this single flame,
The single haunted memory of your face
I still love you
I still want you
A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head

I may be numberless, I may be innocent
I may know many things, I may be ignorant
Or I could ride with kings and conquer many lands
Or win this world at cards and let it slip my hands
I could be cannon food, destroyed a thousand times
Reborn as fortune's child to judge another's crimes
Or wear this pilgrim's cloak, or be a common thief
I've kept this single faith, I have but one belief
I still love you
I still want you
A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head
On and on the mysteries unwind themselves
Eternities still unsaid
'Til you love me

Love and the Sexuality of Flowers

Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Do Something from Optimism

This video is of Patrick, his family, and his quest to paint 100 portraits of incurable optimists before he dies.

I have motor neurone disease (MND). I’m gradually losing the ability to walk, talk, eat and breathe. I won’t see my daughter go to primary school and she won’t remember me. I am dying – MND is killing me.

I’m determined to use what’s left of my life and my diminishing artistic skill to encourage others to do something optimistic every day. MND may be incurable but I am an incurable optimist. I know that through optimism we will find the cure to MND.

Optimism - even for just a few moments a day - can create a chain of small actions that really can change the world. It's all that ever really ever has.