Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Bring the Earth your love and happiness.
The Earth will be safe
when we feel safe in ourselves.
– Thich Nhat Hahn
Until you spread your wings, you’ll have no idea how far you can fly.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all,And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea,
Yet never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.– Emily Dickinson
Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.
The Crimson Candle*
A man lying at the point of death called his wife to his bedside and said:
“I am about to leave you forever; give me, therefore, one last proof of your affection and fidelity, for, according to our holy religion, a married man seeking admittance at the gate of Heaven is required to swear that he has never defiled himself with an unworthy woman. In my desk you will find a crimson candle, which has been blessed by the High Priest and has a peculiar mystical significance. Swear to me that while it is in existence you will not remarry.”
The Woman swore and the Man died. At the funeral the Woman stood at the head of the bier, holding a lighted crimson candle till it was wasted entirely away.
*Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce. Transcribed from the 1899 G. P. Putnam’s Sons edition by David Pric
Will
You will be what you will to be; Let failure find its false content
In that poor word “environment,” But spirit scorns it, and is free.
It masters time, it conquers space,
It cowes that boastful trickster Chance,
And bids the tyrant Circumstance Uncrown and fill a servant’s place.
The human Will, that force unseen, The offspring of a deathless Soul,
Can hew the way to any goal, Though walls of granite intervene.
Be not impatient in delay,
But wait as one who understands;
When spirit rises and commands The gods are ready to obey.
The river seeking for the sea Confronts the dam and precipice,
Yet knows it cannot fail or miss;
You will be what you will to be!
Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
