#Failures teach you more than anything else..If you ready to learn. quote

[qureshimushranabdulrauf]

Failures............Milestones...

Failures are the milestones in the journey towards success but often not celebrated. We should teach young ones to accept and cherish their failure, learn from them and move forward better prepared. Thank You! Take Care! Smile Always! Stay Happy and Healthy! Pray!

[justalittleb-witchy]

Deities Can Lie, and Why that's Good

(No this is not a sign, please do not take it as such. If this is something you are insecure about, I do not recommend reading this post. This is more philosophical than anything else.)

This is something that, when most people hear it, will be responded to with "its common sense that they can, but they won't", and I want to push back on that a little bit.

Lying is almost always associated with bad intentions, but sometimes it can be necessary when teaching someone a lesson that they wouldn't otherwise understand. The methods gods will use to get a point across to their practitioner is highly dependent on the god, their practitioner, and their relationship. I feel like I can pretty confidentially say that in most situations your god would not lie to you, nor would they have a reason to.

But lying does serve a purpose. And sometimes it's the most efficient way to get things done-- much in the same way gods sometimes omit information. I am going to tell two stories to try and get my point across.

Let's say Susie is positively anxious about her crush. She keeps asking over and over again if they are meant to be together forever. They are not-- they'll break up eventually-- but Susie is the type of person who would never pursue a relationship if it's not fated to be forever. The overall experience of being with this person is something Susie will be deeply grateful for, and she would learn and grow from being with them. But she's so afraid of pain that she would never take that first step if she knew what the end result would be. Yes, the gods could tell her that it will end in tragedy, but she needs to pursue it anyways-- but would she listen to them? Probably not. These are instances where information might be omitted, questions might go unanswered, or small lies might be told, all for her greater good. It's painful, it sucks, and its somewhere where most people would draw the line-- but there is a reason for it, and there are cases where it might be used. The gods' goals are not always our immediate goals and that's something I try to be mindful of-- and practice patience because of this-- in my practice.

This second example is a personal one, with many, many details changed. The core lesson is still the same.

Eons ago, I applied to be a part of a play. This play was very important to me, and I wanted a very specific role. I kept asking again, and again, and again, if I was going to get it. I kept getting told that yes, it would work out, I just had to be patient-- but the casting decision was taking forever. I had all but lost faith. Every five minutes (hyperbolically) I was asking, "Did I get it? Did I get it? Did I get it?"

Finally, I got a different answer. A very firm "no". A firm "we've been lying to you this entire time, you suck, you were never going to get that role." And immediately, I believed it. It "confirmed" my worst biases. I placed this singular reading above the countless I had done before it, above all of the signs that had endlessly been sent my way-- because it confirmed something negative I thought about myself. And then I was (metaphorically) given a firm slap upside the head. "Really, kid?", the reading seemed to say, "You believed that over everything else we've told you? You're so scared of failure that you're unwilling to consider the possibility of success." The direct quote I have from that reading is "How ready were you to accept defeat when spoken?", which basically was calling me out for not believing in myself.

This was an instance when a lie was appropriate-- confirming my worst fears was the only way to snap me out of it, to make me realize that I was refusing to accept the possibility of something good happening. And, for the record, I did wind up getting my dream "role" in that "play", and everything worked out in the very peculiar way I predicted. "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" also applies to anticipating negative results.

To summarize, I guess the moral of this all is that lying does sometimes serve a purpose. It doesn't inherently mean that you are worshiping the "wrong" or "fake" god. It also doesn't mean that you can't trust what you read. You have to consider everything in balance with what comes before it. If you have a negative relationship with a deity, maybe a lie is what broke the camels back-- but its back was fractured to begin with. A healthy relationship isn't predicated on always getting your way, or always understanding what's going on. It is important for you to decide where your boundaries lie (haha, pun), and for you to decide if a few white lies are a deal breaker.

ALSO, AGAIN, THIS IS NOT A SIGN. This cycles back to my story about always assuming the worst result. Please don't use this as some sort of confirmation of your deepest darkest fears. I genuinely believe that deities lying is a rare occurrence. In my ten-ish years of experience, I can count the number of times this has happened to me on one hand. Usually there's a more effective way to get things done than lying.

[derangedrhythms]

Do you have any quotes on languages/mother tongue?

"But language is wine upon his lips."

— Virginia Woolf, from 'Jacob's Room'

"We speak as persons because we desire to disclose ourselves to each other and to share our experiences, not because we must, but because we enjoy sharing them. When we genuinely speak, we do not have the words ready to do our bidding; we have to find them, we do not know exactly what we are going to say until we have said it, and we say something new that has never been said in exactly the same way before. This means that, even if the speaker and listener use the same language, they both have to translate, for no two persons speak their mother-tongue in exactly the same way."

"Let me finish, as I began, with language. Whatever his duties as a citizen, a poet, qua poet, has only one political duty. Everything he writes must be a model example of the correct and subtle use of his mother tongue, which is always in danger of being corrupted by journalism and the mass media. I call this political because, when words lose their meaning, physical force takes over."

— W. H. Auden, from 'The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: 1969-1973'

"Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire."

— Roland Barthes, from ‘A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments’, tr. Richard Howard

"[...] man would inhabit a magical world in which the image of an object, the emotion it aroused and the word signifying it were all identical, a world where past and future, the living and the dead were united. Language in such a world would consist only of proper names which would not be words in the ordinary sense but sacred syllables, and, in the place of the poet, there would be the magician whose task is to discover and utter the truly potent spell which can compel what-is-not to be."

"Any one who attempts to translate from one tongue into another will know moods of despair when he feels he is wasting his time upon an impossible task but, irrespective of success or failure, the mere attempt can teach a writer much about his own language which he would find it hard to learn elsewhere. Nothing else can more naturally correct our tendency to take our own language for granted. Translating compels us to notice its idiosyncrasies and limitations, it makes us more attentive to the sound of what we write and, at the same time, if we are inclined to fall into it, will cure us of the heresy that poetry is a kind of music in which the relations of vowels and consonants have an absolute value, irrespective of the meaning of the words."

— W. H. Auden, from 'The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays'

"I dream of a language whose words, like fists, would fracture jaws."

— E. M. Cioran, from 'The New Gods', tr. Richard Howard

"In no other language than in our beloved German mother tongue could Nature have revealed her most secret workings."

— Heinrich Heine, quoted in ‘The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: 1969-1973’

"so many languages have fallen / off of the edge of the world / into the dragon's mouth. some / where there be monsters whose teeth / are sharp and sparkle with lost / people. lost poems. who / among us can imagine ourselves / unimagined? who / among us can speak with so fragile / tongue and remain proud?"

— Lucille Clifton, The Book of Light; 'here yet be dragons'

"Language always betrays us, tells the truth when we want to lie, and dissolves into formlessness when we would most like to be precise."

— Jeanette Winterson, from 'Sexing the Cherry'

"Inventing a private language, each time we love. The codified speech of lovers."

— Joyce Carol Oates, from 'Blonde'

"I feel a strong kinship for anything German. I think that it is the most beautiful language in the world, and whenever I meet anyone with a German name or German traits, I have a sudden secret warmth."

— Sylvia Plath, from ‘The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume I: 1940–1956’

"Nothing like love to put blood / back in the language,"

— Margaret Atwood, True Stories; from ‘Nothing’

"I don’t know every language in the world—maybe if I knew Sanskrit and Chinese I would think differently—but there’s something about Greek that seems to go deeper into words than any modern language. So that when you’re reading it, you’re down in the roots of where words work, whereas in English we’re at the top of the tree, in the branches, bouncing around. It was stunning to me, a revelation. And it continues to be stunning, continues to be like a harbor always welcoming. Strange, but welcoming."

— Anne Carson

"And what words do between themselves—couplings, matings, hybridizations—is genius. An erotic and fertile genius."

— Hélène Cixous, Stigmata: Escaping Texts; from ‘Writing Blind: Conversation with the Donkey’, tr. Eric Prenowitz

"Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head, warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood."

— Carol Ann Duffy, The World’s Wife; from ‘Little Red-Cap’

"Language, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another’s treasure."

— Ambrose Bierce, from 'The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary'

[lifeofkaze]

The Soil We Need to Grow

Neville Longbottom Short

Prompts: Herbology Incident

1) (character) Neville Longbottom

2) (object) flower pot

3) (quote) "You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." — Maya Angelou

Word Count: ~ 1.500

________________________________________

With a shriek, Rose Weasley dove behind one of the raised flower beds lining the greenhouse. Like all the other flower beds and tables in the brightly lit Herbology classroom, it was already covered in clay shards, soil and green shreds of what had formerly been the sapling of a Wiggentree.

On the central table the culprit causing this commotion was currently in the process of wrapping its slashing tentacles around the garden shears lying dangerously close to it. Rose’s face lost all its colour as the raging Venomous Tentacula managed to hoist them up and fling them in the rough direction of her hiding place.

As the shears were soaring through the air, the door to the greenhouse suddenly opened and a tall man in a soil covered cardigan strode in, several boxes of seeds balanced on his arms. His eyebrows rose in astonishment at the havoc that had been wreaked in his classroom.

“Get down!” Rose managed to scream just in time for Professor Longbottom to duck and evade the deadly projectile.

He dropped his boxes and jumped behind the flower bed she had been cowering behind. Rose winced as another flower pot crashed against the wood shielding them.

“What in Merlin’s name has happened here?” Neville asked in a mix of astonishment and exasperation. “When you said you wanted to experiment on the Venomous Tentacula, I thought you had something like testing fertiliser in mind.”

He carefully glanced over the edge of the table and waited for a moment until the rogue plant had turned its attention to the helpless sapling again. He quickly drew his wand and with a practised flick of his wrist, the Venomous Tentacula froze, dropped the branch it was currently munching on and then faltered in on itself.

With a sigh of relief, Neville stood up and extended a hand to help Rose to her feet. She brushed off the dirt from her clothes and contritely took in the messed up greenhouse.

“I wanted to make it stronger and more resilient,” she mumbled, “so I added a Fortifying Potion to the watering can. I wouldn’t have thought it would get quite so fortified,” she added unhappily, wringing her hands. “I’m really sorry, Professor Longbottom, please don’t take any House points from me.”

Neville had listened to her without interrupting; it was palpable that this project was important to the daughter of his closest friends, and that she was devastated at its outcome.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured the distressed girl gently. “I know how it feels to experience setbacks like this.”

Rose looked at him astonishedly. “You do?”

Neville nodded in confirmation. “When I was your age, I tried to tweak Valerian plants to reverse their properties.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Do you know which potion Valerian is used for?” Neville asked in return instead of an answer.

Rose thought about it for a moment, raking her memory for the according information. “Um, a Forgetfulness Potion, I think?” It was more of a question than a statement.

“Exactly,” Neville confirmed. “I was terribly forgetful when I was your age. My grandmother even got me a Remembrall in my first year,” he laughed quietly, his face softening from reliving fond memories, “but alas, I regularly forgot where I put it.”

Rose watched Neville silently; she had a feeling that this wasn’t the only reason the man she had to call Professor at school and Neville when he was visiting her family home had undertaken such an effort as a student. “Was that the only reason, Professor?”

Neville’s face grew serious. “I assume your parents have told you about my family, haven’t they?”

Feeling sorry for bringing up such a personal topic, Rose’s eyes dropped to the ground. “I didn’t mean to make you think about something so awful, Professor; I’m sorry,” she evaded his question sheepishly.

“It’s alright,” Neville answered. “See, the minds of my parents were shattered when they fought for what they believed in. While they still somehow knew who I was, the Healers told me they didn’t fully remember me. But them remembering was all that I wanted back then, more than anything else. So I started looking for a way to help them. It was what drove me.”

His eyes were twinkling as he looked her up and down. “What is driving you, Rose Weasley?”

Rose shuffled her feet and wrung her hands. She knew Neville was friends with her mother and telling him about her motivation almost felt like telling her mother herself.

“Everyone always tells me how smart my mum is,” she finally admitted. “Brightest witch of her age, brain of the Golden Trio, Minister of Magic at such a young age. I want to make her proud. I thought by creating something totally new, something no one had ever done before, I could do that; show the world I have some brains on me as well. But no matter what I do, it never really works, something always goes wrong. It’s so frustrating!” The words spilled out of her in a quick succession, as if she had wanted to tell someone for a long time.

“I was feeling just as frustrated as you do now,” Neville answered after listening to her words. “But Professor Sprout, who was teaching Herbology when your parents and I were at school, shared one of her personal wisdoms with me when she saw my discouragement.”

He reached for one of the few flower pots that wasn’t lying in shambles at their feet and held it up for her to see. “See this flower pot? It is empty now, just a vessel ready to be filled with whatever you wish. What would you put in there?”

Rose fought not to raise her eyebrows doubtfully; she wasn’t quite sure if a philosophical lecture on flower pots was what she needed right now.

“I’d put a plant in there, I guess,” she shrugged, having no idea where this was leading.

Neville did as she suggested and put a sapling into the empty pot; without anything to support it, it immediately slumped to the side and fell to the bottom.

“What do you think is missing?” he asked her with a patient smile.

“You forgot the soil,” Rose answered. “Without soil the pot is too big.”

Neville’s eyes sparkled. “Exactly; like your endeavour to create something on your own to make your mother proud, this pot seems too big for a small sapling like this; without sustenance, it cannot grow.”

He grabbed a shovel and started adding loadful after loadful of the rich, dark soil he kept in sacks underneath the working tables, slowly filling the pot up with it.

“However, if you keep trying and trying and learn from your past mistakes, you can build a base for your wish to grow upon. Your failures are like the soil a plant needs to grow from a sapling into a flower; if you don’t let yourself get discouraged by them, they can be the foundation of your success.”

Neville gently set the sapling upright in the now filled flower pot and pressed down on the soil with his fingertips. Rose watched him quietly, letting his words sink in; she’d never felt anything but frustration at her own failed experiments before.

“But you didn’t succeed with your Valerian, did you?” she said after some time.

Neville didn’t look up from his flower pot. “No, I didn’t”

She grimaced. “Then what was the purpose? All the effort was in vain. There was no flower growing from it.”

To her surprise, Neville laughed and shook his head. “I didn’t accomplish what I was trying to do, but I wouldn’t say it was in vain either.”

He held up his dirty hands for her to see. “While I was trying to find a solution for what was driving me, I discovered other things; my love of Herbology, for example; the inner peace working with plants gives me; and that the direct way doesn’t always lead you where you need to go.”

Satisfied with his work, he straightened himself up and brushed the soil from his hands. With an encouraging smile, he pushed the pot with the small green sapling towards her; surrounded by the massive heaps of dark earth, it was looking a bit lost.

“I said I wouldn’t deduct any House points from you for wrecking my classroom,” Neville said sternly, but Rose could see the laughter shining in his eyes. “But as compensation, you will take care of this little friend here for me. I expect to see a full grown beauty by the end of the year.”

He took out his wand again and turned from her as he started to repair the damage her Venomous Tentacula had done to his work materials. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Rose tentatively grabbing the flower pot.

“Thank you, Neville,” she mumbled, the more familiar use of his first name not escaping him.

“You’re welcome, little Rose,” he smiled over his shoulder. “I believe in you. If anyone can grow a flower your mother would be proud of, it’s you.”

[poepoe-thebunny]

Damien The Littlest Brother

Or: Stuff Damian does with his siblings.

Dick

Dick in some ways was another form of idolization for Damian. Damian was so very young when they first met, younger still when Ra's and the league sunk their teeth into his heart and tried their best to tear it to shreds. Dick's role, part sibling part guardian, was the first major form of stability Damian had. Little Damian had been born with the mythos of The Bat hanging overhead, and the hope of measuring up to first his grandfather's and then his father's standards had nearly broken him.

Like a lot of children Damian didn't necessarily understand or appreciate what Dick was trying to do for him until he was older. But just like other children Damian clung to the emotional support and care Dick gave him, the care he had so often been deprived of.

Damian wasn't necessarily there for the events that shaped Dick and the rest of their family, but he is growing up in the aftereffects of it. Dick chose to give Damian the love he deserved, Dick chose not to punish a child for the situation he was born into. But Dick isn't perfect. He loses his temper, he gets frustrated, he gets things wrong, he makes mistakes, he bleeds. Dick, at least initially, was real and human in a way Bruce wasn't to a little boy who already had his future decided for him.

While he may not admit it, Damian looks up to Dick because in a lot of ways Dick is a better person than most. Dick is a good man, a better man than Bruce in some ways. He shows Damian what a hero actually is, and that the concept of being a hero isn't tied to the suit. Dick shows Damian that he can and is a good person, that he can make those decisions for himself and that his own emotional needs are not anything to be ashamed of. Damian is a boy first, not a weapon.

So Damian leans into his affection. There are shared naps after patrol, and days out getting ice cream or going to the zoo. Damian wakes a tired Dick up with a pillow to the face, and pillow fights and laughter ensues. Dick comes along to the school showcases, where an embarrassed Damian has pictures and paintings of their family up for all to see. He never once mocks Damian's desires, instead listening with seriousness to every moment of Damian's vulnerability.

That's what sticks with Damian the most. That Dick wholeheartedly believes Damian is a good person, that Damian can be good and kind and soft. He sees Damian fumble with his cool demeanor, growing shy and embarrassed when chatting with students his own age. Damian knows the names of most of his classmates, takes down random details that shouldn't be important to a stranger "We're NOT friends Grayson," but Damian talks to the youngest students about animals, and how to properly hold puppies. Damian has lists of underfunded animal shelters and regularly sends them to Bruce and Tim when preparations for the Wayne Foundation charity events come up. Damian knows most of the officers in Bludhaven since he occasionally stops by with something for Dick, a late lunch or hot drink or Dick's spare clothes in case he needs out of his police uniform. After many coos, head pats and cheek pinches, Damian is occasionally "babysat" by some of them while Dick is out on patrol of the police variety. He does not realize how much he has charmed Dick's co-workers, talking about his pets or his brothers.

Dick is the kind of hero, the kind of person, Damian was told wasn't real. That heroes were childish nonsense, that mercy and love were weak. The concept that someone could love him, that he was deserving of love instead of being forced to earn it, was foreign. But Dick Grayson was all of that. So Damian puts up less and less of a fight over the silly pictures they take together. Dick buys books about animals, and Damian grudgingly wears the cute stupid animal ear headbands Dick buys him. While part of Damian knows he won't be, the part that viciously beats "heroes" and "love" and "ice cream" back with a vengeance, another part of Damian, a very small fragile part, thinks that maybe if he grew up becoming like Dick Grayson the Person (TM) it wouldn't be so bad. "Awww thanks Dami!"

Jason:

Next to Tim, the Cain Instincts are strongest with Jason. Jason is constantly ruffling his hair, calling him names, and sitting on him. Jason does not give a single iota of a damn for any sort of authority except Alfred. Jason is not afraid of Damian.

So when Damian latches onto Jason's neck ready to strangle him, he laughs like it's the best thing he's ever seen, and a wrestling match ensues. They bond over it, over the goading and the competition.

They bond over books too, over stories and musicals and words Damian shouldn't care about but he does. Damian says he's too old for fairy tales even though he never had them to begin with, never had stories told when tucked into bed unless it was for a harsh life lesson. And yet Damian will find books as gifts for Jason, and Jason will read them aloud after Damian annoys him by pressing his feet into Jason's side. He swears up and down that the exaggerated voices and accented narration from Jason are done purely to annoy him. Damian constantly interrupts him, always asking questions and Jason tells him to shut up and be patient, "learn to listen demon brat."

They watch Disney and Ghibli, Laika and Illumination, and after a very enlightening conversation with one Tim Drake, Jason introduces Damian to theater. From Antigone to Romeo and Juliet, from West Side Story to Hadestown to Heathers the Musical. Bruce has walked in on them recreating various iconic sword fights too many times to count, quoting lines while dressed in blanket robes and crowns made of craft feathers and stick on jewels. Alfred thorough enjoys their riveting performances.

Like a lion teaching his cubs through play, Jason teaches him that he's never too mature for anything and screw anyone else who doesn't like it. Jason teaches him fun in a way Damian never allowed himself to have before, to look past his mission, and do things for enjoyment. He teaches Damian defiance and rebellion, two very important things for him to learn even if it's only interrupting rude rich people and disagreeing with his father over whether he needs to attend another gala.

Damian and Jason have a strange relationship, and initially aren't quite sure how to act around one another. Such large parts of their identity and experiences were formed by an indirect overlapping influence. Jason's death and the effect it had on the family and how they treat Damian, Jason's time with the league and the lazarus pit. But at the same time they understand each other in a way some of their other siblings don't. The strength and struggle in establishing their independence and identity means that their grudging respect turns into fondness with time.

Tim:

It appears that Cain Instincts don't particularly care if one is related or not, given the sheer amount of times Tim and Damian are at each other's throats initially. But with time they settle and grow more comfortable with each other, the words turn from anger to a grumbly sort of discontent, like irritated puppy's more than anything.

They bond over pride. They bond over failure. The two aren't that different really. They've seen each other at their worst. Missions with too many close calls, where the knife wounds cut too close and the bullets bit to deep, when the snap of Gotham's jaw came to close to closing over them and the only thing saving Gotham's Rogues from the collective wrath of two angry Robin's was the weight of their family's morals.

They had to learn to trust each other. But they do.

The insults are more to fill the silence, partially affection and partially with the need to annoy. They watch reruns of Star Trek and play Legend of Zelda in pajama pants (Tim) and hoody's (Damian), half draped over each other with his feet in Tim's lap. When Damian couldn't find one to his satisfaction, he gifted Tim a new skateboard with his own hand drawn and painted design. He sends a video to the family group chat of him laughing when Tim faceplants.

They are the DEFINITION of annoying to each other. Damian chucks clothes at Tim to make him shower, they get into slap fights over breakfast, they sneer at each other's drinks. "With all the coffee it's no wonder you don't grow Drake," While handing a sick Tim herbal tea for his throat.

It's an underlying trust that rarely needs to be affirmed. But when it does Damian won't hesitate to let his opinion be known. Whether it be high school bullies mocking his gangly brother, reporters trying to pit the "blood son" against the "Boy CEO", or shady members of the Gotham elite with too much interest in his family and his company, Damian's blunt attitude comes back with a vengeance. There will be no Wayne Charm, no shop talk, no backhanded compliments, when Damian Wayne gets between them and his brother. It's "I trust my brother," and "No business with the likes of you," or even "When I said you two weren't on the same level, I meant that you were the incompetent one."

Tim always tries to scold him, tells him he shouldn't be petty, I can protect myself demon, but he smiles while he says it.

Stephanie

She teases him mercilessly, will smile sweetly while "blackmailing" him and challenges him to do things he has never done before. Damian won't admit he enjoys any of it even upon threat of death. She's loud, annoying, and demanding and unapologetically so and Damian is convinced she was dropped on her head as a child. Stephanie is his sister and he loves her as a younger brother would, hurling insults at each other while fighting over french fries drinking smoothies in some fast food restaurant at 2 in the afternoon on a day out.

What strikes him about Stephanie is that she demands respect because she knows on a fundamental level that she deserves it, that all of her hard work was her own and she knew she could do it even when everyone else thought she didn't belong. As he grows Damian comes not only to admire her, but finds this a very important lesson to learn for himself.

Stephanie pushes him, she encourages him even if it's hidden under mutually shared insults. On days where she "babysits him" (she does not, Damian tells himself he doesn't need a babysitter he doesn't) she's perfectly happy to work on their motorcycles together, or have random picnics in the park with bags of fast food, or challenge him to rounds of ping pong. They learn eventually that they make a very good team together. Either destroying Tim and Jason in video games, the occasional local ping pong or DDR tournament when visiting Gotham U, or spur of the moment plans in a night time fight. Stephanie is crazy enough to believe it will work, and Damian is crazy enough to believe Stephanie will follow.

Stephanie understands what it feels like to constantly have to justify yourself, to be told you can't measure up and that you're place isn't here, even though you know it is. To have the weight of your family's decisions hanging overhead for the judgment of others.

So they learn to love each other through healthy competition and teasing remarks. Stephanie shoos him off to "talk to kids your own age, don't be so serious!". It's normal, in some ways the closest to normal Damian has had in a long time. And though they won't say it out loud, it's nice to know someone else agrees that they are entitled to these moments of happiness, these moments they were stripped of and denied for so long. They believe in each other and their right to happiness. Damian will never doubt Stephanie's strength, as spoiler or Batgirl or robin or Stephanie, and in return she will never doubt him or his place in their family.

...

Even if that means trying to escape when she wants to play dress up. "I am not your doll Brown," "Fine fine, whatever you say short stack."

Cass:

The moments between Damian and Cass are silent, but if you believe nothing is said then you are entirely wrong. They speak to each other quite often even if they don't use words.

He watches her dance, and thinks she is so strong. Damian swears she could have been a princess in another life, if life had not sunk its fangs in and poisoned her with pain instead. Just as he would have been a prince. While he initially tried to hide it, Cass always knew he was there. Damian watches her. Damian hears her words, her joy and her tears, and puts it down on to charcoal and paper. I hear you, and he shows them to her, how her form litters his pages as she pats his head. There is, Damian thinks, a poetic irony in seeing something so dangerous create something so beautiful. She is art and deserves to be heard, and Damian is grateful that she hears him too. He lets her look at pages of charcoal and ink, at canvases of paint full of everything Damian can't put into words quite yet, and finds understanding.

But while he is a Wayne, he was an Al Ghul at one point and his mother gave him the training every prince should have, skills beyond his sword. So one day, as she stretches, he brings in a case and sets it down with a clunk. He tunes the strings and plays Tomaso Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor, as she watches him with eyes that understand far too much, eyes that say I know, I hear you baby brother. Damian almost wishes she didn't, partially due to the struggle of his own pride, but also because no one should ever have to understand that kind of pain.

Moments with Cass are quiet, but they are never silent. Cass teaches him understanding, helps teach him empathy. And while Damian knows he can never dance the way she can, he can play and sketch and paint and between them their secrets can no longer be secrets. Cass doesn't teach him how to feel ,no, he's always been too good at that. Instead she teaches him ways to coax them out when the words won't come, to look around him with the wonder he wasn't allowed to have before, to let him be defined by a different set of skills that shows he can create something beautiful too.

Duke:

Damien thinks Duke is "cool", like the kind of cool you see in movies and TV shows, the average teenage boys in jeans and sneakers who fight for the underdog and stand up to bullies in a 3-on-1 fight even if they know they won't win. There is a conviction in Duke that rivals Damian's own, and Damian can't help but admire someone willing to strike out on their own and do something when they felt others were failing.

Duke is "Chill" as Jason likes to say, he's low pressure and not pushy in a way that Damian appreciates. He's calm, not in the stoic way of some of the others, but in a way that doesn't put Damian out of his comfort zone with expectations.

Time spent with Duke often consists of puzzles and card games, or movies. Duke is very good at using Damian's own pride against him to "trick" him into playing, but together they do everything from DnD to Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters. It's relaxing.

Duke tells him about school and if Damian is having trouble with the more normal things of being a tween, like worrying whether other kids like him, or wearing something embarrasing, Duke brings him out of his own head. Duke plays along with his competitive nature, challenging him to races the few times they patrol together. He finds Damian outside drawing, and teaches him soccer. Other times they sit there together, Duke writing whatever comes to mind while Damian sketches. Damian gifts Duke a detailed portrait of himself; standing in the center of the crowded streets, body spliced into neat clockwork-style segments with patches of his Signal uniform, the red jacket from his time in the "We R Robin" crew, his sports uniforms, and casual clothing, the bright light of his powers bursting from within in a halo under the Gotham smog. He is Gotham's daylight protector, unique and gifted, and Damian respects that.

It's not easy, Damian is still young and cocky, still isn't very good at saying what he feels. But Duke sees right through his attempts to play it off, and it's always met with head pats and a "Whatever you say lil' D." Damian won't say it out loud but he thinks that the sheer conviction Duke has for doing what's right bleeds into every aspect of him, and that maybe with time it will do the same for himself. Damian admires his strength of will and determination, and the work Duke is willing to put in to get what he wants.

[kkintle]

Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics by Richard H. Thaler; Quotes

One day on a phone call I asked him how he was feeling. He said, “You know, it’s funny. When you have the flu you feel like you are going to die, but when you are dying, most of the time you feel just fine.”

Let a six-year-old girl with brown hair need thousands of dollars for an operation that will prolong her life until Christmas, and the post office will be swamped with nickels and dimes to save her. But let it be reported that without sales tax the hospital facilities of Massachusetts will deteriorate and cause a barely perceptible increase in preventable deaths—not many will drop a tear or reach for their checkbooks.

“willingness to pay” or “willingness to accept.”

Opportunity costs are vague and abstract when compared to handing over actual cash.

The Weber-Fechner Law holds that the just-noticeable difference in any variable is proportional to the magnitude of that variable. If I gain one ounce, I don’t notice it, but if I am buying fresh herbs, the difference between 2 ounces and 3 ounces is obvious. Psychologists refer to a just noticeable difference as a JND.

So, we experience life in terms of changes, we feel diminishing sensitivity to both gains and losses, and losses sting more than equivalently-sized gains feel good.

Big ideas are fine, but I needed to publish papers to stay employed. Looking back, I had what science writer Steven Johnson calls a “slow hunch.” A slow hunch is not one of those “aha” insights when everything becomes clear. Instead, it is more of a vague impression that there is something interesting going on, and an intuition that there could be something important lurking not far away. The problem with a slow hunch is you have no way to know whether it will lead to a dead end. I felt like I had arrived on the shores of a new world with no map, no idea where I should be looking, and no idea whether I would find anything of value.

Economists don’t care whether you like a firm mattress better than a soft one or vice versa, but they cannot tolerate you saying that you like a firm mattress better than a soft one and a soft one better than a firm one.

Psychologists tell us that in order to learn from experience, two ingredients are necessary: frequent practice and immediate feedback.

Many people have made money selling magic potions and Ponzi schemes, but few have gotten rich selling the advice, “Don’t buy that stuff.”

acquisition utility and transaction utility.

Expressions such as “don’t cry over spilt milk” and “let bygones be bygones” are another way of putting economists’ advice to ignore sunk costs.

Many mentioned the advice, often attributed to William Faulkner, but apparently said by many, that writers have to learn to “kill their darlings.” The advice has been given so often, I suspect, because it is hard for any writer to do.

The bigger lesson is that once you understand a behavioral problem, you can sometimes invent a behavioral solution to it. Mental accounting is not always a fool’s game.

A good rule to remember is that people who are threatened with big losses and have a chance to break even will be unusually willing to take risks, even if they are normally quite risk averse.

Although it is never stated explicitly as an assumption in an economics textbook, in practice economic theory presumes that self-control problems do not exist.

Some early economists viewed any discounting of future consumption as a mistake—a failure of some type. It could be a failure of willpower, or, as Arthur Pigou famously wrote in 1921, it could be a failure of imagination: “Our telescopic faculty is defective and . . . we, therefore, see future pleasures, as it were, on a diminished scale.”

The economics training the students receive provides enormous insights into the behavior of Econs, but at the expense of losing common-sense intuition about human nature and social interactions. Graduates no longer realize that they live in a world populated by Humans.

I once gave a talk about self-control to a group of economists at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. At one point I used the word “temptation,” and one of the audience members asked me to define it. Someone else in the audience jumped in to say, “It’s in the Bible.” But it was not in the economists’ dictionary.

Ainslie’s paper also provides a long discussion of various strategies for dealing with self-control problems. One course of action is commitment: removing the cashews or tying yourself to the mast. Another is to raise the cost of submitting to temptation. For example, if you want to quit smoking, you could write a large check to someone you see often with permission to cash the check if you are seen smoking. Or you can make that bet with yourself, what Ainslie calls a “private side bet.” You could say to yourself, “I won’t watch the game on television tonight until I finish [some task you are tempted to postpone].”

We all have occasions on which we change our minds, but usually we do not go to extraordinary steps to prevent ourselves from deviating from the original plan. The only circumstances in which you would want to commit yourself to your planned course of action is when you have good reason to believe that if you change your preferences later, this change of preferences will be a mistake.

At some point in pondering these questions, I came across a quote from social scientist Donald McIntosh that profoundly influenced my thinking: “The idea of self-control is paradoxical unless it is assumed that the psyche contains more than one energy system, and that these energy systems have some degree of independence from each other.” The passage is from an obscure book, The Foundations of Human Society. I do not know how I came by the quote, but it seemed to me to be obviously true. Self-control is, centrally, about conflict. And, like tango, it takes (at least) two to have a conflict.

One principle that emerged from our research is that perceptions of fairness are related to the endowment effect.

“If you gouge them at Christmas they won’t come back in March.” That remains good advice for any business that is interested in building a loyal clientele.

Although it is true that in the Ultimatum Game the most common offer is often 50%, one cannot conclude that Proposers are trying to be fair. Instead, they may be quite rationally worried about being rejected.

Further research by Ernst Fehr and his colleagues has shown that, consistent with Andreoni’s finding, a large proportion of people can be categorized as conditional cooperators, meaning that they are willing to cooperate if enough others do. People start out these games willing to give their fellow players the benefit of the doubt, but if cooperation rates are low, these conditional cooperators turn into free riders. However, cooperation can be maintained even in repeated games if players are given the opportunity to punish those who do not cooperate. As illustrated by the Punishment Game, described earlier, people are willing to spend some of their own money to teach a lesson to those who behave unfairly, and this willingness to punish disciplines potential free riders and keeps robust cooperation rates stable.

Not everyone will free ride all the time, but some people are ready to pick your pocket if you are not careful.

Shefrin and Statman’s answer relied on a combination of self-control and mental accounting. The notion was that some shareholders—retirees, for instance—like the idea of getting inflows that are mentally categorized as “income” so that they don’t feel bad spending that money to live on. In a rational world, this makes no sense. A retired Econ could buy shares in companies that do not pay dividends, sell off a portion of his stock holdings periodically, and live off of those proceeds while paying less in taxes.

“Discovery commences with the awareness of anomaly, i.e., with the recognition that nature has somehow violated the paradigm-induced expectations that govern normal science.” —Thomas Kuhn

the Journal of Economic Perspectives is available free online to anyone at www.aeaweb.org/jep, including all the back issues. It is a great place to learn about economics. 

If the outside view is fleshed out carefully and informed with appropriate baseline data, it will be far more reliable than the inside view. The problem is that the inside view is so natural and accessible that it can influence the judgments even of people who understand the concept—indeed, even of the person who coined the term.

Flip a coin, heads you win $200, tails you lose $100. As Samuelson had anticipated, Brown declined this bet, saying: “I won’t bet because I would feel the $100 loss more than the $200 gain.” In other words, Brown was saying: “I am loss averse.” But then Brown said something that surprised Samuelson. He said that he did not like one bet, but would be happy to take 100 such bets.

“If it does not pay to do an act once, it will not pay to do it twice, thrice, . . . or at all.”

“myopic loss aversion.” The only way you can ever take 100 attractive bets is by first taking the first one, and it is only thinking about the bet in isolation that fools you into turning it down.

One reason is that it is risky to be a contrarian. “Worldly wisdom teaches that is it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.”

Remember another of Keynes’s famous lines. “In the long run, we are all dead.”

In a rational world there would not be very much trading—in fact, hardly any. Economists sometimes call this the Groucho Marx theorem. Groucho famously said that he would never want to belong to any club that would have him as a member. The economist’s version of this joke—predictably, not as funny—is that no rational agent will want to buy a stock that some other rational agent is willing to sell. Imagine two financial analysts, Tom and Jerry, are playing a round of golf. Tom mentions that he is thinking of buying 100 shares of Apple. Jerry says, that’s convenient, I was thinking of selling 100 shares. I could sell my shares to you and avoid the commission to my broker. Before they can agree on a deal, both think better of it. Tom realizes that Jerry is a smart guy, so asks himself, why is he selling? Jerry is thinking the same about Tom, so they call off the trade. Similarly, if everyone believed that every stock was correctly priced already��and always would be correctly priced—there would not be very much point in trading, at least not with the intent of beating the market. No one takes the extreme version of this “no trade theorem” literally, but most financial economists agree, at least when pressed, that trading volume is surprisingly high. There is room for differences of opinion on price in a rational model, but it is hard to explain why shares would turn over at a rate of about 5% per month in a world of Econs. However, if you assume that some investors are overconfident, high trading volume emerges naturally.

The key lesson is that prices can get out of whack, and smart money cannot always set things right.

“the three bounds”: bounded rationality, bounded willpower, and bounded self-interest.

When people are given what they consider to be unfair offers, they can get angry enough to punish the other party, even at some cost to themselves.

The winner’s curse. When many bidders compete for the same object, the winner of the auction is often the bidder who most overvalues the object being sold. The same will be true for players, especially the highly touted players picked early in the first round. The winner’s curse says that those players will be good, but not as good as the teams picking them think.

The false consensus effect. Put basically, people tend to think that other people share their preferences.

A competitive labor market does do a pretty good job of channeling people into jobs that suit them. But ironically, this logic may become less compelling as we move up the managerial ladder. All economists are at least pretty good at economics, but many who are chosen to be department chair fail miserably at that job. This is the famous Peter Principle: people keep getting promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.

“I am not the sort of person who would steal, and I hope you are not one of those evil types either.” This is an example of what game theorists call “cheap talk.” In the absence of a penalty for lying, everyone promises to be nice. However, there turns out to be one reliable signal in all this noise. If someone makes an explicit promise to split, she is 30 percentage points more likely to do so. (An example of such a statement: “I promise you I am going to split it, 120%.”) This reflects a general tendency. People are more willing to lie by omission than commission.

(...) he said he was planning to steal right up until the last minute. The hosts reminded him that he had given an impassioned speech about his father telling him that a man is only as good as his word. “What about that?” the hosts asked, somewhat aghast at this revelation. “Oh, that,” Ibrahim said. “Actually, I never met my father. I just thought it would be an effective story.” People are interesting.

Someone turning sixty who finds herself flush with surplus savings has numerous remedies, from taking an early retirement, to going on lavish vacations, to spoiling the grandchildren. But someone who learns at sixty that she has not saved enough has very little time to make up lost ground, and may find that retirement must be postponed indefinitely.

When dealing with Humans, words matter.

standard recommendation from the Cialdini bible: if you want people to comply with some norm or rule, it is a good strategy to inform them (if true) that most other people comply.

Ethical nudges must be both transparent and true.

If you want to encourage someone to do something, make it easy.

“big peanuts” fallacy

Those looking for behavioral interventions that have a high probability of working should seek out other environments in which a one-time action can accomplish the job. If no one-time solution yet exists, invent one!

As Gene Fama often says when he is asked about our competing views: we agree about the facts, we just disagree about the interpretation.

Mark Twain once said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

[nikkidrobertson]

4 Back to School Tips for New (and not so new) School Librarians

*originally written for School Library Journal

Congratulations on your new job as a school librarian! It is hands down the absolutely best job...EVER!  Last year, entering my twenty-sixth year as an educator and twenty-first year as a school librarian, I found myself in the position of being a new librarian again in quite a few ways.  I retired from Alabama and moved to Texas for an awesome school library position to work for an administrator for whom I have great respect and admiration. I moved from working at a high school library for the past twelve years to working at an elementary school. I moved from having a flexible schedule to a fixed schedule as part of the Specials rotation with Art, Music, and PE. I moved from having amazing, full time library aides to having no full time aide. I changed from having no district library supervisor to having and incredibly supportive one. I moved from not having a unified district library structure to having a very well structured program. So much was all new to me! Below are four tips to help you as you enter this new chapter of your life.

Get Connected

Being a school librarian can be a shockingly isolating profession, especially after having formed tight, supportive networks while you were a classroom teacher.  As a school librarian you are in a sort of no man’s land. You aren’t part of the teacher peer group, you aren’t part of the administrative peer group. Often, you are the only person in your school that works in and understands what it takes to run an active, engaging, supportive library.  Many school districts, unfortunately, often perpetuate this isolation by not allowing time for district librarians to meet and plan collaboratively which only exacerbates the isolation.

FIND YOUR PEOPLE

Don’t wait around for your district to connect you. Reach out to the other librarians in your district and find out what you have in common. Maybe your children both play softball, go to gymnastics, or dance class. Perhaps you could set up playdates, or other social interactions to get together outside the school day.  My favorite since my children are grown and out of the house is to set up weekend brunch/lunch meetings or after school dinner meetings. Talk, have fun, swap ideas and plan. Plus, it’s fun to have time away with friends who really get each other. Don’t stop there. Connecting with librarians outside of your school, district, and state, and country brings a unique worldview into your library program and enriches student learning.

Where To Find Your People

Twitter

Twitter is one of the best places you can go to connect, share, learn and grow with other school librarians and connected educators. Twitter is how I went from being a burned out educator to feeling like I never want to do anything else but teach.  Teaching before Twitter was lonely, frustrating, and boring. Teaching with Twitter is energizing, invigorating, fun, creative, and I never want to get off this ride of bringing awesome learning opportunities to my students and teachers.

There are a few secrets to truly harnessing the power of Twitter.  

Hashtags: By following, commenting, sharing, and connecting using hashtags you will maximize your own professional learning.  

Three hashtags I’d recommend for school librarians are:

#TLChat

#FutureReadyLibs

#ISTELib

Don’t limit yourself to just these hashtags. Make sure to connect using state education hashtags, makerspace hashtags, and educational technology hashtags as well.

Twitter Chats: Twitter chats are the scheduled conversations, usually in a Q/A format lead by a moderator or moderators that take place on a weekly or monthly basis.

Two places to find hashtags for you, your teachers, and administrators are:

Participate Learning Chats

Cybraryman’s Educational Hashtags

Facebook

        Facebook is a great place to join groups. A few of my favorite Facebook Groups include:

Future Ready Librarians

ISTE Librarians Network

The School Librarian’s Workshop

MakerSpaces and the Participatory Library

Professional Development Resources for School Librarians

Below are a few professional development resources where you can find your people and have official professional development at the same time.

Future Ready Librarians Webinars

Library 2.0 Webinar Series

ISTE Librarians Network Professional Development

I owe my much of my success to my PLN. Without their strength, support, guidance, ideas and more I would not be able to accomplish so many of my professional and personal goals.  Through social media connections I have developed true friendships with other librarians and educators who will cry with you and lift you up when you are struggling and laugh, dance, and celebrate with you when you are successful.

Be Fearless

Be fearless even if you are trembling on the inside.  Be the one who demonstrates that it is ok to not know something but be willing to learn, fail, and start again. We need to model for both our students and our teachers the willingness to not know everything and the need to not control everything.  

While I am in no way a fan of being on a fixed schedule as part of the Specials rotation, was awesome to have a captive audience to try out new ideas garnered through my incredible and diverse PLN (Professional Learning Network).  I loved learning about a new technology, app, website, craft, and more and knowing that I could go into work the next day and try it out with the kids even if I didn’t really know how to do it myself. Part of the fun was learning right along with the students and letting them teach me!

We also need to assist our teachers with expanding collaboration beyond the school building to forge authentic real world learning opportunities with others across the country and around the world using video conferencing tools like Google Hangouts, YouTube Live, and Skype. Events like Read Across America, World Read Aloud Day, International Dot Day, Andy Plemmons’ Picture Book Smackdown, Elissa Malespina’s virtual debates, Stony Evans’ #StonyStories empowering students to be in house PD and national presenters, National Poetry Month/Poem in Your Pocket Day, Mystery Skype, and so many more events can be made exponentially better by connecting with other schools celebrating or doing the same things.  I love that Shannon Miller put together a Google Document this past year where we can all share monthly Library Celebrations, any of which could be made collaborative.  

One new technology I want to use this year is #GridPals via FlipGrid. I introduced my students and school to FlipGrid during my first year.  Students, teachers, administrators, and parents could all contribute to our two FlipGrid topics; Book of the Day and Quote of the Day.  These grids were then incorporated into our morning news show. That way the whole school community had an opportunity to be part of the morning announcements.  

This year I want to connect my students through the new #Gridpals program. While FlipGrid has a Google Form where you can connect your students with other students around the world, you can always team up with another teacher or teachers you know to do something similar on your own.

I challenge you this year to be fearless! Part of being fearless is stepping out and trying new things even if you have never tried them before.  The willingness to learn and put yourself out there even if failure ensues (and it will) is the most fearless thing you can do!

Remember That You Are HUMAN

Entering a brand new chapter as a school librarian I set an impossibly high bar for myself in part because I knew what I had been able to do in my past schools.  I failed to take into account all of the supports that I had in place in my old schools that I no longer had in my new school; a full time aide, a flexible schedule, student library aide (a great high school perk), and more.  

I worked myself at a frenzied pace to try to meet my own unrealistic goals. I weeded a collection that had not been weeded properly in twelve years with the help of my new district library supervisor, Becky Calzada. I genrefied the collection. I ripped shelving off the walls, moved and discarded furniture, and took apart and rearranged the circulation desk. I started a morning news show for our school’s morning announcements. I created makespace style centers and introduced cool new technologies to the kids like green screens, robotics, coding, and more. My third through fifth grade students created and maintained digital portfolios.

I found myself working all night at home and all weekend just to keep up with all the tasks I had heaped on my professional plate. I was exhausted, frustrated, angry, and after just the first year at my new school I was quickly moving into burnout mode.

Then I talked to my library hero and mentor, Jennifer Lagarde.  After attentively listening to my woes she said, “What advice would you give another librarian if they were saying these same things to you?”  Jennifer also asked, “Would you talk to another librarian the way you are talking to yourself?” Wow! Jennifer’s words really made me stop and think.  

I would advise another librarian to choose just one goal for each school year and concentrate on that. I’d also say, “Give yourself a break. Celebrate the cool things you are doing rather than beating yourself up over the things you aren’t doing.”  Being a connected educator is great for ideas and support from people who “get you” but can also make you feel as if you aren’t doing enough. As long as students are your main focus you are moving in the right direction. You are not a superhero. You are a beautiful, wonderful, talented human being with much to offer to your new students, staff, administrators, parents, and community members.

Make Community Connections

The PTA, parents, and grandparents this first year in Texas were my saving grace. I was so fortunate to have an involved and supportive PTA.  They took charge of the first Scholastic Book Fair of two booked by the previous librarian for the school year. I still felt as if I was drowning when that first book fair came around and couldn’t have possibly done it without them.

I was also blessed with some pretty incredible parent and grandparent volunteers.  With over 800 students and a tight back to back fixed schedule the ability to just shelve books was overwhelming.  My two grandparent volunteers, Ms. Gloria and Ms. Jean came every Tuesday and Thursday to shelve books. Whew! If it weren’t for them I would be buried under piles of books.  Ms. Phan, Ms. Bercu, Ms. Roberts, and Ms. Williams were also great helpers, often coming in to shelve books but also to help out with our library center activities.

My new school also hosted a WatchDog Dads program. My very basic understanding of the program is that the dads come to school with their kids and help out where needed but also spend time with their kids in class.  Just at moments when I thought I would just curl up into a ball and start crying, a WatchDog Dad would walk into the library and save me. One day in particular the Internet went out which meant my book checkout system was down as were most of my center activities. I was frantically trying to devise a plan when three WatchDog Dads walked into the library. Together we quickly came up with a plan of action and the day was saved!

My principal and front office staff also helped me out by sending substitute teachers to the library whenever they had a planning period on their schedule. I liked this because I could learn more about the school and community by talking and making friends with them. I can’t believe I went 25 years without knowing you could have substitutes help out like that!

Final Thoughts

More than any other advice I can give I think the most important things you can do as a new librarian is have fun, don’t take yourself too seriously, and always put serving others with joy (even when you don’t feel joyful) before all other tasks (management tasks can wait...people are more important).  

Want to read my 5 Tips for New School Librarians (and those who aren't so new) posted summer of 2017?  Click HERE and enjoy!

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[flukeoffate]

Thoughts on TLJ

I have seen multiple conversations talking about how The Last Jedi deconstructs/ruins Star Wars or whatever.

I don’t think that is the point.

SPOILERS:

Yoda tells it best: that failure is the greatest teacher.

Holdo also had great words of wisdom (Yeah, yeah; she is quoting Leia) when she explains to Poe that you can’t only believe in hope when you can see it. Sure, hope is dim now. It’s easy to lose. But giving up is the ONLY way to truly lose hope.  You can only win if you fight to the end.

More than anything else, this movie serves a valuable purpose for the new generation of characters: To teach them how to become their own heroes. They can’t seek out a mystical Jedi to fight the First Order with a Laser Sword. They can’t rely on a quick fix, a visible beacon of hope. The must rely on their own inner strengths, or they will only prolong an inevitable defeat. Poe needed to learn that protecting the flock, living to fight another day, and living to spread hope is the most Heroic thing he can do. It’s the only way he will be ready to take on the role of a true leader in the Resistance. Finn needed to learn that running is the same as acquiescence, and that neutrality was the same as helping out the “Bad Guys”--something he learns despite everything Mr. Don’t Join told him. Rose teaches him to live to protect what he loves. With Rey--although one can argue that she may still be learning her lesson--she had to learn that the Force is not a magic spell to fight the bad guys. She learns hope lives through her, and that her abilities give her strength, but the Force does not promise her power or control over the universe. She is finding her inner light.  She will protect the Galaxy by spreading the same hope that she believed Luke would bring. These kids are green. They need to learn. Leia had been fighting for three years prior to ANH, and her growth was more about letting loved ones in, because she was already a brilliant tactician. Luke was also green, but he goes through his own losses and learns about his inner strength throughout the OT (remember how he gave up lifting that X-Wing from the swamp, then Yoda showed him he was full of shit?). Han learns that selfishness isn’t worth anything next to caring for others. They learn. Luke needed to learn that failure is not the end. He might not be able to take back his mistakes, but punishing himself is not the answer. He must pass on the knowledge from his failure, so future Jedi will not repeat his mistakes. The biggest difference between the OT and the Sequels is that for the first time, we are bearing witness to the darkest days--and the bright light at the end of the tunnel will be all the more meaningful when they get there. Some people might feel like this bleak tone is too much of a reflection of our world today. There is depression and pain everywhere. This isn’t so different from when ANH was released. We were only 2 years out of Vietnam.  Faith in the government had waned considerably.  There is hope at the end of TLJ: The Resistance survived against the slimmest of odds. They are still fighting. We, like the heroes of TLJ, need to keep the faith. The story is not over. TLJ is just the tunnel. We will all celebrate at the end.

[networkingdefinition]

Lotuses Quotes

Official Website: Lotuses Quotes

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• A flower can’t grow without rain. (Alexion) Too much rain and it drowns. (Danger) And yet the most beautiful of the lotus flowers are the ones that grow in the deepest mud. (Alexion) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • A little child paddles a little boat, Drifting about, and picking white lotuses. He does not know how to hide his tracks, And duckweed’s opened up along his path. – Bai Juyi • A man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world – his heart to God and his hands to work. – Swami Vivekananda • An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea. – Herman Melville • And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine Burned like the ruby fire set In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine, Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate, Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine. – Oscar Wilde • And just for a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, wiht a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiancies shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven. – Sal Paradise – Jack Kerouac • As a lotus flower is born in water, grows in water and rises out of water to stand above it unsoiled, so I, born in the world, raised in the world having overcome the world, live unsoiled by the world – Gautama Buddha • As a water bead on a lotus leaf, as water on a red lily, does not adhere, so the sage does not adhere to the seen, the heard, or the sensed. – Gautama Buddha • At this moment, is there anything lacking? Nirvana is right here now before our eyes. This place is the lotus land. This body now is the Buddha. – Hakuin Ekaku

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Lotus', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_lotus').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_lotus img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be like a lotus. Let the beauty of your heart speak. – Amit Ray • Because people learn from their mistakes, Danger. Pain and failure are a natural part of life. It’s kind of like a parent who watches their child fall down while learning to walk. Instead of coddling the child, you set them back on their feet and let them try again. They have to stumble before they can run. (Alexion) Do you really believe that we need to have our hearts ripped out? (Danger) A flower can’t grow without rain. (Alexion) Too much rain and it drowns. (Danger) And yet the most beautiful of the lotus flowers are the ones that grow in the deepest mud. (Alexion) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • But when one masters this wretched desire, which is so hard to overcome, then one’s sorrows just drop off, like a drop of water off a lotus. – Gautama Buddha • By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent whereby we may perceive Truth. – Yukio Mishima • Cut brambles long enough, Sprout after sprout, And the lotus will bloom Of its own accord: Already waiting in the clearing, The single image of light. The day you see this, That day you will become it. – Sun Bu’er • Cut out the love of self, like an autumn lotus with thy hand! – Gautama Buddha • Deep within the self is the Light of God. It radiates throughout the expanse of His creation. Through the Guru’s teachings, the darkness of spiritual ignorance is dispelled. The heart lotus flower blooms forth and eternal peace is obtained, as one’s light merges into the Supreme Light. – Guru Amar Das • Did either the nonexistent or the measured response after a series of attacks on Americans the past decade – in Lebanon, Africa, Saudi Arabia, New York, and Yemen – suggest to our terrorist enemies that it was wrong and unwise to kill reasonable and affable people, or did the easy killing imply that self-absorbed and pampered Lotus-eaters would not much care who or how many were butchered as long as it was within reasonable numbers and spread out over time? – Victor Davis Hanson • Do my eyes deceive me, or is Senna’s Lotus sounding rough? – Murray Walker • Do not go to the garden of flowers! O friend! go not there; In your body is the garden of flowers. Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the infinite beauty. – Kabir • Drop guilt! – because to be guilty is to live in hell. Not being guilty, you will have the freshness of dewdrops in the early morning sun, you will have the freshness of lotus petals in the lake, you will have the freshness of the stars in the night. Once guilt disappears you will have a totally different kind of life, luminous and radiant. You will have a dance to your feet and your heart will be singing a thousand and one songs. – Rajneesh • Drop jealousy and love wells up. Jealousy means that I am the owner. It is an ego trip, and wherever there is ego there is poison, and the poison kills the very source of love. One has to become aware of just these few things and discard them and one’s life becomes a lotus of love. And then there is no need to go in any search of god, god will come in search of you. This is my observation, that god always comes seeking the true seeker. Whenever the disciple is ready the master appears. – Rajneesh • Egypt loved the lotus because it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. – Anita Diament • Egypt loved the lotus becuase it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. Thus can something as insignificant as a name-two syllables, one high, one sweet- summon up the innumerable smiles, tears, sighs and dreams of a human life. – Anita Diament • English Bohemianism is a curiously unluscious fruit. … Inside this hothouse, huge lascivious orchids slide sensuously up the sweating windows, passion-flowers cross-pollinate in wild heliotrope abandon, lotuses writhe with poppies in the sweet warm beds, kumquats ripen, open and plop flatly to the floor-and outside, in a neat, trimly-hoed kitchen-garden, English bohemians sit in cold orderly rows, like carrots. – Alan Coren • Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted. – Sylvia Plath • Every green herb, from the lotus to the darnel, is rich with delicate aids to help incurious man. – Martin Farquhar Tupper • God cannot be found outside you, because there is no God who can ever be outside you. God is the ultimate fragrance of your consciousness. When your consciousness opens like a lotus, the fragrance that is released is God – better to call it godliness. – Rajneesh • God is the Sun and when His rays fall upon your heart, not impeded by the clouds of egoism, the lotus blooms and the petals unfold. – Sathya Sai Baba • Great people will always be mocked by those who feel smaller than them. However, a lion does not flinch at laughter coming from a hyena. A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it by a monkey. A nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song at the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker. Whenever you should question your self-worth, remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty. – Suzy Kassem • Heat lingers As days are still long; Early mornings are cool While autumn is still young. Dew on the lotus Scatters pure perfume; Wind on the bamboos Gives off a gentle tinkling. I am idle and lonely, Lying down all day, Sick and decayed; No one asks for me; Thin dusk before my gates, Cassia blossoms inch deep. – Bai Juyi • I also have a lot of preserved foods, things that will keep for a long time like dried fish, seaweed or lotus seed. – Martin Yan • I embrace my body, and I embrace everything about myself. Coming full circle is a celebration of freedom and happiness because that’s what [my new album] ‘Lotus’ is representing. I’m embracing everything that I’ve grown to be and learned to be. – Christina Aguilera • I got things like the lotus position long before anybody else did, or at least in the mainstream. But I had fun. I guess my legs are pretty flexible, so I used to get a kick out of doing things like that. I would get into a full lotus with my legs and then roll around. – John Astin • I have a strong antipathy to everything connected with gardens, gardening and gardeners. . . . Gardening seems to me a kind of admission of defeat. . . . Man was made for better things than pruning his rose trees. The state of mind of the confirmed gardener seems to me as reprehensible as that of the confirmed alcoholic. Both have capitulated to the world. Both have become lotus eaters and drifters. – Colin Wilson • I saw Lotus F1 racing as the best choice for me to progress my career, after considering several other options that were available to me. – Heikki Kovalainen • I sit cross-legged on the rock The valleys and streams are cold and damp Sitting quietly is beautiful The cliffs are lost in mist and fog I rest happily in this place At dusk the tree shadows are low I look into my mind A white lotus emerges from the dark mud – Hanshan • I think it’s more, at least at the time, a sense of abstraction. My mind doesn’t really work in a way where there’s a definitive sense of something. I go one way and then it opens up into a million different ideas, and somehow, when you look at the art, Buddhist art, or particularly Tibetan art, you know, it’s a similar thing. All of a sudden there are a million lotus leaves and you’re following one to the next and to another, and I related to that, and it felt simple and easy to me. And it made me feel smart. – Jake Gyllenhaal • I want you to learn the lesson of the lotus. This flower springs forth from muddy waters. It raises its delicate petals to the sun and perfumes the world while, at the same time, its roots cling to the elemental muck, the very essence of the mortal experience. Without that soil, the flower would wither and die. – Colleen Houck • I was in yoga the other day. I was in full lotus position. My chakras were all aligned. My mind is cleared of all clatter and I’m looking out of my third eye and everything that I’m supposed to be doing. It’s amazing what comes up, when you sit in that silence. “Mama keeps whites bright like the sunlight, Mama’s got the magic of Clorox 2.” – Ellen DeGeneres • I will allow only my Lord to possess my sacred lotus pond, and every night you can make blossom in me flowers of fire. – Huang E • If the bees which seek the liquid oozing from the head of a lust-intoxicated elephant are driven away by the flapping of his ears, then the elephant has lost only the ornament of his head. The bees are quite happy in the lotus filled lake. – Chanakya • If we take shelter of the lotus feet of the spiritual master, we can become free from illusion, fear and distress. If we wholeheartedly beg for his mercy without any deceit then the spiritual master bestows all auspiciousness upon us. – Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati • If you come to Plum Village in the summertime, you see many lotus flowers. Without the mud the lotus flowers cannot grow. You cannot separate lotus flowers from the mud. It is the same with understanding and love. These are two kinds of flowers that grow on the ground of suffering – Nhat Hanh • If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful – and strong. • If you sleep, Desire grows in you Like a vine in the forest. Like a monkey in the forest You jump from tree to tree, Never finding the fruit – From life to life, Never finding peace. If you are filled with desire Your sorrows swell Like the grass after the rain. But if you subdue desire Your sorrows shall fall from you Like drops of water from a lotus flower. – Gautama Buddha • I’m always very interested in breeding. Raising cacti is breeding. My lotus plant collection is breeding. The insects are breeding. – Takashi Murakami • I’m delighted to be coming back to Formula 1 after a two-year break, and I’m grateful to Lotus Renault GP for offering me this opportunity. – Kimi Raikkonen • I’m influenced by the music of the ’60s. It’s a mishmash of everything. To me, psychedelic can be all the way to a DJ. House music can be very psychedelic. ‘Flying Lotus’ is very psychedelic. Even though it’s urban and technological, it’s also mind-expanding, anything-can-go mishmash. – Anton Newcombe • In 1879 the Bengali scholar S.M. Tagore compiled a more extensive list of ruby colors from the Purana sacred texts: ‘like the China rose, like blood, like the seeds of the pomegranate, like red lead, like the red lotus, like saffron, like the resin of certain trees, like the eyes of the Greek partridge or the Indian crane…and like the interior of the half-blown water lily.’ With so many gorgeous descriptive possibilities it is curious that in English the two ancient names for rubies have come to sound incredibly ugly. – Victoria Finlay • In Egypt, I loved the perfume of the lotus. A flower would bloom in the pool at dawn, filling the entire garden with a blue musk so powerful it seemed that even the fish and ducks would swoon. By night, the flower might wither but the perfume lasted. Fainter and fainter, but never quite gone. Even many days later, the lotus remained in the garden. Months would pass and a bee would alight near the spot where the lotus had blossomed, and its essence was released again, momentary but undeniable. – Anita Diament • In Savasana or in meditation, the light of the eyes is drawn towards the lotus of the heart, so that the seat of the intelligence of the head is brought into contact with the seat of the intelligence of the heart, which is called the mind. Thus one passes from the individualistic state of consciousness to the universal state of consciousness. It is the merging of the intellect of the brain with the intellect of the soul. – B.K.S. Iyengar • In the land of the lotus-eaters there is no action. Action arises only from need, from dissatisfaction. It is purposeful striving towards something. Its ultimate end is always to get rid of a condition which is conceived to be deficient-to fulfill a need, to achieve satisfaction, to increase happiness. – Ludwig von Mises • In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner – not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are. – Shunryu Suzuki • In the Lotus Sutra, it is said everything is emptiness – this world is empty, hell is empty, heaven is empty, God is empty, everything is emptiness. Emptiness is the nature of all things, nothingness, so be attuned to nothingness and you will achieve. – Rajneesh • It does not matter if you are a rose or a lotus or a marigold. What matters is that you are flowering. – Rajneesh • It is the north wind that lashes men into Vikings; it is the soft, luscious south wind which lulls them to lotus dreams. – Ouida • It is the plight of man. And while the blame lies partly on the river ” Lotus gestures towards the dark waters before us “most of the blame lies on man’s inclination to tune into the noise that blares all around him instead of the beautiful silence that lies deep within. – Alyson Noel • It was an easy choice to return with Lotus Renault GP as I have been impressed by the scope of the team’s ambition. – Kimi Raikkonen • It’s a mining town in lotus land. – F. Scott Fitzgerald • It’s like growing lotus flowers. You cannot grow lotus flowers on marble. You have to grow them on the mud. Without mud you cannot have lotus flowers. Without suffering, you have no way to learn how to be understanding and compassionate. – Nhat Hanh • Just think, Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic ocean, and the lotus of the universe grows from his navel. On the lotus sits Brahma, the creator. Brahma opens his eyes, and a world comes into being, governed by an Indra. Brahma closes his eyes, and a world goes out of being. The life of a Brahma is 432,000 years. When he dies, the lotus goes back, and another lotus is formed, and another Brahma. Then think of the galaxies beyond galaxies in infinite space, each a lotus, with a Brahma sitting on it, opening his eyes, closing his eyes. – Joseph Campbell • Life is like a rain drop on a lotus leaf. Everybody realises that you’re either very lucky person or you’re not. – George Harrison • Like the lotus flower that is born out of mud, we must honor the darkest parts of ourselves and the most painful of our life’s experiences, because they are what allow us to birth our most beautiful self. – Debbie Ford • Like the lotus which thrives in mud, the potential for realization grows in the rich soil of everyday life – Dalai Lama • Lotus-land as it appears in ‘Free Will’ is simply a metaphor for an idealized background, a ‘land of milk and honey.’ It is sometimes also used as a pejorative name for Los Angeles, though that was not in my mind when I wrote it. – Neil Peart • Love is born in sexuality but sexuality is not love. The lotus is born in the mud, but the lotus is not just mud. And if mud remains mud of course there are bound to be tears on the cheeks. – Rajneesh • Love is the lotus, lust is the mud the lotus arises out of. – Rajneesh • May the honey-sweet flute music that flows from Lord Mukunda’s lotus mouth fill me with bliss. – Rupa Goswami • May we live like the lotus, at home in muddy water. – Gautama Buddha • Meditation is your awakening. The moment you awake, sleep disappears and with it all the dreams, all the projections, all expectations, all desires. Suddenly you are in a state of desirelessness, non-ambition, unfathomable silence. And only in this silence, blossoms flower in your being. Only in this silence the lotuses open their petals. – Rajneesh • Microsoft has had two goals in the last 10 years. One was to copy the Mac, and the other was to copy Lotus’ success in the spreadsheet – basically, the applications business. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost. – Steve Jobs • My mother always said I must be part Mongolian because of my lotus-pale complexion and squid-ink black hair. – Diane Ackerman • My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel. – Edward Abbey • Nay, do not grieve tho’ life be full of sadness, Dawn will not veil her spleandor for your grief, Nor spring deny their bright, appointed beauty To lotus blossom and ashoka leaf.

Nay, do not pine, tho’ life be dark with trouble, Time will not pause or tarry on his way; To-day that seems so long, so strange, so bitter, Will soon be some forgotten yesterday.

Nay, do not weep; new hopes, new dreams, new faces, The unspent joy of all the unborn years, Will prove your heart a traitor to its sorrow, And make your eyes unfaithful to their tears. – Sarojini Naidu • Number theorists are like lotus-eaters — having once tasted of this food they can never give it up. – Leopold Kronecker • O! Lover, Enjoyment on the soft body of a lotus is always risky and inconsistent because its route is always surrounded by thorns. – Manmohan Acharya • On the top of the head is a Chakra – Sahasradala or the thousand-petalled lotus. There is a Chakra in the middle of the forehead between the eyebrows and one in the heart-centre. The region between the navel and head constitutes the mental field. From navel downward extending till the terminus of the spinal chord, mūlādhāra, is the seat of the vital. – Sri Aurobindo • One thing is certain: you can never become anything other than yourself, and unless you become yourself you cannot be happy. Happiness happens only when a rosebush grows roseflowers; when it flowers, when it has its own individuality. You may be a rosebush and trying to flower as lotus flower – that is creating insanity. Erase the mind. And the way to erase it is not by fight: the way to erase it is just to become aware. – Rajneesh • Only the other day I was inquiring of an entire bed of old-fashioned roses, forced to listen to my ramblings on the meaning of the universe as I sat cross-legged in the lotus position in front of them. • Our first duty is to satisfy the spiritual master, who can arrange for the Lord’s mercy. A common man must first begin to serve the spiritual master or the devotee. Then, through the mercy of the devotee, the Lord will be satisfied. Unless one receives the dust of a devotee’s lotus feet on one’s head, there is no possibility of advancement. Unless one approaches a pure devotee, he cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead. – A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada • Over the eons I’ve been a fan of, and sucker for, each latest automated system to ‘simplify’ and ‘bring order to’ my life. Very early on this led me to the beautiful-and-doomed Lotus Agenda for my DOS computers, and Actioneer for the early Palm. – James Fallows • Remember Mother Earth knows who these people are that are going to become the one heart. Really the better way to say it is one lotus. This place in the heart has always been referred to as the lotus. And when you find your way there, Mother Earth will completely take care of you and protect you and provide everything for you. Even though everything outside seems to be insane, it will be miraculous. – Drunvalo Melchizedek • Sandalwood, tagara, lotus, jasmine – the fragrance of virtue is unrivalled by such kinds of perfume. – Gautama Buddha • 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. – Khalil Gibran • So as you are, in whatever conditions you are, in whatever situations you are, whatever may be the surroundings, like a dirty mire full of creatures and filth, you can become like lotuses. When you become like lotuses, all that is filth, all that is horrible can become fragrant. And this is what we have to achieve. – Nirmala Srivastava • The #lotus comes from the #murkiest #water.. but #grows into the #purest thing.- Nita Ambani • The banyan tree does not mean awakening, nor does the hill, nor the saint, nor the European couple. The lotus is a symbol of regeneration. – Swami Vivekananda • The Bible represents a fundamental guidepost for millions of people on the planet, in much the same way the Koran, Torah, and Pali Canon offer guidance to people of other religions. If you and I could dig up documentation that contradicted the holy stories of Islamic belief, Judaic belief, Buddhist belief, pagan belief, should we do that? Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical. – Dan Brown • The crown chakra is located several inches above the head, but it is not connected. The crown chakra, also known as the thousand-petal lotus of light, references the planes of light, of enlightenment. – Frederick Lenz • The honey in the flower or lotus does not crave for bees; they do not plead with the bees to come. Since they have tasted the sweetness, they themselves search for the flowers and rush in. They come because of the attachment between themselves and sweetness. So, too, is the relationship between the woman who knows the limits and the respect she evokes. – Sathya Sai Baba • The lotus flower is troubled At the sun’s resplendent light; With sunken head and sadly She dreamily waits for the night. – Heinrich Heine • The lotus grows in muddy waters but this flower does not show any trace of it: So we have to live in the world. – B.K.S. Iyengar • The lotus’ stem is as long as the depth of water, So men’s height is just as great as their inner strength. – Thiruvalluvar • The one who wanders independent in the world, free from opinions and viewpoints, does not grasp them and enter into disputations and arguments. As the lotus rises on its stalk unsoiled by the mud and the water, so the wise one speaks of peace and is unstained by the opinions of the world. – Gautama Buddha • The seated lotus postures are an amazing way to go into meditation, or simply just to take a moment to ground oneself. – Christy Turlington • The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. – Khalil Gibran • The thousand petal lotus of light, the crown center, really does not become operative until one is on the verge of enlightenment itself. Then you really don’t have to meditate on it. The thousand petals gradually light up. – Frederick Lenz • The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,’ he said. ‘It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men – it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone – the noblest man alive or the most wicked – has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God. – Gregory David Roberts • The ultimate source of energy, the sun is ready to set. The leaves of the blooming lotus flower in the pond are losing their lustre. A bumblebee, sitting on that lotus is enjoying the romantic pleasure and murmuring passionate songs. – Manmohan Acharya • Their love as a dragonfly, skimming over echo park, stoppin to visit the lotus. Eating dreams and drinking blue sky. – Janet Fitch • There are still some terrible cliches in the presentation of Indian fiction. The lotus flower. The hennaed hands. In mainland Europe, people still slap these images on my books and I go bananas. – Hari Kunzru • There is a beautiful expression of this in the Chandogya Upanishad: ‘There is this City of Brahman, (that is the body), and in this city there is a shrine, and in that shrine there is a small lotus, and in that lotus there is a small space, (akasa). Now what exists within that small space, that is to be sought, that is to be understood.’ This is the great discovery of the Upanishads, this inner shrine, this guha, or cave of the heart, where the inner meaning of life, of all human existence, is to be found. – Bede Griffiths • There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus. – Nhat Hanh • There’s a kind of training, when you are sitting in a session in the Japanese tradition or any of the Buddhist traditions, taking your lotus posture or whatever it is. That’s what you’re doing. – Anne Waldman • There’s just so much stuff that sounds like Flying Lotus now – I really like what he does, but I don’t want to be like him. The new stuff is more experimental. – Gold Panda • To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don’t try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself. -Nhat Hanh • To the sky, I rise / Spread my wings, and fly / I leave the past behind / And say goodbye to the scared child inside / I sing for freedom, and for love / I look at my reflection / Embrace the woman I’ve become / The unbreakable lotus in me / I now set free – Christina Aguilera • Water surrounds the lotus flower, but does not wet its petals. – Gautama Buddha • Waterlilies always come in Buddhist sculpture. The Buddhas all stand on lotus pedestals, because the lotus is grown from the mud. The mud represents the stained world, a dirty world, but growing from the dirt is such a beautiful, pure thing. This is the way the spirit should be. – Hiroshi Sugimoto • When I go from hence, let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable. I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus I am blessed—let this be my parting word. In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play and here have I caught sight of him who is formless. My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let it come—let this be my parting word. – Rabindranath Tagore • When I notice a rear wheel overtaking me, I know I’m sitting in a Lotus. – Graham Hill • When one, abandoning greed, feels no greed for what would merit greed, greed gets shed from him – like a drop of water from a lotus leaf. – Gautama Buddha • When we speak of the dust of the lotus feet of the Spiritual Master, we are speaking of humble approach to serve his instructions. Unless we humbly serve the instructions of the great soul, it is Krishna’s arrangement the He never reveals Himself. – Radhanath Swami • When you sit in the full lotus position, your left foot is on your right thigh and your right foot is on your left thigh. When we cross our legs like this, even though we have a right leg and a left leg, they become one. The position expresses the oneness of duality: not two and not one. This is the most important teaching: not two, and not one. Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. – Shunryu Suzuki • Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty. – Suzy Kassem • Worship of The Lotus Feet of The Spiritual Master: There is no work as auspicious as serving the spiritual master. Of all worship, the worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the greatest but the worship of the lotus feet of the spiritual master is even greater than the worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Unless this is firmly realized we cannot understand what saintly association means, we cannot understand what the shelter of a spiritual master means, we cannot understand that we are dependent and he is our maintainer. – Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati • YOU are the big drop of dew under the lotus leaf, I am the smaller one on its upper side,’ said the dewdrop to the lake. – Rabindranath Tagore • You can purify your existence by feeling deep within yourself a beautiful rose or lotus, or any other flower that you like. A flower is all purity. Try to identify yourself with the consciousness of the flower or with the purity of the flower. Today it is imagination, but if you continue imagining for five days, or ten days, or a month or two, then you are bound to see and feel the flower within you. First you may feel it, then you are bound to see the existence of the flower, and then automatically the fragrance and the purity of the flower will enter into you to purify you. – Sri Chinmoy • You can remain in the world for any number of years, but don’t let the world take hold. Don’t let the world take hold of the inside world. There is the example of the lotus. It stays deep down in the mud. It comes up to the light, and it can’t stay without water because it would die. But it does not get mixed up either with the mud or the water. You have seen the lotus; even if the water comes it just goes off again. Now, when they talk of God, they always say ‘the lotus eyes, the lotus feet’ because of this inner significance. – Sathya Sai Baba • You have to measure your success by the way your audience responds to your games. No matter how small that audience is, it’s yours. Your game is part of the lives and the memories of those people in a way that WordPerfect or Lotus 1-2-3 or Windows can never be. – Orson Scott Card • You like being vague, don’t you? (Amanda) It was a choice of being a Dark-Hunter or a prophet. Personally I like the slash-and-kill stuff much more than prayers and the lotus position. (Acheron) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • You must be a lotus, unfolding its petals when the sun rises in the sky, unaffected by the slush where it is born or even the water which sustains it! – Sai Baba • YOUR HEART IS FULL of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout. Just as a lotus flower springs from the mire to bloom splendidly, the interaction of the cosmic breath causes the flower of the spirit to bloom and bear fruit in this world. – Morihei Ueshiba

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Lotuses Quotes

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• A flower can’t grow without rain. (Alexion) Too much rain and it drowns. (Danger) And yet the most beautiful of the lotus flowers are the ones that grow in the deepest mud. (Alexion) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • A little child paddles a little boat, Drifting about, and picking white lotuses. He does not know how to hide his tracks, And duckweed’s opened up along his path. – Bai Juyi • A man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world – his heart to God and his hands to work. – Swami Vivekananda • An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea. – Herman Melville • And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine Burned like the ruby fire set In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine, Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate, Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine. – Oscar Wilde • And just for a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on, wiht a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiancies shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven. – Sal Paradise – Jack Kerouac • As a lotus flower is born in water, grows in water and rises out of water to stand above it unsoiled, so I, born in the world, raised in the world having overcome the world, live unsoiled by the world – Gautama Buddha • As a water bead on a lotus leaf, as water on a red lily, does not adhere, so the sage does not adhere to the seen, the heard, or the sensed. – Gautama Buddha • At this moment, is there anything lacking? Nirvana is right here now before our eyes. This place is the lotus land. This body now is the Buddha. – Hakuin Ekaku

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Lotus', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_lotus').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_lotus img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be like a lotus. Let the beauty of your heart speak. – Amit Ray • Because people learn from their mistakes, Danger. Pain and failure are a natural part of life. It’s kind of like a parent who watches their child fall down while learning to walk. Instead of coddling the child, you set them back on their feet and let them try again. They have to stumble before they can run. (Alexion) Do you really believe that we need to have our hearts ripped out? (Danger) A flower can’t grow without rain. (Alexion) Too much rain and it drowns. (Danger) And yet the most beautiful of the lotus flowers are the ones that grow in the deepest mud. (Alexion) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • But when one masters this wretched desire, which is so hard to overcome, then one’s sorrows just drop off, like a drop of water off a lotus. – Gautama Buddha • By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent whereby we may perceive Truth. – Yukio Mishima • Cut brambles long enough, Sprout after sprout, And the lotus will bloom Of its own accord: Already waiting in the clearing, The single image of light. The day you see this, That day you will become it. – Sun Bu’er • Cut out the love of self, like an autumn lotus with thy hand! – Gautama Buddha • Deep within the self is the Light of God. It radiates throughout the expanse of His creation. Through the Guru’s teachings, the darkness of spiritual ignorance is dispelled. The heart lotus flower blooms forth and eternal peace is obtained, as one’s light merges into the Supreme Light. – Guru Amar Das • Did either the nonexistent or the measured response after a series of attacks on Americans the past decade – in Lebanon, Africa, Saudi Arabia, New York, and Yemen – suggest to our terrorist enemies that it was wrong and unwise to kill reasonable and affable people, or did the easy killing imply that self-absorbed and pampered Lotus-eaters would not much care who or how many were butchered as long as it was within reasonable numbers and spread out over time? – Victor Davis Hanson • Do my eyes deceive me, or is Senna’s Lotus sounding rough? – Murray Walker • Do not go to the garden of flowers! O friend! go not there; In your body is the garden of flowers. Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the infinite beauty. – Kabir • Drop guilt! – because to be guilty is to live in hell. Not being guilty, you will have the freshness of dewdrops in the early morning sun, you will have the freshness of lotus petals in the lake, you will have the freshness of the stars in the night. Once guilt disappears you will have a totally different kind of life, luminous and radiant. You will have a dance to your feet and your heart will be singing a thousand and one songs. – Rajneesh • Drop jealousy and love wells up. Jealousy means that I am the owner. It is an ego trip, and wherever there is ego there is poison, and the poison kills the very source of love. One has to become aware of just these few things and discard them and one’s life becomes a lotus of love. And then there is no need to go in any search of god, god will come in search of you. This is my observation, that god always comes seeking the true seeker. Whenever the disciple is ready the master appears. – Rajneesh • Egypt loved the lotus because it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. – Anita Diament • Egypt loved the lotus becuase it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. Thus can something as insignificant as a name-two syllables, one high, one sweet- summon up the innumerable smiles, tears, sighs and dreams of a human life. – Anita Diament • English Bohemianism is a curiously unluscious fruit. … Inside this hothouse, huge lascivious orchids slide sensuously up the sweating windows, passion-flowers cross-pollinate in wild heliotrope abandon, lotuses writhe with poppies in the sweet warm beds, kumquats ripen, open and plop flatly to the floor-and outside, in a neat, trimly-hoed kitchen-garden, English bohemians sit in cold orderly rows, like carrots. – Alan Coren • Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted. – Sylvia Plath • Every green herb, from the lotus to the darnel, is rich with delicate aids to help incurious man. – Martin Farquhar Tupper • God cannot be found outside you, because there is no God who can ever be outside you. God is the ultimate fragrance of your consciousness. When your consciousness opens like a lotus, the fragrance that is released is God – better to call it godliness. – Rajneesh • God is the Sun and when His rays fall upon your heart, not impeded by the clouds of egoism, the lotus blooms and the petals unfold. – Sathya Sai Baba • Great people will always be mocked by those who feel smaller than them. However, a lion does not flinch at laughter coming from a hyena. A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it by a monkey. A nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song at the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker. Whenever you should question your self-worth, remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty. – Suzy Kassem • Heat lingers As days are still long; Early mornings are cool While autumn is still young. Dew on the lotus Scatters pure perfume; Wind on the bamboos Gives off a gentle tinkling. I am idle and lonely, Lying down all day, Sick and decayed; No one asks for me; Thin dusk before my gates, Cassia blossoms inch deep. – Bai Juyi • I also have a lot of preserved foods, things that will keep for a long time like dried fish, seaweed or lotus seed. – Martin Yan • I embrace my body, and I embrace everything about myself. Coming full circle is a celebration of freedom and happiness because that’s what [my new album] ‘Lotus’ is representing. I’m embracing everything that I’ve grown to be and learned to be. – Christina Aguilera • I got things like the lotus position long before anybody else did, or at least in the mainstream. But I had fun. I guess my legs are pretty flexible, so I used to get a kick out of doing things like that. I would get into a full lotus with my legs and then roll around. – John Astin • I have a strong antipathy to everything connected with gardens, gardening and gardeners. . . . Gardening seems to me a kind of admission of defeat. . . . Man was made for better things than pruning his rose trees. The state of mind of the confirmed gardener seems to me as reprehensible as that of the confirmed alcoholic. Both have capitulated to the world. Both have become lotus eaters and drifters. – Colin Wilson • I saw Lotus F1 racing as the best choice for me to progress my career, after considering several other options that were available to me. – Heikki Kovalainen • I sit cross-legged on the rock The valleys and streams are cold and damp Sitting quietly is beautiful The cliffs are lost in mist and fog I rest happily in this place At dusk the tree shadows are low I look into my mind A white lotus emerges from the dark mud – Hanshan • I think it’s more, at least at the time, a sense of abstraction. My mind doesn’t really work in a way where there’s a definitive sense of something. I go one way and then it opens up into a million different ideas, and somehow, when you look at the art, Buddhist art, or particularly Tibetan art, you know, it’s a similar thing. All of a sudden there are a million lotus leaves and you’re following one to the next and to another, and I related to that, and it felt simple and easy to me. And it made me feel smart. – Jake Gyllenhaal • I want you to learn the lesson of the lotus. This flower springs forth from muddy waters. It raises its delicate petals to the sun and perfumes the world while, at the same time, its roots cling to the elemental muck, the very essence of the mortal experience. Without that soil, the flower would wither and die. – Colleen Houck • I was in yoga the other day. I was in full lotus position. My chakras were all aligned. My mind is cleared of all clatter and I’m looking out of my third eye and everything that I’m supposed to be doing. It’s amazing what comes up, when you sit in that silence. “Mama keeps whites bright like the sunlight, Mama’s got the magic of Clorox 2.” – Ellen DeGeneres • I will allow only my Lord to possess my sacred lotus pond, and every night you can make blossom in me flowers of fire. – Huang E • If the bees which seek the liquid oozing from the head of a lust-intoxicated elephant are driven away by the flapping of his ears, then the elephant has lost only the ornament of his head. The bees are quite happy in the lotus filled lake. – Chanakya • If we take shelter of the lotus feet of the spiritual master, we can become free from illusion, fear and distress. If we wholeheartedly beg for his mercy without any deceit then the spiritual master bestows all auspiciousness upon us. – Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati • If you come to Plum Village in the summertime, you see many lotus flowers. Without the mud the lotus flowers cannot grow. You cannot separate lotus flowers from the mud. It is the same with understanding and love. These are two kinds of flowers that grow on the ground of suffering – Nhat Hanh • If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful – and strong. • If you sleep, Desire grows in you Like a vine in the forest. Like a monkey in the forest You jump from tree to tree, Never finding the fruit – From life to life, Never finding peace. If you are filled with desire Your sorrows swell Like the grass after the rain. But if you subdue desire Your sorrows shall fall from you Like drops of water from a lotus flower. – Gautama Buddha • I’m always very interested in breeding. Raising cacti is breeding. My lotus plant collection is breeding. The insects are breeding. – Takashi Murakami • I’m delighted to be coming back to Formula 1 after a two-year break, and I’m grateful to Lotus Renault GP for offering me this opportunity. – Kimi Raikkonen • I’m influenced by the music of the ’60s. It’s a mishmash of everything. To me, psychedelic can be all the way to a DJ. House music can be very psychedelic. ‘Flying Lotus’ is very psychedelic. Even though it’s urban and technological, it’s also mind-expanding, anything-can-go mishmash. – Anton Newcombe • In 1879 the Bengali scholar S.M. Tagore compiled a more extensive list of ruby colors from the Purana sacred texts: ‘like the China rose, like blood, like the seeds of the pomegranate, like red lead, like the red lotus, like saffron, like the resin of certain trees, like the eyes of the Greek partridge or the Indian crane…and like the interior of the half-blown water lily.’ With so many gorgeous descriptive possibilities it is curious that in English the two ancient names for rubies have come to sound incredibly ugly. – Victoria Finlay • In Egypt, I loved the perfume of the lotus. A flower would bloom in the pool at dawn, filling the entire garden with a blue musk so powerful it seemed that even the fish and ducks would swoon. By night, the flower might wither but the perfume lasted. Fainter and fainter, but never quite gone. Even many days later, the lotus remained in the garden. Months would pass and a bee would alight near the spot where the lotus had blossomed, and its essence was released again, momentary but undeniable. – Anita Diament • In Savasana or in meditation, the light of the eyes is drawn towards the lotus of the heart, so that the seat of the intelligence of the head is brought into contact with the seat of the intelligence of the heart, which is called the mind. Thus one passes from the individualistic state of consciousness to the universal state of consciousness. It is the merging of the intellect of the brain with the intellect of the soul. – B.K.S. Iyengar • In the land of the lotus-eaters there is no action. Action arises only from need, from dissatisfaction. It is purposeful striving towards something. Its ultimate end is always to get rid of a condition which is conceived to be deficient-to fulfill a need, to achieve satisfaction, to increase happiness. – Ludwig von Mises • In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha says to light up one corner – not the whole world. Just make it clear where you are. – Shunryu Suzuki • In the Lotus Sutra, it is said everything is emptiness – this world is empty, hell is empty, heaven is empty, God is empty, everything is emptiness. Emptiness is the nature of all things, nothingness, so be attuned to nothingness and you will achieve. – Rajneesh • It does not matter if you are a rose or a lotus or a marigold. What matters is that you are flowering. – Rajneesh • It is the north wind that lashes men into Vikings; it is the soft, luscious south wind which lulls them to lotus dreams. – Ouida • It is the plight of man. And while the blame lies partly on the river ” Lotus gestures towards the dark waters before us “most of the blame lies on man’s inclination to tune into the noise that blares all around him instead of the beautiful silence that lies deep within. – Alyson Noel • It was an easy choice to return with Lotus Renault GP as I have been impressed by the scope of the team’s ambition. – Kimi Raikkonen • It’s a mining town in lotus land. – F. Scott Fitzgerald • It’s like growing lotus flowers. You cannot grow lotus flowers on marble. You have to grow them on the mud. Without mud you cannot have lotus flowers. Without suffering, you have no way to learn how to be understanding and compassionate. – Nhat Hanh • Just think, Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic ocean, and the lotus of the universe grows from his navel. On the lotus sits Brahma, the creator. Brahma opens his eyes, and a world comes into being, governed by an Indra. Brahma closes his eyes, and a world goes out of being. The life of a Brahma is 432,000 years. When he dies, the lotus goes back, and another lotus is formed, and another Brahma. Then think of the galaxies beyond galaxies in infinite space, each a lotus, with a Brahma sitting on it, opening his eyes, closing his eyes. – Joseph Campbell • Life is like a rain drop on a lotus leaf. Everybody realises that you’re either very lucky person or you’re not. – George Harrison • Like the lotus flower that is born out of mud, we must honor the darkest parts of ourselves and the most painful of our life’s experiences, because they are what allow us to birth our most beautiful self. – Debbie Ford • Like the lotus which thrives in mud, the potential for realization grows in the rich soil of everyday life – Dalai Lama • Lotus-land as it appears in ‘Free Will’ is simply a metaphor for an idealized background, a ‘land of milk and honey.’ It is sometimes also used as a pejorative name for Los Angeles, though that was not in my mind when I wrote it. – Neil Peart • Love is born in sexuality but sexuality is not love. The lotus is born in the mud, but the lotus is not just mud. And if mud remains mud of course there are bound to be tears on the cheeks. – Rajneesh • Love is the lotus, lust is the mud the lotus arises out of. – Rajneesh • May the honey-sweet flute music that flows from Lord Mukunda’s lotus mouth fill me with bliss. – Rupa Goswami • May we live like the lotus, at home in muddy water. – Gautama Buddha • Meditation is your awakening. The moment you awake, sleep disappears and with it all the dreams, all the projections, all expectations, all desires. Suddenly you are in a state of desirelessness, non-ambition, unfathomable silence. And only in this silence, blossoms flower in your being. Only in this silence the lotuses open their petals. – Rajneesh • Microsoft has had two goals in the last 10 years. One was to copy the Mac, and the other was to copy Lotus’ success in the spreadsheet – basically, the applications business. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost. – Steve Jobs • My mother always said I must be part Mongolian because of my lotus-pale complexion and squid-ink black hair. – Diane Ackerman • My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel. – Edward Abbey • Nay, do not grieve tho’ life be full of sadness, Dawn will not veil her spleandor for your grief, Nor spring deny their bright, appointed beauty To lotus blossom and ashoka leaf.

Nay, do not pine, tho’ life be dark with trouble, Time will not pause or tarry on his way; To-day that seems so long, so strange, so bitter, Will soon be some forgotten yesterday.

Nay, do not weep; new hopes, new dreams, new faces, The unspent joy of all the unborn years, Will prove your heart a traitor to its sorrow, And make your eyes unfaithful to their tears. – Sarojini Naidu • Number theorists are like lotus-eaters — having once tasted of this food they can never give it up. – Leopold Kronecker • O! Lover, Enjoyment on the soft body of a lotus is always risky and inconsistent because its route is always surrounded by thorns. – Manmohan Acharya • On the top of the head is a Chakra – Sahasradala or the thousand-petalled lotus. There is a Chakra in the middle of the forehead between the eyebrows and one in the heart-centre. The region between the navel and head constitutes the mental field. From navel downward extending till the terminus of the spinal chord, mūlādhāra, is the seat of the vital. – Sri Aurobindo • One thing is certain: you can never become anything other than yourself, and unless you become yourself you cannot be happy. Happiness happens only when a rosebush grows roseflowers; when it flowers, when it has its own individuality. You may be a rosebush and trying to flower as lotus flower – that is creating insanity. Erase the mind. And the way to erase it is not by fight: the way to erase it is just to become aware. – Rajneesh • Only the other day I was inquiring of an entire bed of old-fashioned roses, forced to listen to my ramblings on the meaning of the universe as I sat cross-legged in the lotus position in front of them. • Our first duty is to satisfy the spiritual master, who can arrange for the Lord’s mercy. A common man must first begin to serve the spiritual master or the devotee. Then, through the mercy of the devotee, the Lord will be satisfied. Unless one receives the dust of a devotee’s lotus feet on one’s head, there is no possibility of advancement. Unless one approaches a pure devotee, he cannot understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead. – A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada • Over the eons I’ve been a fan of, and sucker for, each latest automated system to ‘simplify’ and ‘bring order to’ my life. Very early on this led me to the beautiful-and-doomed Lotus Agenda for my DOS computers, and Actioneer for the early Palm. – James Fallows • Remember Mother Earth knows who these people are that are going to become the one heart. Really the better way to say it is one lotus. This place in the heart has always been referred to as the lotus. And when you find your way there, Mother Earth will completely take care of you and protect you and provide everything for you. Even though everything outside seems to be insane, it will be miraculous. – Drunvalo Melchizedek • Sandalwood, tagara, lotus, jasmine – the fragrance of virtue is unrivalled by such kinds of perfume. – Gautama Buddha • 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. – Khalil Gibran • So as you are, in whatever conditions you are, in whatever situations you are, whatever may be the surroundings, like a dirty mire full of creatures and filth, you can become like lotuses. When you become like lotuses, all that is filth, all that is horrible can become fragrant. And this is what we have to achieve. – Nirmala Srivastava • The #lotus comes from the #murkiest #water.. but #grows into the #purest thing.- Nita Ambani • The banyan tree does not mean awakening, nor does the hill, nor the saint, nor the European couple. The lotus is a symbol of regeneration. – Swami Vivekananda • The Bible represents a fundamental guidepost for millions of people on the planet, in much the same way the Koran, Torah, and Pali Canon offer guidance to people of other religions. If you and I could dig up documentation that contradicted the holy stories of Islamic belief, Judaic belief, Buddhist belief, pagan belief, should we do that? Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical. – Dan Brown • The crown chakra is located several inches above the head, but it is not connected. The crown chakra, also known as the thousand-petal lotus of light, references the planes of light, of enlightenment. – Frederick Lenz • The honey in the flower or lotus does not crave for bees; they do not plead with the bees to come. Since they have tasted the sweetness, they themselves search for the flowers and rush in. They come because of the attachment between themselves and sweetness. So, too, is the relationship between the woman who knows the limits and the respect she evokes. – Sathya Sai Baba • The lotus flower is troubled At the sun’s resplendent light; With sunken head and sadly She dreamily waits for the night. – Heinrich Heine • The lotus grows in muddy waters but this flower does not show any trace of it: So we have to live in the world. – B.K.S. Iyengar • The lotus’ stem is as long as the depth of water, So men’s height is just as great as their inner strength. – Thiruvalluvar • The one who wanders independent in the world, free from opinions and viewpoints, does not grasp them and enter into disputations and arguments. As the lotus rises on its stalk unsoiled by the mud and the water, so the wise one speaks of peace and is unstained by the opinions of the world. – Gautama Buddha • The seated lotus postures are an amazing way to go into meditation, or simply just to take a moment to ground oneself. – Christy Turlington • The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. – Khalil Gibran • The thousand petal lotus of light, the crown center, really does not become operative until one is on the verge of enlightenment itself. Then you really don’t have to meditate on it. The thousand petals gradually light up. – Frederick Lenz • The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,’ he said. ‘It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men – it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone – the noblest man alive or the most wicked – has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God. – Gregory David Roberts • The ultimate source of energy, the sun is ready to set. The leaves of the blooming lotus flower in the pond are losing their lustre. A bumblebee, sitting on that lotus is enjoying the romantic pleasure and murmuring passionate songs. – Manmohan Acharya • Their love as a dragonfly, skimming over echo park, stoppin to visit the lotus. Eating dreams and drinking blue sky. – Janet Fitch • There are still some terrible cliches in the presentation of Indian fiction. The lotus flower. The hennaed hands. In mainland Europe, people still slap these images on my books and I go bananas. – Hari Kunzru • There is a beautiful expression of this in the Chandogya Upanishad: ‘There is this City of Brahman, (that is the body), and in this city there is a shrine, and in that shrine there is a small lotus, and in that lotus there is a small space, (akasa). Now what exists within that small space, that is to be sought, that is to be understood.’ This is the great discovery of the Upanishads, this inner shrine, this guha, or cave of the heart, where the inner meaning of life, of all human existence, is to be found. – Bede Griffiths • There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus. – Nhat Hanh • There’s a kind of training, when you are sitting in a session in the Japanese tradition or any of the Buddhist traditions, taking your lotus posture or whatever it is. That’s what you’re doing. – Anne Waldman • There’s just so much stuff that sounds like Flying Lotus now – I really like what he does, but I don’t want to be like him. The new stuff is more experimental. – Gold Panda • To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don’t try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself. -Nhat Hanh • To the sky, I rise / Spread my wings, and fly / I leave the past behind / And say goodbye to the scared child inside / I sing for freedom, and for love / I look at my reflection / Embrace the woman I’ve become / The unbreakable lotus in me / I now set free – Christina Aguilera • Water surrounds the lotus flower, but does not wet its petals. – Gautama Buddha • Waterlilies always come in Buddhist sculpture. The Buddhas all stand on lotus pedestals, because the lotus is grown from the mud. The mud represents the stained world, a dirty world, but growing from the dirt is such a beautiful, pure thing. This is the way the spirit should be. – Hiroshi Sugimoto • When I go from hence, let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable. I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus I am blessed—let this be my parting word. In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play and here have I caught sight of him who is formless. My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let it come—let this be my parting word. – Rabindranath Tagore • When I notice a rear wheel overtaking me, I know I’m sitting in a Lotus. – Graham Hill • When one, abandoning greed, feels no greed for what would merit greed, greed gets shed from him – like a drop of water from a lotus leaf. – Gautama Buddha • When we speak of the dust of the lotus feet of the Spiritual Master, we are speaking of humble approach to serve his instructions. Unless we humbly serve the instructions of the great soul, it is Krishna’s arrangement the He never reveals Himself. – Radhanath Swami • When you sit in the full lotus position, your left foot is on your right thigh and your right foot is on your left thigh. When we cross our legs like this, even though we have a right leg and a left leg, they become one. The position expresses the oneness of duality: not two and not one. This is the most important teaching: not two, and not one. Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. – Shunryu Suzuki • Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty. – Suzy Kassem • Worship of The Lotus Feet of The Spiritual Master: There is no work as auspicious as serving the spiritual master. Of all worship, the worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the greatest but the worship of the lotus feet of the spiritual master is even greater than the worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Unless this is firmly realized we cannot understand what saintly association means, we cannot understand what the shelter of a spiritual master means, we cannot understand that we are dependent and he is our maintainer. – Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati • YOU are the big drop of dew under the lotus leaf, I am the smaller one on its upper side,’ said the dewdrop to the lake. – Rabindranath Tagore • You can purify your existence by feeling deep within yourself a beautiful rose or lotus, or any other flower that you like. A flower is all purity. Try to identify yourself with the consciousness of the flower or with the purity of the flower. Today it is imagination, but if you continue imagining for five days, or ten days, or a month or two, then you are bound to see and feel the flower within you. First you may feel it, then you are bound to see the existence of the flower, and then automatically the fragrance and the purity of the flower will enter into you to purify you. – Sri Chinmoy • You can remain in the world for any number of years, but don’t let the world take hold. Don’t let the world take hold of the inside world. There is the example of the lotus. It stays deep down in the mud. It comes up to the light, and it can’t stay without water because it would die. But it does not get mixed up either with the mud or the water. You have seen the lotus; even if the water comes it just goes off again. Now, when they talk of God, they always say ‘the lotus eyes, the lotus feet’ because of this inner significance. – Sathya Sai Baba • You have to measure your success by the way your audience responds to your games. No matter how small that audience is, it’s yours. Your game is part of the lives and the memories of those people in a way that WordPerfect or Lotus 1-2-3 or Windows can never be. – Orson Scott Card • You like being vague, don’t you? (Amanda) It was a choice of being a Dark-Hunter or a prophet. Personally I like the slash-and-kill stuff much more than prayers and the lotus position. (Acheron) – Sherrilyn Kenyon • You must be a lotus, unfolding its petals when the sun rises in the sky, unaffected by the slush where it is born or even the water which sustains it! – Sai Baba • YOUR HEART IS FULL of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout. Just as a lotus flower springs from the mire to bloom splendidly, the interaction of the cosmic breath causes the flower of the spirit to bloom and bear fruit in this world. – Morihei Ueshiba

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[cadernonutrionline]

 People don’t change their lives all in one go. It’s not how human beings work. The world around us, our friends, work, homes and personal preferences remain. What you eat and how much you move can’t be plucked out and addressed with a variety of measures that the rest of your life can’t support.

I’m not writing a dieting how-to because I think you know how to eat healthfully. This is a series about how to build a life that supports the weight you want to be.

Sustained change comes from small, step by step alterations to our routines that have a big impact over time. 

Diet and exercise are the tip of the iceberg, and the part people already know the most about. I’m covering portions never discussed but equally important to success like, how do you speak to yourself? What in your day is occupying too much time? Do you live in an area where it’s easy to walk?

One of the great joys of getting older is developing the ability to see patterns. Understanding how seemingly disparate things connect and what that connection means. I’m going to teach you that same awareness in order to create change in your life. What to pay attention to and what to discard to achieve and keep a healthy weight.

What you eat and how much you move can’t be plucked out and addressed with a variety of measures that the rest of your life can’t support.

Most importantly, prescribed diets rob you of your ability to work out for yourself what will work long-term. The struggle towards sustainable changes is an important part of the process.

I wrote this to share what I learned in a straightforward and compassionate way. For years I was at my wit’s end about my ballooning weight. Dreading weighing myself, living in denial, cringing at pictures, embarking on wacky diets, and general self-loathing were the constants in my life. 

I’ve watched friends do the same things with half-measures and strange diets that had little hope of long-term success. Each time they blamed themselves when the plan became impossible to keep up, and each time it became a little harder to see a way forward. 

If I, as a 47 year old woman with a thyroid condition (I was diagnosed as hypothyroid since my early-thirties which is a low performing thyroid that frequently makes weight loss difficult) and a lifetime of weight issues could successfully lose and manage my weight without counting calories, journaling, exercising like a maniac or starving myself, maybe I was on to something.

Should you lose weight?

A better question might be, are you so ready to lose weight that you are willing to examine your life with honesty and make uncomfortable changes?

The first step in this process is to decide, yes, you want to do the necessary life work to be able to lose weight and keep it off. It matters enough to give it space and attention, you are ready.

There are shallow pleasures like buying a tiny, red bikini from London and wearing it on the beach in Puerto Rico with absolute confidence. But, that is the least interesting thing I can tell you about losing weight. Through this process I learned how to trust and rely on myself to find the right solutions. How to be kind to myself and how to accept the person I actually am. Flaws, frailties and all.

Instead, I began to explore one, simple question: what’s possible?

If I take a walk every day, what might happen? If I stop eating now and take the rest home, how soon will I be hungry? If I get a bike and ride it for the sheer joy will I keep at it? If I eat this sugary thing what happens to my cravings? If I skip the brunch invite and go hiking with a new friend will I feel as though I missed out? If I choose to live near a trail, will I use it? How can I move more all day long?

If this all sounds unsexy, you’re right. It’s also incredibly liberating observe yourself without judgement. No more shame or recrimination, no more shoving yourself into the one size fits all plans that make no sense to who you are. Does this work for you or not? Yes, keep. No, discard.

What I found through this process was a cascade of changes that altered my life entirely for the better. To change your weight you have to change how you conduct your life. All of it. I am a more centered, grounded and confident person as a result.

Let’s talk about food.

You have to eat less to lose weight, and you have to eat less to keep it off.

I realize this statement is going win me an avalanche of hateful comments, but I am sticking by it. I was eating too much, you probably are too.

The advice to ‘move more and eat less’ has come under fire recently as being too simplistic and ineffective. That’s only because our lives often work against our ability to make that happen. The intent of this series is to address the real-world problems that keep people stuck in their bad patterns. Eating less and moving more requires forethought, planning, and redefining yourself, to yourself. This series will take on the problems, one by one.

It’s not surprising we all eat too much. The modern world is constructed to over-feed us at every occasion. Restaurant portions are enormous, every social encounter includes food, it’s all over social media. You can drive for miles down some roads filled with nothing but places to eat. All of that seeps into our consciousness.

The ratcheting up of portions is something I experience as a restaurant owner. If I actually served real portion sizes I wouldn’t have any customers. My place focuses on quality over quantity and still each entree is two to three real servings. Enormous is the new normal.

It’s not a personal failing that we eat too much. Our world is filled with food and experiences designed specifically to encourage us to sit and eat. I’m amazed anyone can stay slim without a lot of effort.

Please don’t breathlessly tell me about some diet that cuts out whole categories of food but allows you to eat all you want of others. It’s just a sneaky way of saying the same thing. You need to eat less.

The question is how to do this in a way that becomes automatic and relatively painless. A way that does not rely on your ability to never eat bread again for the rest of your life (but definitely less). Most of all it needs to be a way that isn’t an enormous shock to your body. There are serious health consequences to starvation diets, most noticeably hurting your baseline metabolism.

I’m not interested in prescribing or advocating any particular diet because what I’ve discovered in the last eight years is that clean eating is a bit of a myth. I’m not suggesting you are going to lose weight eating big plates of burgers and fries, that’s clearly ridiculous. I am saying that you are going to have to figure out what kind of daily eating will nourish and satisfy you, and keep the weight off. My principles will set you on the path to doing that.

In addition, I’ll be adding links to books and articles that focus on science-based conclusions which helped me learn how to make even better choices. Not just in food, but time of day to eat, and how to gently trick yourself into eating less.

I place food in two main categories, food that makes you over eat and food that doesn’t. What that is changes from person to person. For me it’s generally sugary things that cause problems with cravings and compulsive overeating. I’ve known people who reacted that way to salty things, some to beer, some with fried foods.

This was an important discovery because it flies in the face of ‘everything in moderation’. I can’t be moderate with some things, so I do my best not have them at all.

Consider the quote below of the 95 year old yoga instructor featured in the LA Times. She doesn’t ever eat large quantities of anything, but she eats what she likes and keeps moving. Not dissimilar to what I do right now.

I’ve never weighed more than 100 pounds, but I can eat whatever I want. I just don’t eat a lot of it. Breakfast is a slice of cinnamon raisin toast with Irish Kerrygold butter, peanut butter and sliced bananas, and an espresso. I like El Pollo Loco chicken breast or thigh, nothing else with it, and I have it with a salad. I love mashed potatoes with butter and heavy cream.

The trouble comes because we live in a hyper-capitalist economy that suggests eating nearly constantly. Once you pay attention to all the opportunities to eat and drink that are literally shoved in front of your face, you’ll get an idea of what you are really up against.

My principles will help you create a defense to the endless cues to eat and regain a sense of control over when and how much you eat.

An interesting effect of eating less is also eating better. There is more room for veggies, salads and satisfying foods when you aren’t filling up on nonsense. Good eating can happen more naturally.

Willpower isn’t a useful tool.

I mean, on some level it is. I find the strength not to put my face under chocolate fountains but I don’t rely on willpower to make good decisions and science backs me up on this. Turns out your willpower is a set amount and every time you use it it gets depleted. If you have a life with a lot of temptation to sit and eat, it won’t be too long before your day of good intentions is derailed.

Then there are the temptations you may not even be aware of. If your daily commute has you driving by several fast food restaurants and you have to resist the pull each time, that’s a depletion of the willpower bank. If you go to a coffee shop with a big display of lovely pastries and have to force yourself to glide by, yet another depletion. That’s all before 9a.

Add to the mix your own genetic predisposition for craving certain foods and it’s easy to see the futility of relying on a finite resource to maintain a healthy weight. Constantly fighting yourself is not a way to get things done.

Plus, there is something wonderfully liberating about accepting yourself as you are. I am a person who wants to eat the fucking donut. Maybe the whole box if I could stomach it. Instead of feeling like a failure for that I work to limit my exposure. Turns out you can engineer virtuousness.

Our bodies have been constructed to respond to sugary, carby foods with singular purpose. To consume it quickly and find more. Accepting that, and creating a life that makes access more difficult is a much better solution than the narrative of personal failing. You are supposed to WANT THE DONUT. There are food scientists working around the clock to get us hooked on their product based on just this premise.

I’ll be writing more about this very subject in the coming weeks, but it’s an important concept to adopting my ‘change your life to change your weight’ approach.

Your body is a miracle. As-is, right now.

I know it doesn’t feel that way when you are carrying excess weight and have to fight the daily battle of incremental consumption, but it’s true. Having a body is one of the best things about being alive. It’s a vehicle for pleasure, intimacy and expression. It’s your access to living a full life.

As frustrating as my own charge has been; obesity, two bouts of breast cancer and all the other attendant issues of getting to forty-seven (even a bad cold can make you feel dubious about the joys of a body), I’m in love with it. Swimming in the ocean, an orgasm, a deep hug from a friend, holding my boyfriend’s hand, putting on a yummy moisturizer, dancing, smelling the rain, a long hike; these are my body’s gifts. You have them too, right now.

Your body isn’t a burden, it’s an opportunity. I went from being the girl who could barely get through gym class to a woman who tried running for the first time at forty and loved it. Exercise brought me a new level of appreciation for my body, and has given me a tool to control my weight, my mood and immerse myself in nature. That could not have happened until I removed the yoke of shame and wrong-headed thinking.

The idea of finding value in the present is an important one. I’m asking you to invest in the person who already exists, not the future perfect. You aren’t good when you lose the weight, you are good right now. I tried to circumvent this step for years, each time failing to make sustained progress.

If you aren’t ready to make that leap, just keep reading. One of my principles will help you rewrite your inner dialog. A self-esteem hack that worked wonders for me, and has its roots in behavioral science.

How to use this series.

First and foremost, read this introduction carefully. The ideas I’m imparting are important to understanding the principles. How carefully you read through this is directly proportional to the time and attention you are willing to put forward on losing weight (truth bomb).

In addition, go back and read the links I’ve embedded throughout. They aren’t by accident, they are important bits of information to educate yourself about this process.

The principles are the heart and soul of my series and where you can start practicing your own changes. I’m writing one new principle each week (or so) and rolling them out in my own magazine. That should give you enough time to work with it before the next one.

Several are up already, time to get started!

Each principle may or may not resonate immediately, read it anyway and give it some thought. Try it. The idea is to teach you how to reshape your life through the actions I took to do it for myself.

You are free to modify and tweak these ideas as they apply to you. Encouraged, even. This process has to be yours alone in order to work.

The principles are a practice, much like meditation or anything that requires sustained use to be useful. Every meal, each walk, how can I best practice this principle?

You’ll notice I’m not suggesting you create goal weights or try for your dream weight. I didn’t find that helpful because I wasn’t sure when I started what a sustainable, healthy weight would be for me. After eight years I now know it’s 152 pounds. That’s the weight where my clothes fit correctly and it isn’t agony to keep it up. I would encourage you to focus on the behavior and life modifications before settling on a weight. The idea is to end up somewhere you can stay for a long time and it may take some experimentation before you know what the number will be.

I strongly encourage you to read science-based approaches to eating and exercise by authors who have a long history of giving sensible advice. Jane Brody at The New York Times is one of my favorites.

Every year January rolls around with the promise of a clean slate. In one fell swoop, we will do everything differently. I see it at the suddenly crowded gym or watch friends embark on strange diets (at least, strange to me). I cringe a little about all this because I too, have tried to fix everything in one go. It never worked.

It’s a question of the grand gesture versus incremental progress.

January, and its attendant resolutions, is about the grand gesture. The grand gesture is deliciously satisfying at the start, but incremental progress is feeling the payoff for many years to come.

This process is not a quick fix. It’s not a set plan, it’s not a boot camp, or 30-day challenge. It’s the long process of learning self-awareness, connecting the dots in your day-to-day and creating a life that supports the person you want to be.

I think you deserve better than a quick fix. If you’ve been frustrated by other approaches, or, like me, could not fulfill someone else’s made up regimen, try this with patience and space for it to work.

Starting a pre-set diet is by definition doing something temporary. My way builds more slowly and quietly, but each small change will add up to something meaningful.

I’m well aware of the seductive quality diet plans offer with their simple ideas and quick results. My principles can’t offer that same initial rush. Instead, think of where these diet ‘success’ stories will be two to five years from now. I’m eight years down the road and still making it work.

Incremental progress is not a lesser version of progress, it’s the only sane and sustainable way forward.

It is possible to change your life, and as a result your weight. I’ve done it after many years of fits and starts, feeling defeated, and never quite having all the pieces together.

You can learn, you can do better, you can fix things that have long troubled you. I am proof.

[jackybooks]

Stephen King - On Writing | A Memoir on the Craft

Stephen King - On Writing | A Memoir on the Craft

I believe large numbers of people have at least some talent as writers and storytellers, and that those talents can be strengthened and sharpened. If I didn’t believe that, writing a book like this would be a waste of time

V.C.

There were more doors than one person could ever open in a lifetime, I thought (and still think) - “endless possibilities of life”

By the time I was fourteen, the nail in my wall would no longer support the height of the rejection slips impaled upon it, I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing.

I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused of someone of wasting his or her god-given talent. if you write(or paint/dance/sculpt/sing), someone will make you feel lousy about it, that’s all.

Mindset of writing

If stone sober people can fuck like they’re out of their minds - can actually be out of their minds while caught in that throe - why shouldn’t writers be able to go bonkers and still stay sane.

Writing is a lonely job, having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches, just believing is usually enough.

Stopping a piece of your work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit in a sitting position.

I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing

Toolbox

Vocabulary

It ain’t how much you got, honey, its how you use it.

Put your vocabulary on the top shelf, and don’t make any conscious effort to improve it.

Use the first word that comes to mind, if it’s appropriate and colorful.

Concision

"My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun"

"My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss. I'll never forget it”

You might also notice how much simpler the thought is to understand when it's broken up into two thoughts. This makes matters easier for the reader, and the reader must always be your main concern;

Adverbs

To write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine.

On Writing

Good writing consist of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style)

Reading

To be a good writer, you must read a lot and write a lot. You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by force of your writing until it has been done to you. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time(or the tools) to write, simple as that.

The real importance of reading is it created an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one’s papers and identification pretty much in order.

Once weaned for the ephemeral craving for TV, most people will find they enjoy the time they spend reading. I’d like to suggest that turning off that endlessly quacking box is apt to improve the quality of your life as well as the quality of your writing.

We read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience helps us recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them.

You learn the best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.

You must begin by being your biggest advocate, which means reading the magazines and publishing the kind of stuff you write.

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open

When you write, you want to get rid of the world, do you not? Of course you do, when you’re writing, you’re creating your own worlds.

Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right - as right as you can, anyway - it belongs to anyone who reads it.

The place can be humble(probably should be. and it really one u needs one thing: a door which you are willing to shut. The closed door is your day of telling the world you mean business; you have made a serious commitment to write and intend to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

But you need the room, you need the door, and you need the determination to shut the door. You need a concrete goal, as well. The longer you keep to these basics, the easier the act of writing will become.

If you're a beginner though, let me urge that you take your story through at least 2 drafts; the one with the door closed, the one you do with it open…

Keep the door closed

There comes a point when you want to show what you're doing to a close friend, either because you're proud of what you're doing or because you're doubtful about it. My best advice is to resist this impulse. Keep the pressure one; don't lower it by exposing what you've written to the doubt, the praise, or even the well-meaning questions of someone from the Outside World. Let your hope of success(and your fear of failure) carry you on, difficult as that can be. There'll be time to show off what you've done when you finish... but even after finishing I think you must be cautious and give yourself a chance to think while the story is still like a field of freshly fallen snow, absent of any tracks save your own.

Here's something else - if no ones says yo you, this is wonderful! you are a lot less apt to slack off or to start concentrating on the wrong thing.. being wonderful, for instance, instead of telling the goddam story.

You've done a lot of work and you need a period of time to rest. Your mind and imagination - two things which are related, but not really the same - have to recycle themselves. My advice is you take a couple days off - go fishing, and then work on something else, something shorter, preferably and something that's a complete changer directions and pace from your newly finished book.

Resist temptation, you'll very likely decide you didn't do as well on that passage as you thought and you'd better retool it on the spot. This is bad. The only thing worse would be for you to decide the passage is even better than you remembered - why not drop everything and read the whole book over right then? Get back to work on it! Hell, you're ready! You're fuckin Shakespeare!

After 6 weeks - Revising/Rewriting

If you've never done it before, you'll find reading your book over after a six week layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience, It's yours, you'll recognize it as yours, even be able to remember what tune was on the stereo when you wrote certain lines, and yet it will also be like reading the work of someone else, a soul-twin, perhaps. This is the way it should be, the reason you waited. It's always easier to kill someone else's darlings than it is to kill your own.

With 6 weeks of time, you'll also be able to see nay glaring holes in the plot of character development. I'm talking about holes big enough to drive a truck through. And listen, if you spot a few of these big holes, you are forbidden to feel depressed about them or beat up on yourself. Screw-ups happen to the best of us,

When reading your own draft - only god gets it right the first time and only a slob says "oh well, let it go, that's what copyeditors are for”

I love this part of the process because I'm re-discoverying my own book, and usually liking it.

Underneath, I'm asking myself the big question: Is this story coherent? What I want most of all is resonance, something that will linger for a little while in Constant Reader's mind and heart.

Most of all, I'm looking for what I meant.

The forumla for revision

2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%

When to open the door

Someone once said - All novels are really letters aimed at one person. At various points, the author is thinking, "I wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?"

And if what you hear makes sense, then you make the changes. You can't let the whole world into your story, but you can let in the ones that matter the most. And you should.

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scrubber's heart, kill your darlings

What to write about

The big question - what are you going to write about? And the equally big answer, Anything you damn well want. Anything at all, as long as you tell the truth.

What would be very wrong, I think, is to turn away form what you know and like or love, in favor of things you believe will impress your friends, relatives, and writing circle colleagues.

When I'm asked why I decided to write the sort of thing I do write, I always think the question is more revealing than any answer I can possibly give. Wrapped within it, like the chewy stuff in the center of a Tootsie Pop, is the assumption that the writer controls the material instead to the other way around. "The book is the boss”

What you know makes you unique in some other way. Be brave.

If you’re a lawyer, your story about lets say lawyers & gangs whatever will be very good because its grounded on experience and truth.

Structures of Writing

Stories and novels consist of 3 parts - Narration, Description and Dialogue.

Narration Moves the story from point A to B, and finally point Z

Description Creates a sense of reality for the reader.

Small example -

The cab pulled up in front of Palm Too at quarter to four on a bright summer afternoon. Billy paid the driver, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and took a quick look around for Martin. Not in sight. Satisfied, Billy went inside.

After the hot clarity of Second Avenue, Palm Too was as dark as a cave. The backbar mirror picked up some of the street-glare and glimmered in the gloom like a mirage. For a moment it was all Billy could see, and then his eyes began to adjust. There were a few solitary drinkers at the bar. beyond them, the matire d’, his tie undone and his shirt cuffs rolled back to show his hairy wrists, was talking with the bartender. There was still sawdust sprinkled on the floor, Billy noted, as if this were a twenties speakeasy instead of a millennium eatery where you couldn’t smoke, let alone spit a gob of tobacco between your feet. And the cartoons dancing across the walls - gossip-column caricatures of downtown political hustlers, newsmen who had long since retired or drunk themselves to death, celebrities you couldn’t recognize - still gambolled all the way to the ceiling. The air was redolent of steak and fried onions. All of it the same as it ever was

The maitre d’ stepped forward. “Can I help you, sir?” We don’t open for dinner until six, but the bar -

“I’m looking for Richie Martin,” Billy said.

If you want to be a successful writer, you must be able to describe it, and in a way that will cause your reader to pickle with recognition. When it's on target, a smile delights us in much the same way meeting an old friend in a crowd of strangers does. By comparing two seemingly unrelated objects - a restaurant bar and a cave, a mirror and a mirage - we are sometimes able to see an old thing in a new and vivid way.

Practice the art, always reminding yourself that your job is to say what you see, and then to get on with your story.

Dialogue What brings the characters to life through their speech

And the cardinal rules of good fiction is never tell us a thing if you can show us, instead. "Annie seems particularly happy that day" If I have to tell you, I lose.

Dialogue is a skill best learned by people who enjoy talking and listening to others - particularly listening.

Some people don't want to hear the truth, of course, but that's not your problem. If you expect it to ring true, then you must talk yourself. Even more important, you must shut up and listen to others talk

I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.

Every character you create, is partly you.

Practice is invaluable(and should feel good, really not like practice at all) and that honesty is indispensable. Skills in description, dialogue and character development all boil down to seeing or hearing clearly and then transcribing what you see or hear with equal clarity.

Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to them it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story.

~~Plot?~~ I won't try to convince you I never plotted like I never told a lie, but I do both as infrequently as possible. I distrust plot for 2 reasons.

Because of our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning;

I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible.

My basic belief about the making of stories is that they are pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow.

Plot, I think, the good writer's last resort and dullard's first choice. The story which results form it is apt to feel artificial and labored. I never demand a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way

Most of the ideas come from "situations" - what if vampires did this what if what if

these are all situations which occurred to me - while showing, while driving, while taking my daily walk

I believe stories are found things, like fossils in the ground, he said that he didn’t believe me. I said that’s fine, as long as he believe that I believe it. Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writers job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.

Why Write

I did it for the buzz, I did the for the pure joy of the thing, and if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever

Writing did not save my life - but it has continued to do what it always has done: it makes may life a brighter and more pleasant place.

Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends, In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.

The rest of it - and perhaps the best of it - is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will. Writing is magic, as much as the water of life as any other creative art, The water is free, So drink, drink and be filled up

Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it(whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening(or reading/watching), every outing is bravado performance, because you as the creator are happy.

If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it.

Quotes [No theme]

"there's just enough of me left inside to know that I am globally, perhaps even galactically, fucked up.”

"and telling an alcoholic to control his drinking is like telling a guy suffering the world's most cataclysmic case of diarrhea to control his shitting”

The work starts to feel like work, and for most writers that is the smooch of death. Writing is at its best - always, always, always - when it is a kind of inspired play for the writer. I can write in cold blood if I have to, but I like it best when its fresh and almost too hot to handle.

Remember you are writing a novel, not a research paper, the story always comes first.

It seems to occur to few of the attendees that if you have a feeling you just can't describe, you might just be, I don't know, kind of like, my sense of it is, maybe in the wrong fucking class.

“One word at a time”

[marcusssanderson]

50 Malcolm X Quotes about Life, Justice and Freedom

Looking for powerful Malcolm X Quotes about Life, Justice and Freedom? Here you go!

These Malcom X quotes will inspire you to take control of your life and live up to your full potential.

Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim leader and human rights activist who’s widely admired for his courageousness in advocating for the rights of blacks.

Born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, Malcolm was only 6 years old when he lost his father, and thirteen when his mother was placed in a mental hospital. Thereafter, Malcolm and his siblings were sent to foster homes or to live with family members.

At age 20, he was sent to prison, where he underwent a conversion and became a member of the Nation of Islam. He changed his birth name Malcolm Little to Malcolm X because he considered the name “Little” to have originated with white slaveholders.

After his release from prison, Malcolm became one of the Nation of Islam’s most influential leaders and helped make many of social achievements. In his final years, he continued to emphasize black self-determination, Pan-Africanism, and black-self defense. He was assassinated on February 21, 1965, at the age of 39.

Malcolm X was an advocate for universal freedom. People of all colors and religions can draw inspiration from his words of wisdom.

In his honor, below are some powerful Malcolm X quotes and sayings about life, love, equality and freedom.

Powerful Malcolm X quotes about Life, Justice and Freedom

1.) A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” – Malcolm X 

2.) “Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.”  – Malcolm X 

3.) We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.”  – Malcolm X 

4.) My alma mater was books, a good library… I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity. – Malcolm X 

5.) “Stumbling is not falling.” – Malcolm X 

6.) “There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time.”  – Malcolm X 

7.) “They put your mind right in a bag, and take it wherever they want.”  – Malcolm X 

8.) “Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.” – Malcolm X 

9.) “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us.” – Malcolm X 

10.) “A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own self hood, it can never fulfill itself.”  – Malcolm X 

11.) “If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.” – Malcolm X 

12.) “I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they’ll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.”  – Malcolm X 

13.) “I feel like a man who has been asleep somewhat and under someone else’s control. I feel that what I’m thinking and saying is now for myself.”  – Malcolm X 

14.) “The thing that you have to understand about those of us in the Black Muslim movement was that all of us believed 100 percent in the divinity of Elijah Muhammad. We believed in him. We actually believed that God, in Detroit by the way, that God had taught him and all of that. I always believed that he believed in himself. And I was shocked when I found out that he himself didn’t believe it.”  – Malcolm X 

Malcolm X Quotes on The Future

15.) “I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.” – Malcolm X 

16.) “Without education, you’re not going anywhere in this world. – Malcolm X 

17.) “You don’t have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.”  – Malcolm X 

18.) “When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won’t do to get it, or what he doesn’t believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn’t believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire . . . or preserve his freedom.” – Malcolm X 

19.) “Dr. King wants the same thing I want. Freedom.” – Malcolm X 

20.) “I want Dr. King to know that I didn’t come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King. – Malcolm X 

21.) “I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.”  – Malcolm X 

22.) It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody’s blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless. As the nations of the world free themselves, the capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker. It’s only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely. – Malcolm X 

23.) We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary. – Malcolm X 

24.) Power never takes a step back except in the face of more power. – Malcolm X 

Malcolm X Quotes on Doing the Right Thing

25.) My alma mater was books, a good library. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity. – Malcolm X 

26.) “In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.” – Malcolm X 

27.) You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker. – Malcolm X 

28.) I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won’t let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion. – Malcolm X 

29.) The only way we’ll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba — yes Cuba too. – Malcolm X 

30.) Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it. – Malcolm X 

31.) Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or who says it. – Malcolm X 

32.) If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country. – Malcolm X

Malcom X quotes about change and freedom 

33.) Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change. – Malcolm X 

34.) Speaking like this doesn’t mean that we’re anti-white, but it does mean we’re anti-exploitation, we’re anti-degradation, we’re anti-oppression. – Malcolm X 

35.) I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment. – Malcolm X 

36.) Nonviolence is fine as long as it works. – Malcolm X 

37.) Change Is Only a Good Thing If You Change in a Good Way. – Malcolm X 

38.) You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. – Malcolm X 

Malcolm X quotes about education and reading

39.) Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. – Malcolm X

40.) Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and thereby increase self-respect. – Malcolm X 

41.) When you live in a poor neighborhood, you are living in an area where you have poor schools. When you have poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. When you get a poor education, you can only work in a poor-paying job. And that poor-paying job enables you to live again in a poor neighborhood. So, it’s a very vicious cycle. – Malcolm X 

42.) Only a fool would let his enemy teach his children.– Malcolm X 

43.) Read absolutely everything you get your hands on because you never know where you’ll get an idea from. – Malcolm X 

44.) I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke in me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. – Malcolm X 

45.) Early in life I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise. – Malcolm X 

46.) You can’t legislate good will – that comes through education. – Malcolm X 

Other Powerful Malcolm X quotes

47.) I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he’s wrong, than the one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil. – Malcolm X 

48.) The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you’ll get action.– Malcolm X 

49.) If you turn the other cheek, you can be enslaved for 1,000 years. – Malcolm X 

50.) Anytime you see someone more successful than you are, they are doing something you aren’t. – Malcolm X 

What’s your favorite Malcolm X quote?

Malcolm X accomplished a lot in his life. He changed his mindset and turned his life around to become a role model. He stood up for himself and set an example of courage.

And no matter how controversial, he got a lot of people thinking about the race problem and alternative ways to address it.

Hopefully, these Malcolm X quotes have motivated you to conquer your weaknesses and reach your full potential.

Did you enjoy these Malcolm X quotes? What other quotes by Malcolm X would you add to the list? Tell us in the comment section below.

The post 50 Malcolm X Quotes about Life, Justice and Freedom appeared first on Everyday Power.

[leamybean]

The Girl Guides and The Referendum: An insight

I have been a member of the Irish Girl Guides since I was 12 years old. Although this is a later start than many (as you can join at 5), I never felt this was an issue. Growing up, I always believed in speaking my mind. Did this get me in trouble, absolutely. Did I stop speaking my mind, not at all! I just learned when and where I could do it, while weighing up the punishment I might get for doing it. As I got older, I realised that my honesty is what my friends valued most. They come to me when they want to hear the truth about a situation. Don’t get me wrong, if they’ve just broken up with their boyfriend, I’m ready with the ice-cream and soppy movies, but once that stage is over, I am right behind them, pushing them to be the best version of themselves that they can be. Sorry, I went off topic, back to the Girl Guides.

I joined as my local unit were short on numbers, so everyone was asked to bring along someone new. I stayed because I was now part of an organisation that encouraged girls and young women to be the best version of themselves, to have fun in the outdoors, to speak openly about issues that mean something to them, and do something about it. Hate rubbish? Then design a poster to stick up around your town to create awareness. Unhappy with the gender pay gap? Then do some research and survey your friends and family to see how much/little they know about the situation, and educate them. Disturbed by the way in which women are treated in third world countries? Then raise funding, and go to Kenya to teach young women like yourself lifeskills and sex-ed to help them in their lives. (I have done these three, plus many many more pro-active actions in my time in Guiding).

As I got older, I realised that the political stance of an organisation like Irish Girl Guides is a blurred structure. Yes, I could, and was encouraged to lobby outside Leinster house on International Women’s Day for gender equality. But I could not on a National Level promote or demote a political party, or an opinion about, for example, an upcoming referendum. This confused me at first. From a young age, we are telling these young girls that they are strong, independent women. That no one can force them to do anything they don’t want to do. We teach them about violence in the home, about safe sex, about what a healthy relationship is, and that if they work hard, they can do whatever they want to do. But then I realised, to quote Spiderman’s Uncle Ben “With great power comes great responsibility”, and as an organisation, it is not our job to force our political opinion on others, but to encourage our members to understand how and why a referendum takes place, and to encourage them to use their vote. This is why, although not on a national level, I have chosen to discuss the upcoming referendum with my local Senior Branch members.

For those of you who don’t know, Senior Branch is the oldest branch of the Irish Girl Guides, with members from 14 to 30. My particular unit has members aged 15 to 18. Most of my members are too young to vote, but does that stop me discussing important issues like the repeal with them? Absolutely not.  Because I have been taught since I was 12 years old to be an advocate. To discuss openly any issues that mean something to me, and to do something about it. I myself am Pro-choice. I encourage my girls to have healthy debates, to look at both sides of a referendum. To do research, but I am careful to encourage actual research, not just looking at what comes up on their Facebook feed as they scroll through. I was recently asked how I would handle the situation if one of my members was pro-life. I had to think about it for a while. At first, I felt a sense of failure. That I had failed them as their unit leader. Should I have been more direct about ensuring they knew that they were in control of their own bodies? That no one else is allowed to tell them what to do with their bodies. But after thinking deeply about the situation, I came to the conclusion, that I have not failed them. I have given them the tools they need to make a decision themselves. This organisation is not a dictatorship. They are free to discover for themselves their own opinion on the referendum. I would not treat them any different. I would ensure, just like I would with my members who we’re pro-choice, that they have researched both sides of the referendum, and come to a decision that they are most happy with. It is not my job to push my opinion on them, so to answer the question I was asked, “How would I handle the situation if one of my members was pro-life?” I would ensure that they check the register to ensure that they are registered to vote. Because at the end of the day, if you have a vote, and don’t use it, it doesn’t make a difference what your opinion is. So please, log onto www.checktheregister.ie and ensure that you are registered to vote.

[wildheartcoach]

The missing piece

This is long, but it's important for me to share my story with you.

When I was about 30, I wanted to figure out how I could use my talents to work for myself, to work from home. It has always been there, a desire, a yearning to be self-employed. To me, that seemed like the ultimate freedom. It still is today. So why didn’t I do this sooner?

What was missing from my life, back when I was 30, was any kind of belief in myself. There wasn’t even an inkling, a fraction of a fraction of self-confidence, of knowing my own value. In fact, if I did have even a fraction of a fraction of confidence in myself at 30, that quickly disappeared as soon as I met and married my first husband, Paul. Whatever strength of purpose I had -- to improve my own life, to pursue a career change, to allow myself to be more free and for things to get messy or uncertain, and to be ok with that -- it was so weak and small and fragile, that it had no hope of surviving the onslaught of challenges that I went through in that relationship.

The fact is, I’ve always known ‘deep down’ that my career would be somewhat lonely and of my own making. I imagined I would be a novelist, working from home. I knew what I wanted, but I settled for less. I caved because of income concerns. I decided I needed to be more dependable than that. Anyway, who did I think I was, when I considered being my own boss? I had no real talent, people would see right through me, they’d never want what I had to offer, or so I thought. It felt too risky.

Fast-forward to 2016. I am 48 years old, and it’s 18 years later. The desire for self-employment is still there. This time I’ve engineered a plan of escape. This time I have James, who is supportive and rooting for me. Cheering me on, ‘yes, you can do this!’ I have a coach who does the same. The only barrier to leaping is me: my own limiting beliefs.

I am so ready to do it, by this time. For years, I read books that gave me insight into how to go from an office job to a life of freedom and self-employment. For years, I worked on myself to overcome my limiting beliefs. For years, I studied, planned, dreamed and imagined what I could do to make that new chapter of my life possible.

And then the choice was no longer mine to make. I was let go. Fired, really. From a job that had grown too comfortable, that it was too painful to stay. “And the day came, when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom,” said Anais Nin. This is one of my favorite quotes, because I felt that pain. I really did.

They did me a favor, bringing down the ax. Cutting me loose. It was ok, because I had built up another landing platform: a life coaching practice. I was a certified coach but had no clients.

For a year, I devoted myself to my new career of coaching. With this new freedom, I felt deeply responsible to be successful. If I couldn’t pull this off, I’d be losing out on this once in a lifetime opportunity, I thought. With a mentor coach on board, I waded through the infinite possibilities of how to make it work. I continued to absorb as much information as possible: best practices of entrepreneurs, how to make six figures in a year, how to be an online marketing guru, how to be a powerful coach.

For a year, I was driven by fear. Fear of failure. Fear of having to get another office job. Fear of disappointing my new husband. Fear of not having the right mindset or skillset to be self-employed, or to even be a coach.

After a year, I was exhausted and disillusioned. I knew I was relying too much on outside opinions, other people’s advice, and none of it felt like it really fit. None of it felt true to me. It was difficult to follow, while at the same time felt cookie-cutter, like a one-size-fits-all solution. I was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole -- just like I had in my last job. I was stressed out. I’d spent my entire savings and had no clients, no business to show for it.

I needed something new. I let go of my mentor coach and decided I needed a different approach to being self-employed. I hired a new coach, one I suspected would be more practical and offer me steps for moving closer to my business goals. I also signed up an online marketing consultant/coach to work on the internet side of things.

Although I was attempting to do more inner-listening and going with my gut, I still wasn’t happy. It was thanks to my new coach that I gave myself permission to do more self-discovery. I told her I wanted to give myself some time off to simply take a break, a rest, from the constant doing, the figuring out, the forcing of the business. Working on the business was stressing me out, it felt like a chore. I was not doing it with passion, but out of fear.

My coach agreed: take time off. Whatever you think you need. So I did.

On my birthday, my 50th birthday, December 22nd, I made the choice to take a month or five weeks off. I wanted to see what I could do to get my head back in the game and wanted to do it by simply removing any “business” thoughts from my mind. I called it a retreat. A few weeks later, I heard the word “metreat” and that summed it up exactly. I was going to treat me to a month of simply living. Not doing, not trying, not forcing, not strategizing. Simply living. Being.

I’d only done this one other time, after I'd left Paul. That time, I gave myself 18 months. It was the happiest time of my life. I eliminated all responsibilities, all chores that didn’t bring me joy. I removed all “shoulds” from my life. What I kept, and that gave me structure and stability, was my job. Even though it was the same job that had become too comfortable and also painful, it was not stressing me out at the time. That didn’t happen until much later. That time off led me to finding James and us getting married, and it changed my life quite drastically.

This time, the metreat was shorter. In all, I took about 10 weeks, from the end of December through the first week in March. While on this break, I also went on an overnight, away-from-home retreat, a spiritual retreat. While there, I had an epiphany. I suddenly knew my true passion, my soul work.

However, I wasn’t taking this time off to figure out how to make my soul’s calling into a profitable venture. I wanted only to receive messages. Those messages came at me frequently, and I listened and let them in. That was the task I’d given myself. Some of those messages did lead to actions, which I’ll share those some other time.

What did I learn and get out of all this? That we are all driven by something. I am driven by my need for freedom, by my desire for independence. I also feel called to make an impact on the world, to change people’s lives for the better. To teach what I’ve learned. At its highest level, my life is driven by a need to see the world become a better place, a happier place, a healthier place. I will never NOT have this drive.

The difficulty comes when I look at what others are doing and think: I can do that too. If they’re doing it, why can’t I? Then I try to do exactly what they’re doing or have done and I wonder why it’s so difficult, why it stresses me out, or why I'm not getting the same results.

It took me some time, but then I understood. Of course you can’t just mimic successful people. It’s not about what they do, it’s about who they are. You can’t do what they do, because you’re not them. You have to do what you do. You have to listen to your own instincts.

It isn’t about adopting a “can do” attitude, and taking on all the hokey personal development mumbo jumbo that others successful coaches and business people are spouting. It’s about being true to you. Being real. Being authentic. To do that, you need to own your shit. Your fears. Your lack of confidence. Your vulnerabilities. Your dreams and hopes and visions. Your quirky truths. Confess your bullshit, your lies. Be transparent.

So I’ve been on this long journey of self-discovery. And discovering myself, my true self, not the one others tell me I need to be more like, is the missing piece to the whole entrepreneurial adventure I’m on. It is so true that becoming who I want to be, the kind of person who will go out and make the world a better place, and make a living doing it, is all about self-discovery and self-development.

Here’s what I know was missing for me. What wasn’t clear to me for that whole year before taking 10 weeks off: I was missing self-trust, a firm self-belief in who I am in my core, in my heart of hearts.

I think of the lotus flower, so delicate, sitting on the water. Below the surface, what we don't see, is that the roots of this flower are submerged firmly in the mud. We are like this flower. We have roots and mud that hold us in place, even when hidden. We have to be willing to go down into the mud and see what's there, what nourishes us, what helps us to grow.

When you know who you are that deeply and strongly, no one can ever again pull you off-center. I take that back. They can try to pull you off center and you might even fall, but you will very quickly get back up again and stand firm in the belief that you have your own back. That you know better than anyone else what you want and need to do. Someone else could know you really well. They could have 100% belief in you. But even they can’t know what you need to do. Only you can know that.

Knowing your life purpose is what ties it all together for me. Yes, all the other spiritual stuff can work. It’s all good. But for some of us, and I guess I’m one of them, we need to dive even deeper into self-discovery. Into knowing, beyond a doubt, what we are here for. You can only know that, what you’re here for, when you know who you are. What you’re truly capable of.

It’s so easy to say: ‘You can do anything you set your mind to.’ But that’s a lazy and false message.

The truth is: You do best what you put your heart into. Not your mind. It’s all in the heart. When the heart is listened to, the mind will follow. Let your heart lead. It’s the only way.

As much as I am listening within and trusting my heart's voice, I couldn't have got to where I am without some help. It is thanks to many people that I figured out this important lesson. Here are a few:

Glennon Doyle and her book "Love Warrior" 

Phoebe Mrozcek and The Unbecoming podcast, especially the episode called "The Downshift"

Kyle Cease and the Evolving Outloud video (2 days of amazing content packed into a $20 download)

Michele Tamaren and Bette Freedson who led the overnight retreat "A Woman's Sacred Journey: Discovering Your Soul's Divine Spark" where I had my epiphany.

The Shift Network and Rhys Thomas for offering his course "The 12 Gateways to Your Life Purpose," and giving me a scholarship for it.

Carol Williams, my coach and the book she introduced to me by Barbara Stanny, called "Sacred Success".

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."  -- e.e. cummings

[krissysbookshelf]

Enjoy An Exclusive Sneek Peek Of: The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller! (Please Be Aware!! Contains Content Trigger!)

Matt hasn't eaten in days. The hunger clears his mind—and he needs to be as sharp as possible if he's going to find out just how Tariq and his band of high school bullies drove his sister, Maya, away. Matt has discovered something: the less he eats the more he seems to have . . . powers. The ability to see things he shouldn't be able to see. Maybe even the authority to bend time and space. Matt decides to infiltrate Tariq's life, then use his powers to uncover what happened to Maya. All he needs to do is keep the hunger at bay. But Matt doesn't realize there are many kinds of hunger…and he isn't in control of all of them. TRIGGER WARNING:

Eating disorders and body dysmorphia are recurring themes in The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller. Please be aware if these are sensitive topics for you!  

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  TRIGGER WARNING:

Eating disorders and body dysmorphia are recurring themes in The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller. Please be aware if these are sensitive topics for you!

Congratulations! You have acquired one human body. This was a poor decision, but it is probably too late for you to do anything about it. Life, alas, has an extremely strict return policy.

Not that I’m some kind of expert or anything, but as an almost-seventeen-year veteran of having a body, I’ve learned a few basic rules that might save you some of my misery. So I’m writing this Rulebook as a public service. Please note, however, that there are a lot of rules, and some of them are very difficult to follow, and some of them sound crazy, and please don’t come crying to me if something terrible happens when you can only follow half of them.

RULE #1

Understand this: your body wants the worst for you. It is a complicated machine built up over billions of years, and it wants only two things—to stay alive and to make more of you. Your body thinks you’re still an animal in the jungle, and it wants you to eat ALL the food, and stick your DNA up in anything you can hold down. Lust and hunger will never leave you alone, because your body wants you grotesquely fat and covered in kids.

DAY: 1 TOTAL CALORIES: 3600

Suicidal ideation.

When you say it like that it sounds soft and harmless, like laissez-faire or any of the other weird sets of meaningless words they make you memorize in school. The letter from the psychiatrist sounded so calm I had to read it a couple of times before I saw what she was trying to say. She didn’t quote me. She didn’t tell my mom I said, Sometimes I think if I killed myself everyone would be a lot better off or Five times a week I decide to steal the gun my mom thinks I don’t know about and bring it to school and murder tons of people and then myself.

Instead, the psychiatrist said a lot of scary things in very tame and pleasant language:

Recommend urgent action— Happy to prescribe— Facilitate inpatient treatment—

Poor thing. How could she know my mom hides from the mail, with its bills and Notes of Shutdown and FINAL WARNINGS? I didn’t want to go see the psychiatrist in the first place, but the school set it up for me because I am evidently an At-Risk Youth. At risk of what, I wondered, and then thought, oh right, everything. At risk of enough that one or all my teachers filed whatever due-diligence report they’re obligated to file on someone who is obviously headed for homicide or suicide, so his or her blood isn’t on their hands. And as soon as the psychiatrist’s report came, addressed to my mom, I plucked it from the mail pile.

I read it on my walk to school. My mom still thinks I take the bus, but I stopped around the six thousandth time someone called me a faggot and punched me as I walked through the aisle. That kind of thing can really start your day off on the wrong foot. Plus, walking to school makes it easier to get there late, so I’m spared the agony of playing Lord of the Flies while we all stand around outside waiting for the first bell to ring.

The branches were almost entirely bare overhead. Stark and black like skinny fingers clawing at the sky. One crooked tree still had half its leaves. Hunger rumbled in my belly, and I felt like if I reached out hard enough, I could stretch myself taller than any of the trees. Hunger is funny like that.

Anyway. I shredded the letter, let it fall behind me like a trail of breadcrumbs. Lesson learned: Don’t tell people you want to kill yourself. Although really I should have known that one already. If high school teaches you nothing else, know this: Never tell anyone anything important.

I slowed down. Savored my last few steps before the hill crested and brought me in sight of the school. Stared up at the trees, and down the garbage-strewn road. Stopped. Breathed. Wondered what would happen if I turned and walked into the woods and never came back. I thought about this a lot. I had plans. I’d hitchhike or ride the rails or follow the river.

Under my bed there was a bag, full of books and hoodies and diet soda from the vending machine behind the ShopRite, and one of these days I would be ready to sling it over my shoulder and run away for real.

But I wasn’t ready, not yet. As miserable as it made me, I had to go to school. Not because I cared about college or education or a career or any of that pig shit, because anyone who spent five minutes in a Hudson High School classroom would know there was no actual educating happening anywhere in sight. The reason I couldn’t kill myself, and I couldn’t stop coming to school, was because Maya beat me to it. Because five days ago, my older sister ran away from home. She called the next morning from somewhere on the freeway to assure us she wasn’t kidnapped, she was taking a week off (“or whatever”) to go to some studio near Providence to record her band’s first album, she’d catch up on school when she got back. We shouldn’t call the cops. Etc.

She says she’s fine. She says nothing happened. But I don’t think that’s entirely true. I think someone hurt her. And I know who. And I had to keep coming to school because I had to find out what happened, so I could hurt him back.

So I crested the hill and walked down to the squat sprawling one-story building, an ugly heap of aluminum and brick, cursing my abject failure at estimating travel time, for I had arrived too early, and they were there, my peers, my fellow primates, hooting and hollering, pounding chests and grooming each other.

My senses felt like they’d been turned up too high. Maybe it had something to do with skipping breakfast, with the churning engine of my empty stomach generating electricity that danced in my limbs, crackled in my head, but these people stunk. They spoke too loudly.

Their clothes and bags were head-achingly bright. It made every step toward them harder.

And there, at the door, arms folded like the bouncers outside a club in a cop show, they stood. Three of them: Bastien, Tariq, Ott. Hudson High’s soccer stars; the shrewd-eyed roosters at the top of our pecking order.

“Pretty,” Ott said as one girl approached.

“Not pretty,” to the next. Grinning hyena-style at how her face crumpled.

“Pretty.”

“Fugly.”

“Thinks she’s pretty.”

At this, they cackled. Everyone but Tariq. Tariq, with his perfect stomach and impressive chest and a beard thicker than any high school senior’s ever, Tariq of the dimples and broad nose, Tariq who could have stepped out of my computer screen, because he’d fit right in on the sites I spent all night searching when my mom was asleep. Pages packed with boys, beautiful ones—a secret nation to which I would never belong. Tariq, who somehow made me feel fat and scrawny all at once.

Tariq, who saw me and looked away as fast as he could but not fast enough to hide the guilt that soured his face.

We had both been crushed out on Tariq, my big sister and me. He wasn’t like the other boys on the soccer team, even if he did spend an awful lot of time with them. He wasn’t a bully. He was handsome and smart, and even nice, sometimes.

That’s what made him so dangerous. Everybody knows to steer clear of a bully. Maya would never have gone to meet up with Tariq in secret if he had already showed us all he was a brutal thug.

But he seemed . . . human. So she did.

He didn’t know that I knew. And, admittedly, I didn’t know much. Just that they met up that night. So maybe nothing happened. Maybe he just gave her a ride to Providence, to this recording studio I don’t really believe exists, or to where one of her bandmates lived. The fact that he gave her a ride that night wasn’t what made me suspicious. What made me suspicious was this: something shifted, in Tariq’s body language, after that night. He doesn’t look me in the eye anymore. He turns his shoulders away from wherever I am standing.

Like right then, as I approached the front door, where he stood with his best friends, staring at the ground with his perfect lips pressed tight together.

I gnawed my fingernails furiously.

My mom tells me it is a disgusting habit. She tells me to stop. I can’t stop.

It hurt, how much I wanted to smash my face against those perfect lips. I wanted it even though I felt pretty sure Tariq did something terrible to my sister. And the wanting got rolled up with the shame and filled me with a sputtering, stupid animal rage. How could it be, that in spite of everything, I still felt lust when I looked at him? Lust, and hate, in equal measure.

That’s why I’m writing this Rulebook.

Your body is a treacherous savage thing and it is trying to kill you. I am here to help you win. Together, we are both going to win.

Ott saw me stop and stare daggers at Tariq.

“You want something, Matt?”

That’s my name: Matt. I didn’t want to tell you, because I hate it.

A matt is something people step on. A matt is full of filth.

I debated lying. Making up something badass or manly, Damien or Colby or Barrett or Bo, something gay-porn-star-y. But honesty is important. I want you to trust me. Because pretty soon I’ll be telling you some things you’re going to have a very hard time believing.

So, Ott called my name. My whole body twitched with fight-or-flight triggers, but I knew either choice would be disastrous. If I fought, I’d get my ass beat, and if I ran, my limited ability to make Tariq feel uncomfortable, to apply pressure, would evaporate.

People were watching. If Tariq hadn’t been standing there, I’d have gone about my business, but he was my real audience. Ott didn’t matter.

I winced, tasting blood where I bit down too hard on the cuticle of my ring finger.

In movies and books, all you need to do to stop a bully is to punch them back. Bullies are cowards, the story goes; they can dish out violence, but they can’t take it.

This, you should know, if you haven’t already found it out the hard way, is bullshit. I tried it, in middle school, and it made things worse. Maybe it’ll work for you, if you’re stronger than me, or a faster runner, but it earned me a lovely session of puking up blood.

I knew that hitting Ott wouldn’t get me anywhere. But I did see something flicker in his eyes, something like fear but not exactly that, something bigger, messier: hate and fear all at once. I took a step closer. I took a deep breath. I smelled him.

And don’t ask me how, but I knew. I knew from the smell: I made him nervous. I terrified him. My existence, my gayness, threatened his whole way of understanding the world, what it meant to be the male of the species.

I’d never understood the word homophobia before— people who are homophobic are not afraid of gay people, they just hate them! But in that moment it all made sense. Straight men will insult and assault and beat and kill gay men because they are terrified. Because masculinity is the foundation they built their whole worldview on, the set of lies that lets them believe they are inherently better than women, and gay people expose how flimsy and arbitrary the whole thing is.

I turned to him and said, “No, Ott, I don’t want anything. I was just wondering. What about me?”

His mouth curled into a snarl. “What about you?”

“Which one am I?”

He unfolded his arms with a slowness that revealed his uncertainty. “Which . . . one?”

“Yeah. Am I pretty? Not pretty? I definitely think I’m pretty.”

A girl giggled. Even Tariq cracked a grin, though he turned his head to hide it from me.

I took another step forward. Ott’s lips parted slightly, and I saw muscles tighten in his arms. He was confused and getting angry: he sensed I was humiliating him, but not in any way he could reasonably understand. He was desperate for me to touch him, or explicitly insult him, so he could hurt me. I had planned to tap his chest with one finger when I delivered the finishing line, but that would have made Ott feel justified in a physical response. So why bother.

Seconds ticked away—

“You are Not Pretty,” I told Ott an instant before the first bell rang.

Then I slipped by him and walked inside.

TRIGGER WARNING:

Eating disorders and body dysmorphia are recurring themes in The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller. Please be aware if these are sensitive topics for you!

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