Quotations

Confusion still exists concerning the nature and functions of the soul

Confusion still exists concerning the nature and functions of the soul and also of the spirit of humankind. Once spirit comes down to dwell in the flesh it starts to create what is called a soul, for soul is that part of our being which is built up through experiences undergone by our tender inner self during incarnation. Soul can further be described as the feminine aspect of our life, the mother principle. The soul of the world is made up of the feeling of the world; the soul of a nation is created by the feeling of the people of that nation.

~ from The Living Word of St. John by White Eagle

White Eagle The Living Word Of St. John soul

Snow crystals on a trembling leaf

Snow crystals on a trembling leaf,
along the river where we talked at
the tip of Spring; fresh air, moist
lavender sky--the silence following
a blessed rain that came, bringing
us to beauty; a tiny wild flower
under the shadows of a moss-covered
log; as if to say, I am the first smile,
the new beginning of heaven.

~ Unknown

Unknown nature

I dream of a world where all beings are honored

I dream of a world where all beings are honored, where earth, air, fire and water are held to be sacred. For me, living more simply is an important step toward helping to create this world... Voluntary simplicity is a tiny thread in the cosmic process. It is said that one cell’s action affects the whole universe. This means that whatever we do as individuals does make a difference.

~ Susan Kleihauer in “Earthlight” #21, Spring ‘96

Susan Kleihauer Spring '96, Earthlight #21 nature

There is nothing in me that is not of the earth

There is nothing in me that is not of the earth, no split second of separateness, no particle that disunites me from the surroundings. The river runs through my veins, the winds glow in and out with my breath, the soil makes my flesh, the sun’s heat smolders inside me. A sickness or injury that befalls the earth befalls me. A fouled molecule that runs through the earth runs through me. Where the earth is cleansed and nourished, its purity infuses me. The life of the earth is my life. My eyes are the earth gazing at itself.

~ Richard Nelson

Richard Nelson nature

The Divine Feminine encourages interdependence

The Divine Feminine encourages interdependence, interconnectedness, and mutuality: instead of dominating and controlling nature, the Divine Feminine represents reverence for nature’s web of life. Instead of dismissing feelings and emotions, the Divine Feminine interprets them as a source of wisdom.

~ from SOUL SISTERS by Pythia Peay

Pythia Peay Soul Sisters nature

God did not grant me the gift of art

God did not grant me the gift of art. I had to express myself in my own life, in my thoughts, in my feelings, in my dreams and ideas, and in my love for all humanity and the Earth. I feel human, totally ecstatically human. I will help this planet, with all my abilities and love, to become what it was always meant to be: the planet of Love, a true miracle in the universe, inhabited by a happy, fulfilled, peaceful, loving humanity, thankful for the miraculous gift of life.

~ Robert Muller’s "Journal" in PROPHET by Douglas Gillies

Douglas Gillies Robert Muller's nature

The imperatives of our own being

We cannot discover ourselves without first discovering the universe, the earth, and the imperatives of our own being.

~ Thomas Berry

Thomas Berry nature

When the lessons of equality are learned on earth

When the lessons of equality are learned on earth, the electro-magnetic field of the planet will change and earth will give birth to a new, more glorious curriculum. The seeds of this transformation have already been sown. Our job is to water and nurture them.

~ from LOVE WITHOUT CONDITIONS by Paul Ferrini

Paul Ferrini Love Without Conditions nature

Be the thing you see

To look at any thing,

If you would know that thing,

You must look at it long. . . .

Be the thing you see:

You must be the dark snakes of

Stems and ferny plumes of leaves,

You must enter in

To the small silences between

The leaves,

You must take your time

And touch the very peace

They issue from.

~ John Moffitt

John Moffitt nature

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread

places to play in and pray in,

where nature may heal and give strength

to body and soul alike.

~ from THE YOSEMITE by John Muir

John Muir The Yosemite nature

Tending a garden nourishes the human desire

Tending a garden nourishes the human desire to give form to mystery and offers ground for growth, not only for plants that nourish and delight, but for engagement of self and the world. There is a sacramental element in watching a living thing flourish under our care toward its full potential, and what this nurturing opens in us becomes written on the human soul.

~ from "The Patient Reach for Light" by Anita Lange in "Parabola" Spring, ‘05

Anita Lange The Patient Reach For Light nature

To see all things at their origin puts us in kinship with all that lives

To see all things at their origin, their beginning, puts us in kinship with all that lives: trees, birds, stars seem foreign to us only inasmuch as we perceive them outside of our common origin with them. To drink at the source of all that lives and breathes expands the heart and makes the blood sing, echoing the song of all the vital fluids in the world. To dwell near all beginnings is to draw infinitely near to that which creates both the unity and the diversity of all beings.

~ from THE SACRED EMBRACE OF JESUS AND MARY, by Jean-Yves Leloup

Jean-Yves Leloup The Sacred Embrace Of Jesus And Mary nature

Come into the light of things

Come into the light of things.
Let nature be your teacher.

~ William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth nature

Spring comes a smug cliche of fat buds

Spring comes

a smug cliché of fat buds

the earth is getting ready

to spring spring upon us

the birds are making a racket

in the bland air.

Why do I growing old

in all this abundance of life

say to death, move over,

let us sit together a moment

on the doorstep?

~ from THIS DANCING GROUND OF THE SKY by Peggy Pond Church

Peggy Pond Church This Dancing Ground Of The Sky nature

In the womb of God we can both be and be born

Our first home was in the womb of our earthly mother, but the womb of God is our "forever" home. It is a place in which we can live both now and forever--an "at home" place of rest. In the womb of God we can both be and be born, over and over again--constantly birthed into new being: new hope, renewed faith, and forgiving love.

~ from F. Jerry Fraser

F. Jerry Fraser home

As ruined as my house is

As ruined as my house is,
You live there.

~ Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton home

Even as the sparrow finds a home

Even as the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nesting place,
where its young are raised within
your majestic creation,
You invite us to dwell withinyour Heart.
Blessed are they whose hearts are filledwith love...

They go from strength to strength
and live with integrity.

~ from PSALMS FOR PRAYING by Nan Merrill

Nan Merrill Psalms For Praying home Buy on Amazon

In the beginning of every silent meditative period

In the beginning of every silent meditative period, we send forth a glad call to the Eternal. It is so good to be able to go Home, even for a few moments! As our thoughts calmly turn from the outer to the inner world, we soar into communion with a joyful salutation addressing the Eternal as though standing on a high cliff with arms outflung to the heavens. By degrees we are included in the silence of the Infinite.

~ from Silence by Flower A Newhouse

Flower A. Newhouse Silence home

The ache for home lives in all of us

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

~ Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou home

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

~ William Wadsworth

William Wadsworth home

In that moment, wherever it was became home

A friend once told me about the "home" he and his father had as refugees in Europe during World War II. He, his mother, and his younger brother moved constantly from place to place. . . . Each time they arrived in a new place, his mother would open the small suitcase that held all their belongings and bring out the lace tablecloth she had used for their Friday night meals in Poland, before they were forced to leave and begin their flight. In each place the ritual was exactly the same. She would place the suitcase on a table, carefully drape the tablecloth over the suitcase, light a candle, and in that moment, wherever it was became home. This ritual was their prayer.

~ Sue Bender in THE POWER OF PRAYER, ed. by Dale Salwak

Sue Bender The Power Of Prayer home

Our outward-going passion for that Eternity which is our home

The springs of the truest prayer and the deepest poetry, twin expressions of our outward-going passion for that Eternity which is our home, rise very near together in the heart.

~ Evelyn Underhill

Evelyn Underhill home

Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon

Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon in long, slow motion movements of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is the earth -- home.

~ Edgar Mitchell, while walking on the moon

Edgar Mitchell home

In this life we are to become heaven

In this life we are to become heaven
So that God might find a home here in us.

~ Meister Eckhart

Meister Eckhart home

Coming home to one's Self

Home is a context that includes values, emotions, thoughts, special persons. Coming home to one’s Self in developed spirituality means something similar: a returning to renewed familiarity with oneness, to conscious union with a love from everyone and everything. Being consciously in touch with the One is to be immediately in touch with all things. This touch is not academic or abstract. It’s a light in the mind, but also a feeling in the heart. It’s an experience of the Spirit of all that is.

~ from DANCE OF A FALLEN MONK by George Fowler

George Fowler Dance Of A Fallen Monk home

When one is with God, there is nowhere else to go

God is love. God is unspeakable inner joy and bliss. To be with God is to be without needs, for all is fullness and union. When one is with God, there is nowhere else to go, for one is home. One rests in an inner cascade of peace and light. All yearning comes from our desire to join with God, to be full, at peace, joyous, and home. May you know Love in your heart!

~ from THE HEALING MIND by Eileen F. Oster

Eileen F. Oster home

When you rest in God, you just go home to yourself

When you rest in God, you just go home to yourself like the wave on the water. If the wave continues to search, she will never find the water. The only way to find the water is to go home to herself. When she realizes that she is water, she has peace. She practices resting in God in the here and the now. Although she continues to rise and fall, she is peaceful. We can practice Love as the ground of our being: Home.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh home

You ask why I make my home in the mountain forest

You ask why I make my home
in the mountain forest,
and I smile, and am silent,
and even my soul remains quiet:
it lives in the other world
which no one owns.

The peach trees blossom.
The water flows.

~ "You ask why" by Li-Po

Li-Po home

Hope Is the Forgotten Virtue Set Between Faith and Love

Hope may be the “forgotten” virtue set between faith and love, but it is the essential link between them that enables them both to work at top efficiency.

~ Robert Ellwood

Robert Ellwood hope

I need a hope

I need a hope . . . a new hope.

A hope that reaches for the stars, and

That does not end in violence or war.

A hope that makes peace on our earth,

That does not create evil in the world.

A hope that finds cures for diseases, and

That does not make people hurt,

In their bodies, in their hearts,

Or most of all, in their spirits.

I need a hope . . . a new hope,

A hope that inspires me to live, and

To make all these things happen

So that the world can have

A new hope, too.

~ from JOURNEY THROUGH HEARTSONGS by Mattie Stepanek, 10 years old

Mattie Stepanek Journey Through Heartsongs hope

Those who live in hope

dance without music.

~ George Herbert

George Herbert hope

Hope allows the energy of divine love to drive deep

Hope allows the energy of divine love to drive deep into the human condition—the theological condition usually referred to as “grace.” And at the same time, it allows the yearning, outstretched hands of creation to pierce the heart of God and call forth what can only be expressed in the dimension of the sensible. It is the root oneness and interconnectedness of all things in what Kabir Helminski calls “the electro-magnetic field of love.” And because this field does empirically exist, all those who have deeply loved—”to the root”—will be able to make their way to one another in and through it.

~ from LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH by Cynthia Bourgeault

Cynthia Bourgeault Love Is Stronger Than Death hope Buy on Amazon

Each soul is born for love and joy

Each soul is born for love and joy.

Our Inner Radiance when,

fully uncovered, shines alike

in laughter and in sorrow.

Fears, doubts, and despair cloak joy

like darkness blanketing the sun each night.

Face your fears and freedom will follow,

dismantle doubts, and loving assurance

and hope become friends;

Dark despair diminishes as you turn

toward the Light. Help is ever at hand.

Your guardian angel awaits your call!

Dispelling the darkness, you increase hopein the world.

Rejoice! Humanity is inexorably awakeningto the energy of Love.

~ from LUMEN CHRISTI...HOLY WISDOM by Nan Merrill

Nan Merrill Lemen Christi ... Holy Wisdom hope

Hope is not something subjective

Hope is not something subjective due to an optimistic or sanguine temperament or a desire for compensation. It is a light-force which radiates objectively and which directs creative evolution towards the world’s future. It is the celestial and spiritual counterpart of the natural and terrestrial instinct of reproduction ... In other words, hope is that which moves and directs spiritual evolution in the world.

~ Valentin Tomberg

Valentin Tomberg hope

Hope is for fullness, for completion

The hope is for fullness, for completion,

for being one with each other . . .

Our entire lives are a vigil, a keeping watch,

for the fulfillment of this hope.

~ Wendy Wright

Wendy Wright hope

All things are possible

All things are possible to those who believe, yet more to those who hope, more still to those who love, and most of all to those who practice and persevere in these three virtues.

~ from PRACTICING THE PRESENCE by Brother Lawrence

Brother Lawrence Practice The Presence hope

True hope dwells on the possible

True hope dwells on the possible, even when life seems to be a plot written by someone who wants to see how much adversity we can overcome. True hope responds to the real world, to real life; it is an active effort.

~ Walter Anderson

Walter Anderson hope

Hope is the source and spring of all the alchemies of transformation

Hope is the source and spring of all the alchemies of transformation, the greatest treasure of the heart and mind, the philosopher’s stone that transmutes agony and tragedy into new life. Never abandon hope, or you abandon your closest and most helpful guide, the Friend.

~ Rumi

Rumi hope

Hope begins in the dark

I heard a preacher say that hope is a revolutionary practice . . . hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. . .

~ Anne Lamott, thanks to Linda Condon

Anne Lamott hope

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world.Either we have hope within or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation.It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.

Hope is an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.The more propitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is.

~ Vaclav Havel in “Share International” #3, Vol. 25

Vaclav Havel Vol. 25, Share International #3 hope

Physician of Each Misery

Hope is the physician of each misery.

~ Irish Proverb

Irish Proverb hope

So in the end I am left only with hope

So in the end I am left only with hope.
I hope the nights are transformative.
I hope every dawn brings deeper love,
for each of us individually and for
the world as a whole.I hope that
John of the Cross was right when
he said the intellect is transformed
into faith, and the will into love
and the memory into—hope.

~ from THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL by Gerald May

Gerald May Dark Night Of The Soul hope Buy on Amazon

Hope is like a road in the country

Hope is like a road in the country; there never was a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence...

~ Lin Yutang

Lin Yutang hope

The way I treat my inner child

The way I treat my inner child is the way I am going to treat my outer child.

~ Robert M Stein

Robert M Stein child

It takes a universe to make a child

It takes a universe
to make a child both
in outer form and inner spirit.
It takes a universe
to educate a child;
a universe to fulfill a child.
For, the child awakens to a universe.

~ Thomas Berry

Thomas Berry child

I've been chosen to clap and cheer

A young Indian boy was auditioning along with some of us for a school play. His mother knew he’d set his heart on being in the play — just like the rest of us hoped, too — and she feared how he would react if he was not chosen.

On the day the parts were awarded the little boy’s mother went to the school on her horse to collect her son. The little boy rushed up to her and her horse, eyes shining with pride and excitement.

"Guess what, Mom," he shouted, and then said the words that provide a lesson to us all, "I’ve been chosen to clap and cheer."

~ Ed Slow Horse Chaparro

Ed Slow Horse Chaparro child

When I die God will become a whaler

When I was a baby my heart
was a tiny fish swimming
in a gargantuan sea of things to come.

When I was a toddler my heart
was a trout in a large lake of
thoughts and feelings.

Now my heart is becoming
a salmon ready to go to the sea
of troubles I will have to face.

When I am old my heart
will be a whale swimming
in a sea of memories.

When I die God will become
a whaler.

~ Orion Misciagns, 11 years old, in POETIC MEDICINE by John Fox

Orion Misciagns, John Fox Poetic Medicine child Buy on Amazon

The hidden child and the secret friend

How great is the difference between the hidden child and the secret friend! For the friend makes only loving, living but measured ascents toward God. But the child presses on to lose its own life upon the summits, in that simplicity which knoweth not itself.

~ from THE SPARKLING STONE by Jan Van Ruysbroeck

Jan Van Ruysbroeck The Sparkling Stone child

A child inside that never grew up

Perhaps there was in Beethoven the man, a child inside that never grew up and to the end of his life remained a creature of grace and innocence and trust even in his moments of greatest despair. And that innocent spirit speaks to us of hope and future and immortality.

~ Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein child

A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful

A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed or even lost before we reach adulthood. I wish I could give a sense of wonder to each child in the world, so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote to the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with artificial things, the alienation from the sources of our strength.

~ from THE SENSE OF WONDER by Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson The Sense Of Wonder child

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