The earth is leaning sideways And a song is emerging from the floods And fires. Urgent tendrils lift toward the sun. You must be friends with silence to hear. The songs of the guardians of silence are the most powerful- They are the most rare.
~ Joy Harjo from "Singing Everything" in AN AMERICAN SUNRISE
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These are the three steps of truth. We climb to the first by the toil of humility, to the second by the deep feelings of compassion, and to the third by the ecstasy of contemplation. On the first step we experience the severity of truth, on the second its tenderness, on the third its purity. Reason brings us to the first as we judge ourselves; compassion brings us to the second when we have mercy on others; on the third the purity of truth sweeps us up to the sight of things invisible.
~ from BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX ed. by M. Basil Pennington