A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.

–Albert Einstein

Be contented with what you possess in life; be thankful for what does not belong to you, for it is so much care the less; but try to obtain what you need in life, and make the best of every moment of your life.

–Hazrat Inayat Khan Gayan

Those Winter Sundays Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices? –Robert Hayden (1913-1980)

Another gem unearthed from Michael Ventura’s excavations.

It takes fierceness to grow old well. It takes a fierce devotion to the word good-bye — learning how to say it in many ways — fiercely, yes, but also gently, with laughter, with tears, but, no matter how, to say it every time so that there’s no doubt you mean it.

–Michael Ventura, “Across the Great Divide”; Psychotherapy Networker, Jan/Feb 2005

“My heart is afraid it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

–Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

–James A. Baldwin

A great gift of getting older, of becoming old, is to realize that I, too, am a precious vessel — quite apart from any idea of self-worth I might have, quite apart from anything I may have accomplished. I’m a precious vessel because of all that I’ve seen, all the stories I know, all the images and memories that will die with me. In this way, we’re all precious vessels. And it isn’t that we must get frantic about preserving all we’ve seen and all we know. Preserving all the stories isn’t a human possibility, for all will be forgotten one day. But to know that I’m such a vessel, as you are, makes me more attentive, makes me more available to anyone who asks for what I know, makes me speak more carefully, with less of the judgmental and more attention to nuance — makes me try to speak more slowly and reflectively, and to be like… an older man, the kind of older man I once admired: tolerant, receptive, at ease in his age, not trying to be anything he isn’t, not trying to be younger.

–Michael Ventura, “Across the Great Divide”; Psychotherapy Networker, Jan/Feb 2005

I love this guy; I’m grateful he pours out his words for the rest of us to soak up.