spark

...let there be spaces in your togetherness... ...sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of the lute are alone, though they quiver with the same music. ...the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. -- "Marriage", The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. ... [joy and sorrow] are inseparable. Together they come, and when when sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. -- "Joy and Sorrow", The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore, let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix, rise above its own ashes. --...

When love beckons to you, follow him though his ways are hard and steep.         For even as love crowns you, so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth, so is he for your pruning. But if in your fear, you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.       And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:    To melt and be like a running book that sings its melody into the night.    To know the pain of too much tenderness.    To be wounded by your own understanding of love    And to bleed willingly a...

Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it. -- Toni Morrison, Jazz

Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all. -- Douglas Adams

"There is no such thing as static happiness. Happiness is a mixed thing, a thing compounded of sacrifices, and losses, and betrayals."- John Updike

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries." - Aldous Huxley

This is the perplexing thing about procrastination: although it seems to involve avoiding unpleasant tasks, indulging in it generally doesn’t make people happy.” ~ James Surowiecki

It always seems impossible until it's done. - Nelson Mandela

Invictus - William Ernest Henley It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. full poem here

The Garden of Proserpine - A. C. Swinburne, 1866 We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure; Today will die tomorrow; Time stoops to no man's lure; And love, grown faint and fretful, With lips but half regretful Sighs, and with eyes forgetful Weeps that no loves endure. From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no man lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light; Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight; Nor wintry nor vernal, Nor days, nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night. full poem here