O man, learn to dance by Saint Augustine;I Hope You Dance Lyrics by by Lee Ann Womack,The dance of soul by Hazrat Inayat Khan;Caravanserai by Loreena McKennitt

Music:
Caravanserai-Loreena McKennitt

O man, learn to dance
Saint Augustine

I praise the dance,
for it frees people from the heaviness of matter
and binds the isolated to community.
I praise the dance, which demands everything:
health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.

Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people, who are in constant danger of becoming all brain, will, or feeling.

Dancing demands a whole person,
one who is firmly anchored in the center of his life,
who is not obsessed by lust for people and things
and the demon of isolation in his own ego.

Dancing demands a freed person,
one who vibrates with the equipoise of all his powers.
I praise the dance.
O man, learn to dance,
or else the angels in heaven will not know
what to do with you.

Anna Razumovskaya painting

I Hope You Dance Lyrics
by Lee Ann Womack

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
May you never take one single breath for granted,
GOD forbid love ever leave you empty handed,
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance....

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin',
Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin',
Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter,
When you come close to sellin' out reconsider,
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance...

We grown-up people think that we appreciate music, but if we realized the sense that an infant has brought with it of appreciating sound and rhythm, we would never boast of knowing music. The infant is music itself.
Hazrat Inayat Khan

Vicent Romero Rdendo Painting

The Dance of the Soul
Hazrat Inayat Khan

I have loved in life and I have been loved.
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar, and have been raised above life's joy and sorrow.
My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it.

My heart has been rent and joined again;
My heart has been broken and again made whole;
My heart has been wounded and healed again;
A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet.

I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
I wept in love and made all weep with me;
I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men;

And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes.
The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear;
With my deep sigh the earth trembled,
and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved,
I shook the throne of God in heaven.

I bowed my head low in humility,
and on my knees I begged of love,
"Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret."

She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth,
and spoke softly in my ear,
"My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover,
and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored."

Caravanserai
Loreena McKennitt

This glancing life is like a morning star
A setting sun, or rolling waves at sea
A gentle breeze or lightning in a storm
A dancing dream of all eternity

The sand was shimmering in the morning light
And dancing off the dunes so far away
The night held music so sweet, so long
And there we lay until the break of day

We woke that morning at the onward call
Our camels bridled up, our howdahs full
The sun was rising in the eastern sky
Just as we set out to the desert's cry

Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you

The tents grew smaller as we rode away
On earth that tells of many passing days
The months of peace and all the years of war
The lives of love and all the lives of fears

Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you

We crossed the river beds all etched in stone
And up the mighty mountains ever known
Beyond the valleys in the searing heat
Until we reached the caravanserai

Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you
Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you

What is this life that pulls me far away
What is that home where we cannot reside
What is that quest that pulls me onward
My heart is full when you are by my side

Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you

Insightful power quotes

You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power-he's free again.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
Eric Hoffer

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
Thomas Jefferson

Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.
Napoleon I

Napoleon for the sake of a good name broke in pieces half the world.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes.
George Bernard Shaw

The world is ruled only by consideration of advantages.
To gain a crown by fighting is great, to reject it divine.
Power is the most persuasive rhetoric.
No emperor has the power to dictate to the heart.
Friedrich Schiller

Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.
Jonathan Swif

What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
Abraham Lincoln

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
Honore de Balzac

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.
AUNG SAN SUU KYI, Freedom from Fear

Power -- the great power that shattered lives and twisted the course of nations -- was like a fog over a meadow at evening. From any distance, it seemed to have a shape, a substance, a color, an edge, yet as you approached it, it seemed to recede before you. Finally, when common sense said you were at its very center, it still seemed just as far away, only by this time it was on all sides, obscuring any vision of the world beyond it.... Was this phenomenon ... the reason why such men, who were truly concerned with the workings of power, chose to stay away from its center, so that they might never lose sight of power's contours?
SAMUEL R. DELANY, Neverÿon

Les quatre saisons/Auteur Inconnu

Les quatre saisons
Source inconnue

Il était une fois un homme, père de 4 fils. Il voulait apprendre à ses 4 fils de ne point juger précipitemment. Pour cela il les envoya faire chacun faire une enquête personnelle, ils devaient se rendre à une distance lointaine et aller chacun observer un poirier. Le premier fils partait en hiver, le second au printemps, le troisième en été et le benjamin en automne.

Quand tous furent partis et revenus, il les rassembla et leur demanda de lui décrire ce qu'ils avaient vus.
Le premier fils dit que l'arbre était affreux, plié et les branches tordus.

Le second dit, "non, il était couvert de pousses vertes et plein de promesses".

Le troisième n'était pas d'accord et dit "il était couvert de fleurs qui sentait si agréable et je le trouvais majestueux, c'était l'arbre le plus gracieux que j'avais jamais vu".

Le benjamin secoua sa tête pour bien marquer son désapprobation en disant que les fruits étaient tous murs, lourds de leur jus et plein de promesses.

Le brave homme leur dit alors, "mes fils vous avez tous raison et oui, vous avez tous été à une saison différente et donc chacun a vu seulement une saison dans la vie de l'arbre".

Il leur dit aussi qu'ils ne pouvaient pas juger un arbre ni un être humain en seulement une saison et que l'essence de ce qu'ils sont en réalité ne peut être jugée en seulement une petite partie de vie, car il y a les joies, les peines, les regrets, etc, et qu'ils peuvent seulement être jugé tout à la fin de leur existence.
Si tu abandonnes en hiver alors tu manques inévitablement la promesse du printemps, la beauté de l'été et l'accomplissement de l'automne.

Ne laissez pas le chagrin d'une saison détruire toute la joie de tout ce qui est encore à venir.
Ne jugez pas la vie à cause d'un passage difficile. Persévérez et n'évitez pas les chemins difficiles qui se présentent à vous et soyez-en sûrs l'avenir est plein de promesses car tout change éternellement.

Vit simplement, aime généreusement, prends soin de toi et des autres grandement. Parles poliment et gentiment et laisse le reste à Dieu . Le bonheur te garde doux et en beauté, les expériences te rendent fort et les larmes te gardent humain. Les échecs préservent ton humilité et les succès te font briller.

Excerpt from : Tales Of A Wayside Inn - The Poet's Tale - The Birds Of Killingworth

Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught
The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?
Whose household words are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!
Whose habitations in the tree-tops even
Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!

Think, every morning when the sun peeps through
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove,
How jubilant the happy birds renew
Their old, melodious madrigals of love!
And when you think of this, remember too
'T is always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents; from shore to shore,
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.

Think of your woods and orchards without birds!
Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams
As in an idiot's brain remembered words
Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds
Make up for the lost music, when your teams
Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more
The feathered gleaners follow to your door?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,The Poet's Tale-The Birds Of Killingworth

Peace quotes by Thich Nhat Hanh

We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints." To me, this is the most essential practice of peace.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

From time to time, to remind ourselves to relax and be peaceful, we may wish to set aside some time for a retreat, a day of mindfulness, when we can walk slowly, smile, drink tea with a friend, enjoy being together as if we are the happiest people on Earth.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace

Kahlil Gibran Romantic Love Letters

Leonid Afremov Art

Among intelligent people the surest basis for marriage is friendship- the sharing of real interests- the ability to fight out ideas together and understand each other's thoughts and dreams.

No human relation gives one possession in another - every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.

You listen to so much more than I can say. You hear consciousness. You go with me where the words I say can't carry you.

We are expression of earth, and of life - not separate individuals only. We cannot get enough away from the earth to see the earth and ourselves as separates. We move with its great movements and our growth is part of its great growth.

That deepest thing, that recognition, that knowledge, that sense of kinship began the first time I saw you, and it is the same now - only a thousand times deeper and tenderer. I shall love you to eternity. I loved you long before we met in this flesh. I knew that when I first saw you. It was destiny. We are together like this and nothing can shake us apart.

Osho Quotes on Perfectionism

Osho Quotes on Perfectionism

My approach is not that of a perfectionist... The whole idea has to be dropped. We have to learn a new language,the language of wholeness. And I call a person holy when he is whole in whatsoever he does. If you are doing cleaning, then do it totally. Then be utterly lost in it, and it will give you as much as a musician gets when he gets lost totally in his music or a dancer gets when he is utterly lost into his dance. Even cleaning the floor or cooking the food or taking the bath or going for a morning walk or anything. Let this be your foundation of life: that whatsoever you are doing at the moment, be utterly lost into it. Nothing of you should be left behind. Don’t keep any reservations. And you will come out of it immensely benefited, enriched. I am as fallible as anybody with only one difference: I am totally fallible!

Perfectionism is the seed of neurosis. A perfectionist can never be satisfied — because there is no way to satisfy a perfectionist. He will always find something or other and that ‘something’ will create trouble. Be more realistic, down to earth, and enjoy imperfection too; that is part of life.

I don’t teach perfection. What do I teach? I teach wholeness, not perfection. Be whole; be total; but don’t think about perfection. Be whole. Whatsoever you do, do it totally. What is the difference? When you do it totally you are not worried about the result. You did it totally. You are finished. More you could not do. You are not holding anything; you have put all your energy in it, you were whole in it. Now if you fail, you fail. If you succeed, you succeed. But whether you fail or you succeed, you are fulfilled all the same. A deep contentment arises because you have done whatsoever you could do. You can never be perfect. How can the part be perfect? You can never be perfect. Whatsoever you do, you can always imagine that it could have been better, whatsoever you do, you can imagine that better could have been done.

When I say be whole, I mean be real, be here; whatsoever you do, do it totally. You will be imperfect but your imperfection will be full of beauty, it will be full of your totality. Never try to be perfect otherwise you will create much anxiety. So many troubles are there already; don’t create more troubles for yourself.

Insightful beauty quotes

Richard Johnson Art

Most people tend to think the best of those who are blessed with beauty; we have difficulty imagining that physical perfection can conceal twisted emotions or a damaged mind.
DEAN KOONTZ, Odd Thomas

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles.
GEORGE ELIOT, Adam Bede

Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference: beauty demands to be noticed; it speaks to us directly like the voice of an intimate friend. If there are people who are indifferent to beauty, then it is surely because they do not perceive it.
ROGER SCRUTON, Beauty

To speak of beauty is to enter another and more exalted realm-- a realm sufficiently apart from our everyday concerns as to be mentioned only with a certain hesitation. People who are always in praise and pursuit of the beautiful are an embarrassment, like people who make a constant display of their religious faith. Somehow, we feel such things should be kept for our exalted moments, and not paraded in company, or allowed to spill out over dinner.
ROGER SCRUTON, Beauty

Beauty had this penalty -- it came too readily, came too completely. It stilled life -- froze it. One forgot the little agitations; the flush, the pallor, some queer distortion, some light or shadow, which made the face unrecognisable for a moment and yet added a quality one saw for ever after. It was simpler to smooth that all out under the cover of beauty.
VIRGINIA WOOLF, To the Lighthouse

Love Songs/Deep in the night/I Thought of You by Sara Teasdale

Pino Daeni Art

Love Songs
Sara Teasdale
I am not yours, nor lost in you,
not lost, although I long to be.
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
lost as a snowflake in the sea.
You love me, and I find you still
a spirit beautiful and bright,
yet I am I, who long to be
lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love - put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

Deep in the night
Sara Teasdale

Deep in the night the cry of a swallow,
Under the stars he flew,
Keen as pain was his call to follow
Over the world to you.
Love in my heart is a cry forever
Lost as the swallow's flight,
Seeking for you and never, never
Stilled by the stars at night”

I Thought of You
Sara Teasdale

I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.

Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea --
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me.

Courage by Anne Sexton

Andrei Belichenko & Maria Boohtiyarova Art

Courage
Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
comver your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippersrage and stride out.

On Reason,Art and Science by Isaac Asimov;The Roving Mind

Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore
other fields, they grow less wise —even in their own field.

How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.
by Isaac Asimov,The Roving Mind

Insightful quotes and reflections on human nature and character :Parte 2

Gabriel Picart Art

Almost all of us long for peace and freedom; but very few of us have much enthusiasm for the thoughts, feelings, and actions that make for peace and freedom.
Aldous Huxley

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.
Henry David Thoreau

As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.
Charles Caleb Colton

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
George Bernard Shaw

We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach.
Bertrand Russell

Many of us believe that wrongs aren't wrong if it's done by nice people like ourselves.
Author Unknown

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power
Abraham Lincoln

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.
James D. Miles

Your religion is what you do when the sermon is over.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.
Jane Addams

Insightful quotes and reflections on human character :Hypocrisy ,Righteousness and Morality/Part 1

Iman Maleki Art

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The most melancholy thing about human nature, is, that a man may guide others into the path of salvation, without walking in it himself; that he may be a pilot, and yet a castaway.
Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare

In the last analysis we must be judged by what we do and not by what we believe. We are as we behave - with a very small margin of credit for our unmanifested vision of how we might behave if we could take the trouble.
Geoffrey L. Rudd

This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.
Martin Luther

Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?
C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

If a man will be righteous and equal, let him see, with his neighbour's eyes, in his own case; and with his own eyes, in his neighbour's case.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

All reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.
Logan Pearsall Smith

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
John Wooden

LOUIS ARMSTRONG - WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD LYRICS

LOUIS ARMSTRONG - WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD LYRICS

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.

David Attenborough -What Wonderful World

Lessons from Trees:Excerpts from "The wandering" by Hermann Hesse

Excerpts from "The wandering"
Hermann Hesse

Music:
Riviere de Lumiere - FREDERIC DELARUE

Paul Hoecker Art

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.

When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”

La cithare du bonheur-Conte sufi/une histoire inspirante

Artist Robert Pegman

La cithare du bonheur

C'était un homme droit et sincère qui cherchait le chemin du bonheur, qui cherchait le chemin de la vérité. Il alla un jour trouver un vénérable maître soufi dont on lui avait asuré qu'il pourrait les lui indiquer.
Celui-ci l'accueillit aimablement devant sa tente et, après lui avoir servi le thé à la menthe, lui révéla l'itinéraire tant attendu :
« C'est loin d'ici, certes, mais tu ne peux te tromper : au coeur du village que je t'ai décrit, tu trouveras trois échoppes. Là te sera révélé le secret du bonheur et de la vérité. »

La route fut longue. Le chercheur d'absolu passa maints cols et rivières. Jusqu'à ce qu'il arrive en vue du village dont son coeur lui dit très fort :
« C'est là le lieu ! Oui, c'est là ! » Hélas ! Dans chacune des trois boutiques il ne trouva comme marchandises que rouleaux de fils de fer dans l'une, morceaux de bois dans l'autre et pièces éparses de métal dans le troisième. Las et découragé, il sortit du village pour trouver quelque repos dans une clairière voisine.

La nuit venait de tomber. La lune remplissait la clairière d'une douce lumière. Lorsque tout à coup se fit entendre une mélodie sublime. De quel instrument provenait-elle donc ? Il se dressa tout net et avança en direction du musicien.
Lorsque, stupéfaction, il découvrit que l'instrument céleste était une cithare faite de morceaux de bois, des pièces de métal et des fils d'acier qu'il venait de voir en vente dans les trois échoppes du village.

A cet instant, il connut l'éveil. Et il comprit que le bonheur est fait de la synthèse de tout ce qui nous est déjà donné, mais que notre tâche d'hommes intérieurs est d'assembler tous ces éléments dans l'harmonie.

Les quatre saisons
Source inconnue

Il était une fois un homme, père de 4 fils. Il voulait apprendre à ses 4 fils de ne point juger précipitemment. Pour cela il les envoya faire chacun faire une enquête personnelle, ils devaient se rendre à une distance lointaine et aller chacun observer un poirier. Le premier fils partait en hiver, le second au printemps, le troisième en été et le benjamin en automne.

Quand tous furent partis et revenus, il les rassembla et leur demanda de lui décrire ce qu'ils avaient vus.
Le premier fils dit que l'arbre était affreux, plié et les branches tordus.

Le second dit, "non, il était couvert de pousses vertes et plein de promesses".

Le troisième n'était pas d'accord et dit "il était couvert de fleurs qui sentait si agréable et je le trouvais majestueux, c'était l'arbre le plus gracieux que j'avais jamais vu".

Le benjamin secoua sa tête pour bien marquer son désapprobation en disant que les fruits étaient tous murs, lourds de leur jus et plein de promesses.

Le brave homme leur dit alors, "mes fils vous avez tous raison et oui, vous avez tous été à une saison différente et donc chacun a vu seulement une saison dans la vie de l'arbre".

Il leur dit aussi qu'ils ne pouvaient pas juger un arbre ni un être humain en seulement une saison et que l'essence de ce qu'ils sont en réalité ne peut être jugée en seulement une petite partie de vie, car il y a les joies, les peines, les regrets, etc, et qu'ils peuvent seulement être jugé tout à la fin de leur existence.
Si tu abandonnes en hiver alors tu manques inévitablement la promesse du printemps, la beauté de l'été et l'accomplissement de l'automne.

Ne laissez pas le chagrin d'une saison détruire toute la joie de tout ce qui est encore à venir.
Ne jugez pas la vie à cause d'un passage difficile. Persévérez et n'évitez pas les chemins difficiles qui se présentent à vous et soyez-en sûrs l'avenir est plein de promesses car tout change éternellement.

Vit simplement, aime généreusement, prends soin de toi et des autres grandement. Parles poliment et gentiment et laisse le reste à Dieu . Le bonheur te garde doux et en beauté, les expériences te rendent fort et les larmes te gardent humain. Les échecs préservent ton humilité et les succès te font briller.

Definición del amor;Soneto amoroso de Francisco de Quevedo/ Poesías Románticas

Jeffrey T. Larson Art

Definición del amor
Francisco de Quevedo
Es hielo abrasador, es fuego helado,
es herida que duele y no se siente,
es un soñado bien, un mal presente,
es un breve descanso muy cansado.
Es un descuido que nos da cuidado,
un cobarde con nombre de valiente,
un andar solitario entre la gente,
un amar solamente ser amado.
Es una libertad encarcelada,
que dura hasta el postrero paroxismo;
enfermedad que crece si es curada.
Éste es el niño Amor, éste es su abismo.
¿Mirad cuál amistad tendrá con nada
el que en todo es contrario de sí mismo!

Soneto amoroso
Francisco de Quevedo

A fugitivas sombras doy abrazos;
en los sueños se cansa el alma mía;
paso luchando a solas noche y día
con un trasgo que traigo entre mis brazos.

Cuando le quiero más ceñir con lazos,
y viendo mi sudor, se me desvía,
vuelvo con nueva fuerza a mi porfía,
y temas con amor me hacen pedazos.

Voyme a vengar en una imagen vana
que no se aparta de los ojos míos;
búrlame, y de burlarme corre ufana.

Empiézola a seguir, fáltanme bríos;
y como de alcanzarla tengo gana,
hago correr tras ella el llanto en ríos.

Insightful quotes on Time

Time is a dream ... a destroying dream;
It lays great cities in dust, it fills the seas;
It covers the face of beauty, and tumbles walls.
CONRAD AIKEN

The universe may be timeless, but if you imagine breaking it into pieces, some of the pieces can serve as clocks for the others. Time emerges from timelessness. We perceive time because we are, by our very nature, one of those pieces.
CRAIG CALLENDER

We are the fools of Time and Terror:
DaysSteal on us, and steal from us; yet we live,
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.
LORD BYRON

Day by day Time rolls the scroll of Life,
Yet man heeds not in worldly strife
The vanished years, till Death demands his claim--
The mound-lines of the clay that mark his name.
HARRIET MAXWELL CONVERSE

We grasp at Time, but cannot hold
One minute of his treasured hour;
He tarries not, though oft we pray
That he will rest in youth's bright bower.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON

Old Time, in whose banks we deposit our notes
Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats;
He keeps all his customers still in arrears
By lending them minutes and charging them years.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Men wrongly lament the flight of time, blaming it for being too swift; they do not perceive that its passage is sufficiently long, but a good memory, which nature has given to us, causes things long past to seem present.
LEONARDO DA VINCI

There is a balance, a kind of standoff between the time continuum and the human entity, our frail bundle of soma and psyche. We eventually succumb to time, it's true, but time depends on us. We carry it in our muscles and genes, pass it on to the next set of time-factoring creatures, our brown-eyed daughters and jug-eared sons, or how would the world keep going. Never mind the time theorists, the cesium devices that measure the life and death of the smallest silvery trillionth of a second.... We were the only crucial clocks, our minds and bodies, way stations for the distribution of time.
DON DELILLO

Time, the cradle of hope.... Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends.
Charles Caleb Colton

How rapidly time urges his flight; sometimes as a relentless, unsparing destroyer; but oftener as a swift-winged and beautiful angel; changing, yet not taking away this world's blessings: making our past sorrows look dim in the distance; opening many flowers of pleasure on our way, and gradually ripening our souls for the great eternity.
WILLIAM CHAMBERS

Love ,peace and hope quotes by Swami Vivekananda;Sarojini Naidu

Paul Hoecker Art

All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only law of life.
He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.
Therefore love for love's sake,
because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.
Swami Vivekananda

Once in the dream of a night I stood
Lone in the light of a magical wood,
Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;
And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,
And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,
And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.
Excerpt from Song of a Dream
Sarojini Naidu

Shall hope prevail where clamorous hate is rife,
Shall sweet love prosper or high dreams have place
Amid the tumult of reverberant strife
'Twixt ancient creeds, 'twixt race and ancient race,
That mars the grave, glad purposes of life,
Leaving no refuge save thy succoring face?
Sarojini Naidu

Pretty Words by Elinor Wylie

Eugene von Blass Art

Pretty Words
Elinor Wylie

Poets make pets of pretty, docile words:
I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish
Which circle slowly with a silken swish,
And tender ones, like downy-feathered birds:
Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds,
Come to my hand, and playful if I wish,
Or purring softly at a silver dish,
Blue Persian kittens fed on cream and curds.

I love bright words, words up and singing early;
Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing;
Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees;
I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly,
Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees,
Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.

I See You Still by Paul Verlaine

Pino Daeni Art

I See You Still
by Paul Verlaine
(1844-1896)
translated by Gertrude Hall
I see you still! Dressed in a summer dress,
Yellow and white, bestrewn with curtain-flowers;
But you had lost the glistening laughingness
Of our delirious former loving hours.

The eldest daughter and the little wife
Spoke plainly in your bearing's least detail--
Already 'twas, alas! our altered life
That stared me from behind your dotted veil.

Forgiven be! And with no little pride
I treasure up--and you, no doubt, see why--
Remembrance of the lightning to one side
That used to flash from your indignant eye!

A Brave and Startling Truth by Maya Angelou

A Brave and Startling Truth
Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

You are the daughter of the sea by Pablo Neruda

Vladimir Volegov Art

Sonnet XXXIV (You are the daughter of the sea)
Pablo Neruda

You are the daughter of the sea, oregano's first cousin.
Swimmer, your body is pure as the water;
cook, your blood is quick as the soil.
Everything you do is full of flowers, rich with the earth.

Your eyes go out toward the water, and the waves rise;
your hands go out to the earth and the seeds swell;
you know the deep essence of water and the earth,
conjoined in you like a formula for clay.

Naiad: cut your body into turquoise pieces,
they will bloom resurrected in the kitchen.
This is how you become everything that lives.

And so at last, you sleep, in the circle of my arms
that push back the shadows so that you can rest--
vegetables, seaweed, herbs: the foam of your dreams.