self-liberation

... the blessing of aimless self-liberation of whatever arises.

Dudjom Rinpoche

a quickening

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.

-Martha Graham

the James River

hope

The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.

-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Richmond

view

If my mind gets trapped inside/Just roll me to my sky-wide view/Where I will feast on cumulous and light/And tell you that art with just my eyes.

-Jane Krainin

ultimate task

For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Shavuot

purpose

Perhaps my purpose in life is to come to grips with myself, properly to grips with myself, with everything that bothers and tortures me and clamors for inner solution and formulation. For these problems are not just mine alone. And if at the end of a long life I am able to give some form to the chaos inside me, I may well have fulfilled my own small purpose.

-Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life

forgive

If I have harmed anyone in any way either knowingly or unknowingly through my own confusions I ask their forgiveness.

If anyone has harmed me in any way either knowingly or unknowingly through their own confusions I forgive them. And if there is a situation I am not yet ready to forgive I forgive myself for that.
For all the ways that I harm myself, Negate, doubt, belittle myself, judge or am unkind to myself through my confusions I forgive myself.

-Buddhist prayer