Edward Teller

“When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.”

"The Train of Life"

Some folks ride the train of life looking out the rear,
Watching miles of life roll by and marking every year.

They sit in sad remembrance of wasted days gone by,
And curse their life for what it was and hang their head and cry.

But I don't concern myself with that, I took a different vent,
I look forward to what life holds and not what has been spent.

So strap me to the engine, as securely as I can be,
I want to be out on the front, to see what I can see.

I want to feel the winds of change, blowing in my face,
I want to see what life unfolds, as I move from place to place.

I want to see what's coming up, not looking at the past,
Life's too short for yesterdays, it moves along too fast.

So if the ride gets bumpy, while you are looking back,
Go up front, and you may find, your life has jumped the track.

It's all right to remember, that's part of history,
But up front's where it's happening, there's so much mystery.

The enjoyment of living is not where we have been,
It's looking ever forward to another year and ten.

It's searching all the byways, never should you refrain,
For if you want to live your life, you gotta drive the train.

By Marv Hardin

Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4 by Richard Brautigan

1.
Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.

2.
Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.

3.
Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.

The Spring Offensive of the Snail

Living someplace else is wrong

in Jerusalem the golden
floating over New England smog,
above paper company forests,
deserted brick textile mills
square brooders on the rotten rivers,
developer-chewed mountains.

Living out of time is wrong.
The future drained us thin as paper.
We were tools scraping.
After the revolution
we would be good, love one another
and bake fruitcakes.
In the meantime eat your ulcer.

Living upside down is wrong,
roots in the air
mouths filled with sand.
Only what might be sang.
I cannot live crackling
with electric rage always.
The journey is too long
to run, cursing those
who can't keep up.

Give me your hand.
Talk quietly to everyone you meet.
It is going on.
We are moving again
with our houses on our backs.
This time we have to remember
to sing and make soup.
Pack the Kapital and the vitamin E,
the basil plant for the sill,
Apache tears you
picked up in the desert.

But remember to bury
all old quarrels
behind the garage for compost.
Forgive who insulted you.
Forgive yourself for being wrong.
You will do it again
for nothing living
resembles a straight line,
certainly not this journey
to and fro, zigzagging
you there and me here
making our own road onward
as the snail does.

Yes, for some time we might contemplate
not the tiger, not the eagle or grizzly
but the snail who always remembers
that wherever you find yourself eating
is home, the center
where you must make your love,
and wherever you wake up
is here, the right place to be
where we start again.

Marge Piercy

Snail image by Amanito
See http://www.flickr.com/photos/amanito/513566490/

Message by Harold Pinter

Jill. Fred phoned. He can't make tonight.
He said he'd call again, as soon as poss.
I said (on your behalf) OK, no sweat.
He said to tell you he was fine,
Only the crap, he said, you know, it sticks,
The crap you have to fight.
You're sometimes nothing but a walking shithouse.

I was well acquainted with the pong myself,
I told him, and I counselled calm.
Don't let the fuckers get you down,
Take the lid off the kettle a couple of minutes,
Go on the town, burn someone to death,
Find another tart, giver her some hammer,
Live while you're young, until it palls,
Kick the first blind man you meet in the balls.

Anyway he'll call again.

I'll be back in time for tea.

Your loving mother.

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

Walt Whitman

Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men [sic] -- go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers or families -- re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

Mark Twain

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.




Image: Into The Storm by WildPianist
See http://www.flickr.com/photos/wildpianist/463521726/

Starhawk

We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.

W.E.B. Du Bois

The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.

From American Beauty script by Alan Ball

LESTER (V.O.)

My name is Lester Burnham. This is my neighborhood. This is my street. This... is my life. I'm forty-two years old. In less than a year, I'll be dead.

.....

LESTER (V.O.)

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...

LESTER (V.O.)

...and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life...

(amused)

You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry...

FADE TO BLACK.

LESTER (V.O.) (cont'd)

You will someday.

A Touch of Gray By the Grateful Dead

Must be getting early, clocks are running late.
Paint my love a morning sky, its all cold.
Dawn is breaking everywhere, light a candle, curse the glare
Draw the curtains I dont care, but its all right
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.

I see youve got your list out, say your piece and kiss off.
Guess I get the gist of it, but its all right
Oh well anyway, sorry that you feel that way.
Every silver linings got a touch of grey
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.

Its a lesson to me, the ablers and the beggars and the thieves
The abcs we all think of, try to win a little love.

I know the rent is in arrears, the dog has not been fed in years
Its even worse than it appears, but its all right

Cow is giving kerosene, kid cant read at seventeen
The words he knows are all obscene, but its all right
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.

Shoe is on the hand that fits, thats all there really is to it
Whistle through your teeth and spit, but its all right

Oh well a touch of grey, kinda suits you anyway,
Thats all I had to say, but its all right
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.

Its a lesson to me, the devils and the east and the free
The abcs we all must face, try to save a little grace.

From Another Roadside Attraction By Tom Robbins

The scientist keeps the romantic honest, and the romantic keeps
the scientist human.

“There are three mental states that interest me”,
said Amanda, turning to the lizard doorknob. They are: one, amnesia; two
euphoria; three ecstasy.”

She reached into the cabinet and removed a small green bottle
of water-lily pollen. “Amnesia is not knowing who one is and wanting
desperately to find out. Euphoria is not knowing who one is and not caring.
Ecstasy is knowing exactly who one is - and still not caring.”

Real courage is risking something that you have to keep on
living with, real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink
your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is
risking one’s cliches.”

Logic only gives a man what he needs. Magic gives a man what he
wants.

Nature isn’t stable. Life isn’t stable. Stability is unnatural.
The only stable society is the police state. You can have a free society or a
stable society. You can’t have both. Take your choice.

It is content, or rather the consciousness of content, that
fills the void. But the mere presence of content is not enough. It is style that
gives content the capacity to absorb us, to move us; it is style that makes us
care.

Somewhere in the archives of crudest instinct is recorded the
truth that it is better to be endangered and free than captive and comfortable.

Edward Teller

“When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.”

D.H. Lawrence

This is what I believe: That I am I.
That my soul is a dark forest.
That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.
That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.
That I must have the courage to let them come and go.
That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.
There is my creed.

Voltaire

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."

- Voltaire












Image: Avalanche at Mt. Sefton by Kiwi-Wings
See http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiwiwings/2166920637/

Eugene V. Debs

Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Mohandas Gandhi

The Roots of Violence:
Wealth without work,
Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,
Science without humanity,
Worship without sacrifice,
Politics without principles.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Our Deepest Fear

by Marianne Williamson
from A Return To Love: Reflections on
the Principles of A Course in Miracles

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

God's Gift

I asked for strength and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve.

I asked for prosperity and God gave me brawn and brains to work.

I asked for courage and God gave me dangers to overcome.

I asked for love and God gave me troubled people to help.

I asked for favours and God gave me opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted and everything I needed.