Inspirations for the Year Ahead: 2023
Why do you want to shut out of your life any agitation, any pain, any melancholy, since you really do not know what these states are working upon you? If there is anything morbid in your processes, just remember that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself of foreign matter; so one must just help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and break out with it, for that is its progress.
Rainer Maria Rilke
You mustn’t be frightened
if a sadness
rises in front of you.
larger than any you’ve ever seen:
if an anxiety
like light and cloud shadows,
moves over your hands and over
everything you do.
You must realize that something is
happening to you,
that life has not forgotten you,
that it holds you in its hand
and will not let you fall.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I gain the embrace of the universe;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.
Each condition I flee from pursues me,
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so,
Who has crafted this Master Game.
To play it is purest delight;
To honor its form–true devotion.
Jennifer Welwood
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Rumi
Crisis, suffering, loss, the unexpected encounter with the unknown – all of this has the potential to initiate a shift in perspective. A way of seeing the familiar with new eyes, a way of seeing the self in a completely new way... There’s a moment when the individual steps away from the former life and the former identity and is completely out of control and completely surrenders, and then is reborn with a larger, expanded identity.
Rachel Naomi Remen
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Help us to be always hopeful
Gardeners of the spirit
Who know that without darkness
Nothing comes to birth.
May Sarton
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
Francis Bacon
There is a natural and inviolable tendency in things to bloom into whatever they truly are in the core of their being. All we have to do is align ourselves with what wants to happen naturally and put in the effort that is our part in helping it happen.
David Richo
Perhaps our greatest service is simply to find ways to strengthen and live closer to our goodness. This is far from easy. It requires an everyday attention, an awareness of all that diminishes us, distracts us and causes us to forget who we are...every time anyone becomes more transparent to the light in them, they will restore the light in the world.
Rachel Naomi Remen
I am larger and better than I thought,
I did not think I held so much goodness.
Walt Whitman
Perhaps the wisdom lies in engaging the life you have been given as fully and courageously as possible and not letting go until you find the unknown blessing that is in everything.
Rachel Naomi Remen
Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.
A.A. Milne
Remember to go only as fast as your slowest part feels safe to go and remember that rest is a sacred act.
Robyn Posin
