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“Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.”

- Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Full fathom five thy father lies / Those are pearls that were his eyes

- Joan Didion quoting The Tempest in The Year of Magical Thinking

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Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life,the idea came to him of what he called 'the love of your fate.' Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, 'This is what I need.' It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment--not discouragement--you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.

Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.

- Joseph Campbell

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My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light!

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

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“The pleasure of being necessary to my parents was profound. I was not like the children in folktales: burdensome mouths to feed.”

- Toni Morrison

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“Hobbled by life, but triumphal all the same”

- Pieter Hugo

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a better reminder that death is made of life

- write up of A. Savage’s Several Songs About Fire

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This is an album whose topic is no less than the sublime: the moments in which a sensory experience becomes a holiness or possession of its own, and the self floats above it.

- write up for A. Savage’s Several Songs About Fire

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The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.

- J. Krishnamurti

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When you give to me, I give you my receiving

And when you take from me, I feel so given to

- Marshall B Rosenberg

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To celebrate his final Pride, in June,

my friend, lymphatic, thin, and in distress,

managed to dress in drag. He shot the moon:

outstretched, he’d used his dying to think—obsess—

about the Prada pumps, their skin a snake;

the heavy pantyhose, two pair; the moot

but lacy underthings; the makeup, cake,

to overlay his pain. I called him beaut-

i-ful; he said he felt like Greta Garbo

in Queen Christina (our campy interplay);

I countered that he looked more like a hobo-

sexual in heels. We howled. That day,

we never left his Castro flat. His rhinestone

glittered, and everywhere, the smell of cologne.

- “Queen Christina” by Randall Mann

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Unhappiness is treason

- The Magnetic Fields, “Strange Powers”

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My Shepherd will supply my need:

Jehovah is His Name;

In pastures fresh He makes me feed,

Beside the living stream.

He brings my wandering spirit back

When I forsake His ways,

And leads me, for His mercy's sake,

In paths of truth and grace.

When I walk through the shades of death

Thy presence is my stay;

One word of Thy supporting breath

Drives all my fears away.

Thy hand, in sight of all my foes,

Doth still my table spread;

My cup with blessings overflows,

Thine oil anoints my head.

The sure provisions of my God

Attend me all my days;

O may Thy house be my abode,

And all my work be praise.

There would I find a settled rest,

While others go and come;

No more a stranger, nor a guest,

But like a child at home.

- “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need” sung to the tune of “Resignation”

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(To Robert Graves)

I

Here I'm sitting in the gloom

Of my quiet attic room.

France goes rolling all around,

Fledged with forest May has crowned.

And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted,

Thinking how the fighting started,

Wondering when we'll ever end it,

Back to hell with Kaiser sent it,

Gag the noise, pack up and go,

Clockwork soldiers in a row.

I've got better things to do

Than to waste my time on you.

II

Robert, when I drowse to-night,

Skirting lawns of sleep to chase

Shifting dreams in mazy light,

Somewhere then I'll see your face

Turning back to bid me follow

Where I wag my arms and hollo,

Over hedges hasting after

Crooked smile and baffling laughter,

Running tireless, floating, leaping,

Down your web-hung woods and valleys,

Where the glowworm stars are peeping,

Till I find you, quiet as stone

On a hill-top all alone,

Staring outward, gravely pondering

Jumbled leagues of hillock-wandering.

III

You and I have walked together

In the starving winter weather.

We've been glad because we knew

Time's too short and friends are few.

We've been sad because we missed

One whose yellow head was kissed

By the gods, who thought about him

Till they couldn't do without him.

Now he's here again; I've been

Soldier David dressed in green,

Standing in a wood that swings

To the madrigal he sings.

He's come back, all mirth and glory,

Like the prince in a fairy story.

Winter called him far away;

Blossoms bring him home with May.

IV

Well, I know you'll swear it's true

That you found him decked in blue

Striding up through morning-land

With a cloud on either hand.

Out in Wales, you'll say, he marches

Arm-in-arm with oaks and larches;

Hides all night in hilly nooks,

Laughs at dawn in tumbling brooks.

Yet, it's certain, here he teaches

Outpost-schemes to groups of beeches.

And I'm sure, as here I stand,

That he shines through every land,

That he sings in every place

Where we're thinking of his face.

V

Robert, there's a war in France;

Everywhere men bang and blunder,

Sweat and swear and worship Chance,

Creep and blink through cannon thunder.

Rifles crack and bullets flick,

Sing and hum like hornet-swarms.

Bones are smashed and buried quick.

Yet, through stunning battle storms,

All the while I watch the spark

Lit to guide me; for I know

Dreams will triumph, though the dark

Scowls above me where I go.

You can hear me; you can mingle

Radiant folly with my jingle.

War's a joke for me and you

While we know such dreams are true!

- Siegfried Sassoon, “A Letter Home”

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My pastor told me

"When you leave, all you take

Uh-huh, is your memories"

And I'm gonna take mine of you with me

I'm gonna take mine of you with me

- Lana del Rey, “The Grants”

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“in a world hellbent on destruction, do not just critique. create! create! create!”

- Alok Menon

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“To love others is to identify their interests with our own, while nonetheless maintaining our distance from them, so that they (and we) may unfold their own particular natures, or be.”

- Andy Fisher, Radical Ecopsychology