My misery lasted for years, perhaps even to this day. I was born, after all, on Friday the eighteenth of February, the day of souls, a very holy day indeed, and the old midwife clutched me in her hands, brought me close to the light, and looked at me with great care. She seemed to see some kind of mystic signs on me. Lifting me high, she said, “Mark my words, one day this child will become a bishop.”

When in the course of time I learned of the midwife’s prophecy, I believed it, so well did it match my own most secret yearnings. A great responsibility fell upon me then, and I no longer wished to do anything that a bishop would not have done. Much later, when I saw what bishops actually do, I changed my mind. Thenceforth, in order to deserve the sainthood I so craved, I wished to avoid all things that bishops do.

– Nikos Kazantzakis, Report To Greco

In the story, an old man is dying and calls his people to his side.
He gives a short, sturdy stick to each of his many offspring,
wives, and relatives. “Break the stick,” he instructs them. With
some effort, they all snap their sticks in half. “This is how it is
when a soul is alone without anyone. They can be easily
broken.” The old man next gives each of his kin another stick
and says, “…put your sticks together in bundles of twos and
threes. Now, break these bundles in half.” No one can break the
sticks when there are two or more in a bundle. The old man
smiles. “We are strong when we stand with another soul. When
we are with another, we cannot be broken. – Clarissa Pinkola
Estes

I love the dark hours of my being
in which my senses drop into the deep.
I have found in them, as in old letters,
My private life, that is already lived through,
And become wide and powerful now, like legends.
Then I know that there is room in me
For a second huge and timeless life.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Poems, Robert Bly translation

Respect the elders.
embrace the new.
encourage the impractical
and improbable,
without bias.

-David Fricke

You left me with nothing much to say.

Then he gave me a little meditation: “Where are you between two thoughts?” That is to say, you are thinking all the time, and you have an image of your self. Well, where are you between two thoughts? Do you ever have a glimpse beyond your thinking of that which transcends anything you can think about your self? That’s the source field out of which all of your energies are coming.

– Joseph Campbell, on meeting Swami Atmananda

nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness.

Pain comes from the darkness 
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.

• Randall Jarrell, from 90 North