Tag: Stones on the Path

confronting sublime beauty

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning December 29
Copyright 2011 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In Botticelli\’s painting The Birth of
Venus, the goddess of beauty and love is shown arriving on dry land for the first time after having been born in the ocean. Naked, she is trying to cover her private parts with her hand and thigh-length hair. Her attendant, a fully clothed nymph, is bringing a cloak to cover her up. Analyzing this scene, art critic Sister Wendy suggests it\’s actually quite sad. It symbolizes the fact that since we humans can\’t bear the confrontation with sublime beauty, we must always keep it partly hidden. Your assignment in the coming year, Capricorn, is to overcome this inhibition. I invite you to retrain yourself so that you can thrive in the presence of intense, amazing, and transformative beauty.

amen

Emotion is the resource we treasure when we’re young, says poet Naomi Shihab Nye, but eventually what we thrive on even more is energy. “Energy is everything,” she says, “not emotion.” And where does energy come from? Often, from juxtaposition, says Nye. “Rubbing happy and sad together creates energy; rubbing one image against another.” That’s what she loves about being a poet. Her specialty is to conjure magic through juxtaposition. “Our brains are desperate for that kind of energy,” she concludes.

Emotion is the resource we treasure when we\’re young, says poet Naomi Shihab Nye, but eventually what we thrive on even more is energy. “Energy is everything,” she says, “not emotion.” And where does energy come from? Often, from juxtaposition, says Nye. “Rubbing happy and sad together creates energy; rubbing one image against another.” That\’s what she loves about being a poet. Her specialty is to conjure magic through juxtaposition. “Our brains are desperate for that kind of energy,” she concludes.
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY | Week beginning December 15 | by Rob Brezsny

Within that place of accepting our darkest pieces, we accept our wholeness, and whole is how we are meant to feel. Within a sense of wholeness we can connect to that which is whole in others. We see our own humanity reflected in their pain and flaws and also immense beauty.

Within that place of accepting our darkest pieces, we accept our wholeness, and whole is how we are meant to feel. Within a sense of wholeness we can connect to that which is whole in others. We see our own humanity reflected in their pain and flaws and also immense beauty.
The Creative Quest | Jessie Turner

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others…for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others…for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.
Albert Einstein

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are.

Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are.
Don Miguel Ruiz

One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.

One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.
Salvador Dali

Seriousness is an accident of time. It consists in putting too high a value on time. In eternity there is no time. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

Seriousness is an accident of time. It consists in putting too high a value on time. In eternity there is no time. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.
Hermann Hesse