#12

Yellow Boat 1910, Odilon Redon

Dearest boy, my Adam. I dreamed a dream, you and I facing each other in a tiny yellow boat. On green water, under blue sky, my and my son, and a tiny yellow boat. And we laugh, and the boat rocks, and the ripples spread from the boat, to pond, to sea, to sky, and nothing can stop them, and nothing ever will.

-Joan of Arcadia

#11

Ok...

I leave my one and only grain of spiritual sand to universal scales of humanity, All humanity. Forever is finding a solution to a solution. Tsunamis, Hurricanes, Following the trails of the African slave ships. War, War, and more War. Floods, Columbine, Global Warming, Earthquakes. Another somebody's done me wrong, son. Virginia Tech, there's not a hole but to Heck. We're still, did you place your one grain of spiritual sand forever?

Confusion need a solution. Blend and stir, stir and blend the pot of humanity. Sift the ingredients of acknowledgment, apology, amendment, atonement. We gonna work with the four A's here. Forever part,

Common good is forever

God's memory is forever....

-"Forever Begins" Lonnie "pops" Lynn

#10

We watched the towers collapse. We watched America choose war. The peace in our own hearts shattered.

How to pick up the pieces?

What to do with the pieces?

I was desperate to retrieve the poetry I had lost.

Standing on a rocky point in Maine, looking east toward the horizon at dusk, I faced the ocean. "Give me one wild word." It was all I asked of the sea.

The tide was out. The mudflats exposed. A gull picked up a large white clam, hovered high above the rocks, then dropped it. The clam broke open, and the gull swooped down to eat the fleshy animal inside.

"Give me one wild word to follow..."

-Terry Tempest Williams, Finding Beauty in a Broken World

#9

By measuring sound vibrations, scientists know that the caterpillar in the cocoon is shrieking. Screaming in pain as its body changes form from the caterpillar -- a lowly creature, in most senses -- to the beloved and beautiful butterfly. The butterfly is used in many traditions as a symbol of transformation and especially transmutation through death. Yet, in our highly romanticized versions, we do not acknowledge the transformation as a painful process. Painful, but not fatal.

-Deborah Morris Coryell, "Good Grief: Healing Through the Shadow of Loss"

#8

And when these words are found, let it be known that God's penmanship has been signed with a language called love. That's why my breath is felt by the deaf, and why my words are heard and confined to the ears of the blind. I too, dream in color and in rhyme. So I guess I'm one of a kind in a full house, 'cause whenever I open my heart, my soul, or my mouth, a touch of God reigns out.

-J. Ivy, "Never Let Me Down"

#7

"I took a step forward, and it was my first time in Queens. I walked through Long Island City, Woodside, Elmhurst, and Jackson Heights. I shook my tambourine the whole time, because it helped me remember that even though I was going through different neighborhoods, I was still me."

-Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

#6

"I origami the situation from what is considered unsuitable to something beautiful. The outcome is legendary, and nothing less"

-"Nothing Less", Living Legends

#5

"You know, some things don't matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart- now, that matters. The whole problem with people is-"

"They don't know what matters and what doesn't," I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.

"I was gonna say. The problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that it, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

-Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

#4

"They were dead; I could no longer deny it. What a thing to acknowledge in your heart! To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures to people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you." Life of Pi, Yann Martel (again, I know, but I am currently reading it!)

#3

"Where does it start? Muscles tense. One leg a pillar, holding the body upright between the earth and sky. The other a pendulum, swinging from behind. Heel touches down. The whole weight of the body rolls forward onto the ball of the foot. The big tow pushes off, and the delicately balanced weight of the body shifts again. The legs reverse position. It starts with a step and then another step and then another that add up like taps on a drum to a rhythm, the rhythm of walking. The most obvious and the most obscure thing in the world, this walking that wanders so readily into religion, philosophy, landscape, urban policy, anatomy, allegory, and heartbreak." -Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

#2

"We do indeed weave our spirits into the events and relationships of our lives. Life is as simple as that." -Anatomy of the Spirit