Sometimes, we find just what we need in another’s words. Thoughts that stir our thoughts can be a jumping-off point. It’s easy to dismiss another’s words of wisdom as not applying to you, it’s harder to absorb the thought, process it, and then decide if you can accept or reject the premise. Does something about the wording stir your imagination, grab hold, and not let go? Can you create a poem or two from the following quotes?
You’re a ghost driving a meat-coated skeleton made from stardust, riding a rock, hurtling through space. Fear nothing. – Unknown
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. – Helen Keller
It is not down in any map; true places never are. – Herman Melville, Moby Dick
When people walk away from you, let them go. Your destiny is never tied to anyone who leaves you. And it doesn’t mean that they are bad people. It just means that their part in your story is over. – T. D. Jakes
I never knew how strong I was until I had to forgive someone who wasn’t sorry and accept an apology I never received. – Unknown
Force yourself out into the world. See places and people. Talk a bit. Otherwise, sit at home and wait for the end to close in. – Unknown
The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all that there ever is. – Eckhart Tolle
I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. – James Baldwin
One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go. Whether it’s guilt, anger, love, loss, or betrayal. Change is never easy. We fight to hold on and we fight to let go. – James Van Praagh
It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any. – Hugh Laurie
Don’t judge people for the choice they make when you don’t know the options they had to choose from. – Unknown
We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love…and then we return home. – Australian Aboriginal Proverb
If you can’t read the book you want you gotta write it.
If you can’t find your wonderland you have to build it.
There is no other way.
You are your way, your truth, and your life.
You’re not a victim, not even a survivor.
You’re a creator.
-Andrea Balt
Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be. – Wayne Dyer
I knew I matured when I realized every situation doesn’t need a reaction. Sometimes you just gotta leave people to the lame shit they do. – Unknown
Implicit in poetry is the notion that we are deepened by heartbreaks, that we are not so much diminished as enlarged by grief, by our refusal to vanish – to let others vanish – without leaving a verbal record. – Edward Hirsch
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this too was a gift.
The Uses of Sorrow - Mary Oliver