I am insecure. Everyone's insecure.
I’m only able to write poetry, for the most part, when I have a Muse, a woman who focuses the world for me.
Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.
I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep. . . . Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.
Without darkness, nothing comes to birth, As without light, nothing flowers.
I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.
We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.
Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.
I think our lives are connected by threads. We're weaving our own quilts as we go along and it has been my experience that there are so many threads that connect people. Invisible threads, strong threads, sparkling threads, but I think there is so much interconnectivity between people and I acknowledge that and I see it all the time. I think some of that is divine.
I have actually five honorary degrees.
I swear it on Solin’s life. (Arik) Uh, excuse me? (Solin) I would, but there’s truly no excuse for you. (Arik)