Read other people’s myths

Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people’s myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts – but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message. Myth helps you to put your mind in touch with this experience of being alive. It tells you what the experience is. 

Joseph Campbell – The Power of Myth 

less than thirty years

Did you know that for pretty much the entire history of the human species, the average life span was less than thirty years? You could count on ten years or so of real adulthood, right? There was no planning for retirement, there was no planning for a career. There was no planning. No time for planning. No time for a future. But then the life spans started getting longer, and people started having more and more future. And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future – you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college. 

John Green – Paper Towns 

the ability to conceive life

There will always be a subtle yet vital role that only females can play within the intricate tales of myths and mysticism. Among all the creations, they are the only one who are given the power of procreation; the ability to conceive life. Such qualities are usually attributed with omnipotent gods and that is why being a woman escalates an individual to a certain degree that makes them special among the people of their society.

Daniel de Guzman – Asog

Every city is a ghost.

New buildings rise upon the bones of the old so that each shiny steel beam, each tower of brick carries within it the memories of what has gone before, an architectural haunting. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of these former incarnations in the awkward angle of a street or filigreed gate, an old oak door peeking out from a new facade, the plaque commemorating the spot that was once a battleground, which became a saloon and is now a park. 

Libba Bray, Lair of Dreams 

A day in the life…

Very true: I am simply a victim of obsessive introspection!

Looking through old photos this morning. Some of Gabriella. Arty, erotic, others rude and crude. I can’t help thinking – Was für ein süßes Lächeln und welch schöner Körper!

But Monday acts as a beachhead bleeding reality into our interdimensional and hallucinogenic weekend romps. It is, in short, a bastard of a day! And that’s all I have to say…

Late for Thanksgiving, but early for Xmas…

Autobiography of Eve

Wearing nothing but snakeskin
boots, I blazed a footpath, the first
radical road out of that old kingdom
toward a new unknown.
When I came to those great flaming gates
of burning gold,
I stood alone in terror at the threshold
between Paradise and Earth.
There I heard a mysterious echo:
my own voice
singing to me from across the forbidden
side. I shook awake -
at once alive in a blaze of green fire.

Let it be known: I did not fall from grace.
I leapt
to freedom.

Ansel Elkins

find peace and understanding

When we let go of our battles and open our heart to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and end of spiritual practice. Only in this moment can we discover that which is timeless. Only here can we find the love that we seek. Love in the past is simply memory, and love in the future is fantasy. Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world. 

Jack Kornfield – A Path with Heart: A guide to the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life 

At risk

Anything good that I have written has, at some point during its composition, left me feeling uneasy and afraid. It has seemed, for a moment at least, to put me at risk. 

Michael Chabon – Maps and Legends 

the hottest mess

During my twenties, my personal life was the hottest mess. The hottest. It will never be that messy again because I’ve grown up and I finally give enough of a damn about myself to avoid burning myself in that kind of fire. 

Roxane Gay – Hunger