To me, “FEARLESS” is not the absence of fear. It’s not being completely unafraid. To me, FEARLESS is having fears. FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death. FEARLESS is falling madly in love again, even though you’ve been hurt before. FEARLESS is walking into your freshmen year of high school at fifteen. FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again… even though every time you’ve tried before, you’ve lost. It’s FEARLESS to have faith that someday things will change. FEARLESS is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who only hurts you, even if you can’t breathe without them. I think it’s FEARLESS to fall for your best friend, even though he’s in love with someone else. And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they’ll never stop doing, I think it’s FEARLESS to stop believing them. It’s FEARLESS to say “you’re NOT sorry”, and walk away. I think loving someone despite what people think is FEARLESS. I think allowing yourself to cry on the bathroom floor is FEARLESS. Letting go is FEARLESS. Then, moving on and being alright…That’sFEARLESS too. But no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it. You have to believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after. That’s why I write these songs. Because I think love is FEARLESS.
If I am to be fallen into love, I will. And if as a result I will appear to be stupid, disillusioned, and of poor judgment, I will. And I would be damned if I cared what other people think. For I would rather be thought of as all of these things, than not love. If in loving, I become the naked woman on the horse, I will ride that horse with my head held high. This is my spirit. I am unbreakable.
This album is called "FEARLESS," and I guess I'd like to clarify why we chose that as the title. To me, "FEARLESS" is not the absence of fear. It's not being completely unafraid. To me, FEARLESS is having fears. FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death. FEARLESS is falling madly in love again, even though you've been hurt before. FEARLESS is walking into your freshmen year of high school at fifteen. FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again … even though every time you've tried before, you've lost. It's FEARLESS to have that someday things will change. FEARLESS is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who only hurts you, even if you can't breathe without them. I think it's FEARLESS to fall for your best friend, even though he's in love with someone else. And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they'll never stop doing, I think it's FEARLESS to top believing them. It's FEARLESS to say, "you're NOT sorry", and walk away. I think loving someone despite what people think is FEARLESS. I think allowing yourself to cry on the bathroom floor is FEARLESS. Letting go is FEARLESS. Then, moving on and being alright … That's FEARLESS too. But no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it. You have to believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after. That's why I write these songs. Because I think love is FEARLESS.
Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.
Successful people have no fear of failure. But unsuccessful people do. Successful people have the resilience to face up to failure—learn the lessons and adapt from it.
The one who falls and gets up is stronger than the one who never tried. Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.
Fear robs you of your freedom to make the right choice in life that can bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. On the other side of fear, lies freedom. If you want to grow, you need to be brave and take risks. If you're not uncomfortable, you're not growing.
Courage to me is doing something daring, no matter how afraid, insecure, intimidated, alone, unworthy, incapable, ridiculed or whatever other paralyzing emotion you might feel. Courage is taking action....no matter what. So you're afraid? Be afraid. Be scared silly to the point you're trembling and nauseous, but do it anyway!
It takes a fearless, unflinching love and deep humility to accept the universe as it is. The most effective way he knew to accomplish that, the most powerful tool at his disposal, was the scientific method, which over time winnows out deception. It can't give you absolute truth because science is a permanent revolution, always subject to revision, but it can give you successive approximations of reality.
Trustful people are the pure at heart, as they are moved by the zeal of their own trustworthiness.
Take lightly what you hear about individuals. We need not distort trust for our paltry little political agendas. We tend to trust soulless, carried information more than we trust soulful human beings; but really most people aren't so bad once you sit down and have an honest, one-on-one conversation with them, once, with an open heart, you listen to their explanations as to why they act the way they act, or say what they say, or do what they do.
There is no such thing as fear until you allow it to enter your heart. If I told you what really happens to your soul when it is put to eternal sleep, you would not fear death; hence, you would never have fear — or fear Fear. But this is something I will share with you another day and time, in another story. We are taught to fear anything that can bring us closer to death — to keep us from taking huge leaps that involve risk. The only thing you should fear in this lifetime is not taking risks while you are living. I do not mean to go jump off a bridge. I mean, to go all out to reach your dreams, to dare to do things you typically would not do out of fear. Pain has a threshold and so does death. Fear neither, and never fear what has no right to be feared. Fear only the Almighty, for he is the only one who can terminate a soul forever. No man can do that. No leader can do that. Only the Creator can do that. As long as the heart is good, a soul can live forever. The body is simply a coating for the soul, and when you die, your soul takes the soul of your heart along with it. Love strengthens both, while fear cripples both. Starting today, train your mind and heart to reject fear. Once you reject fear, you will become the perfect candidate to receive and reflect Truth.
The faithful man perceives nothing less than opportunity in difficulties. Flowing through his spine, faith and courage work together: Such a man does not fear losing his life, thus he will risk losing it at times in order to empower it. By this he actually values his life more than the man who fears losing his life. It is much like leaping from a window in order to avoid a fire yet in that most crucial moment knowing that God will appear to catch you.
Hide yourself in God, so when a man wants to find you he will have to go there first.
In the distance, I can see a storm coming in, the dark clouds and the lightning on the horizon moving towards me. I wait and I wait and I wait for the storm. And then it comes, and the rains wash away the nightmares and the memories. And I'm not afraid.
Know you will win and you will win!
Do you want to retire early rich or retire late poor? Cosmic Ordering answers the first question!
The law of sacrifice postulates that we need to give in order to receive ... Cosmic Ordering says, receive before you give.
I am wealth, I am abundance, I am Cosmic Ordering.
Good thoughts can become reality with Cosmic Ordering.
With Cosmic Ordering you can keep your luxuries and ask for more.
With Cosmic Ordering life is a field of unlimited possibilities.
Anyone believing in Cosmic Ordering wants for nothing.
Believe all things are possible With Cosmic Ordering.
Cosmic Ordering is with you in all that you do.
Silver surfers ... nah, that's old hat. Retire a gold surfer with Cosmic Ordering.
If you have made mistakes in life there’s always another chance with Cosmic Ordering.
The universe is full of magical things to be manifested with Cosmic Ordering.
If there was no Cosmic Ordering then it would have been necessary to invent it.
There are more triumphs than defeats with Cosmic Ordering.
The key to failure is ignoring Cosmic Ordering.
Failure is a steppingstone to poverty, Cosmic Ordering is an elevator to success.
Human beings are incredibly slow, Cosmic Ordering is incredibly fast!
Some people only dream of success… while others wake up and use Cosmic Ordering.
The greatest barrier to wealth creation is the denial of Cosmic Ordering.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but Cosmic Ordering stands forever.
The mode by which the impossible is reached is Cosmic Ordering.
The person who is waiting for something to turn up might start with Cosmic Ordering.
To fail is a natural consequence of trying, to succeed is a natural consequence of Cosmic Ordering.
With Cosmic Ordering it’s not only your wealth that grows, your mind does too!
Cosmic Ordering success sticks to you like mud to a blanket.
You can forget trying to climb the success ladder, all you will ever need in life is brought to you in the Cosmic Ordering elevator.
A Cosmic Ordering beginning makes a wealthy ending.
Lessen the odds are stacked against you, Use Cosmic Ordering.
When you have done your best and still failed, use Cosmic Ordering.
Everybody talks about being rich, Cosmic Ordering does something about it.
A man may fail many times, and then he turns to Cosmic Ordering.
On the road to success some will always expect tragedy ... ditch your doubts and experience success with Cosmic Ordering.
Time is a great teacher, but Cosmic Ordering is a great provider.
Time is priceless, Cosmic Ordering is limitless.
If your only goal is to become rich then use Cosmic Ordering.
Don’t let time make a fool of you, use Cosmic Ordering.
What might have been can be with Cosmic Ordering.
No more need to rob Peter to pay Paul with Cosmic Ordering.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but that's because they never used Cosmic Ordering.
Defeat the warriors of patience and time with Cosmic Ordering.
Hope might grant you a wish in the nick of time, Cosmic Ordering grants them all the time.
Wealth is a by-product of Cosmic Ordering.
Don’t wait for success, use Cosmic Ordering.
Believe and achieve with Cosmic Ordering.
All in good time is something Cosmic Ordering does not follow.
The fastest way to double your money is to use Cosmic Ordering.
Forget hard work, use Cosmic Ordering.
Cosmic Ordering is your one way ticket to prosperity.
There's always a free lunch with Cosmic Ordering.
Use Cosmic Ordering now, not as a morning after pill.
If you weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth, use Cosmic Ordering.
The first law of attraction is use Cosmic Ordering now.
With Cosmic Ordering you can count your chickens before they have hatched.
When you use Cosmic Ordering you will move from cloud nine to cloud ten.
Cosmic Ordering is an ever full piggy bank.
The proof of the pudding is in the Cosmic Ordering.
No need to steal someone’s thunder, with Cosmic Ordering you can make your own.
Sweep the board with Cosmic Ordering Success.
Cosmic Ordering does not judge you.
Riches will come when you follow Cosmic Ordering.
Cosmic Ordering will never forsake you.
Cosmic Ordering is absent in body but present in spirit.
Cosmic Ordering cultivates prosperity daily.
In Cosmic Ordering, we put our trust
It’s payday every day of the week with Cosmic Ordering.
Failure is a detour on the way to using Cosmic Ordering.
Forget being a bad failure, use Cosmic Ordering and be good at success.
The only secret of wealth creation is knowing how to use Cosmic Ordering.
Cosmic Ordering – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking your potential.
Panic, fear, worry, doubt, negativity ... words not recognized by Cosmic Ordering.
There’s the impossible and then there’s Cosmic Ordering.
To make Cosmic Ordering work you have to start using it.
Forget the secrets of success, use Cosmic Ordering instead.
Whatever your desire, use Cosmic Ordering to get what you require!
In the beginning man was poor, then along came Cosmic Ordering.
Don’t just wish you were rich, use Cosmic Ordering.
Twenty years from now you will be disappointed you never used Cosmic Ordering today.
You didn’t fail, you just didn’t use Cosmic Ordering.
Often the only difference between success and failure is not using Cosmic Ordering.
To fail is nothing, unless you continue to ignore Cosmic Ordering.
Just a minute, Cosmic Ordering can give you a whole lot more ... a whole lifetime of more.
There is no eleventh hour with Cosmic Ordering, only the golden hour.
If you want to be on Forbes Rich List, use Cosmic Ordering.
Wealth creation is 10% of what you know and 90% Cosmic Ordering.
Cosmic Ordering is like an echo! What you ask for comes back.
The great dividing line between success and failure is Cosmic Ordering
With Cosmic Ordering, the best days of your life are always ahead of you.
Forget about letting nature taking its course to make you wealthy, Cosmic Ordering works faster.
Time is the wisest counselor of all, but Cosmic Ordering is the biggest provider.
Change your life! Wake up and smell the Cosmic Ordering success.
Don’t waste time making money ... use Cosmic Ordering.
Now you can build Rome in a day with Cosmic Ordering.
OK you maybe can't buy happiness with Cosmic Ordering, but it's much better crying in a mansion than in a hovel.
Wake up and smell the wealth with Cosmic Ordering.
When all around you are losing their heads, use Cosmic Ordering.
Take a rain check on poverty with Cosmic Ordering.
When life gives you lemons, use Cosmic Ordering!
Sick of lame ducks, use Cosmic Ordering and your ducks will lay golden eggs.
With Cosmic Ordering you will never eat humble pie again.
Cosmic Ordering is a licence to print money.
Cosmic Ordering is a dish best served today.
It’s a red sky every night with Cosmic Ordering.
Now your boat comes in every day with Cosmic Ordering.
Now beggars can be choosers with Cosmic Ordering.
The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.
Those who achieve the extraordinary are usually the most ordinary because they have nothing to prove to anybody. Be Humble.
It's in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.
The only way you're going to reach places you've never gone is if you trust God's direction to do things you've never done.
Life's trials will test you, and shape you, but don’t let them change who you are.”~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive
From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.”~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive
True friends don't come with conditions.
The high road of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.
The highway of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.
Be a team player, not a bandwagon jumper.
There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.
The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.
At some point, you just gotta forgive the past, your happiness hinges on it.
We love our partners for who they are, not for who they are not.
Explore, Experience, Then Push Beyond.
Travel is costly yes, but it pays dividends too.
If you didn't earn something, it's not worth flaunting.
Without struggle, success has no value.
There is no such thing as loving a child too much.
It’s the ‘everyday’ experiences we encounter along the journey to who we wanna be that will define who we are when we get there.
Successes are those highlights of life we look back on with a smile. But it's the day to day grind of getting them that defines the laugh lines etched until the end of time. Enjoy each moment along the way
There's more to a person than flesh. Judge others by the sum of their soul and you'll see that beauty is a force of light that radiates from the inside out.
Building bridges is the best defence against ignorance.
You may have fallen down, but you can get back up again. You may have doors shut, but new doors will open for you. You may have been lied on, but the truth will come to the light. You may have been hurt, but the pain will pass. You are a survivor. You have a history of surviving.
God is my strength and my defense. When I am weak, he makes me strong. When I am broken, he makes me whole.
Fashion doesn't make you perfect, but it makes you pretty.
Dresses won't worn out in the wardrobe, but that is not what dresses are designed for.
Dresses don't look beautiful on hangers.
It's time to shop high heels if your fiance kisses you on the forehead.
Take care of your costume and your confidence will take care of itself.
With right fashion, every female would be a flame.
Any girl with a grin never looks grim.
I made the fearful decision to head to Sydney, Australia, to study the Bible. My calling, my wife, Laura, my church, my passion—all were behind the scariest door of all time. Since that day, this remains exactly true: Fear never leaves. But the way we handle it can always change.
Let your life reflect the faith you have in God. Fear nothing and pray about everything. Be strong, trust God's word, and trust the process.
Reject anything advice, which does not lead to your personal progress.
Forgiveness is the subjective and fertile ground the acorn falls upon when gifted to ourselves and others.
Even this…even in my meditation I am preconditioned to feel or experience something predetermined. If we could all just allow ourselves to expand…stop allowing fear to hinder us and expand beyond limits…then, in the end, we will know that we are nothing, and nothing is all there is…nothing is everything.
Katherine gave in to the wonder of the moment, imagining herself in the astronauts' place. What emotions welled up from the depths of their hearts as they regarded their watery blue home from the void of space? How did it feel to be separated by a nearly unimaginable gulf from the rest of humanity yet carry the hopes, dreams, and fears of their entire species there with them in their tiny, vulnerable craft? Most people she knew wouldn't have traded places with the astronauts for all of the gold in Fort Knox. The men existed all alone out their in the void of space, connected so tenuously to Earth, with the real possibility that something could go wrong. But given the chance to throw her lot in with the astronauts, Katherine Johnson would have packed her bags immediately. Even without the pressure of the space race, even without the mandate to beat the enemy. For Katherine Johnson, curiosity always bested fear.
Love should never mean having to live in fear.
No such thing as the right time, situation or place. You have all it takes. Just dig within. Exhume all the greatness inside of you and transform the world with an inexhaustible drive and without fear of limitations.
Courage to me is doing something daring, no matter how afraid, insecure, intimidated, alone, unworthy, incapable, ridiculed or whatever other paralyzing emotion you might feel. Courage is taking action.....no matter what. So you're afraid? Be afraid. Be scared silly to the point you're trembling and nauseous, but do it anyway!
We know no fear. It was cut from our souls at birth. We can feel it only as an absence, as an empty shadow cast by the light of annihilation. In the face of a future of atrocity I stand mute, numb to the only feeling that would make me human. But I remember what fear was: its cold pulse in my veins; its echo in my ears. I remember fear, and remember that I was once human. I look towards what must come to pass and I wish that I could meet it as my ancestors did, with fear. The future deserves that, it deserves fear.
I would rather try and fail at something than not try at all. Because if I don't try to do something, I will be filled with wonder on whether or not I could've succeeded, and not soon after that wonder will turn to regret. I refuse to live my life wondering and regretting what could've been. I want to live my life with the satisfaction of knowing I tried no matter if I succeed or fail.
Beauty is great... But love is greater. With it, you can overcome anything fate throws at you.
Do you truly believe in the worthiness of your dreams? Do you truly think they are worth the consistent effort required to make them manifest? Once you truly believe, nothing can stop you but yourself, for such belief is the same power which creates and maintains all existence.
You might not get the apology you deserve. You might not get answers to explain the actions of others. You might not get truth that makes sense to you. You might not get people to understand what you went through because of them. You might not get communication. You might not get maturity. You might not get mercy or even common decency. You might not get respect or the chance to explain your side of the story. However, you do get to choose how people treat you. God loves you enough to bring people into your life who won't hurt you, abuse you, betray you, lie and gossip about you, psycho analyse you, break your heart or make you an option or choice. He will bring people into your life that will love you, respect you, fight for you, show gratitude for your love and want to be a part of your life mission. The best part of this is you don't have to convince them of your worth. They want to be there. They know your value. They know your struggles. They are in touch with their own faults and understand you struggle just like everyone else. They won't hold you to a greater standard then they do themselves. They care about you and don't want to see you cry, feel discouraged or give up on this life. When you know the power of who you are and what you have to accomplish you will scratch your head in disbelief that you allowed other people to dictate who you are based on little knowledge of what God knows about you and your life purpose. Letting go isn't about accepting defeat or acknowledging you were wrong. Sometimes letting go is realizing that God has something better in store for you.
A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek towards that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky’s stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off. At the seashore you often see a shell, or fragment of a shell, that sharp sands and surf have thinned to a wisp. There is no way you can tell what kind of shell it had been, what creature it had housed; it could have been a whelk or a scallop, a cowrie, limpet, or conch. The animal is long since dissolved, and its blood spread and thinned in the general sea. All you hold in your hand is a cool shred of shell, an inch long, pared so thin that it passes a faint pink light. It is an essence, a smooth condensation of the air, a curve. I long for the North where unimpeded winds would hone me to such a pure slip of bone. But I’ll not go northing this year. I’ll stalk that floating pole and frigid air by waiting here. I wait on bridges; I wait, struck, on forest paths and meadow’s fringes, hilltops and banksides, day in and day out, and I receive a southing as a gift. The North washes down the mountains like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, and pours across the valley; it comes to me. It sweetens the persimmons and numbs the last of the crickets and hornets; it fans the flames of the forest maples, bows the meadow’s seeded grasses and pokes it chilling fingers under the leaf litter, thrusting the springtails and the earthworms deeper into the earth. The sun heaves to the south by day, and at night wild Orion emerges looming like the Specter over Dead Man Mountain. Something is already here, and more is coming.
I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering, and like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt’ring eye and say, “Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?” The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life.
All at once, something wonderful happened, although at first, it seemed perfectly ordinary. A female goldfinch suddenly hove into view. She lighted weightlessly on the head of a bankside purple thistle and began emptying the seedcase, sowing the air with down. The lighted frame of my window filled. The down rose and spread in all directions, wafting over the dam’s waterfall and wavering between the tulip trunks and into the meadow. It vaulted towards the orchard in a puff; it hovered over the ripening pawpaw fruit and staggered up the steep faced terrace. It jerked, floated, rolled, veered, swayed. The thistle down faltered down toward the cottage and gusted clear to the woods; it rose and entered the shaggy arms of pecans. At last it strayed like snow, blind and sweet, into the pool of the creek upstream, and into the race of the creek over rocks down. It shuddered onto the tips of growing grasses, where it poised, light, still wracked by errant quivers. I was holding my breath. Is this where we live, I thought, in this place in this moment, with the air so light and wild? The same fixity that collapses stars and drives the mantis to devour her mate eased these creatures together before my eyes: the thick adept bill of the goldfinch, and the feathery coded down. How could anything be amiss? If I myself were lighter and frayed, I could ride these small winds, too, taking my chances, for the pleasure of being so purely played. The thistle is part of Adam’s curse. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” A terrible curse: But does the goldfinch eat thorny sorrow with the thistle or do I? If this furling air is fallen, then the fall was happy indeed. If this creekside garden is sorrow, then I seek martyrdom. I was weightless; my bones were taut skins blown with buoyant gas; it seemed that if I inhaled too deeply, my shoulders and head would waft off. Alleluia.
Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, and spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch. Last night Orion vaulted and spread all over the sky, pagan and lunatic, his shoulder and knee on fire, his sword three suns at the ready-for what? I won’t see this year again, not again so innocent; and longing wrapped round my throat like a scarf. “For the Heavenly Father desires that we should see,” says Ruysbroeck, “and that is why He is ever saying to our inmost spirit one deep unfathomable word and nothing else.” But what is the word? Is this mystery or coyness? A cast-iron bell hung from the arch of my rib cage; when I stirred, it rang, or it tolled, a long syllable pulsing ripples up my lungs and down the gritty sap inside my bones, and I couldn’t make it out; I felt the voiced vowel like a sigh or a note but I couldn’t catch the consonant that shaped it into sense.
In the forty minutes I watched the muskrat, he never saw me, smelled me, or heard me at all. When he was in full view of course I never moved except to breathe. My eyes would move, too, following his, but he never noticed. Only once, when he was feeding from the opposite bank about eight feet away did he suddenly rise upright, all alert- and then he immediately resumed foraging. But he never knew I was there.I never knew I was there, either. For that forty minutes last night I was as purely sensitive and mute as a photographic plate; I received impressions, but I did not print out captions. My own self-awareness had disappeared; it seems now almost as though, had I been wired to electrodes, my EEG would have been flat. I have done this sort of thing so often that I have lost self-consciousness about moving slowly and halting suddenly. And I have often noticed that even a few minutes of this self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. I wonder if we do not waste most of our energy just by spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves. Martin Buber quotes an old Hasid master who said, “When you walk across the field with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their souls come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.
The color-patches of vision part, shift, and reform as I move through space in time. The present is the object of vision, and what I see before me at any given second is a full field of color patches scattered just so. The configuration will never be repeated. Living is moving; time is a live creek bearing changing lights. As I move, or as the world moves around me, the fullness of what I see shatters. “Last forever!” Who hasn’t prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless. But there is more to the present than a series of snapshots. We are not merely sensitized film; we have feelings, a memory for information and an eidetic memory for the imagery of our pasts. Our layered consciousness is a tiered track for an unmatched assortment of concentrically wound reels. Each one plays out for all of life its dazzle and blur of translucent shadow-pictures; each one hums at every moment its own secret melody in its own unique key. We tune in and out. But moments are not lost. Time out of mind is time nevertheless, cumulative, informing the present. From even the deepest slumber you wake with a jolt- older, closer to death, and wiser, grateful for breath. But time is the one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time. Time gives us a whirl. We keep waking from a dream we can’t recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end. All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open, with toothpicks, with trees.
Xerxes, I read, ‘halted his unwieldy army for days that he might contemplate to his satisfaction’ the beauty of a single sycamore. You are Xerxes in Persia. Your army spreads on a vast and arid peneplain…you call to you all your sad captains, and give the order to halt. You have seen the tree with the lights in it, haven’t you? You must have. Xerxes buffeted on a plain, ambition drained in a puff. Your men are bewildered…there is nothing to catch the eye in this flatness, nothing but a hollow, hammering sky, a waste of sedge in the lee of windblown rocks, a meager ribbon of scrub willow tracing a slumbering watercourse…and that sycamore. You saw it; you will stand rapt and mute, exalted, remembering or not remembering over a period of days to shade your head with your robe. “He had its form wrought upon a medal of gold to help him remember it the rest of his life.” We all ought to have a goldsmith following us around. But it goes without saying, doesn’t it, Xerxes, that no gold medal worn around your neck will bring back the glad hour, keep those lights kindled so long as you live, forever present? Pascal saw it; he grabbed pen and paper and scrawled the one word, and wore it sewn in his shirt the rest of his life. I don’t know what Pascal saw. I saw a cedar. Xerxes saw a sycamore.
And under the cicadas, deeper down that the longest taproot, between and beneath the rounded black rocks and slanting slabs of sandstone in the earth, ground water is creeping. Ground water seeps and slides, across and down, across and down, leaking from here to there, minutely at a rate of a mile a year. What a tug of waters goes on! There are flings and pulls in every direction at every moment. The world is a wild wrestle under the grass; earth shall be moved. What else is going on right this minute while ground water creeps under my feet? The galaxy is careening in a slow, muffled widening. If a million solar systems are born every hour, then surely hundreds burst into being as I shift my weight to the other elbow. The sun’s surface is now exploding; other stars implode and vanish, heavy and black, out of sight. Meteorites are arcing to earth invisibly all day long. On the planet, the winds are blowing: the polar easterlies, the westerlies, the northeast and southeast trades. Somewhere, someone under full sail is becalmed, in the horse latitudes, in the doldrums; in the northland, a trapper is maddened, crazed, by the eerie scent of the chinook, the sweater, a wind that can melt two feet of snow in a day. The pampero blows, and the tramontane, and the Boro, sirocco, levanter, mistral. Lick a finger; feel the now. Spring is seeping north, towards me and away from me, at sixteen miles a day. Along estuary banks of tidal rivers all over the world, snails in black clusters like currants are gliding up and down the stems of reed and sedge, migrating every moment with the dip and swing of tides. Behind me, Tinker Mountain is eroding one thousandth of an inch a year. The sharks I saw are roving up and down the coast. If the sharks cease roving, if they still their twist and rest for a moment, they die. They need new water pushed into their gills; they need dance. Somewhere east of me, on another continent, it is sunset, and starlings in breathtaking bands are winding high in the sky to their evening roost. The mantis egg cases are tied to the mock-orange hedge; within each case, within each egg, cells elongate, narrow, and split; cells bubble and curve inward, align, harden or hollow or stretch. And where are you now?
I want to think about trees. Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can’t think about them. I live with trees. There are creatures under our feet, creatures that live over our heads, but trees live quite convincingly in the same filament of air we inhabit, and in addition, they extend impressively in both directions, up and down, shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach.
You are God. You want to make a forest, something to hold the soil, lock up energy, and give off oxygen. Wouldn’t it be simpler just to rough in a slab of chemicals, a green acre of goo? You are a man, a retired railroad worker who makes replicas as a hobby. You decide to make a replica of one tree, the longleaf pine your great-grandfather planted- just a replica- it doesn’t have to work. How are you going to do it? How long do you think you might live, how good is your glue? For one thing, you are going to have to dig a hole and stick your replica trunk halfway to China if you want the thing to stand up. Because you will have to work fairly big; if your replica is too small, you’ll be unable to handle the slender, three-sided needles, affix them in clusters of three in fascicles, and attach those laden fascicles to flexible twigs. The twigs themselves must be covered by “many silvery-white, fringed, long-spreading scales.” Are your pine cones’ scales “thin, flat, rounded at the apex?” When you loose the lashed copper wire trussing the limbs to the trunk, the whole tree collapses like an umbrella. You are a sculptor. You climb a great ladder; you pour grease all over a growing longleaf pine. Next, you build a hollow cylinder around the entire pine…and pour wet plaster over and inside the pine. Now open the walls, split the plaster, saw down the tree, remove it, discard, and your intricate sculpture is ready: this is the shape of part of the air. You are a chloroplast moving in water heaved one hundred feet above ground. Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen in a ring around magnesium…you are evolution; you have only begun to make trees. You are god- are you tired? Finished?
Shadow is the blue patch where the light doesn’t hit. It is mystery itself, and mystery is the ancients’ ultima Thule, the modern explorer’s Point of Relative Inaccessibility, that boreal point most distant from all known lands. There the twin oceans of beauty and horror meet. The great glaciers are calving. Ice that sifted to earth as snow in the time of Christ shears from the pack with a roar and crumbles to water. It could be that our instruments have not looked deeply enough. The RNA deep in the mantis’s jaw is a beautiful ribbon. Did the crawling Polyphemus moth have in its watery heart one cell, and in that cell one special molecule, and that molecule one hydrogen atom, and round that atom’s nucleus one wild, distant electron that split showed a forest, swaying?
I was in no tent under leaves, sleepless and glad. There was no moon at all; along the world’s coasts the sea tides would be springing strong. The air itself also has lunar tides; I lay still. Could I feel in the air an invisible sweep and surge, and an answering knock in the lungs? Or could I feel the starlight? Every minute on a square mile of this land one ten thousandth of an ounce of starlight spatters to earth. What percentage of an ounce did that make on my eyes and cheeks and arms, tapping and nudging as particles, pulsing and stroking as waves?
It looked as though the leaves of the autumn forest had taken flight, and were pouring down the valley like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, all the leaves of the hardwoods from here to Hudson’s Bay. It was as if the season’s colors were draining away like lifeblood, as if the year were molting and shedding. The year was rolling down, and a vital curve had been reached, the tilt that gives way to headlong rush. And when the monarch butterflies had passed and were gone, the skies were vacant, the air poised. The dark night into which the year was plunging was not a sleep but an awakening, a new and necessary austerity, the sparer climate for which I longed. The shed trees were brittle and still, the creek light and cold, and my spirit holding its breath.
Those people who shoot endless time-lapse films of unfurling roses and tulips have the wrong idea. They should train their cameras instead on the melting of pack ice, the green filling of ponds, the tidal swings…They should film the glaciers of Greenland, some of which creak along at such a fast clip that even the dogs bark at them. They should film the invasion of the southernmost Canadian tundra by the northernmost spruce-fir forest, which is happening right now at the rate of a mile every 10 years. When the last ice sheet receded from the North American continent, the earth rebounded 10 feet. Wouldn’t that have been a sight to see?
Say you could view a time-lapse film of our planet: what would you see? Transparent images moving through light, “an infinite storm of beauty.”The beginning is swaddled in mists, blasted by random blinding flashes. Lava pours and cools; seas boil and flood. Clouds materialize and shift; now you can see the earth’s face through only random patches of clarity. The land shudders and splits, like pack ice rent by a widening lead. Mountains burst up, jutting and dull and soften before your eyes, clothed in forests like felt. The ice rolls up, grinding green land under water forever; the ice rolls back. Forests erupt and disappear like fairy rings. The ice rolls up-mountains are mowed into lakes, land rises wet from the sea like a surfacing whale- the ice rolls back.A blue-green streaks the highest ridges, a yellow-green spreads from the south like a wave up a strand. A red dye seems to leak from the north down the ridges and into the valleys, seeping south; a white follows the red, then yellow-green washes north, then red spreads again, then white, over and over, making patterns of color too swift and intricate to follow. Slow the film. You see dust storms, locusts, floods, in dizzying flash frames. Zero in on a well-watered shore and see smoke from fires drifting. Stone cities rise, spread, and then crumble, like patches of alpine blossoms that flourish for a day an inch above the permafrost, that iced earth no root can suck, and wither in a hour. New cities appear, and rivers sift silt onto their rooftops; more cities emerge and spread in lobes like lichen on rock. The great human figures of history, those intricate, spirited tissues that roamed the earth’s surface, are a wavering blur whose split second in the light was too brief an exposure to yield any images. The great herds of caribou pour into the valleys and trickle back, and pour, a brown fluid. Slow it down more, come closer still. A dot appears, like a flesh-flake. It swells like a balloon; it moves, circles, slows, and vanishes. This is your life.
Last year I had a very unusual experience. I was awake, with my eyes closed, when I had a dream. It was a small dream about time. I was dead, I guess, in deep blank space high up above many white stars. My own consciousness had been disclosed to me, and I was happy. Then I saw far below me a long, curved band of color. As I came closer, I saw that it stretched endlessly in either direction, and I understood that I was seeing all the time of the planet where I had lived. It looked like a woman’s tweed scarf; the longer I studied any one spot, the more dots of color I saw. There was no end to the deepness and variety of dots. At length I started to look for my time, but, although more and more specks of color and deeper and more intricate textures appeared in the fabric, I couldn’t find my time, or any time at all that I recognized as being near my time. I couldn’t make out so much as a pyramid. Yet as I looked at the band of time, all the individual people, I understood with special clarity, were living at that very moment with great emotion, in intricate, detail, in their individual times and places, and they were dying and being replaced by ever more people, one by one, like stitches in which wholly worlds of feeling and energy were wrapped in a never-ending cloth. I remembered suddenly the color and texture of our life as we knew it- these things had been utterly forgotten- and I thought as I searched for it on the limitless band, “that was a good time then, a good time to be living.” And I began to remember our time. I recalled green fields with carrots growing, one by one, in slender rows. Men and women in bright vests and scarves came and pulled the carrots out of the soil and carried them in baskets to shaded kitchens, where they scrubbed them with yellow brushes under running water. I saw white-faced cattle lowing and wading in creeks. I saw May apples in forests, erupting through leaf-strewn paths. Cells on the root hairs of sycamores split and divided, and apples grew spotted and striped in the fall. Mountains kept their cool caves and squirrels raced home to their nests through sunlight and shade. I remembered the ocean, and I seemed to be in the ocean myself, swimming over orange crabs that looked like coral, or off the deep Atlantic banks where whitefish school. Or again I saw the tops of poplars, and the whole sky brushed with clouds in pallid streaks, under which wild ducks flew with outstretched necks, and called, one by one, and flew on. All these things I saw. Scenes grew in depth and sunlit detail before my eyes, and were replaced by ever more scenes, as I remember the life of my time with increasing feeling. At last I saw the earth as a globe in space, and I recalled the ocean’s shape and the form of continents, saying to myself with surprise as I looked at the planet, “yes, that’s how it was then, that part there was called France.” I was filled with the deep affection of nostalgia- and then I opened my eyes. We all ought to be able to conjure up sights like these at will, so that we can keep in mind the scope of texture’s motion in time.
Were the earth as smooth as a ball bearing, it might be beautiful seen from another planet, as the rings of Saturn are. But here we live and move; we wander up and down the banks of the creek, we ride a railway through the Alps, and the landscape shifts and changes. Were the earth smooth, our brains would be smooth as well; we would wake, blink, walk two steps to get the whole picture and lapse into dreamless sleep. Because we are living people, and because we are on the receiving end of beauty, another element necessarily enters the question. The texture of space is a condition of time. Time is the warp and matter the weft of woven texture of beauty in space, and death is the hurtling shuttle… What I want to do, then, is add time to the texture, paint the landscape on an unrolling scroll, and set the giant relief globe spinning on it stand.
Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery. The surface of mystery is not smooth, any more than the planet is smooth; not even a single hydrogen atom is smooth, let alone a pine. Nor does it fit together; not even the chlorophyll and hemoglobin molecules are a perfect match, for, even after the atom of iron replaces the magnesium, long streamers of disparate atoms trail disjointedly from the rims of the molecule’s loops. Freedom cuts both ways. Mystery itself is as fringed and intricate at the shape of the air at times. Forays into mystery cut bays and fine fjords, but the forested mainland itself is implacable both in its bulk and in its most filigreed fringe of detail.
I am sitting here, you are sitting there. Say even that you are sitting across the kitchen table from me right now. Our eyes meet; a consciousness snaps back and forth. What we know, at least for starters, is: here we- so incontrovertibly- are. This is our life, these are our lighted seasons, and then we die. In the meantime, in between time, we can see. The scales are fallen from our eyes, the cataracts are cut away, and we can work at making sense of the color-patches we see in an effort to discover where we so incontrovertibly are. I am as passionately interested in where I am as is a lone sailor sans sextant in a ketch on an open ocean. I have at the moment a situation which allows me to devote considerable hunks of time to seeing what I can see, and trying to piece it together. I’ve learned the name of some color-patches, but not the meanings. I’ve read books; I’ve gathered statistics feverishly: the average temperature of our planet is 57 degrees F…The average size of all living animals, including man, is almost that of a housefly. The earth is mostly granite, which is mostly oxygen…In these Appalachians we have found a coal bed with 120 seams, meaning 120 forests that just happened to fall into water…I would like to see it all, to understand it, but I must start somewhere, so I try to deal with the giant water bug in Tinker Creek and the flight of three hundred redwings from an Osage orange and let those who dare worry about the birthrate and population explosion among solar systems. So I think about the valley. And it occurs to me more and more that everything I have seen is wholly gratuitous. The giant water bug’s predations, the frog’s croak, the tree with the lights in it are not in any real sense necessary per se to the world or its creator. Nor am I. The creation in the first place, being itself, is the only necessity for which I would die, and I shall. The point about that being, as I know it here and see it, is that as I think about it, it accumulates in my mind as an extravagance of minutiae. The sheer fringe and network of detail assumes primary importance. That there are so many details seems to be the most important and visible fact about creation. If you can’t see the forest for the trees, then look at the trees; when you’ve looked at enough trees, you’ve seen a forest, you’ve got it. If the world is gratuitous, then the fringe of a goldfish’s fin is a million times more so. The first question- the one crucial one- of the creation of the universe and the existence of something as a sign and an affront to nothing is a blank one…The old Kabbalistic phrase is “the Mystery of the Splintering of the Vessels.” The words refer to the shrinking or imprisonment of essences within the various husk-covered forms of emanation or time. The Vessels splintered and solar systems spun; ciliated rotifers whirled in still water, and newts laid tracks in the silt-bottomed creek. Not only did the Vessels splinter; they splintered exceeding fine. Intricacy then is the subject, the intricacy of the created world.
The quickest way a person can defame your character is by taking something you said out of context. But Fear Not. Everyone that was ever Anyone always had their words taken out of context. If you can't handle having your words twisted up, then leadership is not for you. Leadership is reserved for the #BRAVE.
The elegance under pressure is the result of fearlessness.
When efforts that are wisely executed, the situation and condition don't affect the performance.
I detach myself from preconceived outcomes and trust that all is well. Being myself allows the wholeness of my unique magnificience to draw me in those directions most beneficial to me and to all others. This is really the only thing I have to do. And within that framework, everything that is truly mine comes into my life effortlessly, in the most magical and unexpected ways imaginable, demonstrating every day the power and love of who I truly am.
I believe that the greatest truths of the universe don't lie outside, in the study of the stars and the planets. They lie deep within us, in the magnificence of our heart, mind, and soul. Until we understand what is within, we can't understand what is without.
Fear and paranoia create many of our worldly struggles. We get something in our minds and our distorted perception sculpts the reality of what we see. Even though what we see isn’t really there, we tend to act as if it is. We then begin to put people and things into boxes, labeling them, and limiting them due to our fears.
Angels are good not simply because they see bad as bad, but also because they see bad as corny.
Suffering is imposed on us time and again so that one day we would become brave wise masters. That is, a strong being who is confidently aware of their intended direction in life, and fearlessly adding value to the world and their future.
We are taught to fear anything that can bring us closer to death — to keep us from taking huge leaps that involve risk. The only thing you should fear in this lifetime is not taking risks while you are living. I do not mean to go jump off a bridge. I mean, to go all out to reach your dreams, to dare to do things you typically would not do out of fear. Pain has a threshold and so does death. Fear neither, and never fear what has no right to be feared.
Do not run away from your challenges. You must endure and overcome each challenge.
We must read, mediate and affirm the writings of Holy Scriptures, to partake in the divine nature and overcome the struggles of life.
Without being push to the wall, we will have remained in our comfortable zone. But this circumstance challenges us to find the courage to move on.
We held on to great memories. This sustains us in every moment.
Take the time to make some sense for what you wanna say,And cast your words away upon the waves.Sail them home with acquiesce on a ship of hope today,And as they land upon the shore,Tell them not to fear no more.I'm not saying right is wrong,It's up to us to make the best of all the things that come our way.Cos' everything that's been has past,The answers in the looking glass.There's four and twenty million doorsOn life's endless corridor,So say it loud and sing it proud today.
dJack be nimble,Jack be quick,Jack forgot to check if the ice was thick.Emma was still,Emma was late,Emma’s brother is now part of the lake.Time has passed,Time has gone,Time brought Jack back wrong.He was solemn,He was brave,He left his coat on Emma’s grave.Emma was sad,Emma was scared,But she knew inside that Jack really cared.Jack was lost,Jack had forgot,That he had a story before the plot.Jack had wondered,Jack had fought,Jack had remembered what he had forgot.I hope you dream.I hope you wonder.I hope you have fun because this is done.Keep believing everyone.Jack be fearless,Jack be bold,Jack drowned when he was 17 years old.
Choices! Choices!! Choices!!! I have chosen love over hate.I have chosen faith over fears.I have chosen courage over cowardice.I have chosen strength over weakness.I have chosen positive thinking over negative thoughts.
When we have graciously endured every adversity, we become like a shining diamond.
If you can be heartless as the first man who visited the space, then there will be nothing impossibe for you to achieve.
Is not the true respect and worship of God the exercising of our power in such a way that we are also respected?
There's something beautiful about facing tragedy, you crack open a new, you find yourself in the parts of you; that can finally be explored freely with out judgement or guilt. Where to from here doesn't exist & your not sure when it will return, but there's something beautiful in facing tragedy, a new type of being within you is born and one whom is more fearless than ever before.
The brevity of life is grace to walk on your own path.
They said my solution was foreign because I lived on another planet. It required honesty. It required communication. It required kindness. It required integrity. It required compassion. It required empathy. It required a deep understanding of what it meant to be humane. It required courage to be something above the others. It required proving your love of God.
You have to prepare physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually to conquer any mountain.
God isn't a place of fresh starts. He isn't a hideout. He is not a destination. He is not a clean break. He is not a cop out for indecision. He is not a straight line. He is a circle. He will take you back to whatever you ran from if he needs you to heal your scars and others. He is a God of justice and compassion. The greatest growth a soul can experience doesn't come from doing service to strangers that have no impact on your life. It comes from doing service to people that have hurt you or you have hurt them. To truly devote yourself to God is to travel down roads that are hard to revisit. However, he will keep taking you there, until you have healed yourself or others.
The most important gift you can give your children is the importance of standing up to injustice. Children will remember moments spent with you. However, it isn't togetherness that creates humane parents and righteous kids. It is the example of integrity that a parent sets and the on going lessons they teach about compassion toward others throughout their lives. A good father or mother teaches their children that cruelty is not something you cause or ignore, rather it is the moment you suit up for war.
If you want to be happy you have to study people who are happy. You have to hang out with people that are happy. Life won't go in the direction you want, by simply trying to stay positive in a life you're not happy with. You have to know what you want and why you truly want it so badly. When you figure that out then you need to change your current identity, in order to fit the type of person you envision would make those dreams come true. Happiness is not reliant on the actions or inactions of other people. It is your “courage in motion” toward your dreams.
When you are no longer afraid is when you can be yourself.
Happiness gives you the freedom to enhance your ability to achieve success. Your choices in life are a direct reflection of your level of happiness. It's the sunshine for your soul that you need in order to grow
Some skeptics believe religious people are religious because they fear Hell. It's about as fair as saying skeptics are skeptics because they fear the ridicule of modern society.
You are strong, self-reliant, entirely able to take care of yourself and of me... You are fearless, courageous; you saved my life, nursed me back to health, hunted for my food, provided for my comfort. You don't need me. Yet you make me want to protect you, watch over you, make sure no harm comes to you. I could live with you all my life and never really know you; you have depths it would take many lifetimes to explore. You are wise and ancient... and as fresh and young as a woman as... And you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I love you more than life itself.
If you find a FEAR predator on your tail, STOP running, turn and face it, with BOLDNESS and declare,"God has not given me the spirit of FEAR! but of power, and of love and of a sound mind. [2 Timothy 1:7]Take your best shot Devil! then, march on with boldness, confidence, power and strength, as a soldier in the King's army!
Strong leaders are not the ones who do everything right. They are the ones to put a plan together, take risks, make mistakes, humbly admit their mistakes, take responsibility for failures, make necessary changes, do not fear correction, and with the trust of their followers and the team of which they were leading! -Clarity:Focusing on what matters / Week 40
Bringing a novel to light - revealing the form and cadence, shadows and demeanor of a protagonist constructed from thin air - linking scenes and synchronicity across translucent time - holding up a glass brimming with chilled, never-tasted liquid, then sipping from it with intoxicated focus - allowing lovers to make a perilous mess of things, fall apart and nakedly come back together again - looking through conjured windows deep into someone else’s snow-bound solitude, feeling utterly alone yet being all-connected: this is not writing. It’s world-creating.It’s raw, exposed dreaming. It’s humbling. At first too personal and intimate to share, it evolves like a child into a life of its own until I have no say in what comes next. It’s what I wake at 4am to say Yes to, the spinning possibility of a new story relentlessly commanding me to write it down so it can whirl in your experience.
Never shy away from opportunity and wholehearted living. Never be fearful of putting yourself out there. The courageous may encounter many disappointments, experience profound disillusionment, gather many wounds; but cherish your scars for they are the proud emblems of a truly phenomenal life. The fearful, cautious, cynical and self-repressed do not live at all. And that is simply no way to be in this world.
Sometimes your belief system is really your fears attached to rules.
Lord gives even more grace, so you can endure the test of time.
Fearlessness is not what you do to win, but what you don't do. When you love yourself as much as your God, you won't see other people as the source of your pain. Rather, you will see who you have become because you honestly believed that your chains would be broken through hatred, instead of kindness.
You can either be a person who is a coward, afraid, ready to submit, surrender, a person who has himself no dignity, no respect for his own being—or you can be fearless. But then you are going to be a rebel, you cannot avoid that. Either you can be a man of faith or you are going to be a rebellious spirit.
If you do what everyone else does, you will get what everyone else gets.
Stop harboring grudges against those who have wronged you, it just holds you back when you really want to be in the NOW.
If you are going to be a doubter, I don't need your negative energy.
Many surround themselves with luminaries, but in so doing they dull their own sparkle. If you want to shine bright, look to the heavens and see how the brightest star always stands apart from those lesser shining stars.
Those who speak most of health, have it. Those who speak most of wealth, have it. Those who speak most of joy, have it. The opposite also holds true. So which would you rather have?
By fully experiencing and going beyond an emotional block - through the layers of doubt and fear - you experience the emotion of who you truly are.
You have two voices, one that only you hear, and another that you speak out loud with, so others hear you. Regardless of what you actually say with your mouth, what matters is what your inner voice says, for this is the one you listen to the most.
To control your life, control your mind. To control your mind, control your breath.
No matter what your wishes, they are not crazy so long as they are not crazy to you!
Make the goal huge and you cannot miss!
Often success goes hand-in-hand with the sum total of sexual activity in your life.
You have a right to feel the universe is willing to provide you with blessings, but not to the point that it cannot do without you.
You put yourself where you are, and if you find yourself unsatisfied with how you are, then get yourself out of it.
Your life is in your hands. Only YOU have the capacity to turn it into a rosy path or a thorn filled one. Increase your vibrational output with Cosmic Ordering and your future will be rosy.
Do not avoid doing what you love because you fear that it will only result in poverty or lack. If you fear this, then this is exactly what will happen.
The universe is infinite, and the experiences and opportunities available to us are likewise.
Armed with positive thoughts, it becomes easier to focus on your goals, while the opposite also holds true.
Do not constantly question why your desires have not manifested, although you should keep a vibrational connection to them.
Harnessing the unique sex energy that can only arise through sexual expression can awaken multidimensional awareness and provide you with your desired goal.
Tell me your story and I will get back your life.
Willful blindness sees no end of damage done.
With sticky thinking you can become unstuck!
If you want to make dough, do a bun dance.
In her mind, the ground rumbled and split open revealing the edge into a dark abyss. The shadows were always calling to her. Laughing at her. The familiar strains of loneliness flared under their torment. Drawing in a deep breath, she screamed to the black, “You’re not allowed to hurt me and know it!” Her voice echoed off the earthen walls and whispered back, “Be free. Be fearless.
Like a Columbus of the heart, mind and soul I have hurled myself off the shores of my own fears and limiting beliefs to venture far out into the uncharted territories of my inner truth, in search of what it means to be genuine and at peace with who I really am. I have abandoned the masquerade of living up to the expectations of others and explored the new horizons of what it means to be truly and completely me, in all my amazing imperfection and most splendid insecurity.
We are designed to dance. To use our bodies as weapons of grace, beauty and intrigue. We are designed to stretch until we master growth. To replace old dead cells and be physically renewed each moment. So challenges don’t destroy us, they just should make us dance more swiftly and passionately. For when we dance we please God. Especially when we dance in brokenness.
Thorn stood without motion, for only when you are truly still can you be the centre. She stood without sound, for only silent can you listen. She stood without fear, for only the fearless can understand their peril.Thorn waited. Fearless as flowers, bright, fragile, open to the sky. Brave, as only those who’ve already lost can be.
THE FEAR OF ITThey say that resistanceto something inevitable makes it seem worse than it is. Maybe the trickis to give in,try to increase the worry, bend like a tree in the storm, give pain its due,find the center of it and look at it plainly, turn it carefullyin the palm of your hand,and realize it can own only so much of you,unless you give it more.It is a balloonthat can get only so big.Anything more is just the fear of it.
People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion—these are the two things that govern us. And yet—
I have come to learn, that when people of money and power organize to set upon to break a person they seek to silence, and the person seems but a shadow of what they were, under the endless barrage, in the end when laid to rest, the dignity, compassion and presence of the person somehow endures, and their words awaken to speak clearer than before.As if torches ignite, when their flame is gone,and the light of their truth,Is brilliantly lit and once more born.
How do you defend against a person who is ready to die? How do you defend against a person who don’t fear being sent to prison for life? How do you defend against a person who has nothing to lose? It’s like trying to defend against a suicide bomber, who has no problem going out in a glorified bang.Suicide bomber, assisted death, nothing-to-lose, not afraid, fearless, criminal mindset, thug life, mental disease, suicidal, mental challenges, death march, How do you defend against a person who is ready to die? How do you defend against a person who don’t fear being sent to prison for life? How do you defend against a person who has nothing to lose? It’s like trying to defend against a suicide bomber, who has no problem going out in a glorified bang.
When I had to leave she kissed me on both cheeks - a thing she had never done before - and said, 'There's just one thing to remember; whatever happens, it does no good to be afraid.' So I promised not to be afraid, and may even have been a fool enough to think I could keep my promise.
It comes and goes. People think if you're sick you become fearless and brave, but you don't. Most of the time it's like being stalked by a psycho, like I might get shot any second. But sometimes I forget for hours.''What makes you forget?''People. Doing stuff. When I was with you in the wood, I forgot for a whole afternoon.
I’m going to be a model of fearlessness. And when people spew fear, I’m going to stand with an invisible shield around me and let their comments zing off my shield, and I will say to myself ‘not in my world!’ because in my world, people do take risks, and people do try to make things better and they never say die!
Perhaps there isn’t anything Alec is afraid of.”Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows. “Boo,” he said.Jace was grinning. “Come on, surely you’ve got a phobia or two. What scares you?”Alec thought for a moment. “Spiders,” he said.Clary turned to Luke. “Have you got a spider anywhere?”Luke looked exasperated. “Why would I have a spider? Do I look like someone who would collect them?”“No offense,” Jace said, “But you kind of do.”“You know”---Alec’s tone was sour---”Maybe this was a stupid experiment.”“What about the dark?” Clary suggested. “We could lock you in the basement.”“I’m a demon hunter,” Alec said, with exaggerated patience. “Clearly, I am not afraid of the dark.
Dumbledore was on his feet again, pale as any of the surrounding Inferi, but taller than any too, the fire dancing in his eyes; his wand was raised like a torch and from its tip emanated the flames, like a vast lasso, encircling them all with warmth.
From a spiritual perspective, each individual heart is a place where Divine love is expressed and experienced. That's what it's designed for. That love shows up in an unlimited number of shapes and sizes, colors and flavors. We are here to love, as big and as fearlessly as we possibly can.
Fear! Fear again, for the first time since his 'teens. Fear, that he thought he would never know any more. Fear that no weapon, no jeopardy, no natural cataclysm, has ever been able to inspire until now. And now here it is running icily through him in the hot Chinese noon. Fear for the thing he loves, the only fear that can ever wholly cow the reckless and the brave. ("Jane Brown's Body")
It seems so long ago that he was last afraid of anything. Seventeen, was he then? Eighteen? Sometimes he thinks he's missing a lot by being like this - fear gives life a fillip. He wonders how it is he lost it all, and what there is - if anything - ever to bring it back. ("Jane Brown's Body")
Fury invaded where fear dare not. The thirst for revenge still burned his throat and coated his tongue. The last few days, he'd been a complete ass, visiting violence on his brothers because he could, because they would take it, because, in the end, they were the same. Monsters all.
Guess what? “Someday” almost never comes around. It gets lost somewhere between the shouda, woulda, couldas of your life. Let go of whatever is holding you back and dare to live – boldly, bravely, and courageously - now. Remember, none of these elements mean you have to be fearless. It’s absolutely okay to be afraid! Acknowledge that part of yourself and then push beyond that fear, whatever it may be. I’m not brave. . . . I’m just taking every opportunity to LIVE.