3
" I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired. "
― Martha Graham
5
" One Saturday morning last May, I joined the presidential motorcade as it slipped out of the southern gate of the White House. A mostly white crowd had assembled. As the motorcade drove by, people cheered, held up their smartphones to record the procession, and waved American flags. To be within feet of the president seemed like the thrill of their lives. I was astounded. An old euphoria, which I could not immediately place, gathered up in me. And then I remembered, it was what I felt through much of 2008, as I watched Barack Obama’s star shoot across the political sky. I had never seen so many white people cheer on a black man who was neither an athlete nor an entertainer. And it seemed that they loved him for this, and I thought in those days, which now feel so long ago, that they might then love me, too, and love my wife, and love my child, and love us all in the manner that the God they so fervently cited had commanded. "
― Ta-Nehisi Coates
15
" Yes You Are!
Like the Blossoming rose,
Like the Rays of hope.
Like a deer in the forest,
Like an athlete full of zest.
Like a lamp in temple,
Like the life feeling ample.
Like the feel of the dawn,
Like the grace of the swan.
Like the melody of sitar,
Like the rage of guitar.
Like a group of angels in the sky,
Like the pot that makes you high.
Like the peacock's dance,
Like she is the romance.
Like the silent talk,
Like the wine from Medoc.
Like the colors of life,
Like the music from the fife.
Like the calmness of the cold wind
Like the beauty of the hind. "
― Ameya Agrawal , A Leap Within