my shoulders QUOTES

8 " 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. "

― Annie Dillard , Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

10 " At the top, I put the camera's viewfinder to my eye and slowly turned, the way my grandmother had taught me. From every vantage point something remarkable filled the screen- clusters of wild red columbine, fallen boulders forming geometric designs against the wall, crusty green lichen gnawing on rocks, a Baltimore oriole popping from a thicket of brush, and, at my feet, a grasshopper clinging to a stem of purple aster. I could spend a day here and barely scratch the surface.
The sun felt warm on my shoulders as I bent down to capture the blossoms of yellow star grass, the feathery purple petals of spotted knapweed, and the lacy wings of two yellow jackets as they alighted on tiny white blossoms of Labrador tea. By the time I finished taking photos of a monarch butterfly resting on milkweed, I realized an hour had passed. "

― Mary Simses , The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe

12 " I sense that in my golden age of transparency I have become less timid and more at ease. I am beginning to let this feeling go, I feel the discomfort slide from my shoulders and wither away. I want you to understand me, to know that my heart is elastic and my mind expansive. I want you to know that I need you because I see God in you – not in myself. "

14 " And if Francoise then, inspired like a poet with a flood of confused reflections upon bereavement, grief, and family memories, were to plead her inability to rebut my theories, saying: " I don't know how to espress (sic) myself" - I would triumph over her with an ironical and brutal common sense worthy of Dr. Percepied; and if she went on: " All the same she was a geological (sic) relation; there is always the respect due to your geology (sic)," I would shrug my shoulders and say: " It is really very good of me to discuss the matter with an illiterate old woman who cannot speak her own language," adopting, to deliver judgment on Francoise, the mean and narrow outlook of the pedant, whom those who are most contemptuous of him in the impartiality of their own minds are only too prone to copy when they are obliged to play a part upon the vulgar stage of life. "

16 " Poem from Rev. Jim Cotter, as listed on the opening pages of “Anatomy of the Spirit” by Caroline Myss:

~ God be in my head and in my understanding.

God be in my eyes and in my looking.

God be in my mouth and in my speaking.

God be in my tongue and in my tasting.

God be in my lips and in my greeting.

~ God be in my nose and in my smelling/inhaling.

God be in my ears and in my hearing.

God be in my neck and in my humbling.

God be in my shoulders and in my bearing.

God be in my back and in my standing.

~ God be in my arms and in my reaching/receiving.

God be in my hands and in my working.

God be in my legs and in my walking.

God be in my feet and in my grounding.

God be in my knees and in my relating.

~ God be in my gut and in my feeling.

God be in my bowels and in my forgiving.

God be in my loins and in my swiving.

God be in my lungs and in my breathing.

God be in my heart and in my loving.

~ God be in my skin and in my touching.

God be in my flesh and in my paining/pining.

God be in my blood and in my living.

God be in my bones and in my dying.

God be at my end and at my reviving. "

― Caroline Myss , Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing

18 " My Serinity,
Thee, my serenity, one can not bear,
Seeing thee befuddled, bereaved,
Dimmed like the midnight, secluded, darkened,
Thee, my serenity,
A window to my eyes,
A window to laughter, and peace of mind,
Thee, my serenity, one can not bear,
Seeing thee wail, whine, cry,
Like a gloomy, mourning brume,
Thee, my serenity,
Soared through fervor and delight,
To the crown of heavens, the Almighty Myth,
One can not bear,
Seeing thee prostrate, razed, demure,
Upon the dimmed streets, crawling, for a sight of the lune,
Thee, my birdy in love,
What befall to thy song,
The very chant of my life,
Cut short, stopped, along with all I gasp,
Thee, my serenity, one can not bear,
Seeing thee, caged in thy own night,
Encumbered, through thy own heart,
Lean on my shoulders now,
My beautiful, wonderful Lily,
That thee shall not fear, the sorrow of,
Of being lonely, apart, not having a peer,
As I promise, to my most dear,
The girl to my heart, always near,
Come what may, don’t age a year,
That I will be, forever here, "

― Hamidreza Bagheri