From The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year by Caitlin Matthews,

“”Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Safely through the world we go.” William Blake

Joy and sorrow do not perform according to logical rules and laws; they come unbidden like the clouds, the rain, the sunshine…
The gifts of sadness, like the gifts of happiness, come to all conditions and types of people. They provide moments of self-clarification that keep our lives on course. Sadness nearly always stems from some form of exclusion, separation, or rejection. When we are disconnected from life, we yearn for union. Joy connects us strongly with life; like people who plunge into the stream, we enter the swim of life in ecstatic connection. Our going safely through the world is based on a true regard of both conditions. When we value the gifts both of joy and of sorrow, our taste for life increases. When we accept both happiness and sadness as our mortal bequest, we grow as human beings.”

“Justice and judgment often lie a world apart… Governments have always tried to crush reform movements, to destroy ideas, to kill the thing that cannot die. Without regard to history, which shows that no government have ever succeeded in doing this, they go on trying in the old, senseless way… Trust in God, She will provide.”

Emmeline Pankhurst, who died on this day in 1928

“The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

Thomas Merton

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”

Anne Frank, born on this day in 1929

“Healthy living is balancing our ego with our transcendence. Life is not about ignoring self and your needs and living like a doormat, nor is it only about self and your needs and ignoring others. You exist and so does the other. Acknowledge your greatness, and then train yourself to see the greatness in others. Practice looking for the good in others. Remember life is a mirror.”

Rav DovBer Pinson

“When I walk on the path
When I enter the house of Love
I see You.
You are the King in every town.
I see You in the sun, the moon and the stars,
I see Your altar in every plant, in every leaf.

The green in every tree
is You.
The beauty of every garden
is You.
My wealth, my work, my master
is You.
Solitude, purity, pretence
is You.
There is no reality
but You.”

Rumi

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

Roald Dahl

A Meeting by Mary Oliver,

“She steps into the dark swamp
where the long wait ends.

The secret slippery package
drops to the weeds.

She leans her long neck and tongues it
between breaths slack with exhaustion

and after a while it rises and becomes a creature
like her, but much smaller.

So now there are two. And they walk together
like a dream under the trees.

In early June, at the edge of a field
thick with pink and yellow flowers

I meet them.
I can only stare.

She is the most beautiful woman
I have ever seen.

Her child leaps among the flowers,
the blue of the sky falls over me

like silk, the flowers burn, and I want
to live my life all over again, to begin again,

to be utterly
wild.”

“Do not be misled by those who claim there is no purpose.
They may know life, but not the bowels of its fountain.
They may know darkness, but not its meaning.
They may have wisdom, but they cannot reach higher, to a place beyond wisdom from which all wisdom began.
They may reach so high until the very source from which all rivers flow. To the place where all known things converge, where all knowledge is one. But they have not touched the Essence.
At the Essence there is nothing—no light, no darkness, no knowledge, no convergence, no wisdom—nothing but the burning purpose of this moment now.”

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

“If you inherently long for something, become it first. If you want gardens, become the gardener. If you want love, embody love. If you want mental stimulation, change the conversation. If you want peace, exude calmness. If you want to fill your world with artists, begin to paint. If you want to be valued, respect your own time. If you want to live ecstatically, find the ecstasy within yourself. This is how to draw it in, day by day, inch by inch.”

Victoria Erickson