“The mixture of sorrow and joy is so powerful that we cannot figure out how to handle it all, let alone assess how our fellow spiritual seekers are doing. The diversity of feelings can be overwhelming… In those moments when we sense the presence of God we surrender to him, truly willing to be with him, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength. This holy assent is all that matters. It eclipses all the wicked inclinations inside us – physical and spiritual – that might lead us to miss the mark… Sometimes however, that sacred sweetness lies deeply buried, and we fall again into blindness, which leads to all kinds of sorrow and tribulation… Pray for the time when God will once again reveal himself and fill our hearts with the sweetness of his presence. And so we remain in this muddle all the days of our lives. But our Beloved wants us to trust that he is always with us.”
Julian of Norwich (c.1343 – c.1416)
On this day in 1377 the city council of Rugusa (now Dubroknik) passed a law saying newcomers from plague areas must isolate for 30 days, the first recorded example of quarantine

“It happens to those who live alone
that they feel sure of visitors
when no one else is there,
until the one day
and the one particular hour
working in the quiet garden,
when they realize at once
that all along
they have been an invitation
to everything
and every kind of trouble
and that life happens by
to those who inhabit silence
like the bees visiting the tall mallow
on their legs of gold,
or the wasps going from door to door
in those tall forests
made so easily by the daisies.
I have my freedom today
because nothing really happened
and nobody came to see me,
only the slow growing of the garden
in the summer heat
and the silence of that unborn life
making itself known at my desk,
my hands still dark
with the crumbling soil
as I write and watch
the first lines of a new poem
like flowers of scarlet fire
coming to fullness in a clear light.”
David Whyte

“A rabbi asked his students, “How do you know that night has ended and the day is returning?” One student answered, “Is it when you see an animal in the distance and can tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?” “No,” the rabbi replied. Another student asked, “Is it when you look at a tree in the distance and can tell whether it is a fig or an olive tree?” “No,” replied the rabbi. “It is when you look on the face of any man or woman and see that he or she is your brother or sister. If you cannot do this, no matter what the time, it is still night.””
Jewish tradition, author unknown

“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling is at the centre of true religiousness…
I like to experience the universe as one harmonious whole. Every cell has life. Matter, too, has life; it is energy solidified. Our bodies are like prisons, and I look forward to be free, but I don’t speculate on what will happen to me. I live here now, and my responsibility is in this world now.”
Albert Einstein

“Ironic, but one of the most intimate acts
of our body is
death.
So beautiful appeared my death – knowing who then I would kiss,
I died a thousand times before I died.
“Die before you die,” said the Prophet
Muhammad.
Have wings that feared ever
touched the Sun?
I was born when all I once
feared – I could
love.”
Rabia al-Basri (c.717 – 801), Sufi saint

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
where knowledge is free;
where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
where words come out from the depth of truth;
where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
where the mind is led forward into ever-widening thought and action – into that heaven of freedom, let my country awake.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941), Bengali poet and the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (in 1913)

“When I open my eyes to the outer world, I feel myself as a drop in the sea. But when I close my eyes and look within, I see the whole universe as a bubble raised in the ocean of my heart.”
Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882 – 1927), teacher of Universal Sufism, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

“These are a few of my favourite life lessons that I learned as a result of walking on the Moon and the preparation that took us there—the guiding principles that have helped keep me going since returning to Earth. • The sky is not the limit … there are footprints on the Moon! • Keep your mind open to possibilities. • Show me your friends, and I will show you your future. • Second comes right after first. • Write your own epitaph. • Maintain your spirit of adventure. • Failure is always an option. • Practice respect for all people. • Do what you believe is right even when others choose otherwise. • Trust your gut … and your instruments. • Laugh … a lot! • Keep a young mind-set at every age. • Help others go beyond where you have gone. I hope these lessons will be as helpful to you as they have been to me. Take it from a man who has walked on the Moon: Be careful what you dream—it just might come to pass, so be prepared. Apollo is the story of people at their best, working together for a common goal. We started with a dream, and we can do these kinds of things again. With a united effort and a great team, you too can achieve great things. I know, because I am living proof that no dream is too high!”

Buzz Aldrin, who landed on the moon with Neil Armstrong on this day in 1969

“We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens. The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.”
Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630), who on this day in 1595 had an epiphany and developed his theory of the geometrical basis of the universe.

“There is only one breath. All are made of the same clay. Light within all is the same.”
Guru Gobind Singh, tenth Guru of Sikhism, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection