“You are a part of me I do not yet know: What do these words mean to you? I practice saying these words in my mind when I see faces on the street, on the screen, across the table. I practice with people I fear or want to to hate. I practice with parts of the earth, with trees and birds, rocks and mountains. I say these words to parts of my own self — my grief or pain, my rage or fear. And every time, these words cultivate a sense of humility in me, an openness. An ability to get quiet and listen. I learn something new. I gain information for how to respond with care. I make wonder a practice. Wonder is the precondition to love. It is what makes love revolutionary.”

Valarie Kaur

“”Three indispensables of a nobleman are: his harp, his blanket and his cauldron.” – triad from Laws of Hywel Dda

Under most modern laws of distraint – whereby goods are removed from a household in compensation for debts unpaid – there are certain articles that cannot be removed. These usually include the items by which the householder earns her living, the tools of a worker’s trade, the bed, and the means to make food. In the triad above, from the Welsh legal code formulated by King Hywel Dda in the ninth century, we discover that the three indispensable objects of the nobleman are the harp by which his bard entertained him, the blanket that kept his body warm in bed, and the cauldron that heated his food. Today, these items would probably be equivalent to the television set, the bed, and the stove: means of entertainment, sleep, and food.

We have become used to the possession of certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, among others, in our modern world. These are rights that we take for granted, that are enshrined in constitutions and maintained by the law of the land; and yet even within civilized societies there are many who do not enjoy these rights. The poor, the disadvantaged, and others who live on the margins of society need the actions and voices of those who honour the commitment to the inalienable rights that we should all enjoy.”

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

Illustration ‘Proclaiming the laws of Hywel Dda’ from Flamebearers of Welsh History

“If I find a green meadow splashed with daisies and sit down beside a clear-running brook, I have found medicine. It soothes my hurts as well as when I sat in my mother’s lap in infancy, because the Earth really is my mother, and the green meadow is her lap.”

Deepak Chopra

“We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.”

Hermann Hesse (1877 – 1962), born on this day

“”Whatever anyone does or says, for my part I’m bound to the good. In the same way an emerald or gold or purple might always proclaim: ‘whatever anyone does or says, I must be what I am and show my true colours.’” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.15

The Stoics believed that every person, animal, and thing has a purpose or a place in nature. Even in ancient Greek and Roman times, they vaguely understood that the world was composed of millions of tiny atoms. It was this idea – this sense of an interconnected cosmos – that underpinned their sense that every person and every action was part of a larger system. Everyone had a job – a specific duty. Even people who did bad things – they were doing their job of being evil because evil is a part of life.

The most critical part of this system was the belief that you, the student who has sought out Stoicism, have the most important job: to be good! To be wise. “To remain the person that philosophy wished to make us.”

Do your job today. Whatever happens, whatever other people’s jobs happen to be, do yours. Be good.”

From The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love – whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.”

James Baldwin (1927 – 1987)

“Most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know. Often finding meaning is not about doing things differently; it is about seeing familiar things in new ways. When we find new eyes, the unsuspected blessing in work we have done for many years may take us completely by surprise. We can see life in many ways: with the eye, with the mind, with the intuition. But perhaps it is only those who speak the language of meaning, who have remembered how to see with the heart, that life is ever deeply known or served.”

Rachel Naomi Remen

“One who expects to change the world will be disappointed;
one must change one’s view.
When this is done,
then tolerance will come,
forgiveness will come,
and there will be nothing one cannot bear.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan, Sufi master (1882 – 1927)

“I am the mother of sorrows,
I am the ender of grief;
I am the bud and the blossom,
I am the late-falling leaf.

I am thy priest and thy poet,
I am thy serf and thy king;
I cure the tears of the heartsick,
When I come near they shall sing.

White are my hands as the snowdrop;
Swart are my fingers as clay;
Dark is my frown as the midnight,
Fair is my brow as the day.

Battle and war are my minions,
Doing my will as divine;
I am the calmer of passions,
Peace is a nursling of mine.

Speak to me gently or curse me,
Seek me or fly from my sight;
I am thy fool in the morning,
Thou art my slave in the night.

Down to the grave will I take thee,
Out from the noise of the strife;
Then shalt thou see me and know me—
Death, then, no longer, but life.

Then shalt thou sing at my coming,
Kiss me with passionate breath,
Clasp me and smile to have thought me
Aught save the foeman of Death.

Come to me, brother, when weary,
Come when thy lonely heart swells;
I’ll guide thy footsteps and lead thee
Down where the Dream Woman dwells.”

The Paradox by Paul Laurence Dunbar, African-American poet (1872 – 1906), born on this day

“Wide green world. we know and love you:
Clear blue skies that arch above you,
Moon-tugged oceans rising, falling,
Summer rain and cuckoo calling.
Some wild ancient ferment bore us.
Us, and all that went before us:
Life in desert. forest, mountain.
Life in stream and springing fountain.

We know how to mould and tame you,
We have power to mar and maim you.
Show us by your silent growing
That which we should all be knowing:
We are of you, not your master,
We who plan supreme disaster.
If with careless greed we use you
Inch by extinct inch we lose you.

May our births and deaths remind us
Others still will come behind us.
That they also may enjoy you
We with wisdom will employ you.
That our care may always bless you
Teach us we do not possess you.
We are part and parcel of you.
Wide green world, we share and love you.”

Dr. June Bell, Unitarian poet and hymn writer