The Journey

The Journey

By Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

"When you are on your path, and it is truly your path, doors will open for you where there were no doors for someone else." - Joseph Campbell

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves. - Anatole France

"Art is not a thing; it is a way." Hubbard

"Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about… say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe." -Rumi

Somehow, when we no longer feel in control, we become available to deeper aliveness. - Richard Moss

Every day is a miraculous day. Allow the spirit of love to prevail. Release attachment to meaningless things and remember who you are. -Marianne Williamson

"Gratitude is the memory of the heart." - Massieu

"We do not remember days, we remember moments." - Cesare Pavese

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without words and never stops at all. - emily dickenson

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love." - Rumi

"The morning breeze has secrets to tell you. Do not go back to sleep." - Rumi

At first I listened with hesitation, but before I knew it, I was getting out my journal and writing down some food for thought. Basically the message was what I already knew but needed to be reminded of. That you are what your thoughts consist of. And that you must shift your perspective and change your awareness of yourself if you're ever going to get where you'd like to go. That you find your calling in life by listening to the whispers. That when you find your inspiration, you must surrender yourself to it, that it becomes bigger than you, and in it lies your divine purpose. Afterall, he says, we are just spiritual beings living the human experience, and to be inspired takes you on your journey back to your divine self. In order to get there, you have to think of yourself as limitless, without boundaries and bonds. That you must take off the layers of learned beliefs and expose your essence, your raw and sweetly divine self. Your thoughts are your reality. They attract to your life exactly what they represent. So keep em' positive.

"To love beauty is to see light." ~ Victor Hugo

What you can do or dream, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe

"I now understand what it means to be truly inspired, caught by something that has a hold on you and it's taking you where you were intended to go." -Kelly Rae Roberts

"What is necessary to change one's self is to change the awareness of one's self" - A. Maslow

"There is something very human about acknowledging the messy parts of life, to feel that for awhile, in order to get to the other side, the lightness of life. " Kelly Rae Roberts

"Anywhere is paradise; it's up to you." -Source unknown

"Achievement seems to be connected with action.Successful men and women keep moving.They make mistakes, but they don’t quit." -Conrad Hilton

"Women are the primary resource of the planet. They give birth, we come from them. They are mothers, they are visionaries, they are the future. If we can figure out how to make women feel safe and honor women, it would be parallel or equal to honoring life itself."
- Eve Ensler

How might your life have been different if there had been a place for you...where you were received and affirmed? A place where others had been affirmed before you, each in her time, affirmed as she struggled to become more truly herself.

A place where, after the fires were lighted, and the drumming, and the silence, there would be a hush of expectancy...a knowing that each one there was leaving old conformity to find her self...a sense that all of womanhood stood on the threshold.

And if, during the hush, others had helped you to trust your own becoming...to trust it and quietly and prayerfully to nurture it...

How might your life be different? ~ Judith Duerk (Circle of Stones)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We are all meant to shine. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” - Marianne Williamson

blessings

"Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed." - Mary Oliver

"IMAGINE A WOMAN WHO FOLLOWS HER CREATIVE IMPULSES.
A WOMAN WHO PRODUCES ORIGINAL CREATIONS.
WHO REFUSES TO COLOR INSIDE SOMEONE ELSE'S LINES."
- PATRICIA LYNN REILLY (IMAGINE A WOMAN)

"IMAGINE A WOMAN WHO FOLLOWS HER CREATIVE IMPULSES.
A WOMAN WHO PRODUCES ORIGINAL CREATIONS.
WHO REFUSES TO COLOR INSIDE SOMEONE ELSE'S LINES."
- PATRICIA LYNN REILLY (IMAGINE A WOMAN)

"Face it, feelings are mutable, and an emotion that seems permanent one minute could be a distant memory the next. Instead of focusing on what could be, figure out what really is and then make your move with haste."

Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of the gods. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Attention is the most concrete expression of love. What you pay
attention to thrives. What you do not pay attention to withers and dies.
What will you pay attention to today?" ~ Karen Maezen Miller

follow your heart

Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway. - Eleanor Roosevelt