Take Grief

"Between grief and nothing
I will take grief."

~ William Faulkner

Learning and Purification

"The spiritual journey is
one of continuous learning
and purification.When you know this,
you become humble."
~ Sogyal Rinpoche

Birth Is Violent

"Birth is violent,
whether it be
the birth of a child,
or the birth of an idea."
~ Marianne Williamson

No Hold on Time

"He who has no vision
of eternity has
no hold on time."
~ Thomas Carlyle

Taking a Chance

"Nothing important was
ever achieved without
someone important
taking a chance."~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

For Comfort

"All mankind is crying out for guidance,
for comfort, for peace."
~ Billy Graham

Everything Is Possible

"When nothing is sure,
everything is possible."
~ Margaret Drabble

Happily May I Walk

"Happily may I walk.
May it be beautiful before me.
May it be beautiful behind me.
May it be beautiful below me.
May it be beautiful above me.
May it be beautiful all around me.
In beauty it is finished."
~ Navajo Night Chant

All Things Excellent

"All things excellent are
as difficult as they are rare."
~ Benedict De Spinoza

Our Resilient Human Spirit

"Man never made any material
as resilient as the human spirit."~ Bern Williams

Wings

"The man who has no imagination

has no wings."

~ Muhammad Ali

It's My Daughter

"For decades my role model
was my mother.
Now it's my daughter.
I’m just the woman who was
lucky enough to come
between the two."
~ Anna Quindlen

Delicious to Hear

"Mere air, these words,
but delicious to hear."~ Sappho

View from the Base

View from the bottom of my mountain

"A well-ordered life
is like climbing a tower;
the view halfway up is better
than the view from the base,
and it steadily becomes finer
as the horizon expands."
~ William Lyon Phelps

Fathers!

Happy Birthday, Daddy

"Fathers! Blessed word."
~ Maria S. Cummins

All Your Choices

"Life is a sum of all your choices."

~ Voltaire

Constant Education

"All of life is a constant education."
~ Eleanor Roosevelt

The Art of Art

"The art of art ...
is simplicity."
~Walt Whitman

Confidence

"Confidence is contagious."

~ Vince Lombardi

Lion For a Day

"It’s better to be a lion for a day
than a sheep all your life."
~ Elizabeth Kenny

Untie the Ribbons

"Each day comes
bearing its own gifts.
Untie the ribbons. "
~ Ruth Ann Schabacker

Loneliness Is

"What loneliness is
more lonely than distrust?"~ George Eliot

Explodes the Illusions

"A crisis event often
explodes the illusions
that anchor our lives."
~ Robert Veninga

Live To the Point Of

"Live to the point of tears."
~ Albert Camus

All Colors

"All colors
are the friends of their neighbors
and the lovers of their opposites."
~Marc Chagall

Where to Look Next

"Intuition will tell
the thinking mind
where to look next."
~Jonas Salk

Do Them Better

"If you do things well,
do them better."~ Anita Roddick

Risk of Failure

"Growth always involves
the risk of failure."
~ Howard Thurman

Live Alone

"Inside myself is a place
where I live alone
and that's where you
renew your springs
that never dry up."
~ Pearl S. Buck

Empty Pockets

"Empty pockets
never held anyone back.
Only empty heads and
empty hearts can do that."
~ Norman Vincent Peale

Integrity is the Essence

"Integrity is the essence
of everything successful."
~R. Buckminster Fuller

Grace is to Beauty

"Delicacy is to love
what grace is to beauty."
~ Francoise d'Aubigne de Maintenon

Line By Line

"Line by line,
moment by moment,
special times are etched
into our memories
in the permanent ink
of everlasting love
in our relationships."
~ Gloria Gaither

Might Have Been

"No star is lost we once have seen.
We always may be
what we might have been."~ Adelaide Anne Procter

Criticize

"Criticize by creating."
~ Michelangelo

Improve the World

"How wonderful it is
that nobody need wait
a single moment
before starting to
improve the world."
~Anne Frank

Significance

"Time has no meaning in itself
unless we choose
to give it significance."
~ Leo Buscaglia

My Me

(From the Blue Ridge Parkway)

"My me is God!"
~ St. Catherine of Genoa

Only Way Out

"The only way out is in."
~ Etty Hillesum

Enjoy Life

(From the Blue Ridge Parkway)

"My motto is that I enjoy life.
I think there's a kind
of simplicity to that
way of thinking."
~ Jenna Elfman

A Good Example

"A good example is like a bell
that calls many to church."~ Danish Proverb

All That Spirits Desire

"All that spirits desire,spirits attain."
~ Kahlil Gibran

Misty Morning

"A misty morning
does not signify a cloudy day."
~ Ancient Proverb

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We Can Measure Ourselves

"It is by that which cannot be
taken away that we can
measure ourselves."
~ Mia Farrow

♥ My Society6 Art Gallery \(‾◡◝ )/ 

Work

"Do not be afraid to work."
~ John D. Rockefeller

Whatever Pieces

"Arrange whatever pieces come your way"
~ Virginia Woolf

Be Yourself

"Be yourself, that’s all there is of you."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Master of Perspective

"Make yourself a master of perspective,
then acquire perfect
knowledge of the proportions
of men and other animals."
~ Leonardo Da Vinci

The sky is calm

Eerily so.

Life hurts.

A full day awaits
this weary chauffeur
The clock beats
a dull warning in my
chest.

Driving Ben to see
School Superintendents 
Probation Officers.

Parking
Waiting for him to finish
Masses and classes:
four hours of GED 
two hours of Substance Abuse

Eight hours gone seven years of lies.

Clenching the wheel
Struggling to silence reason's numb roar.

Focus on the road.
Life automatic.
Another turn signal, a normal beat

Almost home.

God Will

"God will be present, whether asked or not."
~ Latin Proverb

Long Journey Toward the Stars

 "If seeds in the black earth
can turn into such beautiful roses,
what might not the heart of man
become in its long journey toward the stars?"
~ G. K. Chesterton