A prayer

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers
but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain
but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield
but to my own strength.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

Grant that I may not be a coward,
feeling Your mercy in my success alone;

But let me find the the grasp of Your hand in my failure.

bengali poet – rabindranath tagore – 1916

"Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.”
Osho

Loving you

"I love you’ means that I accept you for the person that you are, and that I do not wish to change you into someone else. It means that I will love you and stand by you even through the worst of times. It means loving you even when you’re in a bad mood, or too tired to do the things I want to do. It means loving you when you’re down, not just when you’re fun to be with. ‘I love you’ means that I know your deepest secrets and do not judge you for them, asking in return that you do not judge me for mine. It means that I care enough to fight for what we have and that I love you enough not to let go. It means thinking of you, dreaming of you, wanting and needing you constantly, and hoping you feel the same about me."

- Jonathan Safron Foer   

"You don’t measure love in time. You measure love in transformation. Sometimes the longest connections yield very little growth, while the briefest of encounters change everything. The heart doesn’t wear a watch - it’s timeless. It doesn’t care how long you know someone. It doesn’t care if you had a 40 year anniversary if there is no juice in the connection. What the heart cares about is resonance. Resonance that opens it, resonance that enlivens it, resonance that calls it home. And when it finds it, the transformation begins…"

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http://moonandtrees.tumblr.com

http://moonandtrees.tumblr.com

http://moonandtrees.tumblr.com

Flow of life

"When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides. "

 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea"

"I hope you find someone who is brave enough to enter your storm, and respects you enough to love the size of your waves. I hope you find someone who will relish the calm you can have, and who is eager to set sail on the expanse of your mind. I hope you find someone that can’t escape the love they have for you, because now they have you in their very blood, always reminding them that you are the only sea worth exploring."

- T.B. LaBerge // Unwritten Letters to You

Source: tblaberge, via moonandtrees

Eat, Prag, Love

"So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it. You’re just afraid to let go of the last bits of him because then you’ll be really alone, and you’re scared to death of what will happen if you’re really alone. But here’s what you gotta understand. If you clear out all that space in your mind that you’re using right now to obsess about this guy, you’ll have a vacuum there, an open spot – a doorway. And guess what the universe will do with the doorway? It will rush in – God will rush in – and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using that boy to block that door. Let it go."

- Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert)

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.

Pema Chödrön

Experience Your Life

‘A woman is running from tigers. She runs and she runs, and the tigers are getting closer and closer. She comes to the edge of a cliff. She sees a vine there, so she climbs down and holds onto it. Then she looks down and sees that there are tigers below her as well. At the same time, she notices a little mouse gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries emerging from a nearby clump of grass. She looks up, she looks down, and she looks at the mouse. Then she pics a strawberry, pops it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly.

Tigers above, tigers below. This is the predicament we are always in. We are born and sooner or later we die. Each moment is just what it is. Resentment, bitterness, and holding a grudge prevent us from seeing and hearing and tasting and delighting. This might be the only moment of our life, this might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could feel depressed about this or we could finally appreciate it. We could delight in the preciousness of every single moment.’

- Pema Chodron, Comfortable With Uncertainty.

Wholeness

Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather, it means never living apart from one’s self. It is not about the absence of other people-it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others.

Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other. It is not about the presence of other people-it is about being fully open to the reality of relationship, whether or not we are alone.”

The Elusive Art of Inner Wholeness and How to Stop Hiding Our Souls

by Maria Popova

When I am alone..

It is rather funny. When you try to live how spiritual teachers claim to be good and right, you find yourself, when living this way, quite lonely for the first time. I mean, really alone, you see all the other people, friends, family, collegues, and you think: well, this is all good and fine, but none of them can really help me with that. And then you are kind of forced to look directly at yourself. And by this I mean, really and honestly look at oneself, with all the uglyness and edges, all the love and the absence of love. When you are by yourself long enough and you do not try to run away, realizing the bottom of your being, is going to hit you like a truck on a lonesome road. There is going to be no way to escape. You are going to stand there, looking directly at that truck, but there is going to be no wish whatsoever to step aside. Because there is no need. You are hit by reality.

Celtic marriage vows

You cannot possess me for I belong to myself 
But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give 
You cannot command me, for I am a free person 
But I shall serve you in those ways you require 
and the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand. 

❝     soon you’ll realize that many people will love the idea of you but will lack the maturity to handle the reality of you.― Reyna Biddy