the scent of orchids
from a butterfly’s wings
perfuming my clothes
—Basho
Posts tagged "freedom"
Oath, Final
I am because I am! means I exist because I exist and need no justification whatsoever for my existence. The fact of my being is enough. I require no terms, conditions or permits from myself or anyone else. I live, and in living I am fully entitled to go on living. My life, my existence, my being is not predicated on standards, values, achievements or accomplishments. I am, not because of books I write, money I earn, degrees conferred, children I have—I am with or without these accouterments. These things and people are not me! I do not exist because of them. Relative to my life, they exist because of me.
— Compassion and Self Hate, Theodore Isaac Rubin
Emphasis Mine, 2
And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience … Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.
— Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
Bonfire at Midnight
A shout comes out of my room
where I’ve been cooped up.
After all my lust and dead living
I can still live with you.
You want me to.
You fix and bring me food.
You forget the way I’ve been.
The ocean moves and surges in the heat
of the middle of the day,
in the heat of this thought I’m having.
Why aren’t all human resistances
burning up with this thought?
It is a drum and arms waving.
It is a bonfire at midnight on the top edge of a hill,
this meeting again with you.
—Rumi