Wilderness quotes by Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break....I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

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Inspiring Desert quotes

It's no wonder most religions are born in the desert, because when men lay beneath that boundless night sky and look up at the infinite expanse of creation they have an uncontrollable urge to put something in the way .
Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Water, water, water....There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount , a perfect ratio of water to rock, water to sand, insuring that wide free open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid West so different from any other part of the nation. There is no lack of water here unless you try to establish a city where no city should be.
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

God takes everyone he loves through a desert. It is his cure for our wandering hearts, restlessly searching for a new Eden... The best gift of the desert is God's presence... The protective love of the Shepherd gives me courage to face the interior journey. Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World

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This is What You Shall Do by Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman: “This is What You Shall Do”

Walt Whitman, in his preface to Leaves of Grass:

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, reexamine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

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Sonnets From the Portuguese,I by by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Richard Johnson Art

Sonnets From the Portuguese,I
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young;
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightaway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,--
Guess now who holds thee?--Death, I said, But, there,
The silver answer rang,--Not Death, but Love.

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Inspirational Childhood Quotes

There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.
Elizabeth Lawrence

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.
John Betjeman

The rustling of a wild-bird's wings,
A star, a flower, a gush of rain,
The sight of sad or joyous things,
Oft makes me seem a child again:
With voiceless eloquence they come,
Bright phantoms of my childhood's home.
ROSA VERTNER JEFFREY, "My Childhood's Home"

I leave to children exclusively, but only for the life of their childhood, all and every the dandelions of the fields and the daisies thereof, with the right to play among them freely, according to the custom of children, warning them at the same time against the thistles. And I devise to children the yellow shores of creeks and the golden sands beneath the water thereof, with the dragon flies that skim the surface of said waters, and and the odors of the willows that dip into said waters, and the white clouds that float on high above the giant trees.
Williston Fish, "A Last Will"

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Deepak Chopra Quotes on life,experience,spirituality

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future .
Deepak Chopra

Even when you think you have your life all mapped out, things happen that shape your destiny in ways you might never have imagined.
Deepak Chopra

Once war becomes a clash of absolutes, there is no breathing room for mercy. Absolute truth is blind truth.

If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will grow stronger and return.

If you contemplate the Golden Rule, it turns out to be an injunction to live by grace rather than by what you think other people deserve.
Deepak Chopra, The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore

Each of us is here to discover our true Self... that essentially we are spiritual beings who have taken manifestation in physical form... that we're not human beings that have occasional spiritual experiences that we're spiritual beings that have occasional human experiences.
Deepak Chopra

Never forget that you are not in the world; the world is in you. When anything happens to you, take the experience inward. Creation is set up to bring you constant hints and clues about your role as co-creator. Your soul is metabolizing experience as surely as your body is metabolizing food.

Be content not with your lot in life but with being here in the flow of life. The glories of creation are in your very cells; you are made of the same mindstuff as the angels, the stars, and god himself.
Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life.

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O man, learn to dance by Saint Augustine;I Hope You Dance Lyrics by by Lee Ann Womack,The dance of soul by Hazrat Inayat Khan;Caravanserai by Loreena McKennitt

Music:
Caravanserai-Loreena McKennitt

O man, learn to dance
Saint Augustine

I praise the dance,
for it frees people from the heaviness of matter
and binds the isolated to community.
I praise the dance, which demands everything:
health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.

Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people, who are in constant danger of becoming all brain, will, or feeling.

Dancing demands a whole person,
one who is firmly anchored in the center of his life,
who is not obsessed by lust for people and things
and the demon of isolation in his own ego.

Dancing demands a freed person,
one who vibrates with the equipoise of all his powers.
I praise the dance.
O man, learn to dance,
or else the angels in heaven will not know
what to do with you.

Anna Razumovskaya painting

I Hope You Dance Lyrics
by Lee Ann Womack

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
May you never take one single breath for granted,
GOD forbid love ever leave you empty handed,
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance....

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin' might mean takin' chances but they're worth takin',
Lovin' might be a mistake but it's worth makin',
Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter,
When you come close to sellin' out reconsider,
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance...

We grown-up people think that we appreciate music, but if we realized the sense that an infant has brought with it of appreciating sound and rhythm, we would never boast of knowing music. The infant is music itself.
Hazrat Inayat Khan

Vicent Romero Rdendo Painting

The Dance of the Soul
Hazrat Inayat Khan

I have loved in life and I have been loved.
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar, and have been raised above life's joy and sorrow.
My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it.

My heart has been rent and joined again;
My heart has been broken and again made whole;
My heart has been wounded and healed again;
A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet.

I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
I wept in love and made all weep with me;
I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men;

And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes.
The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear;
With my deep sigh the earth trembled,
and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved,
I shook the throne of God in heaven.

I bowed my head low in humility,
and on my knees I begged of love,
"Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret."

She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth,
and spoke softly in my ear,
"My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover,
and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored."

Caravanserai
Loreena McKennitt

This glancing life is like a morning star
A setting sun, or rolling waves at sea
A gentle breeze or lightning in a storm
A dancing dream of all eternity

The sand was shimmering in the morning light
And dancing off the dunes so far away
The night held music so sweet, so long
And there we lay until the break of day

We woke that morning at the onward call
Our camels bridled up, our howdahs full
The sun was rising in the eastern sky
Just as we set out to the desert's cry

Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you

The tents grew smaller as we rode away
On earth that tells of many passing days
The months of peace and all the years of war
The lives of love and all the lives of fears

Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you

We crossed the river beds all etched in stone
And up the mighty mountains ever known
Beyond the valleys in the searing heat
Until we reached the caravanserai

Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you
Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you

What is this life that pulls me far away
What is that home where we cannot reside
What is that quest that pulls me onward
My heart is full when you are by my side

Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you

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