Properly Restrained, submissive...

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 voice 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 that you could save. Mary Oliver The Journey

[properlyrestrained]

Sometimes, it is wise to take time to live and be in the present moment - because that is where it all happens. Ground zero.

I won’t be posting here again, though I won’t deactivate. Call it nostalgia. Thank you to my few thousand followers. It’s been lovely..

Ciao my loves...

[properlyrestrained]

How I want that conversation, with you...

[properlyrestrained]

Because you cannot un-know something...

[properlyrestrained]

An Entrance...

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The Tulleries, Paris. When things were better than good...

[properlyrestrained]

I live my life in growing orbits

which move out over the things of the world.

Perhaps I can never achieve the last, but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,

and I have been circling for a

thousand years,

and I still do not know if I am a falcon, or a storm,

or a great song...

~ Ranier Maria Rilke

[properlyrestrained]

I want to tell you...

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A folly of the young and old alike...

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Decide...

[properlyrestrained]

Hello.

I’ve been waiting for you...

[properlyrestrained]

When we really see other people as they are without taking it personally, we can never be hurt by what they say or do. Even if others lie to you, it is okay. They are lying to you because they are afraid. They are afraid you will discover that they are not perfect...

[properlyrestrained]

Es-tu assez courageux ...

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Let’s...

[properlyrestrained]

Feeling Crimson...

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Will you stay with me Will you be my love Among the fields of barley... We will forget the sun In his jealous sky As we lie in fields of gold...

[properlyrestrained]

Friends want you to appear in the familiar form they know. But that is impossible. How could we continue to live if nothing changes. To live, we must die every instant. We must perish again and again in the storms that make life possible. I became a battlefield, and I could not know until the storm was over if I would survive. Not in the sense of my physical life, but in the deeper sense of my core self. I felt destruction upon destruction and felt the deepest longing for the ones I love. Even though I knew that if they were present, I would have to chase them away - or run away myself. I knew early on, that finding truth is not the same as finding happiness. You aspire to see truth. But once you have seen it, you cannot avoid suffering. Otherwise you have seen nothing at all. When the storm finally passed, layers of inner mortar lay crumbled. On the deserted battlefield, a few sunbeams peaked through the horizon, too weak to offer any warmth to my weary soul. I was full of wounds and experiences and an almost thrilling sense of aloneness. No one would recognize me, in my new manifestation. No one close to me would know - it was I. Mountains and rivers. Earth and sun. They all lay within the heart of consciousness. When that realization arises, time and space dissolve. Cause and effect, birth and death - all vanish. Though I dwell one hundred thousand light years from a star, I can cross that distance in a flash. At that moment I felt perfectly at peace. Not one sad or anxious thought entered my mind. Ideas of past, present and future dissolved. And I was standing at the luminous threshold of a reality that transcends time, space and action. I arose, and sat in meditation the rest of the night. All that remained was a deeply rooted peace. I sat like a mountain. And I smiled... ~ From Fragrant Palm Leaves, by Thich Nhat Hanh. 🙏🏻

[properlyrestrained]

Woo…