"...heroine: the artist, the premier mistress writhering in a garden graced w/highly polished blades of grass... release (ethiopium) is the drug...an animal howl says it all...notes pour into the caste of freedom...the freedom to be intense...to defy social order and break the slow kill monotony of censorship. to break from the long bonds of servitude-ruthless adoration of the celestial shepherd. let us celebrate our own flesh-to embrace not ones race mais the marathon-to never let go of the fiery sadness called desire."
— Patti Smith

"Once to swim I sought the sea-side,
There to sport among the billows;
With the stone of many colors
Sank poor Aino to the bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea,
Like a pretty son-bird, perished.
Never come a-fishing, father,
To the borders of these waters,
Never during all thy life-time,
As thou lovest daughter Aino.

Mother dear, I sought the sea-side,
There to sport among the billows;
With the stone of many colors,
Sank poor Aino to the bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea,
Like a pretty song-bird perished.
Never mix thy bread, dear mother,
With the blue-sea's foam and waters,
Never during all thy life-time,
As thou lovest daughter Aino.
Brother dear, I sought the sea-side,
There to sport among the billows;
With the stone of many colors
Sank poor Aino to the bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea,
Like a pretty song-bird perished.
Never bring thy prancing war-horse,
Never bring thy royal racer,
Never bring thy steeds to water,
To the borders of the blue-sea,
Never during all thy life-time,
As thou lovest sister Aino.

Sister dear, I sought the sea-side,
There to sport among the billows;
With the stone of many colors
Sank poor Aino to the bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea,
Like a pretty song-bird perished.
Never come to lave thine eyelids
In this rolling wave and sea-foam,
Never during all thy life-time,
As thou lovest sister Aino.
All the waters in the blue-sea
Shall be blood of Aino's body;
All the fish that swim these waters
Shall be Aino's flesh forever;
All the willows on the sea-side
Shall be Aino's ribs hereafter;
All the sea-grass on the margin
Will have grown from Aino's tresses."
— Elias Lönnrot (Kalevala)

"and half of learning to play is learning what not to play
and she's learning the spaces she leaves have their own things to say
and she's trying to sing just enough so that the air around her moves
and make music like mercy that gives what it is and has nothing to prove

she crawls out on a limb and begins to build her home
and it's enough just to look around and to know that she's not alone

up up up up up up up points the spire of the steeple
but god's work isn't done by god
it's done by people"
— Ani DiFranco

"Never forget:
we walk on hell,
gazing at flowers."
— Kobayashi Issa

"It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable."
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Stoic Philosophy of Seneca Essays and Letters)

"Children I implore you
get out of the burning house now
three carts wait outside
to save you from a homeless life
relax in the village square
before the sky everything's empty
no direction is better or worse
east is just as good as west
those who know the meaning of this
are free to go where they want"
— Han-shan

"To have humility is to experience reality, not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence. It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves. Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place.

In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)

"A fish cannot drown in water,
A bird does not fall in air.
In the fire of creation,
God doesn't vanish:
The fire brightens.
Each creature God made
must live in its own true nature;
How could I resist my nature,
That lives for oneness with God?"
— Mechthild of Magdeburg (Meditations from Mechthild of Magdeburg)

"He is one of those who has had the wilderness for a pillow, and called a star his brother. Alone. But loneliness can be a communion."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)

"Dream Song:

As my eyes
Search the prairie,
I feel the summer in the spring.
Whenever I pause
The noise
Of the village. "
— Frances Densmore (American Indians and Their Music)

"Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind.
A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an invaluable treasure.
Dusk rain on the river, the moon peeking in and out of the clouds;
Elegant beyond words, he chants his songs night after night."
— Ikkyu

"sick of it whatever it's called sick of the names
I dedicate every pore to what's here"
— Ikkyu

"O bird of the morning, learn love from the moth
Because it burnt, lost its life, and found no voice.
These pretenders are ignorantly in search of Him,
Because he who obtained knowledge has not returned.

O thou who art above all imaginations, conjectures, opinions and
ideas,
Above anything people have said or we have heard or read,
The assembly is finished and life has reached its term
And we have, as at first, remained powerless in describing thee. "
— Sa'di (The Gulistan of Sa'di)

"It is the power of a mind to be unconquerable."
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Stoic Philosophy of Seneca Essays and Letters)

"Dream Song of Thunders:

Sometimes
I go about pitying
Myself,
While I am carried by the wind
Across the sky. "
— Frances Densmore (American Indians and Their Music)

"The plants and flowers
I raised about my hut
I now surrender
To the will
Of the wind"
— Ryokan

"Lay down your worn-out threads
wear the color of the night instead."
— Wagtail

"The dizziness in the face of les espaces infinis--only overcome if we dare to gaze into them without any protection. And accept them as the reality before which we must justify our existence. For this is the truth we must reach to live, that everything is and we just in it."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)

"No cracking of the whip of words
disturbed his peace
in a space that sung."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)