Throwing off Quotes

“We need a tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when there is this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, that energy itself produces the radical inward revolution.”

“We need a tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when there is this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, that energy itself produces the radical inward revolution.”

“Envy: Instead of focusing on your own goals, your goal becomes throwing off the rails other people’s goals and at the end of the day you gain nothing but a mischievous satisfaction that you have destroyed someone’s dream”

“Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive life form – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection. ”

“The warm, pulsing breath of the sweet grass surged through the open windows in a fashion to turn the head of a stone image. It was exotic, too sweet, exaggerated, like everything else in this climate! Cornelis turned over again, seeking a cool place on the broad bed. Then he sat up in bed, impatiently throwing off the sheet. A thin streak of moonlight edged the bed below his feet. He slipped out of bed, walked over to a window. He leaned out, looking down at the acres of undulating grass. There seemed to be some strange, hypnotic rhythm to it, some vague magic, as it swayed in the night wind. The scent poured over him in great, pulsing breaths. He shut his eves and drew it in, abandoning his senses to its effect.("Sweet Grass")”

“There is a bench in the back of my garden shaded by Virginia creeper, climbing roses, and a white pine where I sit early in the morning and watch the action. Light blue bells of a dwarf campanula drift over the rock garden just before my eyes. Behind it, a three-foot stand of aconite is flowering now, each dark blue cowl-like corolla bowed for worship or intrigue: thus its common name, monkshood. Next to the aconite, black madonna lilies with their seductive Easter scent are just coming into bloom. At the back of the garden, a hollow log, used in its glory days for a base to split kindling, now spills white cascade petunias and lobelia. I can't get enough of watching the bees and trying to imagine how they experience the abundance of, say, a blue campanula blosssom, the dizzy light pulsing, every fiber of being immersed in the flower. ...Last night, after a day in the garden, I asked Robin to explain (again) photosynthesis to me. I can't take in this business of _eating light_ and turning it into stem and thorn and flower...I would not call this meditation, sitting in the back garden. Maybe I would call it eating light. Mystical traditions recognize two kinds of practice: _apophatic mysticism_, which is the dark surrender of Zen, the Via Negativa of John of the Cross, and _kataphatic mysticism_, less well defined: an openhearted surrender to the beauty of creation. Maybe Francis of Assissi was, on the whole, a kataphatic mystic, as was Thérèse of Lisieux in her exuberant momemnts: but the fact is, kataphatic mysticism has low status in religious circles. Francis and Thérèse were made, really made, any mother superior will let you know, in the dark nights of their lives: no more of this throwing off your clothes and singing songs and babbling about the shelter of God's arms.When I was twelve and had my first menstrual period, my grandmother took me aside and said, 'Now your childhood is over. You will never really be happy again.' That is pretty much how some spiritual directors treat the transition from kataphatic to apophatic mysticism.But, I'm sorry, I'm going to sit here every day the sun shines and eat this light. Hung in the bell of desire.”