Great Throughts Treasury

"You soak up my soul and mingle me. Each drop of my blood cries out to the earth. We are partners, blended as one."

"You think because you understand 'one' you must also understand 'two', because one and one make two. But you must also understand 'and'."

"You sit here for days saying, This is strange business. You're the strange business. You have the energy of the sun in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine. You're some weird kind of gold that wants to stay melted in the furnace, so you won't have to become coins."

"You suppose you are the trouble but you are the cure. You suppose that you are the lock on the door but you are the key that opens it. It's too bad that you want to be someone else. You don't see your own face, your own beauty. Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours."

"You think the shadow is the substance."

"You think you are alive because you breathe air? Shame on you that you are alive in such a limited way. Don't be without Love, so you won't feel dead. Die in Love and stay alive forever."

"You think of yourself as a citizen of the universe. You think you belong to this world of dust and matter. Out of this dust you have created a personal image, and have forgotten about the essence of your true origin"

"You try to be faithful and sometimes you're cruel. You are mine. Then, you leave. Without you, I can't cope. And when you take the lead, I become your footstep. Your absence leaves a void. Without you, I can't cope. You have disturbed my sleep, you have wrecked my image. You have set me apart. Without you, I can't cope."

"You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck!"

"Your depression is connected to your insolence and refusal to praise. Whoever feels himself walking on the path, and refuses to praise that man or woman steals from others every day is a shoplifter! The sun became full of light when it got hold of itself. Angels only began shining when they achieved discipline. The sun goes out whenever the cloud of not-praising comes. The moment the foolish angel felt insolent, he heard the door close."

"You yourself are your own barrier. Rise from within it."

"You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don't. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly."

"Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings."

"Your essence is gold hidden in dust. To reveal its splendor, you need to burn in the fire of Love."

"Your legs will get heavy and tired. Then comes a moment of feeling the wings you've grown, lifting."

"Your magnificence has made me a wonder. Your charm has taught me the way of love."

"Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror up to where you're bravely working."

"You're sitting here with us, but you're also out walking in a field at dawn. You are yourself the animal we hunt when you come with us on the hunt. You're in your body like a plant is solid in the ground, yet you're wind. You're the diver's clothes lying empty on the beach. You're the fish. In the ocean are many bright strands and many dark strands like veins that are seen when a wing is lifted up. Your hidden self is blood in those, those veins that are lute strings that make ocean music, not the sad sound of surf, but the sound of no shore."

"You're water. We're the millstone. You're wind. We're dust blown up into shapes. You're spirit. We're the opening and closing of our hands. You're the clarity. We're the language that tries to say it. You're joy. We're all the different kinds of laughing."

"You've gotten drunk on so many kinds of wine. Taste this. It won't make you wild. It's fire. Give up, if you don't understand by this time that your living is firewood."

"You've been walking the ocean's edge, holding up your robes to keep them dry. You must dive naked under, and deeper under, a thousand times deeper!"