This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Listen to the story told by the reed, of being separated. Since I was cut from the reed-bed, I have made this crying sound. Anyone apart from someone he loves understands what I say. Anyone pulled from a source longs to go back. At any gathering I am there, mingling in the laughing and grieving, a friend to each, but few will hear the secrets hidden within the notes. No ears for that. Body flowing out of spirit, spirit up from body: no concealing that mixing. But it's not given us to see the soul. The reed flute is fire, not wind. Be that empty. Hear the love-fire tangled in the reed notes, as bewilderment melts into wine. The reed is a friend to all who want the fabric torn and drawn away. The reed is hurt and salve combining. Intimacy and longing for intimacy, one song. A disastrous surrender, and a fine love, together.
Light | Little | Means | Soul | Space | Spirit | Wants | Will | Old |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
The satiated man and the hungry one do not see the same thing when they look upon a loaf of bread.
If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, a body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; and laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, in hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Desire |
Saint Basil, aka Basil of Caesarea, Saint Basil the Great NULL
Let sleep itself be an exercise in piety, for such as our life and conduct have been, so also of necessity will be our dreams.
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
A mind that has found spiritual wisdom is like a man who finds a fully equipped ship at sea, and once he has gone aboard, it brings him from the sea of this world to the isle of the age to come. In like manner, the perception of the future age while in this world is like an islet in the ocean; and he who approaches it toils no longer amid the billows of the appearances of this age.
Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson
An age that melts with unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away.
Day | Indignation | Men | Rank | Will |
There is nothing left to us but to see how we may be approved of Him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak souls in well-doing upon Him, who is God omnipotent.
In the Immutable, infinite Supreme Brahman remain hidden the two: knowledge and ignorance. Ignorance leads to worldliness and knowledge, to Immortality. Brahman, who controls both knowledge and ignorance, is different from both.
Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud
Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on him and they still give him much trouble at times.
Acceptance | Individual | Nature | Soul | Spirit | Trust |
Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
A study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.
All creatures have received from the Creator their order of being and their beginning, and some their consummation too. But the end of virtue is endless. For the Psalmist says: Of all perfection I have seen the end, but Thy commandment is exceeding spacious and endless. If some good ascetics go from the strength of action to the strength of divine vision, and if love never faileth, and if the Lord will guard the coming in of your fear and the going out of your love, then the end of love will be truly endless. We shall never cease to advance in it, either in the present or in the future life, continually adding light to light. And however strange what I have said may seem to many, nevertheless it shall be said. According to the testimonies we have given, I would say, blessed father, even the spiritual beings [i.e. the angels] do not lack progress; on the contrary, they ever add glory to glory, and knowledge to knowledge.
Conscience | Rule |
Starhawk, born Miriam Simos NULL
The symbolism of the Goddess is not a parallel structure to the symbolism of God the Father. The Goddess does not rule the world. She is the world. Manifest in each of us, She can be known internally by every individual, in all her magnificent diversity.
Chance |
we seem to have developed the misconception that awakening involves assassinating the ego and dropping its body in the ocean of the Self. But the ego isn’t your archenemy, it’s merely a function, a diligent worker that goes about its self-appointed task of monitoring your survival and holding on to control. When you wake up, you see the ego for what it is—a collection of thoughts, feelings, memories, and beliefs held together by a sense of identity—and no longer mistakenly take it to be the truth of who you are or feel compelled to follow its directives.
Agitation | Awareness | Better | Cause | Organic | Will | Awareness |
The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty.
Beginning | God | People | Space | Success | Theories | Time | Universe | God |
The whisky on your breath could make a small boy dizzy; but I hung on like death; such waltzing was not easy.