THE LIBRARY
"A room without books is like a body without a soul" - Cicero
Reading has been a large part of my world, all of my life. It has allowed me to explore worlds that existed long before I was, worlds that exist only in someone's imagination, worlds that are yet to come. It has stimulated my curiousity to seek out more, to understand others, to know myself.
The written word is one of the greatest gifts of humankind. It is meant to be shared.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two woods diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost
The Prophet
...And the priestess spoke again and said:
Speak to us of Reason and Passion.
And he answered, saying:
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgement wage war against your passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; and let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix, rise above its own ashes.
I would have you consider your judgement and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both. Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows -- then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason." And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightening proclaim the majesty of the sky, -- then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion." And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.
.............
...And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.
And he answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge. You would know in words that which you have always known in thoughts. You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should. The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea; and the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes. But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure; and seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line. For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."
For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
- Kahlil Gibran
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"The Awakened Life", by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
Know that . . .
There is an order to everything in the universe.
You are not a human being having a spiritual experience but a spiritual
being having a human experience.
Your essence is the space within you and it defies the traditional view of
what's important.
The ancestor to every action is a thought.
What you think about expands.
You'll see it when you believe it.
And in knowing . . .
See the big picture.
Keep a quiet mind.
Focus on your purpose.
Use the power of your observer.
Follow your bliss.
Love what you do and do what you love.
Escape life's limits.
Become a waking dreamer.
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My place is nowhere, my trace traceless
'Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved
I have put duality aside, I have found the two worlds to be One
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I invoke
- Rumi
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Some of my favorite books/authors/writings
Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein
A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L'engle
The Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Dr Seuss books (especially Horton Sees A Who)
The Collected Poems of Robert Frost
Taming of the Shrew - William Shakespeare
The Rubaiyat - Omar Khayyam
The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
The Wheel of Time series - Robert Jordan
Necroscope Series & Vampire World Series - Brian Lumley
Clive Barker
A Light In The Attic, Where The Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein
The World According To Garp - John Irving
The Womens Club - Marilyn French
Six of One - Rita Mae Brown
