Hij voorspelde niet waar zijn stappen hem naartoe brachten, 

hij ging vooruit uit smaak, 

smaak van pure fysieke uitgaven,

 smaak van ontdekking.

 

- Zodra je je op een punt overgeeft, zie je niets meer. 

 

De rit wordt vervelend.

 

- Eric Emmanuel Schmitt - Paradijs verloren -

 

 

 

 

 

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and success as the good life … a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive.

Ambition is only understood if it’s the rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities, a person who abandons his career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential. As if a job title and salary are the soul measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle, some not, to keep climbing and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out and I’ll guarantee you’ll hear about them.

- Bill Watterson -

 

 

To make alive what is quiet and asleep in your existence.

To do that work.

To find you.

In you.

That is art to me.

- Nayyirah Waheed -

 

 

I know what I have given you, 

I do not know what you have received.

- Antonio Porchia -

 

 

 'Be positive' 

has become the new way of telling someone

 to 'cheer up'...

Denying our emotions

 is an insult to the journey

 of what it means to be a human being

 & it does nothing to help people feel better

- Michael James -

 Why "Be positive" isn't great advice https://buff.ly/2HBVKkk

 

 

 

 

 A story 

needs a break in a pattern

 to get it going

- Margaret Atwood -

 

 

 

 

 A zen koan says

 “not knowing is most intimate.” 

Sitting with uncertainty is hard.

 It requires compassion for our obsession 

with having the answer,

trust that we are okay, 

tenderness in moments of intense fear.

 Through this we grow closer to ourselves, 

to life, 

to each other.

- Jason Garner -

 

 

 

 

  step by step, 

breath by breath

 

 

 

 

Be nor firm in your opinions,

nor fixed in your beliefs. 

The less you claim you know,

the more you'll understand. 

This is the purity of experience 

untainted by mind. 

Whatelse is needed, 

beyond pure realization itself?

- Zen - 

 

 

 Il ne lit pas pour écouter les pensées des autres,

mais pour imposer silence aux siennes.

- Claude Roy, Les rencontres des jours -

 

  Savourez tout ce qui est en vous,

 les imperfections,

 l'obscurité, 

la richesse,

 la lumière

 et tout le reste.

 Et cela permet d'avoir une vie bien remplie.

- Anthony Hopkins -

photo de Ryan Pfluger publiée dans The Times

 

 

 

De Bomen

 

De bomen komen weer in blad

Alsof ze iets vertellen willen;

Het prille lover lijkt te trillen,

Dat groen, waarom bedroeft mij dat?

Omdat zij jong zijn en wij oud?

Nee, ook de bomen moeten sterven.

‘t Verjongingstrucje grift zijn nerven

In ‘t jaarlijks ouder wordend hout.

Maar toch ontvouwt zich langs de dreef

Het volle bladerdak in Mei.

Dat zegt: de winter is voorbij,

Begin opnieuw, herleef, herleef.

 

Vertaling Ina Schermer-Vermeer, die hiermee de winnares was van Nederland Vertaalt 2015.

 

(Beeld: iPad painting David Hockney)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... and I said to my body, softly,

' I want to be your friend '

 

It took a long breath, and replied,

' I have been waiting my whole life for this'