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Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower - Rainer Maria Rilke
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the ( Read more... ) -
The Making of Saints in the Inner City
I dare you to love the destitute, the ugly ones, the addict, the criminal, the liar, the abused & the abuser.
I dare you resist the fear & resentment surging in your mammal mind.
I dare you to love the woman who mugged you & left you stranded, phone-less at the Union City Bart station 45 minutes before your job interview, the day after your ( Read more... ) -
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front - Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise ( Read more... ) -
A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki
I’m a terribly uncool person these days. I live in a small, somewhat hip college town in Northern California where any number of interesting cultural events are taking place on any given night, but I prefer to stay in and fart around online or watch bad TV. I drink corporate lattes because their place is more conveniently located than any of the ( Read more... ) -
True Colors
I came across a poll online today asking readers the question: "If you had the power to make people believe anything you told them, what would you say ( Read more... ) -
50 Writing Tips - Bryan Young
1) Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2) Give the reader at least one character they can root for.
3) Every character should want something, even if it's just a glass of water.
4) Every sentence should do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5) Start as close ( Read more... ) -
The Peace of Wild Things | Wendell Berry
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I ( Read more... ) -
Good News
You and I, dear readers, have been endowed with magificent creative powers, and the world NEEDS our contributions.
Thank you so much for sharing this raingirl26! -
Radical Reinvention by Kaya Oakes
Kaya Oakes resides in my pantheon of literary alterna-goddesses. She is an award-winning poet (Telegraph), author of Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture and teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley. She was the co-founder and senior editor of Kitchen Sink magazine ---a wickedly hip publication that ran from 2002 ( Read more... ) -
Til We Have Faces
I really, really didn't want to fly back to Ft. Wayne, Indiana for my niece's high school graduation party. Not because I don't love her to bits, but because flying can be so damn traumatic that it often takes me several weeks to recover my balance ( Read more... )
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