In the coldest flint there is hot fire.

Ogden Nash :

A young person is a person with nothing to learn One who already knows that ice does not chill and fire does not burn . . . It knows it can spend six hours in the sun on its first day at the beach without ending up a skinless beet, And it knows it can walk barefoot through the barn without running a nail in its feet. . . . Meanwhile psychologists grow rich Writing that the young are ones’ should not undermine the self-confidence of which.

[Ogden Nash (1902-1971), U.S. poet. “Fortunately,” Versus, 1949.]

Non e scappato chi si strascina la catena dietro. He is not free who drags his chain after him.

It’s a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water. ~Franklin P. Jones

http://www.quotegarden.com/quotations.html

In the moment of crisis, the wise build bridges and the foolish build dams. ~ Nigerian

http://afritorial.com/the-best-72-african-wise-proverbs/

foto of the urunga footbridge in nsw australia at the mouth of the kalang and bellinger rivers into the pacific ocean

Gumbaynggirr

Gumbaynggirr by Travis Blair

“Gather round me children

There’s a story I’ll tell you,

A story about our heritage

A place where we go for a chew.

This place once looked so different

Mangrove trees and river gums,

An abundance of fishing

I encouraged friends to come.

We’d go fishing for Flathead

With our bottle lines and dough

Trying our skills not to tangle

Our lines but we’d have a go.

As we fished the sun shone

We shared our stories and dreams

Hoping our children would continue

Our tradition and what it means.

The white man thought it was better

Destroying my family’s sacred place

Removing all trees and making it a park

And calling it a “community space”.

How can it be a community space?

When the families have left

The place lonely and uninviting,

It hurts inside my chest.

How can my children learn about

Their culture and family?

The laws of survival, the Dreaming

And becoming more manly.

The white man they say “sorry”

yet I still feel sadness and sorrow

I have let down my ancestors

But yet we’ll still live with it tomorrow.
Read more: http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/arts/gumbaynggirr#ixzz2noeD48LI

The darkness of oneself returns Now that the house is empty, James K Baxter.

http://www.australianpoetry.org/2012/11/26/the-sacred-politics-of-james-k-baxter/

 

“Even as a junkie I stayed true [to vegetarianism] – ‘I shall have heroin, but I shan’t have a hamburger.’ What a sexy little paradox.” 

― Russell Brand, My Booky Wook

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.”

― George Eliot, Middlemarch

 

 

A swing grinds on its chains.
A child sits pushing.
There’s no eucalyptus,
atlas pine, or flowering ash,
no other child is calling
from the tender modulations of leaves:
just each note
of her ringing hear,
the feeling of being pushed
into the air.

Judith Beveridge

http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/676/15/Judith-Beveridge

A second component in our inventory is discovering the roots of our addictions and codependencies.

http://www.12step.org/the-12-steps/step-4.html

“Ultimately, ‘how’s it going?’ is the most futile and the most profound of questions. To answer it precisely, one would have to make a scrupulous inventory of one’s psyche, considering each aspect in detail. No matter: we have to say ‘fine’ out of politeness and civility and change the subject, or else ruminate the question during our whole lives and reserve our reply for afterward.”

― Pascal Bruckner

Venus, I pray to You that all pimps may suffer.

Propertius Eligiae 2.16.13-14

“To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect.”

― Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

To destroy abuses is not enough; Habits must also be changed. The windmill has gone, but the wind is still there.”

~old man G— to Monseigneur Bienvenu Myriel” ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

There is a fine line between perseverance and insanity.
At what point have you tried your best,
and it’s time to do something different?
It’s a balance – a paradox.
If you get in the habit of giving up
as soon as something gets difficult,
your life won’t work,
but if you keep tilting at windmills –
madly trying the same thing again and again,
your life also won’t work.
– Jonathan Lockwood Huie

http://www.motivational-quotes-sayings.com/quotes/windmills/

Israfel has long been a house of cards, and he has been disturbed. He can feel his supports collapsing, day by day.

― Louise Blaydon, The Time of the Singing

“How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.”
― Barry Lopez

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.

― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

foto – mountains behind north beach dec 2012

“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.”

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting The Power Of The Wild Woman

To caress the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten away our heart.

― Voltaire, Candide: or, Optimism

“It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.”

― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg not by smashing it open. Arnold Glasglow

There is a place in distant seas
Full of Contrarieties:
There, beasts have mallards’ bills and legs,
Have spurs like cocks, like hens lay eggs.

http://www.johnkinsella.org/essays/idiosync.html

Like Robin Hood….Not real, but true. ― Janette Rallison

“This wavering paradox is a pillar of the outlaw stance. A man who has blown all his options can’t afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can’t afford to admit-no matter how often he’s reminded of it-that every day of his life takes him farther down a blind alley.”

― Hunter S. Thompson, Hell’s Angels

A man should avoid these six evils: lust, anger, avarice pleasure, pride, and rashness, for free of these he may be happy. (Sanskrit).

I Came to buy a smile—today—But just a single smile—The smallest one upon your faceWill suit me just as well—The one that no one else would missIt shone so very small—I’m pleading at the “counter”—…

Source: A man should avoid these six evils: lust, anger, avarice pleasure, pride, and rashness, for free of these he may be happy. (Sanskrit). | THE OLD PROVERBIAL RECOVERY

Bunny’s Excuse. There was once a wicked old sinner Who fancied a rabbit for dinner, But the bunny he met Said: “Don’t kill me yet, For I really am still a beginner.”

My living problems also cease to be struggles.

Heaven designs to suit our trials to our strength.

Though the sun shines, leave not your cloak at home.

” The queen’s mocking laughter cut in. “This is your treasure, Lord Sheftu?”

“Aye. The greatest treasure in Egypt—a maid whose loyalty cannot be bought. Whatever bargain we make, Daughter of the Sun, must include her freedom.”
― Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Mara, Daughter of the Nile

RISE TOGETHER

ADAM T NA SPEAKER

IF DRINKING DON’T KILL ME

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM

SMALL TRIBUTE FOR IZZY FOREAL BY PETER CARRUTHERS

RISE TOGETHER

ADAM T NA SPEAKER

IF DRINKING DON’T KILL ME

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM

SMALL TRIBUTE FOR IZZY FOREAL BY PETER CARRUTHERS