Favorite Poems, Quotes and Perspectives...

I heard this today, it stopped me in my tracks “It is truly amazing what people can survive but, it is okay to count the cost. If you feel the weight of your own survival on your shoulders, bless you. Blessed are you who are tired of feeling grateful all the time, who feel more comfortable with moments of rage and negativity and venting all that you lost. Blessed are you when you say hand on your heart, that there are truths you wish you could unlearn, riches you wish you could get back, the innocence, hope, the sweet fearlessness of never having lost. You are resilient, but I wish you never had to be. Your survival cost you, and it’s okay to name it. To be grateful and outraged. You might never get the apologies you’re owed and we long to hear them say it. I’m sorry, I should have believed you, I should have sheltered you, this never should have happened. The almost truths are difficult to swallow. Yes, we learned so much, yes, we overcame, we grew, but this perspective, we would give it back in a heartbeat. Bless us is in our gratitude and our anger, in our survival. And may you my dear be met today with gentleness, stillness, peace, energy, momentum and rest. Whatever it takes to carry the weight of all of this resilience”. So BIG.

#katebowler

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

– Mary Oliver

Good company in a journey makes the way seem Shorter. — Izaak Walton

“You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.” — Nightbirde

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.” — Anaïs Nin