Quote of the Week: How to Love

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving


but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

~Pablo Neruda

Quote of the Week: I Carry Your Heart

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

~e.e. cummings, from "i carry your heart with me"

Inspiration

A friend shared this with me recently:

Mend A Quarrel. Search out a forgotten friend.
Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust.
Write a letter. Share a treasure. Give a soft answer.
Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word
and deed. Keep a promise. Find the time.
Forego a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen.
Apologize if you were wrong. Try to understand.
Flout envy. Examine your demands on others.
Think first of someone else. Appreciate. Be kind.
Be gentle. Laugh a little more.

Deserve confidence. Take up arms against malice.
Decry complacency. Express your gratitude.
Gladden the heart of a child.
Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the Earth.
Speak your love. Speak it again. Speak it once again.

~unknown author