Temet Nosce (Know Thyself)

This page exists as what used to be known as a "Commonplace Book" for the purpose of maintaining a log of the poetry and philosophy that inspires and propels much of my own thought and writing, and to share, with fellow sojourners, a collection of the beauty and wisdom of kindred souls throughout time. My hope is that we will collectively work towards the goal of a deep and sustaining self-knowledge that will, then, inspire and guide us to pursue beauty, peace and justice in our world.

“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.”

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



Tuesday, March 11, 2014

"In Defense of Gentleness" by Kristen McHenry

Those who move among us in frailty, those who are broken by their first suffering, those who cannot swim, who will not take their share, those who balk at the confounding wisdom of violence, of the bloodlust force required to muscle into the world, to merely live upright, are the ones we come to in the end, begging for gentleness, for proof of mercy, however tenuous. All along, they have guarded the power of our fragility, like a sword we are yet untrained to wield. All along, they have known, and suffered for it. They have held up love like the world itself, thin arms straining to contain its lightness. They are in the end the most resilient, the way the soft bones of a willow triumph by deferring to the storm: Shaking loose their sorrow. Allowing, allowing, allowing.
~ Kristen McHenry "In Defense of Gentleness" I

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