“There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.”
( Washington Irving )
“Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions are the voice of the body”
( Jean-Jacques Rousseau )
"Love is when you take away the feeling, the passion, the romance and you find out you still care for that person."
( Unknown )
“Our passions are the winds that propel our vessel. Our reason is the pilot that steers her. Without winds the vessel would not move and without a pilot she would be lost.”
( Proverb )
“Ancient lovers believed a kiss would literally unite their souls, because the spirit was said to be carried in one's breath.”
( Eve Glicksman )
“Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes.”
( Harry Emerson Fosdick )
"Pain can't be avoided.
It's as natural as joy."
( Anonymous )
"People have a need to feel their pain. Very often pain is the beginning of a great deal of awareness. As an energy center it awakens consciousness."
( Arnold Mindell )
"The whole purpose of letting pain be pain is this: to let go of pain. By entering into it, we see that we are strong enough and capable enough to move through it. We find out that it ultimately has a gift for us."
( Matthew Fox )
"There is no pain quite like that of a broken heart. But a broken heart is an open heart. When we allow ourselves to be broken, a gentle transformation takes place."
( Douglas Bloch )
Our culture teaches us how to numb and distract ourselves but not how to listen to our pain and learn from our difficulties. Think what we learn about pain from television. We learn that pain is to be avoided at all costs and that there are a variety of pain relievers for every conceivable pain. I would like to see a commercial that says, "Your pain is a great teacher. Learn from it and be healed."
( Bernie Siegel )
(Author Unknown)
It's easy to find fault in things--far too easy for most of us. Somehow, the flaws are far more easy to see than the bigger picture, than the amount of work and thought and preparation have gone into a particular piece of work. Think about it--if someone just painted his or her house and missed a spot, what's the first thing we see? If someone just cooked us dinner and used a bit too much salt, what's the first thing we notice when we put the food into our mouths?
And if we do notice the bare spot on the house, aren't we doing the person a favor by pointing it out? And if the food's too salty we may not be able to eat it, so we'll definitely need to explain why.
Many of us carry this tendency to extremes, though. Many people feel that they need to tell everyone about every little fault that they find in every situation. They feel that they're doing people favors by pointing out what they see as flaws and problems, even though they may not be in a position in which people expect them to find mistakes. And when they do so, they risk hurting people greatly.
When a kid shows us a piece of artwork, for example, does it truly matter if the flower is taller than the tree? What possible purpose can it serve to point out what we see as a flaw when the picture already is finished? We really need to consider the effect of the criticism on the artist before we look for the problems. Is encouragement called for, or evaluation? We don't have to be teaching at every moment of our lives--we don't have to be finding things that need to be "fixed" all the time.
When we find fault in something that someone else has done, we're very often adding a negative element to our relationship with that person. We're defining limits of trust and sharing--if I know that someone is going to find fault with everything that I do, I will not share with that person unless I'm truly seeking criticism. As fewer people are willing to share with us, we lose much of the richness that comes from and through that sharing, and we become more isolated, less integrated. The loss of the sharing of others is one of the greatest losses we can cause ourselves, and it may even reach a point at which people just don't want to be around us at all.
There are, of course, times when fault-finding is appropriate. If a movie is simply awful, there's nothing wrong with saying so. After all, movies have been put out in the public eye, and criticism is expected. But if we take it too far and find things to criticize in every movie we see, we may find people trying to avoid us in the future. If a song is just awful, what's wrong with saying so? We just have to be careful not to alienate friends or loved ones who might like the song.
Fault-finding and criticizing, no matter what our intentions, tend to drive wedges between us and other people. A person who finds fault in everything is a person to be avoided, when all is said and done, and who among us wants other people to avoid us whenever they can?
“Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defense.”
( Mark Overby )
"Love comes when manipulation stops; when you think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to you. When you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulnerable."
( Dr. Joyce Brothers )
"A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom."
( Chinese Proverb )
"The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose."
( Kahlil Gibran )
"Be a rose which gives fragrance even to those who crushes it."
( Anonymous )
"It appears that when life is broken by tragedy God shines through the breach."
( George A. Buttrick )
"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
( Edwin H. Chapin )
"As the valley gives height to the mountain, so can sorrow give meaning to pleasure; as the well is the source of the fountain, deep adversity can be a treasure."
( William Ward )
"Only in winter can you tell which trees are truly green. Only when the winds of adversity blow can you tell whether an individual or a country has steadfastness."
( John F. Kennedy )
"Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venemous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt in public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
I would not change it."
( William Shakespeare )
Water quote:
"Water can carve itsway, even through stone.
And when trapped,water makes a new path."
( Memoirs of a Geisha )
Fire quote:
"Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable."
( Bruce Lee )
Earth quote:
“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”
( Rachel Carson )
Air quote:
"The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time."
( Henry David Thoreau )
Spirit quote:
“We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.”
( Stephen R. Covey )
This is a true story about two beautiful souls healing each other back to health...
“Freedom and I have been together 11 years this summer. She came in as a baby in 1998 with two broken wings. Her left wing doesn't open all the way even after surgery, it was broken in 4 places. She's my baby. When Freedom came in she could not stand and both wings were broken. She was emaciated and covered in lice. We made the decision to give her a chance at life, so I took her to the vet's office. From then on, I was always around her. We had her in a huge dog carrier with the top off, and it was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to lay in. I used to sit and talk to her, urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay there looking at me with those big brown eyes. We also had to tube feed her for weeks. This went on for 4-6 weeks, and by then she still couldn't stand. It got to the point where the decision was made to euthanize her if she couldn't stand in a week. You know you don't want to cross that line between torture and rehab, and it looked like death was winning. She was going to be put down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in on that Thursday afternoon. I didn't want to go to the center that Thursday, because I couldn't bear the thought of her being euthanized; but I went anyway, and when I walked in everyone was grinning from ear to ear. I went immediately back to her cage; and there she was, standing on her own, a big beautiful eagle. She was ready to live. I was just about in tears by then. That was a very good day. We knew she could never fly, so the director asked me to glove train her. I got her used to the glove, and then to jesses, and we started doing education programs for schools in western Washington . We wound up in the newspapers, radio (believe it or not) and some TV. Miracle Pets even did a show about us. In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I had stage 3, which is not good (one major organ plus everywhere), so I wound up doing 8 months of chemo. Lost the hair – the whole bit. I missed a lot of work. When I felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey and take Freedom out for walks. Freedom would also come to me in my dreams and help me fight the cancer. This happened time and time again. Fast forward to November 2000 the day after Thanksgiving, I went in for my last checkup. I was told that if the cancer was not all gone after 8 rounds of chemo, then my last option was a stem cell transplant. Anyway, they did the tests; and I had to come back Monday for the results. I went in Monday, and I was told that all the cancer was gone. So the first thing I did was get up to Sarvey and take the big girl out for a walk. It was misty and cold. I went to her flight and jessed her up, and we went out front to the top of the hill. I hadn't said a word to Freedom, but somehow she knew. She looked at me and wrapped both her wings around me to where I could feel them pressing in on my back (I was engulfed in eagle wings), and she touched my nose with her beak and stared into my eyes, and we just stood there like that for I don't know how long . That was a magic moment. We have been soul mates ever since she came in. This is a very special bird. On a side note: I have had people who were sick come up to us when we are out, and Freedom has some kind of hold on them. I once had a guy who was terminal come up to us and I let him hold her. His knees just about buckled and he swore he could feel her power course through his body. I have so many stories like that. I never forget the honor I have of being so close to such a magnificent spirit as Freedom.”
Jeff
Thank you for reading!
Have a blessed day 
(I find this story very inspirational and would love to share it here...)
Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face.
The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: "Today my best friend slapped me in the face."
They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him.
After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: "Today my best friend saved my life."
The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone. Why?"
The other friend replied, "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."
Hope you enjoyed reading it!
soulgoddess Blog (21)