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now begins generated list of local instances, definitions, quotes, instances in chapters, wordnet info if available and instances among weblinks


OBJECT INSTANCES [0] - TOPICS - AUTHORS - BOOKS - CHAPTERS - CLASSES - SEE ALSO - SIMILAR TITLES

TOPICS
SEE ALSO


AUTH

BOOKS
Epigrams_from_Savitri
Evolution_II
Full_Circle
General_Principles_of_Kabbalah
Heart_of_Matter
Life_without_Death
Meditation__The_First_and_Last_Freedom
Modern_Man_in_Search_of_a_Soul
My_Burning_Heart
Process_and_Reality
Savitri
The_Categories
The_Divine_Milieu
The_Essential_Songs_of_Milarepa
The_Imitation_of_Christ
The_Republic
The_Seals_of_Wisdom
The_Synthesis_Of_Yoga
The_Tarot_of_Paul_Christian
The_Use_and_Abuse_of_History
The_Wit_and_Wisdom_of_Alfred_North_Whitehead
The_Yoga_Sutras
Toward_the_Future

IN CHAPTERS TITLE

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME

IN CHAPTERS TEXT
00.00_-_Publishers_Note_B
00.03_-_Upanishadic_Symbolism
0.00_-_INTRODUCTION
0.00_-_The_Book_of_Lies_Text
0.01_-_Life_and_Yoga
0.04_-_The_Systems_of_Yoga
0.06_-_Letters_to_a_Young_Sadhak
0.08_-_Letters_to_a_Young_Captain
01.02_-_Natures_Own_Yoga
01.08_-_Walter_Hilton:_The_Scale_of_Perfection
01.09_-_The_Parting_of_the_Way
0.10_-_Letters_to_a_Young_Captain
0.11_-_Letters_to_a_Sadhak
0_1958-08-08
0_1958-11-08
0_1958-11-14
0_1959-10-06_-_Sri_Aurobindos_abode
0_1960-05-21_-_true_purity_-_you_have_to_be_the_Divine_to_overcome_hostile_forces
0_1960-09-20
0_1960-10-11
0_1960-11-12
0_1960-11-15
0_1960-12-23
0_1961-02-11
0_1961-02-28
0_1961-04-15
0_1961-04-18
0_1961-04-25
0_1961-08-02
0_1961-10-02
0_1961-10-30
0_1962-05-27
0_1962-07-14
0_1962-07-25
0_1962-10-12
0_1963-03-09
0_1963-03-19
0_1963-03-23
0_1963-04-16
0_1963-05-11
0_1963-06-19
0_1963-06-22
0_1963-08-24
0_1963-09-18
0_1963-10-19
0_1963-11-20
0_1963-12-14
0_1964-01-04
0_1964-02-05
0_1965-03-20
0_1965-03-24
0_1965-08-07
0_1965-10-16
0_1966-02-19
0_1966-03-26
0_1966-06-11
0_1966-08-03
0_1966-08-10
0_1966-10-05
0_1966-10-08
0_1966-10-19
0_1966-10-22
0_1966-11-09
0_1966-12-07
0_1966-12-14
0_1966-12-31
0_1967-02-18
0_1967-04-03
0_1967-04-05
0_1967-05-06
0_1967-07-26
0_1967-07-29
0_1967-08-19
0_1967-09-13
0_1967-09-16
0_1967-10-14
0_1967-10-19
0_1968-01-06
0_1968-02-14
0_1968-03-02
0_1968-05-04
0_1968-07-20
0_1968-08-28
0_1968-09-21
0_1968-12-14
0_1969-02-08
0_1969-02-15
0_1969-04-26
0_1969-05-31
0_1969-06-04
0_1969-08-16
0_1969-08-23
0_1969-08-27
0_1969-10-08
0_1969-10-11
0_1969-10-29
0_1969-11-29
0_1969-12-13
0_1970-01-03
0_1970-01-10
0_1970-01-31
0_1970-07-11
0_1970-07-25
0_1971-05-01
0_1971-07-31
0_1971-10-06
0_1972-02-26
0_1972-04-19
0_1972-05-27
0_1972-06-17
0_1972-07-26
0_1972-07-29
0_1972-08-16
0_1972-08-19
0_1972-08-30
0_1972-10-25
0_1972-11-08
0_1972-12-10
0_1972-12-23
0_1972-12-30
0_1973-01-24
0_1973-02-03
02.01_-_A_Vedic_Story
02.01_-_The_World_War
02.02_-_Lines_of_the_Descent_of_Consciousness
02.02_-_Rishi_Dirghatama
02.03_-_An_Aspect_of_Emergent_Evolution
02.04_-_The_Kingdoms_of_the_Little_Life
02.05_-_The_Godheads_of_the_Little_Life
02.06_-_The_Integral_Yoga_and_Other_Yogas
02.07_-_The_Descent_into_Night
02.08_-_Jules_Supervielle
02.09_-_Two_Mystic_Poems_in_Modern_French
02.10_-_The_Kingdoms_and_Godheads_of_the_Little_Mind
02.11_-_The_Kingdoms_and_Godheads_of_the_Greater_Mind
02.13_-_Rabindranath_and_Sri_Aurobindo
03.01_-_The_Evolution_of_Consciousness
03.10_-_Hamlet:_A_Crisis_of_the_Evolving_Soul
03.12_-_The_Spirit_of_Tapasya
04.01_-_The_Birth_and_Childhood_of_the_Flame
04.01_-_To_the_Heights_I
04.02_-_Human_Progress
04.03_-_Consciousness_as_Energy
04.03_-_The_Eternal_East_and_West
04.08_-_An_Evolutionary_Problem
04.42_-_To_the_Heights-XLII
05.01_-_Of_Love_and_Aspiration
05.02_-_Gods_Labour
05.03_-_Of_Desire_and_Atonement
05.04_-_The_Measure_of_Time
05.05_-_Of_Some_Supreme_Mysteries
05.17_-_Evolution_or_Special_Creation
05.19_-_Lone_to_the_Lone
05.26_-_The_Soul_in_Anguish
06.03_-_Types_of_Meditation
06.17_-_Directed_Change
06.31_-_Identification_of_Consciousness
06.32_-_The_Central_Consciousness
07.04_-_The_Triple_Soul-Forces
07.06_-_Nirvana_and_the_Discovery_of_the_All-Negating_Absolute
07.32_-_The_Yogic_Centres
07.37_-_The_Psychic_Being,_Some_Mysteries
08.22_-_Regarding_the_Body
10.02_-_The_Gospel_of_Death_and_Vanity_of_the_Ideal
10.04_-_The_Dream_Twilight_of_the_Earthly_Real
1.00c_-_DIVISION_C_-_THE_ETHERIC_BODY_AND_PRANA
1.00c_-_INTRODUCTION
1.00d_-_DIVISION_D_-_KUNDALINI_AND_THE_SPINE
1.00e_-_DIVISION_E_-_MOTION_ON_THE_PHYSICAL_AND_ASTRAL_PLANES
1.00_-_INTRODUCTORY_REMARKS
10.18_-_Short_Notes_-_1-_The_Sense_of_Earthly_Evolution
10.19_-_Short_Notes_-_2-_God_Above_and_God_Within
1.01_-_Adam_Kadmon_and_the_Evolution
1.01_-_A_NOTE_ON_PROGRESS
1.01_-_BOOK_THE_FIRST
1.01_-_Economy
1.01_-_Foreward
1.01_-_Isha_Upanishad
1.01_-_Meeting_the_Master_-_Authors_first_meeting,_December_1918
1.01_-_SAMADHI_PADA
1.01_-_The_Cycle_of_Society
1.01_-_The_Dark_Forest._The_Hill_of_Difficulty._The_Panther,_the_Lion,_and_the_Wolf._Virgil.
1.01_-_The_First_Steps
1.01_-_The_Human_Aspiration
1.01_-_THE_STUFF_OF_THE_UNIVERSE
1.01_-_Who_is_Tara
10.23_-_Prayers_and_Meditations_of_the_Mother
10.24_-_Savitri
10.27_-_Consciousness
1.02_-_BEFORE_THE_CITY-GATE
1.02_-_IN_THE_COMPANY_OF_DEVOTEES
1.02_-_Meeting_the_Master_-_Authors_second_meeting,_March_1921
1.02_-_Self-Consecration
1.02_-_The_7_Habits__An_Overview
1.02_-_The_Doctrine_of_the_Mystics
1.02_-_The_Eternal_Law
1.02_-_The_Magic_Circle
1.02_-_THE_NATURE_OF_THE_GROUND
1.02_-_THE_QUATERNIO_AND_THE_MEDIATING_ROLE_OF_MERCURIUS
10.31_-_The_Mystery_of_The_Five_Senses
10.32_-_The_Mystery_of_the_Five_Elements
10.35_-_The_Moral_and_the_Spiritual
1.03_-_Preparing_for_the_Miraculous
1.03_-_Some_Practical_Aspects
1.03_-_Supernatural_Aid
1.03_-_Sympathetic_Magic
1.03_-_The_Armour_of_Grace
1.03_-_The_Gods,_Superior_Beings_and_Adverse_Forces
1.03_-_The_Human_Disciple
1.03_-_THE_ORPHAN,_THE_WIDOW,_AND_THE_MOON
1.03_-_The_Two_Negations_2_-_The_Refusal_of_the_Ascetic
1.03_-_Time_Series,_Information,_and_Communication
1.04_-_Body,_Soul_and_Spirit
1.04_-_BOOK_THE_FOURTH
1.04_-_Feedback_and_Oscillation
1.04_-_SOME_REFLECTIONS_ON_PROGRESS
1.04_-_The_Conditions_of_Esoteric_Training
1.04_-_The_Gods_of_the_Veda
1.04_-_The_Paths
1.04_-_The_Silent_Mind
1.04_-_Yoga_and_Human_Evolution
1.05_-_2010_and_1956_-_Doomsday?
1.05_-_Hymns_of_Bharadwaja
1.05_-_Problems_of_Modern_Psycho_therapy
1.05_-_The_Activation_of_Human_Energy
1.05_-_The_Ascent_of_the_Sacrifice_-_The_Psychic_Being
1.05_-_The_Belly_of_the_Whale
1.05_-_THE_HOSTILE_BROTHERS_-_ARCHETYPES_OF_RESPONSE_TO_THE_UNKNOWN
1.05_-_The_Magical_Control_of_the_Weather
1.05_-_THE_NEW_SPIRIT
1.05_-_The_Second_Circle__The_Wanton._Minos._The_Infernal_Hurricane._Francesca_da_Rimini.
1.06_-_Being_Human_and_the_Copernican_Principle
1.06_-_BOOK_THE_SIXTH
1.06_-_Man_in_the_Universe
1.06_-_MORTIFICATION,_NON-ATTACHMENT,_RIGHT_LIVELIHOOD
1.06_-_The_Four_Powers_of_the_Mother
1.06_-_The_Literal_Qabalah
1.06_-_THE_MASTER_WITH_THE_BRAHMO_DEVOTEES
1.06_-_The_Sign_of_the_Fishes
1.06_-_Yun_Men's_Every_Day_is_a_Good_Day
1.07_-_Bridge_across_the_Afterlife
1.07_-_Note_on_the_word_Go
1.07_-_The_Ideal_Law_of_Social_Development
1.07_-_The_Infinity_Of_The_Universe
1.07_-_The_Literal_Qabalah_(continued)
1.07_-_The_Prophecies_of_Nostradamus
1.08_-_BOOK_THE_EIGHTH
1.08_-_Introduction_to_Patanjalis_Yoga_Aphorisms
1.08_-_Phlegyas._Philippo_Argenti._The_Gate_of_the_City_of_Dis.
1.08_-_SOME_REFLECTIONS_ON_THE_SPIRITUAL_REPERCUSSIONS_OF_THE_ATOM_BOMB
1.08_-_The_Gods_of_the_Veda_-_The_Secret_of_the_Veda
1.08_-_The_Methods_of_Vedantic_Knowledge
1.09_-_Civilisation_and_Culture
1.09_-_Concentration_-_Its_Spiritual_Uses
1.09_-_FAITH_IN_PEACE
1.09_-_Saraswati_and_Her_Consorts
1.09_-_The_Furies_and_Medusa._The_Angel._The_City_of_Dis._The_Sixth_Circle__Heresiarchs.
1.1.01_-_Seeking_the_Divine
1.1.02_-_Sachchidananda
1.1.02_-_The_Aim_of_the_Integral_Yoga
11.02_-_The_Golden_Life-line
11.03_-_Cosmonautics
11.04_-_The_Triple_Cord
11.06_-_The_Mounting_Fire
11.07_-_The_Labours_of_the_Gods:_The_five_Purifications
1.10_-_BOOK_THE_TENTH
1.10_-_Conscious_Force
1.10_-_Farinata_and_Cavalcante_de'_Cavalcanti._Discourse_on_the_Knowledge_of_the_Damned.
1.10_-_Fate_and_Free-Will
1.10_-_Theodicy_-_Nature_Makes_No_Mistakes
1.10_-_The_Yoga_of_the_Intelligent_Will
11.15_-_Sri_Aurobindo
1.11_-_BOOK_THE_ELEVENTH
1.11_-_FAITH_IN_MAN
1.11_-_The_Kalki_Avatar
1.11_-_The_Magical_Belt
1.11_-_The_Master_of_the_Work
1.11_-_The_Seven_Rivers
1.1.2_-_Commentary
1.12_-_Delight_of_Existence_-_The_Solution
1.12_-_The_Herds_of_the_Dawn
1.12_-_The_Office_and_Limitations_of_the_Reason
1.12_-_The_Significance_of_Sacrifice
1.12_-_The_Superconscient
1.13_-_BOOK_THE_THIRTEENTH
1.13_-_Dawn_and_the_Truth
1.13_-_Gnostic_Symbols_of_the_Self
1.13_-_THE_HUMAN_REBOUND_OF_EVOLUTION_AND_ITS_CONSEQUENCES
1.13_-_The_Lord_of_the_Sacrifice
1.13_-_The_Supermind_and_the_Yoga_of_Works
1.13_-_Under_the_Auspices_of_the_Gods
1.14_-_The_Principle_of_Divine_Works
1.14_-_The_Secret
1.14_-_The_Structure_and_Dynamics_of_the_Self
1.14_-_The_Supermind_as_Creator
1.15_-_THE_DIRECTIONS_AND_CONDITIONS_OF_THE_FUTURE
1.15_-_The_Supramental_Consciousness
1.16_-_Guidoguerra,_Aldobrandi,_and_Rusticucci._Cataract_of_the_River_of_Blood.
1.16_-_Man,_A_Transitional_Being
1.16_-_The_Process_of_Avatarhood
1.16_-_The_Suprarational_Ultimate_of_Life
1.17_-_Geryon._The_Violent_against_Art._Usurers._Descent_into_the_Abyss_of_Malebolge.
1.17_-_The_Divine_Birth_and_Divine_Works
1.17_-_The_Seven-Headed_Thought,_Swar_and_the_Dashagwas
1.17_-_The_Transformation
1.18_-_THE_HEART_OF_THE_PROBLEM
1.18_-_The_Human_Fathers
1.18_-_The_Infrarational_Age_of_the_Cycle
1.19_-_Equality
1.19_-_NIGHT
1.19_-_ON_THE_PROBABLE_EXISTENCE_AHEAD_OF_US_OF_AN_ULTRA-HUMAN
1.19_-_The_Victory_of_the_Fathers
1.201_-_Socrates
12.01_-_The_Return_to_Earth
12.01_-_This_Great_Earth_Our_Mother
1.2.02_-_Qualities_Needed_for_Sadhana
12.03_-_The_Sorrows_of_God
1.2.05_-_Aspiration
1.20_-_HOW_MAY_WE_CONCEIVE_AND_HOPE_THAT_HUMAN_UNANIMIZATION_WILL_BE_REALIZED_ON_EARTH?
1.20_-_RULES_FOR_HOUSEHOLDERS_AND_MONKS
1.20_-_The_End_of_the_Curve_of_Reason
1.20_-_The_Hound_of_Heaven
1.21_-_Tabooed_Things
1.21_-_The_Ascent_of_Life
1.21_-_The_Spiritual_Aim_and_Life
1.22_-_Ciampolo,_Friar_Gomita,_and_Michael_Zanche._The_Malabranche_quarrel.
1.22_-_ON_THE_GIFT-GIVING_VIRTUE
1.22_-_The_Necessity_of_the_Spiritual_Transformation
1.22_-_The_Problem_of_Life
1.23_-_Conditions_for_the_Coming_of_a_Spiritual_Age
1.24_-_Matter
1.24_-_The_Advent_and_Progress_of_the_Spiritual_Age
1.24_-_The_Seventh_Bolgia_-_Thieves._Vanni_Fucci._Serpents.
1.25_-_ADVICE_TO_PUNDIT_SHASHADHAR
1.25_-_On_the_destroyer_of_the_passions,_most_sublime_humility,_which_is_rooted_in_spiritual_feeling.
1.25_-_Vanni_Fucci's_Punishment._Agnello_Brunelleschi,_Buoso_degli_Abati,_Puccio_Sciancato,_Cianfa_de'_Donati,_and_Guercio_Cavalcanti.
1.26_-_FESTIVAL_AT_ADHARS_HOUSE
1.26_-_The_Eighth_Bolgia__Evil_Counsellors._Ulysses_and_Diomed._Ulysses'_Last_Voyage.
1.27_-_AT_DAKSHINESWAR
1.28_-_Supermind,_Mind_and_the_Overmind_Maya
1.2_-_Katha_Upanishads
13.03_-_A_Programme_for_the_Second_Century_of_the_Divine_Manifestation
1.3.03_-_Quiet_and_Calm
1.30_-_Other_Falsifiers_or_Forgers._Gianni_Schicchi,_Myrrha,_Adam_of_Brescia,_Potiphar's_Wife,_and_Sinon_of_Troy.
1.3.2.01_-_I._The_Entire_Purpose_of_Yoga
1.32_-_How_can_a_Yogi_ever_be_Worried?
1.34_-_Fourth_Division_of_the_Ninth_Circle,_the_Judecca__Traitors_to_their_Lords_and_Benefactors._Lucifer,_Judas_Iscariot,_Brutus,_and_Cassius._The_Chasm_of_Lethe._The_Ascent.
1.3.5.02_-_Man_and_the_Supermind
1.3.5.05_-_The_Path
1.39_-_The_Ritual_of_Osiris
1.46_-_The_Corn-Mother_in_Many_Lands
1.47_-_Lityerses
15.05_-_Twin_Prayers
1.50_-_Eating_the_God
1.56_-_The_Public_Expulsion_of_Evils
1.63_-_The_Interpretation_of_the_Fire-Festivals
17.01_-_Hymn_to_Dawn
17.02_-_Hymn_to_the_Sun
17.04_-_Hymn_to_the_Purusha
17.11_-_A_Prayer
18.04_-_Modern_Poems
1912_12_07p
19.13_-_Of_the_World
1916_11_28p
1929-05-26_-_Individual,_illusion_of_separateness_-_Hostile_forces_and_the_mental_plane_-_Psychic_world,_psychic_being_-_Spiritual_and_psychic_-_Words,_understanding_speech_and_reading_-_Hostile_forces,_their_utility_-_Illusion_of_action,_true_action
1929-06-02_-__Divine_love_and_its_manifestation_-_Part_of_the_vital_being_in_Divine_love
1933_12_23p
1951-02-26_-_On_reading_books_-_gossip_-_Discipline_and_realisation_-_Imaginary_stories-_value_of_-_Private_lives_of_big_men_-_relaxation_-_Understanding_others_-_gnostic_consciousness
1951-03-01_-_Universe_and_the_Divine_-_Freedom_and_determinism_-_Grace_-_Time_and_Creation-_in_the_Supermind_-_Work_and_its_results_-_The_psychic_being_-_beauty_and_love_-_Flowers-_beauty_and_significance_-_Choice_of_reincarnating_psychic_being
1953-06-24
1953-07-22
1953-08-19
1953-08-26
1953-09-02
1954-03-24_-_Dreams_and_the_condition_of_the_stomach_-_Tobacco_and_alcohol_-_Nervousness_-_The_centres_and_the_Kundalini_-_Control_of_the_senses
1954-09-08_-_Hostile_forces_-_Substance_-_Concentration_-_Changing_the_centre_of_thought_-_Peace
1955-06-22_-_Awakening_the_Yoga-shakti_-_The_thousand-petalled_lotus-_Reading,_how_far_a_help_for_yoga_-_Simple_and_complicated_combinations_in_men
1955-07-13_-_Cosmic_spirit_and_cosmic_consciousness_-_The_wall_of_ignorance,_unity_and_separation_-_Aspiration_to_understand,_to_know,_to_be_-_The_Divine_is_in_the_essence_of_ones_being_-_Realising_desires_through_the_imaginaton
1955-11-02_-_The_first_movement_in_Yoga_-_Interiorisation,_finding_ones_soul_-_The_Vedic_Age_-_An_incident_about_Vivekananda_-_The_imaged_language_of_the_Vedas_-_The_Vedic_Rishis,_involutionary_beings_-_Involution_and_evolution
1955-11-09_-_Personal_effort,_egoistic_mind_-_Man_is_like_a_public_square_-_Natures_work_-_Ego_needed_for_formation_of_individual_-_Adverse_forces_needed_to_make_man_sincere_-_Determinisms_of_different_planes,_miracles
1956-05-23_-_Yoga_and_religion_-_Story_of_two_clergymen_on_a_boat_-_The_Buddha_and_the_Supramental_-_Hieroglyphs_and_phonetic_alphabets_-_A_vision_of_ancient_Egypt_-_Memory_for_sounds
1956-06-20_-_Hearts_mystic_light,_intuition_-_Psychic_being,_contact_-_Secular_ethics_-_True_role_of_mind_-_Realise_the_Divine_by_love_-_Depression,_pleasure,_joy_-_Heart_mixture_-_To_follow_the_soul_-_Physical_process_-_remember_the_Mother
1956-11-07_-_Thoughts_created_by_forces_of_universal_-_Mind_Our_own_thought_hardly_exists_-_Idea,_origin_higher_than_mind_-_The_Synthesis_of_Yoga,_effect_of_reading
1956-12-19_-_Preconceived_mental_ideas_-_Process_of_creation_-_Destructive_power_of_bad_thoughts_-_To_be_perfectly_sincere
1956-12-26_-_Defeated_victories_-_Change_of_consciousness_-_Experiences_that_indicate_the_road_to_take_-_Choice_and_preference_-_Diversity_of_the_manifestation
1957-05-15_-_Differentiation_of_the_sexes_-_Transformation_from_above_downwards
1957-10-23_-_The_central_motive_of_terrestrial_existence_-_Evolution
1957-12-04_-_The_method_of_The_Life_Divine_-_Problem_of_emergence_of_a_new_species
1958-02-19_-_Experience_of_the_supramental_boat_-_The_Censors_-_Absurdity_of_artificial_means
1958-07-23_-_How_to_develop_intuition_-_Concentration
1958_09_19
1958-10-22_-_Spiritual_life_-_reversal_of_consciousness_-_Helping_others
1960_07_19
1963_03_06
1963_08_11?_-_94
1964_02_05_-_98
1965_12_26?
1.anon_-_The_Poem_of_Imru-Ul-Quais
1f.lovecraft_-_At_the_Mountains_of_Madness
1f.lovecraft_-_Beyond_the_Wall_of_Sleep
1f.lovecraft_-_In_the_Walls_of_Eryx
1f.lovecraft_-_Medusas_Coil
1f.lovecraft_-_Out_of_the_Aeons
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Case_of_Charles_Dexter_Ward
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Challenge_from_Beyond
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Colour_out_of_Space
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Crawling_Chaos
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Disinterment
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Dream-Quest_of_Unknown_Kadath
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Dreams_in_the_Witch_House
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Dunwich_Horror
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Electric_Executioner
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Haunter_of_the_Dark
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Lurking_Fear
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Man_of_Stone
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Moon-Bog
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Mound
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Night_Ocean
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Other_Gods
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Picture_in_the_House
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Shadow_out_of_Time
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Temple
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Tree_on_the_Hill
1f.lovecraft_-_Two_Black_Bottles
1f.lovecraft_-_Under_the_Pyramids
1f.lovecraft_-_Winged_Death
1.fs_-_Friendship
1.fs_-_Hero_And_Leander
1.fs_-_Parables_And_Riddles
1.fs_-_The_Complaint_Of_Ceres
1.fs_-_The_Driver
1.fs_-_The_Eleusinian_Festival
1.fs_-_The_Lay_Of_The_Bell
1.fs_-_The_Pilgrim
1.fs_-_The_Two_Paths_Of_Virtue
1.fua_-_The_Hawk
1.jk_-_Calidore_-_A_Fragment
1.jk_-_Endymion_-_Book_I
1.jk_-_Endymion_-_Book_II
1.jk_-_Endymion_-_Book_IV
1.jk_-_Hyperion,_A_Vision_-_Attempted_Reconstruction_Of_The_Poem
1.jk_-_Imitation_Of_Spenser
1.jk_-_Sleep_And_Poetry
1.jk_-_The_Eve_Of_St._Agnes
1.jwvg_-_Ganymede
1.jwvg_-_The_Bliss_Of_Absence
1.lovecraft_-_The_Ancient_Track
1.pbs_-_Alastor_-_or,_the_Spirit_of_Solitude
1.pbs_-_Evening_-_Ponte_Al_Mare,_Pisa
1.pbs_-_Ghasta_Or,_The_Avenging_Demon!!!
1.pbs_-_Prometheus_Unbound
1.pbs_-_Rosalind_and_Helen_-_a_Modern_Eclogue
1.pbs_-_The_Revolt_Of_Islam_-_Canto_I-XII
1.pbs_-_The_Witch_Of_Atlas
1.poe_-_Eureka_-_A_Prose_Poem
1.poe_-_The_Power_Of_Words_Oinos.
1.rb_-_How_They_Brought_The_Good_News_From_Ghent_To_Aix
1.rb_-_Paracelsus_-_Part_V_-_Paracelsus_Attains
1.rb_-_Pippa_Passes_-_Part_II_-_Noon
1.rb_-_Sordello_-_Book_the_Sixth
1.rb_-_Two_In_The_Campagna
1.rmpsd_-_Why_disappear_into_formless_trance?
1.rmr_-_Dedication_To_M...
1.rmr_-_Palm
1.rmr_-_The_Spanish_Dancer
1.rwe_-_Celestial_Love
1.rwe_-_May-Day
1.rwe_-_Song_of_Nature
1.wby_-_A_Dramatic_Poem
1.wby_-_All_Souls_Night
1.wby_-_The_Cap_And_Bells
1.wby_-_The_Shadowy_Waters_-_The_Shadowy_Waters
1.whitman_-_How_Solemn_As_One_By_One
1.whitman_-_Sing_Of_The_Banner_At_Day-Break
1.whitman_-_Song_of_Myself
1.whitman_-_Song_Of_Myself-_XLII
1.whitman_-_Song_Of_Myself-_XXIV
1.whitman_-_The_Dalliance_Of_The_Eagles
1.whitman_-_The_Voice_of_the_Rain
1.whitman_-_This_Compost
1.whitman_-_Vigil_Strange_I_Kept_on_the_Field_one_Night
1.ww_-_24_-_Walt_Whitman,_a_cosmos,_of_Manhattan_the_son
1.ww_-_An_Evening_Walk
1.ww_-_Book_Eighth-_Retrospect--Love_Of_Nature_Leading_To_Love_Of_Man
1.ww_-_Book_Eleventh-_France_[concluded]
1.ww_-_Book_Seventh_[Residence_in_London]
1.ww_-_The_Excursion-_IV-_Book_Third-_Despondency
1.ww_-_The_Excursion-_VII-_Book_Sixth-_The_Churchyard_Among_the_Mountains
1.ww_-_The_Excursion-_X-_Book_Ninth-_Discourse_of_the_Wanderer,_and_an_Evening_Visit_to_the_Lake
1.ww_-_The_Kitten_And_Falling_Leaves
1.ww_-_The_Recluse_-_Book_First
1.ww_-_Water-Fowl_Observed_Frequently_Over_The_Lakes_Of_Rydal_And_Grasmere
20.01_-_Charyapada_-_Old_Bengali_Mystic_Poems
2.01_-_Habit_1__Be_Proactive
2.01_-_Mandala_One
2.01_-_The_Object_of_Knowledge
2.01_-_The_Path
2.01_-_The_Road_of_Trials
2.01_-_The_Sefirot
2.01_-_The_Yoga_and_Its_Objects
2.02_-_Atomic_Motions
2.02_-_Indra,_Giver_of_Light
2.02_-_The_Ishavasyopanishad_with_a_commentary_in_English
2.02_-_The_Synthesis_of_Devotion_and_Knowledge
2.03_-_DEMETER
2.03_-_Indra_and_the_Thought-Forces
2.03_-_Karmayogin__A_Commentary_on_the_Isha_Upanishad
2.03_-_The_Eternal_and_the_Individual
2.03_-_The_Purified_Understanding
2.04_-_Agni,_the_Illumined_Will
2.04_-_Positive_Aspects_of_the_Mother-Complex
2.04_-_The_Divine_and_the_Undivine
2.05_-_Apotheosis
2.05_-_Infinite_Worlds
2.05_-_On_Poetry
2.06_-_WITH_VARIOUS_DEVOTEES
2.06_-_Works_Devotion_and_Knowledge
2.07_-_The_Mother__Relations_with_Others
2.08_-_AT_THE_STAR_THEATRE_(II)
2.08_-_God_in_Power_of_Becoming
2.08_-_The_Release_from_the_Heart_and_the_Mind
2.09_-_On_Sadhana
2.1.02_-_Classification_of_the_Parts_of_the_Being
21.02_-_Gods_and_Men
2.1.02_-_Love_and_Death
2.1.03_-_Man_and_Superman
21.03_-_The_Double_Ladder
2.11_-_The_Boundaries_of_the_Ignorance
2.12_-_THE_MASTERS_REMINISCENCES
2.1.2_-_The_Vital_and_Other_Levels_of_Being
2.12_-_The_Way_and_the_Bhakta
2.1.3.2_-_Study
2.1.3.3_-_Reading
2.13_-_On_Psychology
2.13_-_Psychic_Presence_and_Psychic_Being_-_Real_Origin_of_Race_Superiority
2.1.3_-_Wrong_Movements_of_the_Vital
2.1.4_-_The_Lower_Vital_Being
2.14_-_The_Origin_and_Remedy_of_Falsehood,_Error,_Wrong_and_Evil
2.1.5.1_-_Study_of_Works_of_Sri_Aurobindo_and_the_Mother
2.15_-_Reality_and_the_Integral_Knowledge
2.16_-_The_15th_of_August
2.16_-_The_Magick_Fire
2.17_-_December_1938
2.17_-_The_Masculine_Feminine_World
2.18_-_January_1939
2.18_-_The_Evolutionary_Process_-_Ascent_and_Integration
2.18_-_The_Soul_and_Its_Liberation
2.19_-_Out_of_the_Sevenfold_Ignorance_towards_the_Sevenfold_Knowledge
2.2.02_-_Becoming_Conscious_in_Work
2.2.03_-_The_Psychic_Being
2.2.03_-_The_Science_of_Consciousness
22.04_-_On_The_Brink(I)
2.20_-_The_Philosophy_of_Rebirth
2.21_-_The_Ladder_of_Self-transcendence
2.21_-_The_Order_of_the_Worlds
2.21_-_Towards_the_Supreme_Secret
2.22_-_Rebirth_and_Other_Worlds;_Karma,_the_Soul_and_Immortality
2.2.2_-_Sorrow_and_Suffering
2.22_-_THE_MASTER_AT_COSSIPORE
2.22_-_The_Supreme_Secret
2.23_-_Man_and_the_Evolution
2.23_-_THE_MASTER_AND_BUDDHA
2.24_-_Gnosis_and_Ananda
2.24_-_The_Evolution_of_the_Spiritual_Man
2.24_-_The_Message_of_the_Gita
2.25_-_The_Triple_Transformation
2.26_-_Samadhi
2.26_-_The_Ascent_towards_Supermind
2.27_-_The_Gnostic_Being
2.28_-_Rajayoga
2.3.01_-_Concentration_and_Meditation
2.3.02_-_Mantra_and_Japa
2.3.02_-_The_Supermind_or_Supramental
2.3.03_-_Integral_Yoga
2.3.04_-_The_Mother's_Force
2.3.07_-_The_Mother_in_Visions,_Dreams_and_Experiences
2.3.10_-_The_Subconscient_and_the_Inconscient
24.05_-_Vision_of_Dante
29.06_-_There_is_also_another,_similar_or_parallel_story_in_the_Veda_about_the_God_Agni,_about_the_disappearance_of_this
2_-_Other_Hymns_to_Agni
30.17_-_Rabindranath,_Traveller_of_the_Infinite
3.01_-_THE_WANDERER
3.02_-_King_and_Queen
3.02_-_ON_THE_VISION_AND_THE_RIDDLE
3.02_-_SOL
3.02_-_THE_DEPLOYMENT_OF_THE_NOOSPHERE
3.02_-_The_Practice_Use_of_Dream-Analysis
3.03_-_SULPHUR
3.03_-_THE_MODERN_EARTH
3.04_-_LUNA
3.04_-_The_Way_of_Devotion
3.05_-_SAL
3.05_-_The_Divine_Personality
3.07_-_The_Ananda_Brahman
3.07_-_The_Ascent_of_the_Soul
3.07_-_The_Formula_of_the_Holy_Grail
3.0_-_THE_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE
3.1.01_-_Distinctive_Features_of_the_Integral_Yoga
3.1.01_-_The_Problem_of_Suffering_and_Evil
3.1.02_-_Spiritual_Evolution_and_the_Supramental
3.1.24_-_In_the_Moonlight
3.18_-_Of_Clairvoyance_and_the_Body_of_Light
3.2.01_-_The_Newness_of_the_Integral_Yoga
3.2.02_-_Yoga_and_Skill_in_Works
3.2.03_-_Jainism_and_Buddhism
32.04_-_The_Human_Body
32.06_-_The_Novel_Alchemy
3.2.07_-_Tantra
3.2.09_-_The_Teachings_of_Some_Modern_Indian_Yogis
32.11_-_Life_and_Self-Control_(A_Letter)
3.2.4_-_Sex
33.18_-_I_Bow_to_the_Mother
3.3.1_-_Agni,_the_Divine_Will-Force
34.06_-_Hymn_to_Sindhu
34.07_-_The_Bride_of_Brahman
34.09_-_Hymn_to_the_Pillar
3-5_Full_Circle
3.6.01_-_Heraclitus
36.08_-_A_Commentary_on_the_First_Six_Suktas_of_Rigveda
37.01_-_Yama_-_Nachiketa_(Katha_Upanishad)
37.03_-_Satyakama_And_Upakoshala
3.7.1.04_-_Rebirth_and_Soul_Evolution
3.7.1.05_-_The_Significance_of_Rebirth
3.7.1.06_-_The_Ascending_Unity
3.7.1.07_-_Involution_and_Evolution
3.7.2.03_-_Mind_Nature_and_Law_of_Karma
3.7.2.04_-_The_Higher_Lines_of_Karma
38.05_-_Living_Matter
3.8.1.06_-_The_Universal_Consciousness
3_-_Commentaries_and_Annotated_Translations
4.01_-_The_Principle_of_the_Integral_Yoga
4.02_-_BEYOND_THE_COLLECTIVE_-_THE_HYPER-PERSONAL
4.02_-_Humanity_in_Progress
4.02_-_The_Integral_Perfection
4.03_-_The_Meaning_of_Human_Endeavor
4.03_-_The_Senses_And_Mental_Pictures
4.03_-_THE_ULTIMATE_EARTH
4.04_-_Conclusion
4.04_-_The_Perfection_of_the_Mental_Being
4.04_-_THE_REGENERATION_OF_THE_KING
4.05_-_THE_DARK_SIDE_OF_THE_KING
4.0_-_The_Path_of_Knowledge
4.1.01_-_The_Intellect_and_Yoga
4.10_-_The_Elements_of_Perfection
4.1.1.05_-_The_Central_Process_of_the_Yoga
4.1.1_-_The_Difficulties_of_Yoga
4.11_-_The_Perfection_of_Equality
4.14_-_The_Power_of_the_Instruments
4.18_-_THE_ASS_FESTIVAL
4.1_-_Jnana
4.20_-_The_Intuitive_Mind
4.21_-_The_Gradations_of_the_supermind
4.2.1_-_The_Right_Attitude_towards_Difficulties
4.2.2.04_-_The_Psychic_Opening_and_the_Inner_Centres
4.22_-_The_supramental_Thought_and_Knowledge
4.23_-_The_supramental_Instruments_--_Thought-process
4.2.5.03_-_The_Psychic_and_Spiritual_Movements
4.3.1.01_-_Peace,_Calm,_Silence_and_the_Self
4.3.1.06_-_A_Vision_of_the_Universal_Self
4.3.1_-_The_Hostile_Forces_and_the_Difficulties_of_Yoga
4.3.2.04_-_Degrees_in_the_Higher_Consciousness
4.3.2_-_Attacks_by_the_Hostile_Forces
4.4.1.02_-_A_Double_Movement_in_the_Sadhana
4.4.1.05_-_Ascent_and_Descent_of_the_Kundalini_Shakti
4.4.2.02_-_Ascension_or_Rising_above_the_Head
4.4.2.03_-_Ascent_and_Return_to_the_Ordinary_Consciousness
4.4.2.05_-_Ascent_and_the_Psychic_Being
4.4.2.08_-_Fixing_the_Consciousness_Above
4.4.5.01_-_Descent_and_Experiences_of_the_Inner_Being
5.01_-_EPILOGUE
5.02_-_Perfection_of_the_Body
5.03_-_The_Divine_Body
5.05_-_Supermind_and_Humanity
5.1.01.2_-_The_Book_of_the_Statesman
5.1.01.4_-_The_Book_of_Partings
5.2.03_-_The_An_Family
5.4.01_-_Notes_on_Root-Sounds
5.4.01_-_Occult_Knowledge
5_-_The_Phenomenology_of_the_Spirit_in_Fairytales
6.02_-_Great_Meteorological_Phenomena,_Etc
6.03_-_Extraordinary_And_Paradoxical_Telluric_Phenomena
6.04_-_The_Plague_Athens
6.05_-_THE_PSYCHOLOGICAL_INTERPRETATION_OF_THE_PROCEDURE
6.0_-_Conscious,_Unconscious,_and_Individuation
7.02_-_The_Mind
7.14_-_Modesty
7_-_Yoga_of_Sri_Aurobindo
9.99_-_Glossary
Aeneid
Appendix_4_-_Priest_Spells
Blazing_P3_-_Explore_the_Stages_of_Postconventional_Consciousness
BOOK_II._--_PART_III._ADDENDA._SCIENCE_AND_THE_SECRET_DOCTRINE_CONTRASTED
BOOK_II._--_PART_II._THE_ARCHAIC_SYMBOLISM_OF_THE_WORLD-RELIGIONS
BOOK_I._--_PART_I._COSMIC_EVOLUTION
BOOK_I._--_PART_III._SCIENCE_AND_THE_SECRET_DOCTRINE_CONTRASTED
Book_of_Exodus
Book_of_Imaginary_Beings_(text)
BOOK_VIII._-_Some_account_of_the_Socratic_and_Platonic_philosophy,_and_a_refutation_of_the_doctrine_of_Apuleius_that_the_demons_should_be_worshipped_as_mediators_between_gods_and_men
BOOK_XI._-_Augustine_passes_to_the_second_part_of_the_work,_in_which_the_origin,_progress,_and_destinies_of_the_earthly_and_heavenly_cities_are_discussed.Speculations_regarding_the_creation_of_the_world
BOOK_XIII._-_That_death_is_penal,_and_had_its_origin_in_Adam's_sin
BOOK_XII._-_Of_the_creation_of_angels_and_men,_and_of_the_origin_of_evil
BOOK_XV._-_The_progress_of_the_earthly_and_heavenly_cities_traced_by_the_sacred_history
Conversations_with_Sri_Aurobindo
COSA_-_BOOK_XIII
Cratylus
ENNEAD_02.01_-_Of_the_Heaven.
ENNEAD_03.04_-_Of_Our_Individual_Guardian.
ENNEAD_04.05_-_Psychological_Questions_III._-_About_the_Process_of_Vision_and_Hearing.
ENNEAD_04.08_-_Of_the_Descent_of_the_Soul_Into_the_Body.
ENNEAD_05.05_-_That_Intelligible_Entities_Are_Not_External_to_the_Intelligence_of_the_Good.
ENNEAD_06.03_-_Plotinos_Own_Sense-Categories.
ENNEAD_06.05_-_The_One_and_Identical_Being_is_Everywhere_Present_In_Its_Entirety.345
ENNEAD_06.07_-_How_Ideas_Multiplied,_and_the_Good.
Gorgias
IS_-_Chapter_1
Liber_46_-_The_Key_of_the_Mysteries
Liber_71_-_The_Voice_of_the_Silence_-_The_Two_Paths_-_The_Seven_Portals
Phaedo
Prayers_and_Meditations_by_Baha_u_llah_text
r1909_06_18
r1913_07_07
r1913_09_07
r1914_03_14
r1914_03_28
r1914_04_04
r1914_05_04
r1914_06_25
r1914_12_14
r1917_01_30
r1918_06_03
r1918_06_14
r1918_07_01
r1920_10_19
Sayings_of_Sri_Ramakrishna_(text)
Sophist
Symposium_translated_by_B_Jowett
Talks_With_Sri_Aurobindo_1
The_Act_of_Creation_text
Theaetetus
The_Book_of_Job
The_Book_of_the_Prophet_Isaiah
The_Coming_Race_Contents
The_Dwellings_of_the_Philosophers
The_Gold_Bug
The_Library_of_Babel
The_Library_Of_Babel_2
The_Pilgrims_Progress
The_Riddle_of_this_World
The_Shadow_Out_Of_Time
Timaeus
Verses_of_Vemana

PRIMARY CLASS

SIMILAR TITLES
upward

DEFINITIONS


TERMS STARTING WITH

upward ::: adv. --> Alt. of Upwards ::: a. --> Directed toward a higher place; as, with upward eye; with upward course. ::: n.

upward closure {closure}

upwards ::: adv. --> In a direction from lower to higher; toward a higher place; in a course toward the source or origin; -- opposed to downward; as, to tend or roll upward.
In the upper parts; above.
Yet more; indefinitely more; above; over.


upward :::

Upward Cycle. See ARC, ASCENDING AND DESCENDING


TERMS ANYWHERE

1. Raised or lifted up; elevated. 2. Directed upwards.

1. To or towards a higher or loftier position, point, place, or plane; having a vertical or ascensional course or direction; taking place or inclined upwards; ascending. 2. Situated or lying aloft or above; higher in place or position; lofty. upwards.

9PAC "tool" 709 PACkage. A {report generator} for the {IBM 7090}, developed in 1959. [Sammet 1969, p.314. "IBM 7090 Prog Sys, SHARE 7090 9PAC Part I: Intro and Gen Princs", IBM J28-6166, White Plains, 1961]. (1995-02-07):-) {emoticon}; {semicolon}" {less than}"g" "chat" grin. An alternative to {smiley}. [{Jargon File}] (1998-01-18)"gr&d" "chat" Grinning, running and ducking. See {emoticon}. (1995-03-17)= {equals}" {greater than}? {question mark}?? "programming" A {Perl} quote-like {operator} used to delimit a {regular expression} (RE) like "?FOO?" that matches FOO at most once. The normal "/FOO/" form of regular expression will match FOO any number of times. The "??" operator will match again after a call to the "reset" operator. The operator is usually referred to as "??" but, taken literally, an empty RE like this (or "//") actually means to re-use the last successfully matched regular expression or, if there was none, empty string (which will always match). {Unix manual page}: perlop(1). (2009-05-28)@ {commercial at}@-party "event, history" /at'par-tee/ (Or "@-sign party") An antiquated term for a gathering of {hackers} at a science-fiction convention (especially the annual Worldcon) to which only people who had an {electronic mail address} were admitted. The term refers to the {commercial at} symbol, "@", in an e-mail address and dates back to the era when having an e-mail address was a distinguishing characteristic of the select few who worked with computers. Compare {boink}. [{Jargon File}] (2012-11-17)@Begin "text" The {Scribe} equivalent of {\begin}. [{Jargon File}] (2014-11-06)@stake "security, software" A computer security development group and consultancy dedicated to researching and documenting security flaws that exist in {operating systems}, {network} {protocols}, or software. @stake publishes information about security flaws through advisories, research reports, and tools. They release the information and tools to help system administrators, users, and software and hardware vendors better secure their systems. L0pht merged with @stake in January 2000. {@stake home (http://atstake.com/research/redirect.html)}. (2003-06-12)@XX "programming" 1. Part of the syntax of a {decorated name}, as used internally by {Microsoft}'s {Visual C} or {Visual C++} {compilers}. 2. The name of an example {instance variable} in the {Ruby} {programming language}. (2018-08-24)[incr Tcl] "language" An extension of {Tcl} that adds {classes} and {inheritence}. The name is a pun on {C++} - an {object-oriented} extension of {C} - [incr variable] is the Tcl {syntax} for adding one to a variable. [Origin? Availability?] (1998-11-27)\ {backslash}\begin "text, chat" The {LaTeX} command used with \end to delimit an environment within which the text is formatted in a certain way. E.g. \begin{table}...\end{table}. Used humorously in writing to indicate a context or to remark on the surrounded text. For example: \begin{flame} Predicate logic is the only good programming language. Anyone who would use anything else is an idiot. Also, all computers should be tredecimal instead of binary. \end{flame} {Scribe} users at {CMU} and elsewhere used to use @Begin/@End in an identical way (LaTeX was built to resemble Scribe). On {Usenet}, this construct would more frequently be rendered as ""FLAME ON"" and ""FLAME OFF"" (a la {HTML}), or "

A :::catalyst ::: in equity markets is a revelation or event that propels the price of a security dramatically up or down. A catalyst can be almost anything: an earnings report, an analyst revision, a new product announcement, a piece of legislation, a lawsuit, an outbreak of war or unrest, an offer to buy a company or merge, a move by an activist investor, a comment from a CEO or government official, or the conspicuous absence of a company officer at a special event.  In general, it is a news item that has no immediate effect on the fundamentals of a stock, but rattles investors, breaking the price's upward or downward momentum – or sideways lack-of-momentum – and unlocking value (in the case of a rise in price) or bursting a bubble (in the case of a fall).

ABOVE-HEAD CENTRE. ::: Above the head extends the higher consciousness centre, sahasradala padma, the thousandpetalled lotus, commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The sahasradala centralises spiritual mind, higher mind, intuitive mind and acts as a receiving station for the intuition proper and overmind.

It is the seventh and highest centre. Usually those who take the centres in the body only count six centres, the sahasrāra being excluded. It is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error; the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, śūnya, either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.
Wide Crown centre.


Absolution also conveys the mystical significance of the Sanskrit moksha and mukti. When one’s whole being has been turned upwards and inwards to a more or less perfect union with the god within, one is absolved, released, or set free from the entanglements of the lower nature and, in this sense, one has absolution or freedom. See also ABSOLUTE.

A bull_trap ::: is a false signal indicating that a declining trend in a stock or index has reversed and is heading upwards when, in fact, the security will continue to decline. The move "traps" traders or investors that acted on the buy signal and generates losses on resulting long positions. A bull trap may also be referred to as a whipsaw pattern.

acclivity ::: n. --> A slope or inclination of the earth, as the side of a hill, considered as ascending, in opposition to declivity, or descending; an upward slope; ascent.

acclivous ::: a. --> Sloping upward; rising as a hillside; -- opposed to declivous.

“According to the Occult teachings, however, Siddhas are the Nirmanakayas or the ‘spirits’ (in the sense of an individual, or conscious spirit) of great sages from spheres on a higher plane than our own, who voluntarily incarnate in mortal bodies in order to help the human race in its upward progress. Hence their innate knowledge, wisdom and powers” (SD 2:636n). In this sense siddhas may be applied to the highest class of manasaputras who incarnated in the first but best prepared human protoplasts in the early part of the third root-race in order to bring mind to nascent mankind.

Actually, the path of the shadows and the path towards the light stretch in opposite directions; yet the ultimate goal of both is a nirvana. The path upwards, whether of the amrita or of the pratyeka, leads to the nirvana of spirit — the amrita ultimately being far higher than that of the pratyeka; whereas the downward path of the Brothers of the Shadow leads also to a nirvana, but to enchainment in the avichi-nirvana of absolute matter for that hierarchy.

“Agni is the leader of the sacrifice and protects it in the great journey against the powers of darkness. The knowledge and purpose of this divine Puissance can be entirely trusted; he is the friend and lover of the soul and will not betray it to evil gods. Even for the man sitting far off in the night, enveloped by the darkness of the human ignorance, this flame[Agni] is a light which, when it is perfectly kindled and in proportion as it mounts higher and higher, enlarges itself into the vast light of the Truth. Flaming upward to heaven to meet the divine Dawn, it rises through the vital or nervous mid-world and through our mental skies and enters at last the Paradise of Light, its own supreme home above where joyous for ever in the eternal Truth that is the foundation of the sempiternal Bliss the shining Immortals sit in their celestial sessions and drink the wine of the infinite beatitude.” The Secret of the Veda

*[Agni]. Sri Aurobindo: "Agni is the leader of the sacrifice and protects it in the great journey against the powers of darkness. The knowledge and purpose of this divine Puissance can be entirely trusted; he is the friend and lover of the soul and will not betray it to evil gods. Even for the man sitting far off in the night, enveloped by the darkness of the human ignorance, this flame[Agni] is a light which, when it is perfectly kindled and in proportion as it mounts higher and higher, enlarges itself into the vast light of the Truth. Flaming upward to heaven to meet the divine Dawn, it rises through the vital or nervous mid-world and through our mental skies and enters at last the Paradise of Light, its own supreme home above where joyous for ever in the eternal Truth that is the foundation of the sempiternal Bliss the shining Immortals sit in their celestial sessions and drink the wine of the infinite beatitude.” *The Secret of the Veda

A head_and_shoulders_pattern ::: is a chart formation that resembles a baseline with three peaks, the outside two are close in height and the middle is highest. In technical analysis, a head and shoulders pattern describes a specific chart formation that predicts a bullish-to-bearish trend reversal. The head and shoulders pattern is believed to be one of the most reliable trend reversal patterns. It is one of several top patterns that signal, with varying degrees of accuracy, that an upward trend is nearing its end.

airwards ::: adv. --> Toward the air; upward.

A long ::: (or long position:) is the buying of a security such as a stock, commodity or currency with the expectation that the asset will rise in value. In the context of options, long is the buying of an options contract. An investor that expects an asset’s price to fall will go long on a put option, and an investor that hopes to benefit from an upward price movement will be long a call option.

Although advancing steadily in spirituality and upwards towards a lower nirvana, and therefore evolving on a path which is not only not harmful to humanity and others, but in a sense is even passively beneficial, the Pratyeka Buddha, precisely because his thoughts are involved in spiritual freedom and benefits for himself, is really enwrapped in a spiritual selfishness; and hence in the intuitive, albeit popular, consideration of Northern Buddhism is called by such names as the Solitary or the Rhinoceros — applied in contrast to the Buddhas of Compassion, whose entire effort is to merge the individual into the universal, to expand their sympathies to include all that is, to follow the path of immortality (amrita), which is self-identification without loss of individuality with all that is. When the sacrifice of the lower personal and inferior self, with all its hoard of selfish thought and impulses, for the sake of bringing into full and unfettered activity the ineffable glorious faculties and powers and functions of the higher nature — not for the purpose of selfish personal advancement, but in order to become a helper of all that is — the consequence is that as time passes, the disciple so living and dedicating himself finds himself becoming the very incarnation of his inner divinity. He becomes, as it were, a man-god on earth. This, however, is not the objective, for holding such an objective as the goal to be attained would be in itself a proof that selfishness still abides in the nature.

altitude ::: n. --> Space extended upward; height; the perpendicular elevation of an object above its foundation, above the ground, or above a given level, or of one object above another; as, the altitude of a mountain, or of a bird above the top of a tree.
The elevation of a point, or star, or other celestial object, above the horizon, measured by the arc of a vertical circle intercepted between such point and the horizon. It is either true or apparent; true when measured from the rational or real horizon,


Amal: “‘The earth’s strange twi-natured life’ means the earth’s self-division, one part tending upward, the other drawn downward.”

amphipoda ::: n. pl. --> A numerous group of fourteen -- footed Crustacea, inhabiting both fresh and salt water. The body is usually compressed laterally, and the anterior pairs or legs are directed downward and forward, but the posterior legs are usually turned upward and backward. The beach flea is an example. See Tetradecapoda and Arthrostraca.

ana- ::: --> A prefix in words from the Greek, denoting up, upward, throughout, backward, back, again, anew.

anadromous ::: a. --> Ascending rivers from the sea, at certain seasons, for breeding, as the salmon, shad, etc.
Tending upwards; -- said of terns in which the lowest secondary segments are on the upper side of the branch of the central stem.


An upward arrow placed between (e.g.) a and b denotes the relation which holds between x and y¦ if and only if x∈a and y∈b.

an upward look or glance.

  “A ‘neutral centre’ is, in one aspect, the limiting point of any given set of senses. Thus, imagine two consecutive planes of matter as already formed; each of these corresponding to an appropriate set of perceptive organs. We are forced to admit that between these two planes of matter an incessant circulation takes place; and if we follow the atoms and molecules of (say) the lower in their transformation upwards, these will come to a point where they pass altogether beyond the range of the faculties we are using on the lower plane. In fact, to us the matter of the lower plane there vanishes from our perception into nothing — or rather it passes on to the higher plane, and the state of matter corresponding to such a point of transition must certainly possess special and not readily discoverable properties” (SD 1:148).

anophyte ::: n. --> A moss or mosslike plant which cellular stems, having usually an upward growth and distinct leaves.

anticlinorium ::: n. --> The upward elevation of the crust of the earth, resulting from a geanticlinal.

antiperistaltic ::: a. --> Opposed to, or checking motion; acting upward; -- applied to an inverted action of the intestinal tube.

antrorse ::: a. --> Forward or upward in direction.

An uptrend ::: describes the price movement of a financial asset when the overall direction is upward. In an uptrend, each successive peak and trough is higher than the ones found earlier in the trend. In the example below, notice how each successive high and low is located above the previous ones. For example, the high at point 4 is above the high at point 2 and the low at point 5 is above the low at point 3. The uptrend is broken if the next low on the chart falls below point 5. The opposite of an uptrend in a downtrend.

Apana (Sanskrit) Apāna [from apa away, off, down + an to blow, breathe] Down-breath; one of the vital airs, life-currents, or pranas which vitalize, build, and sustain the human or animal body. As apa indicates, it is the prana which ejects from the system material which it no longer requires, such as wastes, etc. Opposite in function to the upward-tending breath, udana.

A pullback ::: also referred to as a retracement or consolidation, is the falling back of a security’s price from its peak. These price movements might be seen as a brief reversal of the prevailing trend higher, signaling a temporary pause in upward momentum.

Arani (Sanskrit) Araṇi, Araṇī [from the verbal root ṛ to tend upward, move, insert, fix] Moving around; being fitted in or inserted. Arani (sing) is one of the two ceremonial rubbing-sticks used to ignite the sacrificial fire: the upper stick, uttararani or pramantha, is held upright and set into a groove in the lower stick, adhararani, and when twirled or rotated rapidly it generates heat and flame. According to the Rig-Veda, the upright stick was made from the sami tree (Mimosa suma), and the horizontal from the asvattha or pipal tree (Ficus religiosa), the sacred fig tree. In the Satapatha-brahmana, however, both sticks were carved from the wood of the asvattha.

arch ::: 1. An upwardly curved construction, for spanning an opening, consisting of a number of wedgelike stones, bricks, or the like, set with the narrower side toward the opening in such a way that forces on the arch are transmitted as vertical or oblique stresses on either side of the opening, either capable of bearing weight or merely ornamental; 2. Something bowed or curved; any bowlike part: the arch of the foot. 3. An arched roof, door; gateway; vault; fig. the heavens. arches.

Arc(s), Ascending and Descending Also Luminous and Shadowy Arcs. A cycle of development, such as that of a planetary chain, can be divided into two halves, the first from the first globe to the middle of the most material globe, and the other extending from this midpoint upwards to the last globe. The first half is the downward or shadowy arc; the second is the ascending or luminous arc. The descending arc represents an involution of spirit and a concurrent evolution of matter resulting in a progressive materialization of spirit and a continuous grossening or concretion of the texture of matter; the ascending arc represents an evolution of spirit and involution of matter, resulting in a progressive dematerialization, spiritualization, or refinement of matter as it increasingly manifests the qualities of spirit. Yet spirit and matter are fundamentally one essence at different stages of development.

A retracement ::: is a temporary reversal in the direction of a stock's price that goes against the prevailing trend. A retracement does not signify a change in the larger trend. On a chart where a stock's price is generally headed upward, retracements are the small dips in price that the stock experiences during its overall upward trend.

Arya (Sanskrit) Ārya [from the verbal root ṛ to rise, tend upward] Holy, hallowed, highly evolved or especially trained; a title of the Hindu rishis. Originally a term of ethical as well as intellectual and spiritual excellence, belonging to those who had completely mastered the aryasatyani (holy truths) and who had entered upon the aryamarga (path leading to moksha or nirvana). It was originally applicable only to the initiates or adepts of the ancient Aryan peoples, but today Aryan has become the name of a race of the human family in its various branches. All ancient peoples had their own term for initiates or adepts, as for instance among the ancient Hebrews the generic name Israel, or Sons of Israel.

Ascending arc: In theosophical occultism, the ascent of the evolving monads (q.v.) from the physical plane or globe upwards through the higher levels of existence. (Also called luminous arc.)

Ascending Arc or Luminous Arc ::: This term, as employed in theosophical occultism, signifies the passage of the life-waves or life-streamsof evolving mon ads upwards along, on, and through the globes of the chain of any celestial body, theearth's chain included. Every celestial body (including the earth) is one member in a limited series orgroup of globes. These globes exist on different kosmic planes in a rising series. The life-waves orlife-streams during any manvantara of such a chain circle or cycle around these globes in periodicalsurges or impulses. The ascent from the physical globe upwards is called the ascending arc; the descentthrough the more spiritual and ethereal globes downwards to the physical globe is called the descendingarc. (See also Planetary Chain)

ascending ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Ascend ::: a. --> Rising; moving upward; as, an ascending kite.

ascend ::: to move, climb, or go upward; mount; rise. ascends, ascended, ascending.

ascend ::: v. i. --> To move upward; to mount; to go up; to rise; -- opposed to descend.
To rise, in a figurative sense; to proceed from an inferior to a superior degree, from mean to noble objects, from particulars to generals, from modern to ancient times, from one note to another more acute, etc.; as, our inquiries ascend to the remotest antiquity; to ascend to our first progenitor.


ascensional ::: a. --> Relating to ascension; connected with ascent; ascensive; tending upward; as, the ascensional power of a balloon.

ascension ::: the act or process of ascending; upward movement. flame-ascensions.

Ascent / Descent ::: In this Yoga the consciousness (after the lower field has been prepared by a certain amount of psycho-spiritual-occult experience) is drawn upwards above the Brahmarandhra to ranges above belonging to the spiritual consciousness proper and instead of merely receiving from there has to live there and from there change the lower consciousness altogether. For there is a dynamism proper to the spiritual consciousness whose nature is Light, Power, Ananda, Peace, Knowledge, infinite Wideness and that must be possessed and descend into the whole being.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 288


ascent ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The ascent or the upward movement takes place when there is a sufficient aspiration from the being, i.e., from the various mental, vital and physical planes.” *Letters on Yoga

ascent ::: --> The act of rising; motion upward; rise; a mounting upward; as, he made a tedious ascent; the ascent of vapors from the earth.
The way or means by which one ascends.
An eminence, hill, or high place.
The degree of elevation of an object, or the angle it makes with a horizontal line; inclination; rising grade; as, a road has an ascent of five degrees.


ascent ::: “The ascent or the upward movement takes place when there is a sufficient aspiration from the being, i.e., from the various mental, vital and physical planes.” Letters on Yoga

A short_squeeze ::: is a situation in which a heavily shorted stock or commodity moves sharply higher, forcing more short sellers to close out their short positions and adding to the upward pressure on the stock. It implies that short sellers are being squeezed out of their short positions, usually at a loss, and is generally triggered by a positive development that suggests the stock may be embarking on a turnaround. Although the turnaround in the stock’s fortunes may only prove to be temporary, few short sellers can afford to risk runaway losses on their short positions and may prefer to close them out even if it means taking a substantial loss.

assurgent ::: a. --> Ascending
rising obliquely; curving upward.


Astral Light ::: The astral light corresponds in the case of our globe, and analogically in the case of our solar system, towhat the linga-sarira is in the case of an individual man. Just as in man the linga-sarira or astral body is the vehicle or carrier of prana or life-energy, so is the astral light the carrier of the cosmic jiva or cosmic life-energy. To us humans it is an invisible region surrounding our earth, as H. P. Blavatsky expresses it,as indeed it surrounds every other physical globe; and among the seven kosmic principles it is the mostmaterial excepting one, our physical universe.The astral light therefore is, on the one hand, the storehouse or repository of all the energies of thekosmos on their way downwards to manifest in the material spheres -- of our solar system in general aswell as of our globe in particular; and, on the other hand, it is the receptacle or magazine of whateverpasses out of the physical sphere on its upward way.Thirdly, it is a kosmic "picture-gallery" or indelible record of whatever takes place on the astral andphysical planes; however, this last phase of the functions of the astral light is the least in importance andreal interest.The astral light of our own globe, and analogically of any other physical globe, is the region of thekama-loka, at least as concerns the intermediate and lower parts of the kama-loka; and all entities that diepass through the astral light on their way upwards, and in the astral light throw off or shed the kama-rupaat the time of the second death.The solar system has its own astral light in general, just as every globe in the universal solar system hasits astral light in particular, in each of these last cases being a thickening or materializing or concretingaround the globe of the general astral substance forming the astral light of the solar system. The astrallight, strictly speaking, is simply the lees or dregs of akasa and exists in steps or stages of increasingethereality. The more closely it surrounds any globe, the grosser and more material it is. It is thereceptacle of all the vile and horrible emanations from earth and earth beings, and is therefore in partsfilled with earthly pollutions. There is a constant interchange, unceasing throughout the solarmanvantara, between the astral light on the one hand, and our globe earth on the other, each giving andreturning to the other.Finally, the astral light is with regard to the material realms of the solar system the copy or reflection ofwhat the akasa is in the spiritual realms. The astral light is the mother of the physical, just as the spirit isthe mother of the akasa; or, inversely, the physical is merely the concretion of the astral, just as the akasais the veil or concretion of the highest spiritual. Indeed, the astral and physical are one, just as the akasicand the spiritual are one.

Asvattha (Sanskrit) Aśvattha The Hindu tree of life or bodhi tree, which grows with its roots upwards into the invisible worlds and its branches downward to form the visible world. (SD 1:549, 523, 536, etc; IU 1:153)

Asvattha(Sanskrit) ::: The mystical tree of knowledge, the mystical tree of kosmical life and being, represented asgrowing in a reversed position: the branches extending downwards and the roots upwards. The branchestypify the visible kosmical universe, the roots the invisible world of spirit.The universe among the ancients of many nations was portrayed or figurated under the symbol of a tree,of which the roots sprang from the divine heart of things, and the trunk and the branches and thebranchlets and the leaves were the various planes and worlds and spheres of the kosmos. The fruit of thiskosmic tree contained the seeds of future "trees," being the entities which had attained through evolutionthe end of their evolutionary journey, such as men and the gods -- themselves universes in the small, anddestined in the future to become kosmic entities when the cycling wheel of time shall have turnedthrough long aeons on its majestic round. In fact, every living thing, and so-called inanimate things also,are trees of life, with their roots above in the spiritual realms, with their trunks passing through theintermediate spheres, and their branches manifesting in the physical realms.

Asvins (Ashwins, Aswins) ::: the two Riders on the Horse; lords of the joyous upward action of the mind and the vital powers; twin divine powers whose special function is to perfect the nervous or vital being in man in the sense of active enjoyment, but they are also powers of Truth, of intelligent action, of right enjoyment. [Ved.]

Aswattha: The Sanskrit name of the Tree of Knowledge, conceived of as the tree of cosmic life and existence; its roots, extending upward, symbolize the invisible spiritual world, and its branches, spreading downward, symbolize the visible, tangible, material universe.

Atman (Sanskrit) Ātman Self; the highest part a human being: pure consciousness, that cosmic self which is the same in every dweller on this globe and on every one of the planetary or stellar bodies in space. It is the feeling and knowledge of “I am,” pure cognition, the abstract idea of self. It does not differ at all throughout the cosmos except in degree of self-recognition. Though universal it belongs, in our present stage of evolution, to the fourth cosmic plane, though it is our seventh principle counting upwards. It may also be considered as the First Logos in the human microcosm. During incarnation the lowest aspects of atman take on attributes, because it is linked with buddhi, as the buddhi is linked with manas, as the manas is linked with kama, etc.

Atman(Sanskrit) ::: The root of atman is hardly known; its origin is uncertain, but the general meaning is that of"self." The highest part of man -- self, pure consciousness per se. The essential and radical power orfaculty in man which gives to him, and indeed to every other entity or thing, its knowledge or sentientconsciousness of selfhood. This is not the ego.This principle (atman) is a universal one; but during incarnations its lowest parts take on attributes,because it is linked with the buddhi, as the buddhi is linked with the manas, as the manas is linked to thekama, and so on down the scale.Atman is also sometimes used of the universal self or spirit which is called in the Sanskrit writingsBrahman (neuter), and the Brahman or universal spirit is also called the paramatman.Man is rooted in the kosmos surrounding him by three principles, which can hardly be said to be abovethe first or atman, but are, so to say, that same atman's highest and most glorious parts.The inmost link with the Unutterable was called in ancient India by the term ``self,'' which has often beenmistranslated "soul." The Sanskrit word is atman and applies, in psychology, to the human entity. Theupper end of the link, so to speak, was called paramatman, or the ``self beyond,'' i.e., the permanentSELF -- words which describe neatly and clearly to those who have studied this wonderful philosophy,somewhat of the nature and essence of the being which man is, and the source from which, inbeginningless and endless duration, he sprang. Child of earth and child of heaven, he contains both inhimself.We say that the atman is universal, and so it is. It is the universal selfhood, that feeling or consciousnessof selfhood which is the same in every human being, and even in all the inferior beings of the hierarchy,even in those of the beast kingdom under us, and dimly perceptible in the plant world, and which is latenteven in the minerals. This is the pure cognition, the abstract idea, of self. It differs not at all throughoutthe hierarchy, except in degree of self-recognition. Though universal, it belongs (so far as we areconcerned in our present stage of evolution) to the fourth kosmic plane, though it is our seventh principlecounting upwards.

Aufklärung: In general, this German word and its English equivalent Enlightenment denote the self-emancipation of man from mere authority, prejudice, convention and tradition, with an insistence on freer thinking about problems uncritically referred to these other agencies. According to Kant's famous definition "Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority, which is the incapacity of using one's understanding without the direction of another. This state of minority is caused when its source lies not in the lack of understanding, but in the lack of determination and courage to use it without the assistance of another" (Was ist Aufklärung? 1784). In its historical perspective, the Aufklärung refers to the cultural atmosphere and contrlbutions of the 18th century, especially in Germany, France and England [which affected also American thought with B. Franklin, T. Paine and the leaders of the Revolution]. It crystallized tendencies emphasized by the Renaissance, and quickened by modern scepticism and empiricism, and by the great scientific discoveries of the 17th century. This movement, which was represented by men of varying tendencies, gave an impetus to general learning, a more popular philosophy, empirical science, scriptural criticism, social and political thought. More especially, the word Aufklärung is applied to the German contributions to 18th century culture. In philosophy, its principal representatives are G. E. Lessing (1729-81) who believed in free speech and in a methodical criticism of religion, without being a free-thinker; H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768) who expounded a naturalistic philosophy and denied the supernatural origin of Christianity; Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86) who endeavoured to mitigate prejudices and developed a popular common-sense philosophy; Chr. Wolff (1679-1754), J. A. Eberhard (1739-1809) who followed the Leibnizian rationalism and criticized unsuccessfully Kant and Fichte; and J. G. Herder (1744-1803) who was best as an interpreter of others, but whose intuitional suggestions have borne fruit in the organic correlation of the sciences, and in questions of language in relation to human nature and to national character. The works of Kant and Goethe mark the culmination of the German Enlightenment. Cf. J. G. Hibben, Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1910. --T.G. Augustinianism: The thought of St. Augustine of Hippo, and of his followers. Born in 354 at Tagaste in N. Africa, A. studied rhetoric in Carthage, taught that subject there and in Rome and Milan. Attracted successively to Manicheanism, Scepticism, and Neo-Platontsm, A. eventually found intellectual and moral peace with his conversion to Christianity in his thirty-fourth year. Returning to Africa, he established numerous monasteries, became a priest in 391, Bishop of Hippo in 395. Augustine wrote much: On Free Choice, Confessions, Literal Commentary on Genesis, On the Trinity, and City of God, are his most noted works. He died in 430.   St. Augustine's characteristic method, an inward empiricism which has little in common with later variants, starts from things without, proceeds within to the self, and moves upwards to God. These three poles of the Augustinian dialectic are polarized by his doctrine of moderate illuminism. An ontological illumination is required to explain the metaphysical structure of things. The truth of judgment demands a noetic illumination. A moral illumination is necessary in the order of willing; and so, too, an lllumination of art in the aesthetic order. Other illuminations which transcend the natural order do not come within the scope of philosophy; they provide the wisdoms of theology and mysticism. Every being is illuminated ontologically by number, form, unity and its derivatives, and order. A thing is what it is, in so far as it is more or less flooded by the light of these ontological constituents.   Sensation is necessary in order to know material substances. There is certainly an action of the external object on the body and a corresponding passion of the body, but, as the soul is superior to the body and can suffer nothing from its inferior, sensation must be an action, not a passion, of the soul. Sensation takes place only when the observing soul, dynamically on guard throughout the body, is vitally attentive to the changes suffered by the body. However, an adequate basis for the knowledge of intellectual truth is not found in sensation alone. In order to know, for example, that a body is multiple, the idea of unity must be present already, otherwise its multiplicity could not be recognized. If numbers are not drawn in by the bodily senses which perceive only the contingent and passing, is the mind the source of the unchanging and necessary truth of numbers? The mind of man is also contingent and mutable, and cannot give what it does not possess. As ideas are not innate, nor remembered from a previous existence of the soul, they can be accounted for only by an immutable source higher than the soul. In so far as man is endowed with an intellect, he is a being naturally illuminated by God, Who may be compared to an intelligible sun. The human intellect does not create the laws of thought; it finds them and submits to them. The immediate intuition of these normative rules does not carry any content, thus any trace of ontologism is avoided.   Things have forms because they have numbers, and they have being in so far as they possess form. The sufficient explanation of all formable, and hence changeable, things is an immutable and eternal form which is unrestricted in time and space. The forms or ideas of all things actually existing in the world are in the things themselves (as rationes seminales) and in the Divine Mind (as rationes aeternae). Nothing could exist without unity, for to be is no other than to be one. There is a unity proper to each level of being, a unity of the material individual and species, of the soul, and of that union of souls in the love of the same good, which union constitutes the city. Order, also, is ontologically imbibed by all beings. To tend to being is to tend to order; order secures being, disorder leads to non-being. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal each to its own place and integrates an ensemble of parts in accordance with an end. Hence, peace is defined as the tranquillity of order. Just as things have their being from their forms, the order of parts, and their numerical relations, so too their beauty is not something superadded, but the shining out of all their intelligible co-ingredients.   S. Aurelii Augustini, Opera Omnia, Migne, PL 32-47; (a critical edition of some works will be found in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna). Gilson, E., Introd. a l'etude de s. Augustin, (Paris, 1931) contains very good bibliography up to 1927, pp. 309-331. Pope, H., St. Augustine of Hippo, (London, 1937). Chapman, E., St. Augustine's Philos. of Beauty, (N. Y., 1939). Figgis, J. N., The Political Aspects of St. Augustine's "City of God", (London, 1921). --E.C. Authenticity: In a general sense, genuineness, truth according to its title. It involves sometimes a direct and personal characteristic (Whitehead speaks of "authentic feelings").   This word also refers to problems of fundamental criticism involving title, tradition, authorship and evidence. These problems are vital in theology, and basic in scholarship with regard to the interpretation of texts and doctrines. --T.G. Authoritarianism: That theory of knowledge which maintains that the truth of any proposition is determined by the fact of its having been asserted by a certain esteemed individual or group of individuals. Cf. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent; C. S. Peirce, "Fixation of Belief," in Chance, Love and Logic, ed. M. R. Cohen. --A.C.B. Autistic thinking: Absorption in fanciful or wishful thinking without proper control by objective or factual material; day dreaming; undisciplined imagination. --A.C.B. Automaton Theory: Theory that a living organism may be considered a mere machine. See Automatism. Automatism: (Gr. automatos, self-moving) (a) In metaphysics: Theory that animal and human organisms are automata, that is to say, are machines governed by the laws of physics and mechanics. Automatism, as propounded by Descartes, considered the lower animals to be pure automata (Letter to Henry More, 1649) and man a machine controlled by a rational soul (Treatise on Man). Pure automatism for man as well as animals is advocated by La Mettrie (Man, a Machine, 1748). During the Nineteenth century, automatism, combined with epiphenomenalism, was advanced by Hodgson, Huxley and Clifford. (Cf. W. James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, ch. V.) Behaviorism, of the extreme sort, is the most recent version of automatism (See Behaviorism).   (b) In psychology: Psychological automatism is the performance of apparently purposeful actions, like automatic writing without the superintendence of the conscious mind. L. C. Rosenfield, From Beast Machine to Man Machine, N. Y., 1941. --L.W. Automatism, Conscious: The automatism of Hodgson, Huxley, and Clifford which considers man a machine to which mind or consciousness is superadded; the mind of man is, however, causally ineffectual. See Automatism; Epiphenomenalism. --L.W. Autonomy: (Gr. autonomia, independence) Freedom consisting in self-determination and independence of all external constraint. See Freedom. Kant defines autonomy of the will as subjection of the will to its own law, the categorical imperative, in contrast to heteronomy, its subjection to a law or end outside the rational will. (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, § 2.) --L.W. Autonomy of ethics: A doctrine, usually propounded by intuitionists, that ethics is not a part of, and cannot be derived from, either metaphysics or any of the natural or social sciences. See Intuitionism, Metaphysical ethics, Naturalistic ethics. --W.K.F. Autonomy of the will: (in Kant's ethics) The freedom of the rational will to legislate to itself, which constitutes the basis for the autonomy of the moral law. --P.A.S. Autonymy: In the terminology introduced by Carnap, a word (phrase, symbol, expression) is autonymous if it is used as a name for itself --for the geometric shape, sound, etc. which it exemplifies, or for the word as a historical and grammatical unit. Autonymy is thus the same as the Scholastic suppositio matertalis (q. v.), although the viewpoint is different. --A.C. Autotelic: (from Gr. autos, self, and telos, end) Said of any absorbing activity engaged in for its own sake (cf. German Selbstzweck), such as higher mathematics, chess, etc. In aesthetics, applied to creative art and play which lack any conscious reference to the accomplishment of something useful. In the view of some, it may constitute something beneficent in itself of which the person following his art impulse (q.v.) or playing is unaware, thus approaching a heterotelic (q.v.) conception. --K.F.L. Avenarius, Richard: (1843-1896) German philosopher who expressed his thought in an elaborate and novel terminology in the hope of constructing a symbolic language for philosophy, like that of mathematics --the consequence of his Spinoza studies. As the most influential apostle of pure experience, the posltivistic motive reaches in him an extreme position. Insisting on the biologic and economic function of thought, he thought the true method of science is to cure speculative excesses by a return to pure experience devoid of all assumptions. Philosophy is the scientific effort to exclude from knowledge all ideas not included in the given. Its task is to expel all extraneous elements in the given. His uncritical use of the category of the given and the nominalistic view that logical relations are created rather than discovered by thought, leads him to banish not only animism but also all of the categories, substance, causality, etc., as inventions of the mind. Explaining the evolution and devolution of the problematization and deproblematization of numerous ideas, and aiming to give the natural history of problems, Avenarius sought to show physiologically, psychologically and historically under what conditions they emerge, are challenged and are solved. He hypothesized a System C, a bodily and central nervous system upon which consciousness depends. R-values are the stimuli received from the world of objects. E-values are the statements of experience. The brain changes that continually oscillate about an ideal point of balance are termed Vitalerhaltungsmaximum. The E-values are differentiated into elements, to which the sense-perceptions or the content of experience belong, and characters, to which belongs everything which psychology describes as feelings and attitudes. Avenarius describes in symbolic form a series of states from balance to balance, termed vital series, all describing a series of changes in System C. Inequalities in the vital balance give rise to vital differences. According to his theory there are two vital series. It assumes a series of brain changes because parallel series of conscious states can be observed. The independent vital series are physical, and the dependent vital series are psychological. The two together are practically covariants. In the case of a process as a dependent vital series three stages can be noted: first, the appearance of the problem, expressed as strain, restlessness, desire, fear, doubt, pain, repentance, delusion; the second, the continued effort and struggle to solve the problem; and finally, the appearance of the solution, characterized by abating anxiety, a feeling of triumph and enjoyment.   Corresponding to these three stages of the dependent series are three stages of the independent series: the appearance of the vital difference and a departure from balance in the System C, the continuance with an approximate vital difference, and lastly, the reduction of the vital difference to zero, the return to stability. By making room for dependent and independent experiences, he showed that physics regards experience as independent of the experiencing indlvidual, and psychology views experience as dependent upon the individual. He greatly influenced Mach and James (q.v.). See Avenarius, Empirio-criticism, Experience, pure. Main works: Kritik der reinen Erfahrung; Der menschliche Weltbegriff. --H.H. Averroes: (Mohammed ibn Roshd) Known to the Scholastics as The Commentator, and mentioned as the author of il gran commento by Dante (Inf. IV. 68) he was born 1126 at Cordova (Spain), studied theology, law, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy, became after having been judge in Sevilla and Cordova, physician to the khalifah Jaqub Jusuf, and charged with writing a commentary on the works of Aristotle. Al-mansur, Jusuf's successor, deprived him of his place because of accusations of unorthodoxy. He died 1198 in Morocco. Averroes is not so much an original philosopher as the author of a minute commentary on the whole works of Aristotle. His procedure was imitated later by Aquinas. In his interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics Averroes teaches the coeternity of a universe created ex nihilo. This doctrine formed together with the notion of a numerical unity of the active intellect became one of the controversial points in the discussions between the followers of Albert-Thomas and the Latin Averroists. Averroes assumed that man possesses only a disposition for receiving the intellect coming from without; he identifies this disposition with the possible intellect which thus is not truly intellectual by nature. The notion of one intellect common to all men does away with the doctrine of personal immortality. Another doctrine which probably was emphasized more by the Latin Averroists (and by the adversaries among Averroes' contemporaries) is the famous statement about "two-fold truth", viz. that a proposition may be theologically true and philosophically false and vice versa. Averroes taught that religion expresses the (higher) philosophical truth by means of religious imagery; the "two-truth notion" came apparently into the Latin text through a misinterpretation on the part of the translators. The works of Averroes were one of the main sources of medieval Aristotelianlsm, before and even after the original texts had been translated. The interpretation the Latin Averroists found in their texts of the "Commentator" spread in spite of opposition and condemnation. See Averroism, Latin. Averroes, Opera, Venetiis, 1553. M. Horten, Die Metaphysik des Averroes, 1912. P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin, 2d ed., Louvain, 1911. --R.A. Averroism, Latin: The commentaries on Aristotle written by Averroes (Ibn Roshd) in the 12th century became known to the Western scholars in translations by Michael Scottus, Hermannus Alemannus, and others at the beginning of the 13th century. Many works of Aristotle were also known first by such translations from Arabian texts, though there existed translations from the Greek originals at the same time (Grabmann). The Averroistic interpretation of Aristotle was held to be the true one by many; but already Albert the Great pointed out several notions which he felt to be incompatible with the principles of Christian philosophy, although he relied for the rest on the "Commentator" and apparently hardly used any other text. Aquinas, basing his studies mostly on a translation from the Greek texts, procured for him by William of Moerbecke, criticized the Averroistic interpretation in many points. But the teachings of the Commentator became the foundation for a whole school of philosophers, represented first by the Faculty of Arts at Paris. The most prominent of these scholars was Siger of Brabant. The philosophy of these men was condemned on March 7th, 1277 by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, after a first condemnation of Aristotelianism in 1210 had gradually come to be neglected. The 219 theses condemned in 1277, however, contain also some of Aquinas which later were generally recognized an orthodox. The Averroistic propositions which aroused the criticism of the ecclesiastic authorities and which had been opposed with great energy by Albert and Thomas refer mostly to the following points: The co-eternity of the created word; the numerical identity of the intellect in all men, the so-called two-fold-truth theory stating that a proposition may be philosophically true although theologically false. Regarding the first point Thomas argued that there is no philosophical proof, either for the co-eternity or against it; creation is an article of faith. The unity of intellect was rejected as incompatible with the true notion of person and with personal immortality. It is doubtful whether Averroes himself held the two-truths theory; it was, however, taught by the Latin Averroists who, notwithstanding the opposition of the Church and the Thomistic philosophers, gained a great influence and soon dominated many universities, especially in Italy. Thomas and his followers were convinced that they interpreted Aristotle correctly and that the Averroists were wrong; one has, however, to admit that certain passages in Aristotle allow for the Averroistic interpretation, especially in regard to the theory of intellect.   Lit.: P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme Latin au XIIIe Siecle, 2d. ed. Louvain, 1911; M. Grabmann, Forschungen über die lateinischen Aristotelesübersetzungen des XIII. Jahrhunderts, Münster 1916 (Beitr. z. Gesch. Phil. d. MA. Vol. 17, H. 5-6). --R.A. Avesta: See Zendavesta. Avicehron: (or Avencebrol, Salomon ibn Gabirol) The first Jewish philosopher in Spain, born in Malaga 1020, died about 1070, poet, philosopher, and moralist. His main work, Fons vitae, became influential and was much quoted by the Scholastics. It has been preserved only in the Latin translation by Gundissalinus. His doctrine of a spiritual substance individualizing also the pure spirits or separate forms was opposed by Aquinas already in his first treatise De ente, but found favor with the medieval Augustinians also later in the 13th century. He also teaches the necessity of a mediator between God and the created world; such a mediator he finds in the Divine Will proceeding from God and creating, conserving, and moving the world. His cosmogony shows a definitely Neo-Platonic shade and assumes a series of emanations. Cl. Baeumker, Avencebrolis Fons vitae. Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. MA. 1892-1895, Vol. I. Joh. Wittman, Die Stellung des hl. Thomas von Aquino zu Avencebrol, ibid. 1900. Vol. III. --R.A. Avicenna: (Abu Ali al Hosain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina) Born 980 in the country of Bocchara, began to write in young years, left more than 100 works, taught in Ispahan, was physician to several Persian princes, and died at Hamadan in 1037. His fame as physician survived his influence as philosopher in the Occident. His medical works were printed still in the 17th century. His philosophy is contained in 18 vols. of a comprehensive encyclopedia, following the tradition of Al Kindi and Al Farabi. Logic, Physics, Mathematics and Metaphysics form the parts of this work. His philosophy is Aristotelian with noticeable Neo-Platonic influences. His doctrine of the universal existing ante res in God, in rebus as the universal nature of the particulars, and post res in the human mind by way of abstraction became a fundamental thesis of medieval Aristotelianism. He sharply distinguished between the logical and the ontological universal, denying to the latter the true nature of form in the composite. The principle of individuation is matter, eternally existent. Latin translations attributed to Avicenna the notion that existence is an accident to essence (see e.g. Guilelmus Parisiensis, De Universo). The process adopted by Avicenna was one of paraphrasis of the Aristotelian texts with many original thoughts interspersed. His works were translated into Latin by Dominicus Gundissalinus (Gondisalvi) with the assistance of Avendeath ibn Daud. This translation started, when it became more generally known, the "revival of Aristotle" at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. Albert the Great and Aquinas professed, notwithstanding their critical attitude, a great admiration for Avicenna whom the Arabs used to call the "third Aristotle". But in the Orient, Avicenna's influence declined soon, overcome by the opposition of the orthodox theologians. Avicenna, Opera, Venetiis, 1495; l508; 1546. M. Horten, Das Buch der Genesung der Seele, eine philosophische Enzyklopaedie Avicenna's; XIII. Teil: Die Metaphysik. Halle a. S. 1907-1909. R. de Vaux, Notes et textes sur l'Avicennisme Latin, Bibl. Thomiste XX, Paris, 1934. --R.A. Avidya: (Skr.) Nescience; ignorance; the state of mind unaware of true reality; an equivalent of maya (q.v.); also a condition of pure awareness prior to the universal process of evolution through gradual differentiation into the elements and factors of knowledge. --K.F.L. Avyakta: (Skr.) "Unmanifest", descriptive of or standing for brahman (q.v.) in one of its or "his" aspects, symbolizing the superabundance of the creative principle, or designating the condition of the universe not yet become phenomenal (aja, unborn). --K.F.L. Awareness: Consciousness considered in its aspect of act; an act of attentive awareness such as the sensing of a color patch or the feeling of pain is distinguished from the content attended to, the sensed color patch, the felt pain. The psychologlcal theory of intentional act was advanced by F. Brentano (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte) and received its epistemological development by Meinong, Husserl, Moore, Laird and Broad. See Intentionalism. --L.W. Axiological: (Ger. axiologisch) In Husserl: Of or pertaining to value or theory of value (the latter term understood as including disvalue and value-indifference). --D.C. Axiological ethics: Any ethics which makes the theory of obligation entirely dependent on the theory of value, by making the determination of the rightness of an action wholly dependent on a consideration of the value or goodness of something, e.g. the action itself, its motive, or its consequences, actual or probable. Opposed to deontological ethics. See also teleological ethics. --W.K.F. Axiologic Realism: In metaphysics, theory that value as well as logic, qualities as well as relations, have their being and exist external to the mind and independently of it. Applicable to the philosophy of many though not all realists in the history of philosophy, from Plato to G. E. Moore, A. N. Whitehead, and N, Hartmann. --J.K.F. Axiology: (Gr. axios, of like value, worthy, and logos, account, reason, theory). Modern term for theory of value (the desired, preferred, good), investigation of its nature, criteria, and metaphysical status. Had its rise in Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas (Idea of the Good); was developed in Aristotle's Organon, Ethics, Poetics, and Metaphysics (Book Lambda). Stoics and Epicureans investigated the summum bonum. Christian philosophy (St. Thomas) built on Aristotle's identification of highest value with final cause in God as "a living being, eternal, most good."   In modern thought, apart from scholasticism and the system of Spinoza (Ethica, 1677), in which values are metaphysically grounded, the various values were investigated in separate sciences, until Kant's Critiques, in which the relations of knowledge to moral, aesthetic, and religious values were examined. In Hegel's idealism, morality, art, religion, and philosophy were made the capstone of his dialectic. R. H. Lotze "sought in that which should be the ground of that which is" (Metaphysik, 1879). Nineteenth century evolutionary theory, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics subjected value experience to empirical analysis, and stress was again laid on the diversity and relativity of value phenomena rather than on their unity and metaphysical nature. F. Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885) and Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887) aroused new interest in the nature of value. F. Brentano, Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (1889), identified value with love.   In the twentieth century the term axiology was apparently first applied by Paul Lapie (Logique de la volonte, 1902) and E. von Hartmann (Grundriss der Axiologie, 1908). Stimulated by Ehrenfels (System der Werttheorie, 1897), Meinong (Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie, 1894-1899), and Simmel (Philosophie des Geldes, 1900). W. M. Urban wrote the first systematic treatment of axiology in English (Valuation, 1909), phenomenological in method under J. M. Baldwin's influence. Meanwhile H. Münsterberg wrote a neo-Fichtean system of values (The Eternal Values, 1909).   Among important recent contributions are: B. Bosanquet, The Principle of Individuality and Value (1912), a free reinterpretation of Hegelianism; W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God (1918, 1921), defending a metaphysical theism; S. Alexander, Space, Time, and Deity (1920), realistic and naturalistic; N. Hartmann, Ethik (1926), detailed analysis of types and laws of value; R. B. Perry's magnum opus, General Theory of Value (1926), "its meaning and basic principles construed in terms of interest"; and J. Laird, The Idea of Value (1929), noteworthy for historical exposition. A naturalistic theory has been developed by J. Dewey (Theory of Valuation, 1939), for which "not only is science itself a value . . . but it is the supreme means of the valid determination of all valuations." A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936) expounds the view of logical positivism that value is "nonsense." J. Hessen, Wertphilosophie (1937), provides an account of recent German axiology from a neo-scholastic standpoint.   The problems of axiology fall into four main groups, namely, those concerning (1) the nature of value, (2) the types of value, (3) the criterion of value, and (4) the metaphysical status of value.   (1) The nature of value experience. Is valuation fulfillment of desire (voluntarism: Spinoza, Ehrenfels), pleasure (hedonism: Epicurus, Bentham, Meinong), interest (Perry), preference (Martineau), pure rational will (formalism: Stoics, Kant, Royce), apprehension of tertiary qualities (Santayana), synoptic experience of the unity of personality (personalism: T. H. Green, Bowne), any experience that contributes to enhanced life (evolutionism: Nietzsche), or "the relation of things as means to the end or consequence actually reached" (pragmatism, instrumentalism: Dewey).   (2) The types of value. Most axiologists distinguish between intrinsic (consummatory) values (ends), prized for their own sake, and instrumental (contributory) values (means), which are causes (whether as economic goods or as natural events) of intrinsic values. Most intrinsic values are also instrumental to further value experience; some instrumental values are neutral or even disvaluable intrinsically. Commonly recognized as intrinsic values are the (morally) good, the true, the beautiful, and the holy. Values of play, of work, of association, and of bodily well-being are also acknowledged. Some (with Montague) question whether the true is properly to be regarded as a value, since some truth is disvaluable, some neutral; but love of truth, regardless of consequences, seems to establish the value of truth. There is disagreement about whether the holy (religious value) is a unique type (Schleiermacher, Otto), or an attitude toward other values (Kant, Höffding), or a combination of the two (Hocking). There is also disagreement about whether the variety of values is irreducible (pluralism) or whether all values are rationally related in a hierarchy or system (Plato, Hegel, Sorley), in which values interpenetrate or coalesce into a total experience.   (3) The criterion of value. The standard for testing values is influenced by both psychological and logical theory. Hedonists find the standard in the quantity of pleasure derived by the individual (Aristippus) or society (Bentham). Intuitionists appeal to an ultimate insight into preference (Martineau, Brentano). Some idealists recognize an objective system of rational norms or ideals as criterion (Plato, Windelband), while others lay more stress on rational wholeness and coherence (Hegel, Bosanquet, Paton) or inclusiveness (T. H. Green). Naturalists find biological survival or adjustment (Dewey) to be the standard. Despite differences, there is much in common in the results of the application of these criteria.   (4) The metaphysical status of value. What is the relation of values to the facts investigated by natural science (Koehler), of Sein to Sollen (Lotze, Rickert), of human experience of value to reality independent of man (Hegel, Pringle-Pattlson, Spaulding)? There are three main answers:   subjectivism (value is entirely dependent on and relative to human experience of it: so most hedonists, naturalists, positivists);   logical objectivism (values are logical essences or subsistences, independent of their being known, yet with no existential status or action in reality);   metaphysical objectivism (values   --or norms or ideals   --are integral, objective, and active constituents of the metaphysically real: so theists, absolutists, and certain realists and naturalists like S. Alexander and Wieman). --E.S.B. Axiom: See Mathematics. Axiomatic method: That method of constructing a deductive system consisting of deducing by specified rules all statements of the system save a given few from those given few, which are regarded as axioms or postulates of the system. See Mathematics. --C.A.B. Ayam atma brahma: (Skr.) "This self is brahman", famous quotation from Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19, one of many alluding to the central theme of the Upanishads, i.e., the identity of the human and divine or cosmic. --K.F.L.

Aum ::: OM is the mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should th
   refore lead towards the opening of the consciousness to the sight and feeling of the One Consciousness in all material things, in the inner being and in the supraphysical worlds, in the causal plane above now superconscient to us and, finally, the supreme liberated transcendence above all cosmic existence OM if rightly used (not mechanically) might very well help the opening upwards and outwards (cosmic consciousness) as well as the descent.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 825-826


avatara (avatar) ::: divine incarnation; the "descent into form" of the avatara Godhead (deva, isvara, purus.ottama), "when the divine Consciousness and Power, taking upon itself the human form and the human mode of action, possesses it not only by powers and magnitudes, by degrees and outward faces of itself but out of its eternal self-knowledge" in order "to exemplify the possibility of the Divine manifest in the human being" and "to leave the influence of that manifestation vibrating in the earth-nature and the soul of that manifestation presiding over its upward endeavour"; any of the ten incarnations of Vis.n.u described in the Hindu tradition, regarded by Sri Aurobindo as "a parable of evolution".

avoset ::: n. --> A grallatorial bird, of the genus Recurvirostra; the scooper. The bill is long and bend upward toward the tip. The American species is R. Americana.
Same as Avocet.


Babel (Hebrew) Bābāh The inner meaning of the Tower of Babel, by which it was hoped that divinity might be reached or attained, is a house of initiation, a gate, portal, opening, or entrance to the divine. The physical tower was both the building set aside to house and protect the initiation chambers, together with the ceremonies that take place in them, and an architectural emblem to signify a raising up towards heaven. The tower may have either a divine or evil significance, either haughty pride and self-sufficiency or spiritual aspiration. Similar is the lightning-struck tower of the Tarot cards, and the Arabian Nights story of the man who built a palace completely except only for a roc’s egg to hang in the dome, and when the egg is thus hung, the whole palace collapses. The work of the black magician, building from below upwards, is impermanent and, when it strikes the sky, is blasted. If such a tower and system be followed by adepts of the left-hand path for ultimate and foredestined confusion, it is one thing; but if the tower and its inner mysteries be in the charge of adepts of the right-hand path, it is another. The concentration of the narrator in the Bible concerning the Tower of Babel seems to have been entirely upon its aspect of left-hand magic.

Antinode - Point of maximum displacement of two superimposed waves.


   Archimedes&


Basing ::: refers to a period in which a stock or other traded security is showing minimal upward or downward movement. The resulting price pattern looks like a flat line or slightly rounded. Often, 'basing' is a term used by technical analysts to describe an issue that is consolidating after a period of rapid growth or decline. A stock that is basing has equal amounts of supply and demand. Basing is a common occurrence after a stock or the market has been in a lengthy decline or had a significant advance. In other words, the market is taking a break. Some stocks can form a base that lasts for several years before the trend reverses. Basing periods are accompanied by declining volume as prices consolidate. Volatility also contracts as a stock trades sideways. (For more, see: How Do I Identify a Stock That is Under Consolidation?) Stocks that are basing establish clear support and resistance levels as the bulls and bears fight for control. Institutional traders may use a basing period to accumulate a large order they are buying for a customer. Many technical analysts believe that basing is crucial, especially for stocks that have had a rapid advance. They view basing as the "breather" that allows the issue to continue climbing. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/basing.asp

basseting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Basset ::: n. --> The upward direction of a vein in a mine; the emergence of a stratum at the surface.

basset ::: n. --> A game at cards, resembling the modern faro, said to have been invented at Venice.

The edge of a geological stratum at the surface of the ground; the outcrop. ::: a. --> Inclined upward; as, the basset edge of strata.


Because of their lofty position, they are identified with the universal intelligence, as its immediate vehicles or channels. Thus they are not only the channels but the imbodiments of karma, and therefore not only the interpreters or agents of karma, but the recorders or scribes upwards into cosmic ideation of whatever takes place on lower planes. Their function is thus dual: imbodiments, channels, or interpreters of karma to be worked out in the universe in which the lipikas function, and thus agents of cosmic ideation; and second, as the scribes or recorders of the innumerably multitudinous karmic records of the beings below themselves.

Binomic forces: Extra-biological forces, which influence the direction and development of life. I.e. all physical, chemical and other environmental forces which affect living organisms in any way. The second law of thermo-dynamics seems to vitalists to be an exception to their view that the creative life-force evolves upwards. Nonetheless natural selection is influenced by binomic forces. -- C.K.D.

bird ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Bird in the Veda is the symbol, very frequently, of the soul liberated and upsoaring, at other times of energies so liberated and upsoaring, winging upwards towards the heights of our being, winging widely with a free flight, no longer involved in the ordinary limited movement or labouring gallop of the Life-energy, the Horse, Ashwa.” *The Secret of the Veda

bird ::: “The Bird in the Veda is the symbol, very frequently, of the soul liberated and upsoaring, at other times of energies so liberated and upsoaring, winging upwards towards the heights of our being, winging widely with a free flight, no longer involved in the ordinary limited movement or labouring gallop of the Life-energy, the Horse, Ashwa.” The Secret of the Veda

boomerang ::: n. --> A very singular missile weapon used by the natives of Australia and in some parts of India. It is usually a curved stick of hard wood, from twenty to thirty inches in length, from two to three inches wide, and half or three quarters of an inch thick. When thrown from the hand with a quick rotary motion, it describes very remarkable curves, according to the shape of the instrument and the manner of throwing it, often moving nearly horizontally a long distance, then curving upward to a considerable height, and finally taking a

Brahmacharya, the transformation of retas into oJas and the raising of its energies upward so that they change into a spiritual force.

brahman ::: [Ved.]: the sacred or inspired word, expression of the heart or soul; heart; the Vedic word or mantra in its profoundest aspect as the expression of the intuition arising out of the depths of the soul or being; the Soul that emerges out of the subconscient in Man and rises towards the superconscient and also word of creative Power welling upward out of the soul. [Vedanta]: the Reality; the Eternal; the Absolute; the Spirit; the Supreme Being; the One besides whom there is nothing else existent; in relation to the universe [cf. atman] the Supreme is brahman, the one Reality which is not only the spiritual, material and conscious substance of all the ideas and forces and forms of the universe, but their origin, support and possessor, the cosmic and supracosmic Spirit. ::: brahma [nominative] ::: brahmana [instrumental], by the hymn. ::: brahmani [locative], into the brahman. [cf. Brahma]

bubble sort A sorting technique in which pairs of adjacent values in the list to be sorted are compared and interchanged if they are out of order; thus, list entries "bubble upward" in the list until they bump into one with a lower sort value. Because it is not very good relative to other methods and is the one typically stumbled on by {naive} and untutored programmers, hackers consider it the {canonical} example of a naive algorithm. The canonical example of a really *bad* algorithm is {bogo-sort}. A bubble sort might be used out of ignorance, but any use of bogo-sort could issue only from brain damage or willful perversity. [{Jargon File}]

Buddhi-manas (Sanskrit) Buddhi-manas [from buddhi spiritual soul + manas intellect] The higher ego, the principle of essential self-consciousness, especially when considered as over-enlightened by the atman or self per se. Buddhi-manas is the karana-sarira (causal body), hence the immortal or spiritual self which passes intact from one incarnation to another. This higher self or ego is formed of the indissoluble union of buddhi, the sixth principle counting upwards, and the spiritual efflorescence of manas, the fifth principle. Buddhi-manas is the divine individual soul infilled with the light of the ray from the atman, and hence includes human intellect and egoic self-consciousness, in addition to all the spiritual faculties and powers inherent in the ray itself. See also ATMA-BUDDHI-MANAS

Buddhi(Sanskrit) ::: Buddhi comes from a Sanskrit root budh, commonly translated "to enlighten," but a bettertranslation is "to perceive," "to cognize," "to recover consciousness," hence "to awaken," and therefore"to understand." The second counting downwards, or the sixth counting upwards, of the seven principlesof man. Buddhi is the principle or organ in man which gives to him spiritual consciousness, and is thevehicle of the most high part of man -- the atman -- the faculty which manifests as understanding,judgment, discrimination, an inseparable veil or garment of the atman.From another point of view, buddhi may truly be said to be both the seed and the fruit of manas.Man's ordinary consciousness in life in his present stage of evolution is almost wholly in the lower orintermediate duad (manas-kama) of his constitution; when he raises his consciousness through personaleffort to become permanently one with the higher duad (atma-buddhi), he becomes a mahatma, a master.At the death of the human being, this higher duad carries away with it all the spiritual essence, all thespiritual and intellectual aroma, of the lower or intermediate duad. Maha-buddhi is one of the namesgiven to the kosmic principle mahat. (See also Alaya)

buoyancy ::: n. --> The property of floating on the surface of a liquid, or in a fluid, as in the atmosphere; specific lightness, which is inversely as the weight compared with that of an equal volume of water.
The upward pressure exerted upon a floating body by a fluid, which is equal to the weight of the body; hence, also, the weight of a floating body, as measured by the volume of fluid displaced.
Cheerfulness; vivacity; liveliness; sprightliness; -- the


upward ::: adv. --> Alt. of Upwards ::: a. --> Directed toward a higher place; as, with upward eye; with upward course. ::: n.

upward closure {closure}

upwards ::: adv. --> In a direction from lower to higher; toward a higher place; in a course toward the source or origin; -- opposed to downward; as, to tend or roll upward.
In the upper parts; above.
Yet more; indefinitely more; above; over.


upward :::

But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward to all that is above mind. After a time one feels the consciousness rising upward and in the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the

caltrap ::: n. --> A genus of herbaceous plants (Tribulus) of the order Zygophylleae, having a hard several-celled fruit, armed with stout spines, and resembling the military instrument of the same name. The species grow in warm countries, and are often very annoying to cattle.
An instrument with four iron points, so disposed that, any three of them being on the ground, the other projects upward. They are scattered on the ground where an enemy&


camberkeeled ::: a. --> Having the keel arched upwards, but not actually hogged; -- said of a ship.

camber ::: n. --> An upward convexity of a deck or other surface; as, she has a high camber (said of a vessel having an unusual convexity of deck).
An upward concavity in the under side of a beam, girder, or lintel; also, a slight upward concavity in a straight arch. See Hogback. ::: v. t.


cantle ::: n. --> A corner or edge of anything; a piece; a fragment; a part.
The upwardly projecting rear part of saddle, opposite to the pommel. ::: v. t. --> To cut in pieces; to cut out from.


capriole ::: v. i. --> A leap that a horse makes with all fours, upwards only, without advancing, but with a kick or jerk of the hind legs when at the height of the leap.
A leap or caper, as in dancing.
To perform a capriole.


Cave Dwellers, Cavemen People of primitive habits lived in caves in the past, in various parts of the world, as they do in the present. Skulls, bones, implements, and art works of past cavemen have served paleethnologists as material for a stratification of human history based on a supposed ascent of humanity through progressive stages from the animal kingdom; but all that can legitimately be inferred from it is that primitive peoples have existed at all times, together with technologically sophisticated races, and that the human type has not changed for millions of years past except as to minor fluctuations of physiologic parts around the persisting general physiologic structure. These cavemen were not mere stages in an upward evolution, but decadent offshoots of great races who, once having become racial relics, took to cave life, and commenced a career of slow extinction, yet in some cases preserving something of their former fine physique and artistic ability.

chakra ::: Chakra A centre of energy located in the subtle body where the subtle nerve channels converge like the spokes of a wheel; six major chakras lie within the central channel. When awakened, Kundalini shakti flows upward from the base of the spine through these six centres to the seventh chakra, the sahasrara (the thousand-petalled spiritual energy centre at the crown of the head).

Chun tu: The superior man, the perfect man, the moral man, the noble man. "There may have been a superior man who is not a true man (jen), but there has never been an inferior man (hsiao jen) who is a true man." The superior man "makes upward progress," "understands profit," and "despises the ordinances of Heaven, great men, and the words of the sages." (Confucius.)   "The superior man's moral order is on the increase, while the inferior man's moral order is on the decrease." "The superior man abides by what is internal, whereas the inferior man abides by what is external." (Ancient Confucianism )   "The superior man makes advance in the moral law, whereas the inferior man makes advance in profit." "The superior man enjoys in the fulfillment of the moral law, whereas the inferior man enjoys in the fulfillment of his desires." (Medieval Confucianism.) The superior man "sees what is great and far" and is interested in "helping things to perfection," whereas the inferior man "sees what is small and near" and is interested in destroying things." (Neo-Confucianism.) A ruler. Husband (as in the Odes).

climax ::: v. i. --> Upward movement; steady increase; gradation; ascent.
A figure in which the parts of a sentence or paragraph are so arranged that each succeeding one rises above its predecessor in impressiveness.
The highest point; the greatest degree.


climb ::: v. i. --> To ascend or mount laboriously, esp. by use of the hands and feet.
To ascend as if with effort; to rise to a higher point.
To ascend or creep upward by twining about a support, or by attaching itself by tendrils, rootlets, etc., to a support or upright surface. ::: v. t.


closure 1. "programming" In a {reduction system}, a closure is a data structure that holds an expression and an environment of variable bindings in which that expression is to be evaluated. The variables may be local or global. Closures are used to represent unevaluated expressions when implementing {functional programming languages} with {lazy evaluation}. In a real implementation, both expression and environment are represented by pointers. A {suspension} is a closure which includes a flag to say whether or not it has been evaluated. The term "{thunk}" has come to be synonymous with "closure" but originated outside {functional programming}. 2. "theory" In {domain theory}, given a {partially ordered set}, D and a subset, X of D, the upward closure of X in D is the union over all x in X of the sets of all d in D such that x "= d. Thus the upward closure of X in D contains the elements of X and any greater element of D. A set is "upward closed" if it is the same as its upward closure, i.e. any d greater than an element is also an element. The downward closure (or "left closure") is similar but with d "= x. A downward closed set is one for which any d less than an element is also an element. (""=" is written in {LaTeX} as {\subseteq} and the upward closure of X in D is written \uparrow_\{D} X). (1994-12-16)

closure ::: 1. (programming) In a reduction system, a closure is a data structure that holds an expression and an environment of variable bindings in which that programming languages with lazy evaluation. In a real implementation, both expression and environment are represented by pointers.A suspension is a closure which includes a flag to say whether or not it has been evaluated. The term thunk has come to be synonymous with closure but originated outside functional programming.2. (theory) In domain theory, given a partially ordered set, D and a subset, X of D, the upward closure of X in D is the union over all x in X of the downward closed set is one for which any d less than an element is also an element.(= is written in LaTeX as \subseteq and the upward closure of X in D is written \uparrow_{D} X). (1994-12-16)

Consciousness is usually identified with mind, but mental consciousness is only the human range. There are ranges of consciousness above and below the human range, with which the normal human has no contact and they seem to it uncons- cious, — supraroental or overmental and submental ranges.
By consciousness is meant something which is essentially the same throughout but variable in status, condition and operation, in which in some grades or conditions the activities we call consciousness exist cither in a suppressed or an unorganised or a differently organised state.
It is not composed of parts, it is fundamental to being and itself formulates any parts it chooses to manifest, developing them from above downward by a progressive coming down from spiri- tual levels towards involution in matter or formulating them In an upward working in the from what wc call evolution.


cookie monster ::: (recreation) (From the children's TV program Sesame Street) Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks reported on TOPS-10, ITS, Multics and elsewhere required responses ranged in complexity from COOKIE through HAVE A COOKIE and upward.See also wabbit.[Jargon File] (1997-02-12)

cookie monster "recreation" (From the children's TV program "Sesame Street") Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks reported on {TOPS-10}, {ITS}, {Multics} and elsewhere that would lock up either the victim's terminal (on a {time-sharing} machine) or the {console} (on a batch {mainframe}), repeatedly demanding "I WANT A COOKIE". The required responses ranged in complexity from "COOKIE" through "HAVE A COOKIE" and upward. See also {wabbit}. [{Jargon File}] (1997-02-12)

culminate ::: v. i. --> To reach its highest point of altitude; to come to the meridian; to be vertical or directly overhead.
To reach the highest point, as of rank, size, power, numbers, etc. ::: a. --> Growing upward, as distinguished from a lateral growth;


Daiviprakriti(Sanskrit) ::: A compound signifying "divine" or "original evolver," or "original source," of the universe orof any self-contained or hierarchical portion of such universe, such as a solar system. Briefly, therefore,daiviprakriti may be called "divine matter," matter here being used in its original sense of "divinemother-evolver" or "divine original substance."Now, as original substance manifests itself in the kosmic spaces as primordial kosmic light -- light inoccult esoteric theosophical philosophy being a form of original matter or substance -- many mysticshave referred to daiviprakriti under the phrase "the Light of the Logos." Daiviprakriti is, in fact, the firstveil or sheath or ethereal body surrounding the Logos, as pradhana or prakriti surrounds Purusha orBrahman in the Sankhya philosophy, and as, on a scale incomparably more vast, mulaprakriti surroundsparabrahman. As daiviprakriti, therefore, is elemental matter, or matter in its sixth and seventh stagescounting from physical matter upwards or, what comes to the same thing, matter in its first and secondstages of its evolution from above, we may accurately enough speak of those filmy ethereal wisps of lightseen in the midnight skies as a physical manifestation of daiviprakriti, because when they are not actuallyresolvable nebulae, they are worlds, or rather systems of worlds, in the making.When daiviprakriti has reached a certain state or condition of evolutionary manifestation, we mayproperly speak of it under the term fohat. Fohat, in H. P. Blavatsky's words, is"The essence of cosmic electricity. An occult Tibetan term for Daivi-prakriti, primordiallight: and in the universe of manifestation the ever-present electrical energy and ceaselessdestructive and formative power. Esoterically, it is the same, Fohat being the universalpropelling Vital Force, at once the propeller and the resultant." -- Theosophical Glossary, p.121All this is extremely well put, but it must be remembered that although fohat is the energizing powerworking in and upon manifested daiviprakriti, or primordial substance, as the rider rides the steed, it isthe kosmic intelligence, or kosmic monad as Pythagoras would say, working through both daiviprakritiand its differentiated energy called fohat, which is the guiding and controlling principle, not only in thekosmos but in every one of the subordinate elements and beings of the hosts of multitudes of theminfilling the kosmos. The heart or essence of the sun is daiviprakriti working as itself, and also in itsmanifestation called fohat, but through the daiviprakriti and the fohatic aspect of it runs the all-permeantand directive intelligence of the solar divinity. The student should never make the mistake, however, ofdivorcing this guiding solar intelligence from its veils or vehicles, one of the highest of which isdaiviprakriti-fohat.

Dambulla A huge rock in Ceylon, with several large, ancient cave-temples (viharas) cut in it. The Maharaja Vihara (172 by 75 ft) contains upwards of 50 figures of Buddha, most larger than life, formed from the solid rock. At the Mahadewiyo Vihara is a figure of the dead Gautama Buddha 47 feet long, reclining on a couch and pillow cut out of solid rock.

deep ::: superl. --> Extending far below the surface; of great perpendicular dimension (measured from the surface downward, and distinguished from high, which is measured upward); far to the bottom; having a certain depth; as, a deep sea.
Extending far back from the front or outer part; of great horizontal dimension (measured backward from the front or nearer part, mouth, etc.); as, a deep cave or recess or wound; a gallery ten seats deep; a company of soldiers six files deep.


degree ::: n. --> A step, stair, or staircase.
One of a series of progressive steps upward or downward, in quality, rank, acquirement, and the like; a stage in progression; grade; gradation; as, degrees of vice and virtue; to advance by slow degrees; degree of comparison.
The point or step of progression to which a person has arrived; rank or station in life; position.
Measure of advancement; quality; extent; as, tastes differ


Desire A word whose shades of meaning range from mere animal desire to that of cosmic kama or eros which “first arose in It,” bringing spirit into union with matter and giving rise to the creation or emanation of various classes of beings. It can also be lofty spiritual aspiration, the yearning upwards with the undying desire for the divine, or impersonal love, or again, the urge to become united or one with others. Many words overlap it in meaning, such as will, attraction, love, and cupidity, and it is generally used as a translation of the Sanskrit kama.

Deva-laya (Sanskrit) Devalaya [from deva spiritual being + laya dissolving place from the verbal root lī to dissolve] The shrine of a spiritual being; all Brahmanical temples were called deva-layas. Laya has in this case the significance of a place where all the lower dissolves upwards into the higher.

Differentiation The process of passing from the simple to the complex or, in its use in philosophy, from homogeneity to heterogeneity, from unity to multiplicity. This does not mean that the unity is less than the multiplicity or diminished by it, for the unity contains all that comes from it. The word is used in much the same sense as manifestation; the process of evolution on the downward arc is one of continuous differentiations, and the inverse process takes place on the upward arc. The Pythagoreans condemned the duad because it represented the beginning of differentiation or departure from cosmic simplicity and wholeness. In theosophical philosophy differentiation begins after zero, from which the One is the first differentiation. Spirit is the first differentiation from space, and primordial matter is the first differentiation from spirit.

Dyaus (Sanskrit) Dyaus [nominative of div, dyu heaven, sky from div day, brightness from the verbal root div to shine] Heaven, sky; in the Vedas the sky was regarded as descending in three divisions, named from below upwards avama, madhyama, and uttama or tritiya. The sky was designated the father (dyaush-pita); the earth, the mother (dyava-prithivi); and ushas (dawn) the daughter. The term stands for “the unrevealed Deity, or that which reveals Itself only as light and the bright day — metaphorically” (TG 97).

Ego(Latin) ::: A word meaning "I." In theosophical writings the ego is that which says "I am I" -- indirect orreflected consciousness, consciousness reflected back upon itself as it were, and thus recognizing its ownmayavi existence as a "separate" entity. On this fact is based the one genuine "heresy" that occultismrecognizes: the heresy of separateness.The seat of the human ego is the intermediate duad -- manas-kama: part aspiring upwards, which is thereincarnating ego; and part attracted below, which is the ordinary or astral human ego. The consciousnessis immortal in the reincarnating ego, and temporary or mortal in the lower or astral human ego.Consider the hierarchy of the human being's constitution to grow from the immanent Self: this last is theseed of egoity on the seven (or perhaps better, six) planes of matter or manifestation. On each one ofthese seven planes (or six), the immanent Self or paramatman develops or evolves a sheath or garment,the upper ones spun of spirit, and the lower ones spun of "shadow" or matter. Now each such sheath orgarment is a "soul"; and between the self and such a soul -- any soul -- is the ego.Thus atman is the divine monad, giving birth to the divine ego, which latter evolves forth the monadicenvelope or divine soul; jivatman, the spiritual monad, has its child which is the spiritual ego, which inturn evolves forth the spiritual soul or individual; and the combination of these three considered as a unitis buddhi; bhutatman, the human ego -- the higher human soul, including the lower buddhi and highermanas; pranatman, the personal ego -- the lower human soul, or man. It includes manas, kama, andprana; and finally the beast ego -- the vital-astral soul: kama and prana.

elater ::: n. --> One who, or that which, elates.
An elastic spiral filament for dispersing the spores, as in some liverworts.
Any beetle of the family Elateridae, having the habit, when laid on the back, of giving a sudden upward spring, by a quick movement of the articulation between the abdomen and thorax; -- called also click beetle, spring beetle, and snapping beetle.
The caudal spring used by Podura and related insects for


elephant ::: n. --> A mammal of the order Proboscidia, of which two living species, Elephas Indicus and E. Africanus, and several fossil species, are known. They have a proboscis or trunk, and two large ivory tusks proceeding from the extremity of the upper jaw, and curving upwards. The molar teeth are large and have transverse folds. Elephants are the largest land animals now existing.
Ivory; the tusk of the elephant.


Epaphos (Greek) Son of Zeus and Io, in this case the sun and moon; in the Dionysos-Sabazian Mysteries, the son of Zeus and Demeter, who is also a moon goddess. The birth of Epaphos, like that of Prometheus, symbolizes the entry of humanity on the upward arc of evolution after its descent into materiality. For Epaphos in one sense is the Logos, Zeus in the form of a serpent, and stands for the power that will carry humanity up again towards the spirituality from which it descended or fell — plus the experience garnered as intellectual beings.

erect ::: a. --> Upright, or having a vertical position; not inverted; not leaning or bent; not prone; as, to stand erect.
Directed upward; raised; uplifted.
Bold; confident; free from depression; undismayed.
Watchful; alert.
Standing upright, with reference to the earth&


erect ::: v. 1. To set up; build; establish. 2. To raise and to set in an upright or vertical position. 3. To bring about; cause to come into existence. erects, erected. *adj. *4. Upright in posture or position 5. Raised or directed upward.

escutcheon ::: n. --> The surface, usually a shield, upon which bearings are marshaled and displayed. The surface of the escutcheon is called the field, the upper part is called the chief, and the lower part the base (see Chiff, and Field.). That side of the escutcheon which is on the right hand of the knight who bears the shield on his arm is called dexter, and the other side sinister.
A marking upon the back of a cow&


Every round brings about a new evolutionary development on every one of the globes of the earth-chain, and a fundamental change in the physical, psychic, mental, intellectual, and spiritual constitution of man. The manas principle (the fifth or intellectual principle) will be fully developed at the end of the fifth round, and corresponding aspects of the human constitution will be evolved in minor degree during the sixth and seventh root-races of the fourth round. Although the vast majority of human beings in that future round will be far more evolved than is the present-day or fourth round mankind, nevertheless during the fifth round on this globe will occur what theosophical literature calls the moment of choice. At that time the monads which will continue to rise on the ascending arc must have reached a certain point in their unfolding evolution enabling them successfully to pursue their upward evolutionary journey towards spirit. Those monads who shall not have reached this evolutionary status, and who therefore are not able to continue the upward arc, must perforce wait for the future manvantara, a loss in evolutionary opportunity and in time of many hundreds of millions of years.

EVOLUTION The unity of action exhibited in the operations of nature; the act or process of evolving; the succession of changes by which a germ passes from a simple to a complex condition. "With each succeeding Kingdom, evolution has changed its direction upward from the physical to the psychical."—Funk.

excelsior ::: v. t. --> More lofty; still higher; ever upward. ::: n. --> A kind of stuffing for upholstered furniture, mattresses, etc., in which curled shreds of wood are substituted for curled hair.

“For the gods are the guardians and increasers of the Truth, the powers of the Immortal, the sons of the infinite Mother; the way to immortality is the upward way of the gods, the way of the Truth, a journey, an ascent by which there is a growth into the law of the Truth, rtasya panthâh.” The Renaissance in India

For they arc pot men devc/oping upwards /roni (he animal (o the divine and struggling against their lower natures, but beings already fulfilled and satisfied with themselves.

Fravashi (Avestan) Fravahr (Pahlavi), Fravati (old Persian) [from fra before + var to grow upright, incline upward, be true] Sometimes Farvarshi. Primeval truth; the alter ego or spiritual counterpart of every entity. “The Fravashi is the inner power in every being that maintains it and makes it grow and subsist. Originally the Fravashis were the same as the Pitris of the Hindus or the Manes of the Latins, that is to say, the everlasting and deified souls of the dead; but in course of time they gained a wider domain, and not only men, but gods and even physical objects, like the sky and the earth, etc., had each a Fravashi” (Darmesteter, Farvardin Yasht 179).

From this truly sublime cosmic idea there flowed forth coordinate ideas having application to the individual human being. For the individual human triad of atma-buddhi-manas is a reflection or ray from the cosmic triad; so that what the cosmic Father is to the universe, atman is in the human triad; the cosmic Mother corresponds to buddhi; and the cosmic Son to manas. And as the humanity of an individual resides in the manas and can become spiritual and immortal, or a christos, by alliance upwards with the other two individuals of the triad, the dogma gradually became materialized to signify that a human child was born of an immaculate mother, who in her turn was immaculately conceived without sin.

funnelform ::: a. --> Having the form of a funnel, or tunnel; that is, expanding gradually from the bottom upward, as the corolla of some flowers; infundibuliform.

geanticlinal ::: n. --> An upward bend or flexure of a considerable portion of the earth&

hamsa (Hansa) ::: [goose, swan], "he who flies or evolves upward".

heave ::: n. 1. The act of lifting something with great effort. heavings. v. 2. To rise up or swell, as if pushed up; bulge. 3. An upward movement (especially a rhythmical rising and falling). heaves, heaved.

heave ::: v. t. --> To cause to move upward or onward by a lifting effort; to lift; to raise; to hoist; -- often with up; as, the wave heaved the boat on land.
To throw; to cast; -- obsolete, provincial, or colloquial, except in certain nautical phrases; as, to heave the lead; to heave the log.
To force from, or into, any position; to cause to move; also, to throw off; -- mostly used in certain nautical phrases; as, to


height ::: n. --> The condition of being high; elevated position.
The distance to which anything rises above its foot, above that on which in stands, above the earth, or above the level of the sea; altitude; the measure upward from a surface, as the floor or the ground, of animal, especially of a man; stature.
Degree of latitude either north or south.
That which is elevated; an eminence; a hill or mountain; as, Alpine heights.


Hence the ushnisha represents that radiant crown of buddhic fire that surrounds the head of initiates when they are in deep samadhi or meditation. The initiate’s head becomes surrounded with rays from the vital inner fire of the third eye, the spiritual organ of the brain, which likewise is the source from which radiates the spiritual, intellectual, and psychovital nimbus or aura surrounding the head — known to the iconographies of every religion. These rays thus form a glory around the head and sometimes even around the entire body. “They stream upwards from the back of the head, often symbolically represented in the buddha-iconography as one single, lambent flame soaring upwards from and over the top of the skull. In this case you may perhaps find that the ushnisha is missing, its place being taken by this flame issuing from the top of the head, a symbolic representation of the fire of the spirit and of the aroused and active buddhic faculty in which the man is at the time” (Fund 493).

Hierarchy ::: The word hierarchy merely means that a scheme or system or state of delegated directive power andauthority exists in a self-contained body, directed, guided, and taught by one having supreme authority,called the hierarch. The name is used by theosophists, by extension of meaning, as signifying theinnumerable degrees, grades, and steps of evolving entities in the kosmos, and as applying to all parts ofthe universe; and rightly so, because every different part of the universe -- and their number is simplycountless -- is under the vital governance of a divine being, of a god, of a spiritual essence; and allmaterial manifestations are simply the appearances on our plane of the workings and actions of thesespiritual beings behind it.The series of hierarchies extends infinitely in both directions. If he so choose for purposes of thought,man may consider himself at the middle point, from which extends above him an unending series of stepsupon steps of higher beings of all grades -- growing constantly less material and more spiritual, andgreater in all senses -- towards an ineffable point. And there the imagination stops, not because the seriesitself stops, but because our thought can reach no farther out nor in. And similar to this series, aninfinitely great series of beings and states of beings descends downwards (to use human terms) -downwards and downwards, until there again the imagination stops, merely because our thought can gono farther.The summit, the acme, the flower, the highest point (or the hyparxis) of any series of animate and"inanimate" beings, whether we enumerate the stages or degrees of the series as seven or ten or twelve(according to whichever system we follow), is the divine unity for that series or hierarchy, and thishyparxis or highest being is again in its turn the lowest being of the hierarchy above it, and so extendingonwards forever -- each hierarchy manifesting one facet of the divine kosmic life, each hierarchyshowing forth one thought, as it were, of the divine thinkers.Various names were given to these hierarchies considered as series of beings. The generalized Greekhierarchy as shown by writers in periods preceding the rise of Christianity may be collected andenumerated as follows: (1) Divine; (2) Gods, or the divine-spiritual; (3) Demigods, sometimes calleddivine heroes, involving a very mystical doctrine; (4) Heroes proper; (5) Men; (6) Beasts or animals; (7)Vegetable world; (8) Mineral world; (9) Elemental world, or what was called the realm of Hades. TheDivinity (or aggregate divine lives) itself is the hyparxis of this series of hierarchies, because each ofthese nine stages is itself a subordinate hierarchy. This (or any other) hierarchy of nine, hangs like apendant jewel from the lowest hierarchy above it, which makes the tenth counting upwards, which tenthwe can call the superdivine, the hyperheavenly, this tenth being the lowest stage (or the ninth, countingdownwards) of still another hierarchy extending upwards; and so on, indefinitely.One of the noblest of the theosophical teachings, and one of the most far-reaching in its import, is that ofthe hierarchical constitution of universal nature. This hierarchical structure of nature is so fundamental,so basic, that it may be truly called the structural framework of being. (See also Planes)

Higher Planes ::: From the point of view of the ascent of consciousness from our mind upwards through a rising series of dynamic powers by which it can sublimate itself, the gradation can be resolved into a stairway of four main ascents, each with its high level of fulfilment. These gradations may be summarily described as a series of sublimations of the consciousness through Higher Mind, IlluminedMind and Intuition into Overmind and beyond it; there is a succession of self-transmutations at the summit of which lies the Supermind or Divine Gnosis.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 972


high-reaching ::: a. --> Reaching high or upward; hence, ambitious; aspiring.

high-sighted ::: a. --> Looking upward; supercilious.

hogback ::: n. --> An upward curve or very obtuse angle in the upper surface of any member, as of a timber laid horizontally; -- the opposite of camber.
See Hogframe.
A ridge formed by tilted strata; hence, any ridge with a sharp summit, and steeply sloping sides.


hogged ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Hog ::: a. --> Broken or strained so as to have an upward curve between the ends. See Hog, v. i.

Human Ego ::: The human ego is seated in that part of the human constitution which theosophists call the intermediateduad, manas-kama. The part which is attracted below and is mortal is the lower human ego. The partwhich aspires upwards towards the buddhi and ultimately joins it is the higher human ego orreincarnating ego. The dregs of the human ego after the death of the human being and after the seconddeath in the kama-loka, remain in the astral spheres as the disintegrating kama-rupa or spook.

"I may say that the opening upwards, the ascent into the Light and the subsequent descent into the ordinary consciousness and normal human life is very common as the first decisive experience in the practice of yoga and may very well happen even without the practice of yoga in those who are destined for the spiritual change, especially if there is a dissatisfaction somewhere with the ordinary life and a seeking for something more, greater or better.” Letters on Yoga*

“I may say that the opening upwards, the ascent into the Light and the subsequent descent into the ordinary consciousness and normal human life is very common as the first decisive experience in the practice of yoga and may very well happen even without the practice of yoga in those who are destined for the spiritual change, especially if there is a dissatisfaction somewhere with the ordinary life and a seeking for something more, greater or better.” Letters on Yoga

implosion ::: n. --> A burstion inwards, as of a vessel from which the air has been exhausted; -- contrasted with explosion.
A sudden compression of the air in the mouth, simultaneously with and affecting the sound made by the closure of the organs in uttering p, t, or k, at the end of a syllable (see Guide to Pronunciation, //159, 189); also, a similar compression made by an upward thrust of the larynx without any accompanying explosive action, as in the peculiar sound of b, d, and g, heard in Southern Germany.


In addition, the circle of necessity refers to the wheel of time in its many intricate cyclings or whirlings, and to the peregrination or rounding through both the visible and invisible spheres of the hosts of monads during a cosmic manvantara, these taking place not only upwards and downwards, so to speak, but likewise having a distinct reference to the growth through unfolding by the monads of what is latent within them.

in a vertical direction; vertically upwards.

Indra ::: "the Puissant", a Vedic god, lord of svar, the luminous world; the deva as "the master of mental force". As Agni2 "is one pole of Force instinct with knowledge that sends its current upward from earth to heaven, so Indra is the other pole of Light instinct with force which descends from heaven to earth"; he "comes down into our world as the Hero" and "slays darkness and division with his lightnings, pours down the life-giving heavenly waters [svarvatir apah.], finds in the trace of the hound, Intuition [Sarama], the lost or hidden illuminations, makes the Sun of Truth [sūrya1] mount high in the heaven of our mentality".

In our yoga there is no willed opening of the cakras, they open of themselves by the descent of (he Force. In the Tantric discipline they open from down upwards, the mulSdhara first ; in our yoga, they open from up downward. But the ascent of the force from the mi'dadhara does take place.

In relation to men, the lotus is the symbol of the self-producing soul which, during manifestation immersed in material life as the lotus seed is embedded in the mud of lake or pond, is wakened by the warm rays of the spiritual sun, and grows upward through the world of illusion (symbolized by water) to blossom in the free air and sunlight of truth. Cosmically the lotus symbolizes the emanation of the objective from the subjective, the manifested effect or production of the eternal plan on which the invisible worlds are built by the formative logoi. This lies buried, until the time for its svabhava or production comes, in the bosom of eternal ideation — as the lotus plant of visible nature exists in miniature in the seed.

In relation to the universe the Supreme is Brahman, the one Reality which is not only the spiritual material and conscious substance of all the ideas and forces and forms of the universe, but their origin, support and possessor, the cosmic and supracosmic Spirit. All the last terms to which we can reduce the universe, Force and Matter, Name and Form, Purusha and Prakriti, are still not entirely that which the universe really is, either in itself or its nature. As all that we are is the play and form, the mental, psychic, vital and physical expression of a supreme Self unconditioned by mind and life and body, the universe too is the play and form and cosmic soul-expression and nature-expression of a supreme Existence which is unconditioned by force and matter, unconditioned by idea and name and form, unconditioned by the fundamental distinction of Purusha and Prakriti. Our supreme Self and the supreme Existence which has become the universe are one Spirit, one self and one existence. The individual is in nature one expression of the universal Being, in spirit an emanation of the Transcendence. For if he finds his self, he finds too that his own true self is not this natural personality, this created individuality, but is a universal being in its relations with others and with Nature and in its upward term a portion or the living front of a supreme transcendental Spirit.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 296


INTEGRAL YOGA ::: This yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth-Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ānanda. But for that, the surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to the Higher Consciousnessis indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a Supramental Consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this yoga.

Aim of the Integral Yoga ::: It is not merely to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.

Conditions of the Integral Yoga ::: This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasyā needed too constant and intense.

Method in the Integral Yoga ::: To concentrate, preferably in the heart and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness. One can concentrate also in the head or between the eye-brows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is the beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.

Integral method ::: The method we have to pursue is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and to call Him in to transform Our entire being into His, so that in a sense God Himself, the real Person in us, becomes the sādhaka of the sādhana* as well as the Master of the Yoga by whom the lower personality is used as the centre of a divine transfiguration and the instrument of its own perfection. In effect, the pressure of the Tapas, the force of consciousness in us dwelling in the Idea of the divine Nature upon that which we are in our entirety, produces its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity.

In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego with its whole field and all its apparatus to the Beyond-ego with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Certainly, this is no short cut or easy sādhana. It requires a colossal faith, an absolute courage and above all an unflinching patience. For it implies three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, - the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself for the weakness and supports us through all our failings of faith, courage and patience. It” makes the blind to see and the lame to stride over the hills.” The intellect becomes aware of a Law that beneficently insists and a Succour that upholds; the heart speaks of a Master of all things and Friend of man or a universal Mother who upholds through all stumblings. Therefore this path is at once the most difficult imaginable and yet in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all.

There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful working determined by the temperament of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore, each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet are there certain broad lines of working common to all which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system, but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the synthetic Yoga.

Secondly, the process, being integral, accepts our nature such as it stands organised by our past evolution and without rejecting anything essential compels all to undergo a divine change. Everything in us is seized by the hands of a mighty Artificer and transformed into a clear image of that which it now seeks confusedly to present. In that ever-progressive experience we begin to perceive how this lower manifestation is constituted and that everything in it, however seemingly deformed or petty or vile, is the more or less distorted or imperfect figure of some elements or action in the harmony of the divine Nature. We begin to understand what the Vedic Rishis meant when they spoke of the human forefathers fashioning the gods as a smith forges the crude material in his smithy.

Thirdly, the divine Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga. Every experience and outer contact with our world-environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection. And we recognise in ourselves with opened eyes the method of God in the world, His purpose of light in the obscure, of might in the weak and fallen, of delight in what is grievous and miserable. We see the divine method to be the same in the lower and in the higher working; only in the one it is pursued tardily and obscurely through the subconscious in Nature, in the other it becomes swift and selfconscious and the instrument confesses the hand of the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.

Key-methods ::: The way to devotion and surrender. It is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of the ego that makes it possible to surrender.

The way to knowledge. Meditation in the head by which there comes the opening above, the quietude or silence of the mind and the descent of peace etc. of the higher consciousness generally till it envelops the being and fills the body and begins to take up all the movements.
Yoga by works ::: Separation of the Purusha from the Prakriti, the inner silent being from the outer active one, so that one has two consciousnesses or a double consciousness, one behind watching and observing and finally controlling and changing the other which is active in front. The other way of beginning the yoga of works is by doing them for the Divine, for the Mother, and not for oneself, consecrating and dedicating them till one concretely feels the Divine Force taking up the activities and doing them for one.

Object of the Integral Yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine.

Principle of the Integral Yoga ::: The whole principle of Integral Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, truth-consciousness and Ānanda of the Supramental Divine.

Central purpose of the Integral Yoga ::: Transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life.

Fundamental realisations of the Integral Yoga ::: The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness.

Results ::: First, an integral realisation of Divine Being; not only a realisation of the One in its indistinguishable unity, but also in its multitude of aspects which are also necessary to the complete knowledge of it by the relative consciousness; not only realisation of unity in the Self, but of unity in the infinite diversity of activities, worlds and creatures.

Therefore, also, an integral liberation. Not only the freedom born of unbroken contact of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine, sāyujya mukti, by which it becomes free even in its separation, even in the duality; not only the sālokya mukti by which the whole conscious existence dwells in the same status of being as the Divine, in the state of Sachchidananda ; but also the acquisition of the divine nature by the transformation of this lower being into the human image of the divine, sādharmya mukti, and the complete and final release of all, the liberation of the consciousness from the transitory mould of the ego and its unification with the One Being, universal both in the world and the individual and transcendentally one both in the world and beyond all universe.

By this integral realisation and liberation, the perfect harmony of the results of Knowledge, Love and Works. For there is attained the complete release from ego and identification in being with the One in all and beyond all. But since the attaining consciousness is not limited by its attainment, we win also the unity in Beatitude and the harmonised diversity in Love, so that all relations of the play remain possible to us even while we retain on the heights of our being the eternal oneness with the Beloved. And by a similar wideness, being capable of a freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, we are able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in our mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world.

The divine existence is of the nature not only of freedom, but of purity, beatitude and perfection. In integral purity which shall enable on the one hand the perfect reflection of the divine Being in ourselves and on the other the perfect outpouring of its Truth and Law in us in the terms of life and through the right functioning of the complex instrument we are in our outer parts, is the condition of an integral liberty. Its result is an integral beatitude, in which there becomes possible at once the Ānanda of all that is in the world seen as symbols of the Divine and the Ānanda of that which is not-world. And it prepares the integral perfection of our humanity as a type of the Divine in the conditions of the human manifestation, a perfection founded on a certain free universality of being, of love and joy, of play of knowledge and of play of will in power and will in unegoistic action. This integrality also can be attained by the integral Yoga.

Sādhanā of the Integral Yoga does not proceed through any set mental teaching or prescribed forms of meditation, mantras or others, but by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards or upwards, by a self-opening to an Influence, to the Divine Power above us and its workings, to the Divine Presence in the heart and by the rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.

The yoga does not proceed by upadeśa but by inner influence.

Integral Yoga and Gita ::: The Gita’s Yoga consists in the offering of one’s work as a sacrifice to the Divine, the conquest of desire, egoless and desireless action, bhakti for the Divine, an entering into the cosmic consciousness, the sense of unity with all creatures, oneness with the Divine. This yoga adds the bringing down of the supramental Light and Force (its ultimate aim) and the transformation of the nature.

Our yoga is not identical with the yoga of the Gita although it contains all that is essential in the Gita’s yoga. In our yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress ; or else we make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self-made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.

Integral Yoga, Gita and Tantra ::: The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishvara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it.

The Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishvari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it.

This yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.

Integral Yoga and Hatha-Raja Yogas ::: For an integral yoga the special methods of Rajayoga and Hathayoga may be useful at times in certain stages of the progress, but are not indispensable. Their principal aims must be included in the integrality of the yoga; but they can be brought about by other means. For the methods of the integral yoga must be mainly spiritual, and dependence on physical methods or fixed psychic or psychophysical processes on a large scale would be the substitution of a lower for a higher action. Integral Yoga and Kundalini Yoga: There is a feeling of waves surging up, mounting to the head, which brings an outer unconsciousness and an inner waking. It is the ascending of the lower consciousness in the ādhāra to meet the greater consciousness above. It is a movement analogous to that on which so much stress is laid in the Tantric process, the awakening of the Kundalini, the Energy coiled up and latent in the body and its mounting through the spinal cord and the centres (cakras) and the Brahmarandhra to meet the Divine above. In our yoga it is not a specialised process, but a spontaneous upnish of the whole lower consciousness sometimes in currents or waves, sometimes in a less concrete motion, and on the other side a descent of the Divine Consciousness and its Force into the body.

Integral Yoga and other Yogas ::: The old yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence), absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-exist- ence, absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the Supramcntal plane.

The suprcfhe supra-cosmic Sachchidananda is above all. Supermind may be described as its power of self-awareness and W’orld- awareness, the world being known as within itself and not out- side. So to live consciously in the supreme Sachchidananda one must pass through the Supermind.

Distinction ::: The realisation of Self and of the Cosmic being (without which the realisation of the Self is incomplete) are essential steps in our yoga ; it is the end of other yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of outs, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence.

It is new as compared with the old yogas (1) Because it aims not at a departure out of world and life into Heaven and Nir- vana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object.

If there is a descent in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or resulting from the ascent — the ascent is the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new coosdousness attain- ed by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life ; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life.

(2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic acbievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing of a Power of consciousness (the Supramental) not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made directly active.

(3) Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods, but only as a part action and present aid to others that are distinctive.

Integral Yoga and Patanjali Yoga ::: Cilia is the stuff of mixed mental-vital-physical consciousness out of which arise the movements of thought, emotion, sensation, impulse etc.

It is these that in the Patanjali system have to be stilled altogether so that the consciousness may be immobile and go into Samadhi.

Our yoga has a different function. The movements of the ordinary consciousness have to be quieted and into the quietude there has to be brought down a higher consciousness and its powers which will transform the nature.


In the interest, the attraction or the endeavour. There has been an experiment, perhaps even an eager experiment, but not a total self-giving to an imperative need of the soul or to an unforsakablc ideal. Even such imperfect yoga has not been wasted ; for no upward effort is made in vain. Even if it fails

In theosophical teachings the defunct entity must pass through the various spheres of kama-loka, in the norm rising steadily upwards, in order to be purified from its gross and earth-bound attributes and elements, before entering into the state of devachan. These post-mortem purgatorial or cleansing processes are not of the nature of punishment, but are natural processes of purification escapable by none.

  “In the popular belief, semi-divine beings, shades of saints, inconsumable by fire, impervious to water, who dwell in Tapo-loka with the hope of being translated into Satya-loka — a more purified state which answers to Nirvana. The term is explained as the aerial bodies or astral shades of ‘ascetics, mendicants, anchorites, and penitents, who have completed their course of rigorous austerities.’ [Vishnu-Purana, Wilson, 2:229] Now in esoteric philosophy they are called Nirmanakayas, Tapo-loka being on the sixth plane (upward) but in direct communication with the mental plane. The Vairajas are referred to as the first gods because the Manasaputras and the Kumaras are the oldest in theogony, as it is said that even the gods worshipped them (Matsya Purana); those whom Brahma ‘with the eye of Yoga beheld in the eternal spheres, and who are the gods of gods’ (Vayu Purana)” (TG 358).

In the theosophical scheme, it is the sixth principle counting upwards in the human constitution: the vehicle of pure, universal spirit, hence an inseparable garment or vehicle of atman. In its essence of the highest plane of akasa or alaya, buddhi stands in the same relation to atman as, on the cosmic scale, mulaprakriti does to parabrahman.

In this joga the consciousness (after the lower field has been prepared by a certain amount of psycho-spiritual-occult experi- ence) is drawn upwards above the Brahmarandhra to ranges above belonging to the spiritual consciousness proper and instead of merely receiving from there has to live there and from there change the lower consciousness altogether. For there is a dyna- mism proper to the spiritual consciousness whose nature is Light,

Involution Infolding, as contrasted with evolution or unfolding; used as correlative with evolution, it means the passing from a state of comparative manifestation to one of comparative latency. In the downward arc of progress, spirit is said to involve, and matter to evolve, these processes being reversed during the upward arc. See also ARC, ASCENDING AND DESCENDING

isvarakoti (Ishwarakoti) ::: divine man; a human being whose centre has already been shifted upwards or from the beginning elevated in the superior planes of conscious existence, was established in God rather than in Nature; such men are already leaning down from God to Nature; they may therefore in losing themselves in Him yet keep themselves and live in Man-God. [cf. jivakoti]

  “It is properly placed as the sign opposite to Rishabham [Taurus] or Pranava. Analysis from Pranava downwards leads to the Universe of Thought, and synthesis from the latter upwards leads to Pranava (Aum)” (12 Signs of the Zodiac).

(IU 2:270; cf also diagrams in IU 2:264-5, 452-3) The six-pointed star is found in symbolical representations of the earliest cosmogonies. When the six-pointed star is formed of two interlaced equilateral triangles — one light with the apex pointing upward, the other dark with the apex pointing downward, both triangles being symmetrically placed with regard to one central point — and the double figure is surrounded by a circle, the sign represents the universe, spirit and matter, the alpha and omega in the cosmos, and involution and evolution. In the Qabbalistic presentation of the figure, instead of a circle surrounding the star a serpent is portrayed as swallowing its tail, as in the seal of the Theosophical Society:

Jacob’s pillar is equivalent to the linga; the twelve sons of Jacob are parallel to the Hindu rishis and can correspond to the twelve signs of the zodiac. The dream of Jacob, in which he sees angels ascending and descending a ladder from heaven to earth may be interpreted as the transferring of matter from plane to plane, or as the constant circulation of peregrinating monads or beings upwards and downwards, thus fulfilling destiny and feeding the structure of the universe.

Just as the water lily or lotus rises out of the mud through the more ethereal water into the still more ethereal air, permeated by the sun, so does the individual follow the same progression of developing spirituality from the world of matter upwards through the astral light into the world of spirit illuminated by the divine sun as master of life.

jutted ::: extended outward or upward beyond the limits of the main body; projected; protruded.

Kama-manas in the human constitution is conditionally immortal or mortal: if the kama-manas aspires successfully upwards and makes intellectual and emotional union with the buddhi over-enlightening it, the immortality for the manvantara is relatively certain. If, however, the kama-manas is insufficiently illuminated to withstand successfully the attractions of the lower astral and material realms of feeling and thought, it is attracted downwards and becomes enchained in these lower realms, and immortality in this case is lost, for the time being at least.

Kama-manas (Sanskrit) Kāma-manas [from kāma desire + manas mind] The lower or intermediate duad, the human soul or personal ego. In our present state of evolution, human consciousness is almost wholly in this intermediate duad, one part of which consists of the upward-aspiring manas which in connection with its parent buddhi is called the reincarnating ego. The lower part of manas in conjunction with kama is attracted below to material things, and in human life is commonly called the personal ego. This personal ego is mortal, although the monad of which it is the expression lasts through the ages.

Kama (Sanskrit) Kāma [from the verbal root kam to desire] Desire; the fourth substance-principle of which the human constitution is composed: its desire principle or the driving, impelling force. Born from the interaction of atman, buddhi, and manas, kama per se is a colorless force, good or bad according to the way the mind and soul use it. It is the seat of the living electric impulses, desires, aspirations, considered in their energic aspect. When a person follows his lower impulses and centers his consciousness in the body and astral nature, he is directing that force downwards. When he aspires and opens his heart and mind to the influence of his higher manas and buddhi, he is directing that force upwards and thus progressing in evolution.

kirked ::: a. --> Turned upward; bent.

knee-high ::: a. --> Rising or reaching upward to the knees; as, the water is knee-high.

KUNDALINI. ::: There is a Yoga-Shakti lying coiled or asleep in the inner body, not active. When one does yoga, this force uncoils itself and rises upward to meet the Divine Consciousness and Force that are waiting above us. When this happens, when

lapwing ::: n. --> A small European bird of the Plover family (Vanellus cristatus, or V. vanellus). It has long and broad wings, and is noted for its rapid, irregular fight, upwards, downwards, and in circles. Its back is coppery or greenish bronze. Its eggs are the "plover&

Later the mythological account describes warlike combats between the two. Horus popularly represented the bright, upward motion of the sun — resulting in spring and summer; Set represented the downward motion, the mythologic account dwelling upon the fact that Set stole the light from the sun, resulting in autumn and winter. The combats engaged in by Set are rendered in four themes: against Horus, resulting in night coming upon day; against Ra, the sun god; against his brother, Osiris, resulting in the latter’s death; and against Horus the Younger who was striving to avenge the death of his father, Osiris. In the fight between Osiris and Set (or Typhon), Typhon is in one sense the shadow, and hence the material aspect of Osiris, “Osiris is the ideal Universe, Siva the great Regenerative Force, and Typhon the material portion of it, the evil side of the god, or the Destroying Siva” (TG 90).

leap ::: n. 1. An abrupt transition. leaps. v. 2. To spring or bound suddenly upward from or as if from the ground; jump. Also fig. 3. Trans. To spring over; to pass from one side to the other by leaping. Also in phr. to leap bounds (lit. and fig.). 4*.* Fig. To move or pass quickly or abruptly from one condition or subject to another. 5. To beat rapidly as the heart. leaps, leaped, leapt, leaping, arrow-leaps, foam-leap, heaven-leap, lightning-leaps.**

learning curve ::: (jargon) A graph showing some measure of the cost of performing some action against the number of times it has been performed. The term probably describe plots showing the cost of making some particular design of aeroplane against the number of units made.The term is also used in psychology to mean a graph showing some measure of something learned against the number of trials. The psychology graphs normally slope upward whereas the manufacturing ones normally slope downward but they are both usually steep to start with and then level out.Marketroids often misuse the term to mean the amount of time it takes to learn to use something (reduce the learning curve) or the ease of learning it (easy learning curve). The phrase steep learning curve is sometimes used incorrectly to mean hard to learn whereas of course it implies rapid learning. . .(2002-01-22)

learning curve "jargon" A graph showing some measure of the cost of performing some action against the number of times it has been performed. The term probably entered engineering via the aircraft industry in the 1930s, where it was used to describe plots showing the cost of making some particular design of aeroplane against the number of units made. The term is also used in psychology to mean a graph showing some measure of something learned against the number of trials. The psychology graphs normally slope upward whereas the manufacturing ones normally slope downward but they are both usually steep to start with and then level out. {Marketroids} often misuse the term to mean the amount of time it takes to learn to use something ("reduce the learning curve") or the ease of learning it ("easy learning curve"). The phrase "steep learning curve" is sometimes used incorrectly to mean "hard to learn" whereas of course it implies rapid learning. {Engineering (http://computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47-68-85-1942_STO61762,00.html)}. {Psychology (http://sun.science.wayne.edu/~wpoff/cor/mem/opereinf.html)}. (2002-01-22)

Let your faith be pure, candid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke-obs- cured flame that cannot bum upwards to heaven.

levation ::: n. --> The act of raising; elevation; upward motion, as that produced by the action of a levator muscle.

Leviathan (Hebrew) Liwĕyāthān Foldings, turnings, windings, hence whatever is infolded or wound. Mystically time as the great serpent of cyclic or circling time, likewise space and the various phenomena that happen in space such as the turnings and windings of forces as manifested by electricity in lightning or thunderbolt. Ancient Hebrew Biblical esotericism made of Leviathan a great sea monster, with particular reference to the waters of space. In its exalted sense it means the cycling and everlasting motion of divinity in duration and in abstract space; its concrete or lowest aspect signifies the apparently unregulated, winding, turbulent forces of the material worlds — also inimical forces which seem antagonistic to the spiritual and intellectual balance of him who strives upwards. One significance was that of a great serpent or crocodile — it is sometimes compared to the Hindu Makara; another is “Deity in its double manifestation of good and evil” (TG 188).

Life-Wave ::: This is a term which means the collective hosts of monads, of which hosts there are seven or ten,according to the classification adopted. The monad is a spiritual ego, a consciousness-center, being in thespiritual realms of the universal life what the life-atoms are in the lower planes of form. These monadsand life-atoms collectively are the seven (or ten) life-waves -- these monads with the life-atoms in andthrough which they work; these life-atoms having remained, when the former planetary chain went intopralaya, in space as kosmic dust on the physical plane, and as corresponding life-atoms or life-specks ofdifferentiated matter on the intermediate planes above the physical. Out of the working of the monads asthey come down into matter -- or rather through and by the monadic rays permeating the lower planes ofmatter -- are the globes builded. The seven (or ten) life-waves or hosts of monads consist of monads inseven (or ten) degrees of advancement for each host.When the hosts of beings forming the life-wave -- the life-wave being composed of the entities derivedfrom a former but now dead planet, in our case the moon -- find that the time has arrived for them toenter upon their own particular evolutionary course, they cycle downwards as a life-wave along theplanetary chain that has been prepared for them by the three hosts of elementary beings, of the threeprimordial elementary worlds, the forerunners of the life-wave, yet integral parts of it. This life-wavepasses seven times in all around the seven spheres of our planetary chain, at first cycling down theshadowy arc through all the seven elements of the kosmos, gathering experience in each one of them;each particular entity of the life-wave, no matter what its grade or kind -- spiritual, psychic, astral,mental, divine -- advancing, until at the bottom of the arc, when the middle of the fourth round isattained, they feel the end of the downward impulse. Then begins the upward impulse, the reascent alongthe luminous arc upwards, towards the source from which the life-wave originally came.

Madhav: “In the tantric symbology all the centres are represented as lotuses hanging downwards; as the kundalini [‘the yogic force asleep in the Muladhara and covered up in the other centres by the ordinary consciousness’—Sri Aurobindo] touches them they bloom upwards.” The Book of the Divine Mother

Madhav: “The brilliant courtyard is the realm of the subtle-physical Matter that Aswapathy is leaving behind in his upward climb. He sees that with all its brilliant glow, this region is limited on all sides and it is only a courtyard—not yet the entrance proper—of the Mansion of Light, where the Light of God is ever manifest. Day in the spiritual symbolism signifies the reign of Light. Aswapathy seeks to enter the Order (symbolised by House) where the Light shines uninterrupted.” The Book of the Divine Mother

Mahatma(Mahatman, Sanskrit) ::: "Great soul" or "great self" is the meaning of this compound word (maha, "great";atman, "self"). The mahatmas are perfected men, relatively speaking, known in theosophical literature asteachers, elder brothers, masters, sages, seers, and by other names. They are indeed the "elder brothers"of mankind. They are men, not spirits -- men who have evolved through self-devised efforts in individualevolution, always advancing forwards and upwards until they have now attained the lofty spiritual andintellectual human supremacy that now they hold. They were not so created by any extra-cosmic Deity,but they are men who have become what they are by means of inward spiritual striving, by spiritual andintellectual yearning, by aspiration to be greater and better, nobler and higher, just as every good man inhis own way so aspires. They are farther advanced along the path of evolution than the majority of menare. They possess knowledge of nature's secret processes, and of hid mysteries, which to the average manmay seem to be little short of the marvelous -- yet, after all, this mere fact is of relatively smallimportance in comparison with the far greater and more profoundly moving aspects of their nature andlifework.Especially are they called teachers because they are occupied in the noble duty of instructing mankind, ininspiring elevating thoughts, and in instilling impulses of forgetfulness of self into the hearts of men.Also are they sometimes called the guardians, because they are, in very truth, the guardians of the raceand of the records -- natural, racial, national -- of past ages, portions of which they give out from time totime as fragments of a now long-forgotten wisdom, when the world is ready to listen to them; and theydo this in order to advance the cause of truth and of genuine civilization founded on wisdom andbrotherhood.Never -- such is the teaching -- since the human race first attained self-consciousness has this order orassociation or society or brotherhood of exalted men been without its representatives on our earth.It was the mahatmas who founded the modern Theosophical Society through their envoy or messenger,H. P. Blavatsky, in New York in 1875.

Mastery over sex ::: To master the sex impulse, — to become so much master of the sex-centre that the sexual energy would be drawn upwards, not thrown outwards and wasted — it is so indeed that the force in the seed can be turned into a primal physical energy supporting aU the others, retas into ojas.

  “Maya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his power of cognition. . . . Nothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities. The existences belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest Dhyan-Chohans, are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless screen; but all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself. Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them before or after they have passed like a flash through the material world; but we cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached ‘reality’; but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya” (SD 1:39-40).

Maya(Sanskrit) ::: The word comes from the root ma, meaning "to measure," and by a figure of speech it alsocomes to mean "to effect," "to form," and hence "to limit." There is an English word mete, meaning "tomeasure out," from the same IndoEuropean root. It is found in the Anglo-Saxon as the root met, in theGreek as med, and it is found in the Latin also in the same form.Ages ago in the wonderful Brahmanical philosophy maya was understood very differently from what it isnow usually understood to be. As a technical term, maya has come to mean the fabrication by man's mindof ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, hence the illusory aspect of man's thoughts as heconsiders and tries to interpret and understand life and his surroundings; and thence was derived thesense which it technically bears, "illusion." It does not mean that the exterior world is nonexistent; if itwere, it obviously could not be illusory. It exists, but is not. It is "measured out" or is "limited," or itstands out to the human spirit as a mirage. In other words, we do not see clearly and plainly and in theirreality the vision and the visions which our mind and senses present to the inner life and eye.The familiar illustrations of maya in the Vedanta, which is the highest form that the Brahmanicalteachings have taken and which is so near to our own teaching in many respects, were such as follows: Aman at eventide sees a coiled rope on the ground, and springs aside, thinking it a serpent. The rope isthere, but no serpent. The second illustration is what is called the "horns of the hare." The animal calledthe hare has no horns, but when it also is seen at eventide, its long ears seem to project from its head insuch fashion that it appears even to the seeing eye as being a creature with horns. The hare has no horns,but there is then in the mind an illusory belief that an animal with horns exists there.That is what maya means: not that a thing seen does not exist, but that we are blinded and our mindperverted by our own thoughts and our own imperfections, and do not as yet arrive at the realinterpretation and meaning of the world or of the universe around us. By ascending inwardly, by risingup, by inner aspiration, by an elevation of soul, we can reach upwards or rather inwards towards thatplane where truth abides in fullness.H. P. Blavatsky says on page 631 of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine:Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism -- though it regards the objectiveUniverse and all in it as Maya, temporary illusion -- draws a practical distinction betweencollective illusion, Mahamaya, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, and the objectiverelations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts.The teaching is that maya is thus called from the action of mulaprakriti or root-nature, the coordinateprinciple of that other line of coactive consciousness which we call parabrahman. From the momentwhen manifestation begins, it acts dualistically, that is to say that everything in nature from that pointonwards is crossed by pairs of opposites, such as long and short, high and low, night and day, good andevil, consciousness and nonconsciousness, etc., and that all these things are essentially mayic or illusory-- real while they last, but the lasting is not eternal. It is through and by these pairs of opposites that theself-conscious soul learns truth. It might be said, in conclusion, that another and very convenient way ofconsidering maya is to understand it to mean "limitation," "restriction," and therefore imperfect cognitionand recognition of reality. The imperfect mind does not see perfect truth. It labors under an illusioncorresponding with its own imperfections, under a maya, a limitation. Magical practices are frequentlycalled maya in the ancient Hindu books.

Mediator An agent who stands or goes between, specifically one who acts as the conscious agent or intermediary of special spiritual power and knowledge. Most often applied to highly-evolved characters who mediate, not only between superhuman spiritual entities and ordinary men, but who also themselves consciously unite their own spiritual nature with their merely human souls. Such people attain to this lofty state by the great sanctity and wisdom of their lives, aided by frequent interior ecstatic contemplation. They radiate a pure and beneficent atmosphere which invites, and is congenial to, exalted spiritual beings of the solar system. Evil entities of the astral realms cannot endure their clean and highly magnetic aura, nor are they able to continue obsessing other unfortunate persons if the mediator be present and will their departure, or even approaches the sufferer. This powerful spiritual self-consciousness of the individual who is a mediator reaching upwards to superior spiritual realms, is in sharpest possible contrast with the passive, unconscious, weak-willed medium who, through ignorance or folly, becomes the agent for the use of any astral entity that may be attracted to the entranced body. Apollonius, Iamblichus, Plotinus, and Porphyry are examples of mediators: “but if the temple is defiled by the admission of an evil passion, thought or desire, the mediator falls into the sphere of sorcery. The door is opened; the pure spirits retire and the evil ones rush in. This is still mediatorship, evil as it is; the sorcerer, like the pure magician, forms his own aura and subjects to his will congenial inferior spirits” (IU 1:487).

Meditation The attempt to raise the self-conscious mind to the level of its spiritual counterpart, to unite manas with a ray from buddhi. It is a positive attitude of mind, a state of consciousness rather than a system or a time period of intensive thinking. It corresponds in its more perfect form to the ecstasy of Plotinus, which he defines as “the liberation of the mind from its finite consciousness, becoming one and identified with the Infinite.” It is silent prayer in one real sense, for the heart aspires upwards to become freed from all desire for personal benefit, and the mind frames no specific object, but both unite in the aspiration; not my will, but thine, be done. When engaged in at the outset of the day, or on retiring to sleep, it often takes the form of reflecting profoundly and impersonally on spiritual teachings, as well as self-examination, attuning of the mind and heart to calm and unselfish thought and feelings, as well as the endeavor to realize in consciousness one’s highest ideals of duty, purity, and truth, and inducing thereby a general harmonizing and one-pointed adjustment of the whole nature.

Moment of Choice The turning point in evolution, when the temporary balance between spirit and matter, or between upward and downward movements, has been reached. The evolving entity can then no longer remain neutral and undecided, but must choose definitely whether to continue upward or to enter upon a downward path. When the movement towards pralaya prevails, all the classes of evolving beings gravitate to their appropriate sphere: spirit to spirit, matter to matter, manas to mahat. But this dividing of the ways occurs for self-conscious entities at every step of the path, so that in this sense the moment of choice is continuous. Although this moment of choice is continuous for the individual, yet a point occurs in human evolution when the decision must definitely be made to follow the upward path or to follow the matter side of evolution. There is also the choice that must be made when the individual has reached the peak of human evolution on this globe, when the decision is finally to be made whether he will follow the path of the Buddhas of Compassion, or pursue the way of self and become a Pratyeka Buddha.

Momentum ::: is the rate of acceleration of a security's price or volume. In technical analysis, momentum is considered an oscillator and is used to help identify trend lines.  In general, momentum refers to the force or speed of movement; it is usually defined as a rate. In the world of investments, momentum refers to the rate of change on price movements for a particular asset – that is, the speed at which the price is changing.  BREAKING DOWN 'Momentum'   Once a momentum trader sees acceleration in a stock's price, earnings or revenues, the trader will often take a long or short position in the stock in the hope that its momentum will continue in either an upward or downward direction. This strategy relies on short-term movements in a stock's price rather than fundamental value.

montant ::: n. --> An upward thrust or blow.
An upright piece in any framework; a mullion or muntin; a stile.


mount ::: v. **1. To climb or ascend. 2. To place oneself upon; get up on. 3. To go upward; rise; soar. mounts, mounted, mounting. adj. mounting. 4.** Soaring, ascending, rising to a higher point.

Obscuration ::: This is a word coined by A. P. Sinnett, one of the pioneers in theosophical propaganda. A far better wordthan obscuration would have been dormancy or sleep, because this word obscuration actually ratherobscures the sense. A man is not "obscured" when he sleeps. The inner faculties may be so, in a sense;but it is better actually to state in more appropriate words just what the real condition is. It is that ofsleep, or latency -- of dormancy, rather. Thus when one of the seven kingdoms has passed through itsseven periods of progress, of evolution, it goes into dormancy or obscuration.Likewise when the seven kingdoms -- from the first elemental kingdom upwards to the human -- havefinished their evolution on globe A (for instance) during the first round, globe A then goes intoobscuration, that is, into dormancy; it goes to sleep. Everything left on it is now dormant, is sleeping,awaiting the incoming, when round two begins, of the life-waves which have just left it. Again, when thelife-waves have run their full sevenfold course, or their seven stock-races or root-races on globe B, thenglobe B in its turn goes into dormancy or obscuration, which is not pralaya; and the distinction betweenpralaya and obscuration is an extremely important one. It may be possible in popular usage at times tocall the state of dormancy by the name of pralaya in a very limited and particular sense; but pralayareally means disintegration and disappearance, like that of death. But obscuration is sleep -- dormancy.Thus is it with each one of the seven globes of the planetary chain, one after the other, each one goinginto obscuration when a life-wave has left it, so far as that particular life-wave is concerned. When thefinal or rather the last representatives of the last root-race of the last life-wave leave it, each globe thengoes to sleep or into dormancy.During a planetary obscuration or planetary rest period, at the end of a round, the entities leave the lastglobe, the seventh, and enter into a (lower) nirvanic period of manvantaric repose, answering to thedevachanic or between-life state of the human entity between one life on earth and the next life on earth.There is one very important point of the teachings to be noted here: a globe when a life-wave leaves itdoes not remain in obscuration or continuously dormant until the same life-wave returns to it in the nextround. The life-waves succeed each other in regular file, and each life-wave as it enters a globe has itsperiod of beginning, its efflorescence, and its decay, and then leaves the globe in obscuration so far asthat particular life-wave is concerned. But the globe within a relatively short time receives a succeedinglife-wave, which runs through its courses and leaves the globe again in obscuration so far as this lastlife-wave is concerned, etc. It is obvious, therefore, that a period of obscuration on any globe of theplanetary chain is much shorter than the term of a full planetary round.

Om i! rightly used (not mechanically) might very well help the opening upwards and outwards (cosmic consciousness) as well as the descent.

*"OM is the syllable (the Imperishable); one should follow after it as the upward song (movement); for with OM one sings (goes) upwards;

“OM is the syllable (the Imperishable); one should follow after it as the upward song (movement); for with OM one sings (goes) upwards;

"Our ego is only a face of the universal being and has no separate existence; our apparent separative individuality is only a surface movement and behind it our real individuality stretches out to unity with all things and upward to oneness with the transcendent Divine Infinity. Thus our ego, which seems to be a limitation of existence, is really a power of infinity; the boundless multiplicity of beings in the world is a result and signal evidence, not of limitation or finiteness, but of that illimitable Infinity.” The Life Divine

“Our ego is only a face of the universal being and has no separate existence; our apparent separative individuality is only a surface movement and behind it our real individuality stretches out to unity with all things and upward to oneness with the transcendent Divine Infinity. Thus our ego, which seems to be a limitation of existence, is really a power of infinity; the boundless multiplicity of beings in the world is a result and signal evidence, not of limitation or finiteness, but of that illimitable Infinity.” The Life Divine

Overbought ::: refers to a security that analysts or traders believe is trading above its true value. Overbought generally describes recent or short-term movement in the price of the security, and reflects an expectation that the market will correct the price in the near future. This belief is often the result of technical analysis of the security’s price history.   BREAKING DOWN 'Overbought'  Overbought refers to a security which has been subject to a persistent upward pressure and that technical analysis suggests is due for a correction. The bullish trend may be due to positive news regarding the underlying company, its industry or the market in general. Upward movement can feed on itself and lead to continued bullishness beyond what many traders consider reasonable. When this is the case, traders refer to the asset as overbought and many will bet on a reversal in price.  Traditionally, the standard indicator of a stock’s value has been the price-earnings ratio (P/E). Analysts and companies have used either publicly reported results or earnings estimates to identify the appropriate price for a particular stock. If a stock’s P/E rises above that of its sector or a relevant index, investors may see it as overvalued and as a smart buying opportunity for long-term investing. This is a form of fundamental analysis, which uses macroeconomic and industry factors to determine a reasonable price for a stock.  The rise of technical analysis has allowed traders to focus on indicators of a stock to forecast price. Indicators include recent price, volume and momentum. Traders use technical tools to identify stocks that have become overvalued in recent trading and refer to these equities as overbought.   Technical Analysis Tools for Identifying Oversold Stocks Technical analysis has provided traders with increasingly sophisticated calculations to identify overbought stocks. George Lane’s stochastic oscillator, which he developed in the 1950s, examines recent price movements to identify imminent changes in a stock’s momentum and pricing trend. This oscillator laid the foundation for the technical indicator which has become the primary indicator of an overbought stock, the relative strength index (RSI). The RSI measures the power behind price movements over a recent period, typically 14 days, using the following formula:  RSI = 100 - 100/(1 + RS)  RS represents the ratio of average upward movement to downward movement over a specified period of time. A high RSI, generally above 70, signals traders that a stock may be overbought and that the market should correct with downward pressure in the near term. Many traders use pricing channels like Bollinger Bands to confirm the signal that the RSI generates. On a chart, Bollinger Bands lie one standard deviation above and below the exponential moving average of a stock’s recent price. Analysts that identify a stock with a high RSI and a price that is edging toward the high end of its upper Bollinger Band will likely consider it to be overbought.

overset ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Overset ::: v. t. --> To turn or tip (anything) over from an upright, or a proper, position so that it lies upon its side or bottom upwards; to upset; as, to overset a chair, a coach, a ship, or a building.
To cause to fall, or to tail; to subvert; to overthrow;


Pentagram: A magical diagram, consisting of a five-pointed star, representing Man; it is considered by occultists to be the most potent means of conjuring spirits. When a single point of the star points upward, it is regarded as the sign of the good and a means to conjure benevolent spirits; when the single point points down and a pair of points are on top, it is a sign of the evil (Satan) and is used to conjure powers of evil.

Pilgrim, Eternal The divine monad of man during its cycle of incarnation, so termed because of its manifold peregrinations downwards and upwards through the seven, ten, or twelve cosmic planes. It is the source of the entire septenary constitution of manifesting entities; and through the various processes of emanation from within itself, it provides itself with the various sheaths, veils, or garments of consciousness, which in their aggregate form the fully manifested septenary.

Planes, Higher ::: …from the point of view of the ascent of consciousness from our mind upwards through a rising series of dynamic powers by which it can sublimate itself, the gradation can be resolved into a stairway of four main ascents, each with its high level of fulfilment. These gradations may be summarily described as a series of sublimations of the consciousness through Higher Mind, IlluminedMind and Intuition into Overmind and beyond it; there is a succession of self-transmutations at the summit of which lies the Supermind or Divine Gnosis.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 972


Planets, Seven Sacred The ancients spoke of seven planets which they named the seven sacred planets, and they were serialized as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Moon. The Sun and Moon are, however, used as substitutes for two secret planets, one near the sun and one over the moon, these secret planets being invisible to us at present. That near the Sun, an intra-mercurial planet, has been called Vulcan and was supposed to have been discovered in 1859, when a black spot was seen in transit across the solar disk; but since that time the discovery has not been verified by astronomers. The teaching regarding it is that it became invisible to our physical senses at about the midpoint of the third root-race; but as we have now reached again, on the upward arc, the plane corresponding to the same degree of development, in a relatively short cyclic period it should begin again to show itself.

Plotinism offers a well-developed theory of sensation. The objects of sensation are of a lower order of being than the perceiving organism. The inferior cannot act upon the superior. Hence sensation is an activity of the sensory agent upon its objects. Sensation provides a direct, realistic perception of material things, but, since they are ever-changing, such knowledge is not valuable. In internal seme perception, the imagimtion also functions actively, memory is attributed to the imaginative power and it serves not only in the recall of sensory images but also in the retention of the verbal formulae in which intellectual concepts are expressed. The human soul can look either upward or downward; up to the sphere of purer spirit, or down to the evil regions of matter. Rational knowledge is a cognition of intelligible realities, or Ideas in the realm of Mind which is often referred to as Divine. The climax of knowledge consists in an intuitive and mystical union with the One; this is experienced by few.

pt. of uphold. Also: Raised or lifted up; directed upwards.

Purani: “He [Sri Aurobindo] does the same [improving spontaneously upon the original in the alchemy of his poetical process] with several Vedic symbols which he employs. It [gold-horned herds] indicates the descent of the ‘gold-horned’ Cows—symbolising the richly-laden Rays of Knowledge—into the Inconscient of the earth, its ‘cave-heart’. Generally in the Veda the action is that of breaking open the Cave of the inconscient and releasing the pen of Cows, the imprisoned Rays of Life for the conscious possessions by the seeker. Here is how a Vedic hymn speaks about it: ‘They drove upwards, the luminous ones,—the good milch-cows, in their stone-pen within the hiding cave.’ Rig Veda IV, 1-13. One sees in Savitri the process reversed and the Master’s vision lays open the original act of involution of the Light into the darkness of the Inconscient.” Sri Aurobindo’s”Savitri”: An Approach and a Study.

Pyramid The square pyramid as a symbol is an amplification of the triangle: it has lines, triangles, and a square, proceeding from a point downwards or conversely upwards merging into a point at the apex. Thus we have the four numbers of the tetraktys represented by point, line, triangle, and square. Reference is usually to stone monuments, especially those of Egypt and chiefly to the Great Pyramid of Cheops. All these pyramids, whether in Egypt, Central America, or elsewhere, are records constructed by initiates who journeyed to many lands, for the preservation of sacred knowledge through the dark ages, to be available to posterity.

quarte ::: n. --> A position in thrusting or parrying, with the inside of the hand turned upward and the point of the weapon toward the adversary&

Ragon, in his defense of the antiquity of Masonry, recalls the statements of classical writers that Neptune and Apollo offered themselves to Laomedon as masons “to build the city” of Troy, a well-known expression symbolically interpreted as meaning to establish a religious cult or Mystery school. Troy lay in a strategic position in regard to the trade routes of the ancient world and relics from distant lands prove that it was an active center of traffic. Even the first city, built in what archaeologists call the Neolithic period, was a strong and dominant center. Excavations at the lowest level revealed a great fortified wall with two towers and a stone carving of a human face, antedating by some 18 centuries the Troy of which Homer sang and which was the seventh city of the nine, counting upwards, that successively occupied the same site.

raise ::: v. t. --> To cause to rise; to bring from a lower to a higher place; to lift upward; to elevate; to heave; as, to raise a stone or weight.
To bring to a higher condition or situation; to elevate in rank, dignity, and the like; to increase the value or estimation of; to promote; to exalt; to advance; to enhance; as, to raise from a low estate; to raise to office; to raise the price, and the like.
To increase the strength, vigor, or vehemence of; to


R.bhus (Ribhus) ::: the name of three Vedic gods or demigods, the "arRbhus tisans of Immortality"; they "are represented as human beings who have attained to the condition of godhead by power of knowledge and perfection in their works" and act as "energies of formation and upward progress who assist the gods in the divinising of man".

Reactor - Nuclear reactor that converts no fissionable nuclei to fissionable nuclei while producing energy.


   Buoyant Force - Upward force on an object immersed in fluid.



recurviroster ::: n. --> A bird whose beak bends upward, as the avocet.

recurvirostral ::: a. --> Having the beak bent upwards.

repercussion ::: n. --> The act of driving back, or the state of being driven back; reflection; reverberation; as, the repercussion of sound.
Rapid reiteration of the same sound.
The subsidence of a tumor or eruption by the action of a repellent.
In a vaginal examination, the act of imparting through the uterine wall with the finger a shock to the fetus, so that it bounds upward, and falls back again against the examining finger.


retardation ::: n. --> The act of retarding; hindrance; the act of delaying; as, the retardation of the motion of a ship; -- opposed to acceleration.
That which retards; an obstacle; an obstruction.
The keeping back of an approaching consonant chord by prolonging one or more tones of a previous chord into the intermediate chord which follows; -- differing from suspension by resolving upwards instead of downwards.


Reversal_amount ::: describes the level of price movement required to shift a chart to the right. This condition is used on charts that only take into consideration price movement instead of both price and time.   BREAKING DOWN 'Reversal Amount'  In the context of point and figure (P&F) charts, the reversal amount is the number of boxes (an X or an O) required to cause a reversal. A reversal would be represented by a movement to the next column and a change of direction. If you increase the reversal amount, you will remove columns corresponding to less significant trends and make it easier to detect long-term trends. In terms of Kagi charts, it is the amount (generally around 4%) needed to change the direction of the vertical lines.  On a fundamental level, technical analysis is grounded in the quest for spotting market reversals, be they upward or downward movements from the market's current trajectory. Naturally, this is easier said than done. Psychologically, reacting optimally to reversals can be incredibly difficult for even seasoned technical analysis strategist and traders. In many ways, this is because, in the early stages of an actual reversal, not just one that's perceived, the market still shows many indications of a continued move in the original direction.

rib ::: n. --> One of the curved bones attached to the vertebral column and supporting the lateral walls of the thorax.
That which resembles a rib in form or use.
One of the timbers, or bars of iron or steel, that branch outward and upward from the keel, to support the skin or planking, and give shape and strength to the vessel.
A ridge, fin, or wing, as on a plate, cylinder, beam, etc., to strengthen or stiffen it.


riser ::: n. --> One who rises; as, an early riser.
The upright piece of a step, from tread to tread.
Any small upright face, as of a seat, platform, veranda, or the like.
A shaft excavated from below upward.
A feed head. See under Feed, n.


rise ::: v. --> To move from a lower position to a higher; to ascend; to mount up. Specifically: -- (a) To go upward by walking, climbing, flying, or any other voluntary motion; as, a bird rises in the air; a fish rises to the bait.
To ascend or float in a fluid, as gases or vapors in air, cork in water, and the like.
To move upward under the influence of a projecting force; as, a bullet rises in the air.


rising ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Rise ::: a. --> Attaining a higher place; taking, or moving in, an upward direction; appearing above the horizon; ascending; as, the rising moon.
Increasing in wealth, power, or distinction; as, a rising state; a rising character.


Round, Fourth The circling of each life-wave around the globes of a planetary chain for the fourth time is its fourth round. The midpoint of the fourth round is the turning point for this planetary manvantara. Before this point the monadic hosts pursue their gyrations downwards on the descending arc, karmically evolving material vestures from within the womb of spirit. During the fourth round on globe D, during the fourth root-race, the midway point of this manvantara is reached, for the lowest point in the descent of the life-waves then takes place, and thereafter the monads begin evolving upwards on the ascending arc: the involution of matter and evolution of spirit.

Rudra2 ::: "the terrible", a Vedic deity who is "the Violent and Merciful, the Mighty One, . . . the armed, wrathful and beneficent Power of God who lifts forcibly the creation upward, smites all that opposes, scourges all that errs and resists, heals all that is wounded and suffers"; (in the plural) gods with the qualities of this deity, "the fierce, impetuous ones", such as the Maruts; in later Hinduism, a name of Śiva as the Destroyer, one of the "three Powers and Personalities of the One Cosmic Godhead", of which the other two are Brahma, the Creator, and Vis.n.u, the Preserver; in the Record of Yoga, sometimes identified with the Balarama personality of the fourfold isvara. rudra ananda

Samadbi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths accord* lag as it dran^ farther and farther away from the nonnal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or calf back the soul that has receded into them ; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the sj'stem owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a lime cannot return ; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had rnhahifed it. finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary pheno- mena of death, by an act of will, or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current

Samadhi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths according as it draws farther and farther away from the normal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or call back the soul that has receded into them; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the system owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a time cannot return; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had inhabited it. Finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary phenomena of death, by an act of will,1 or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current (udana), opening for it a way through the mystic brahmarandhra in the head. By departure from life in the state of Samadhi he attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 520-21


scale ::: n. 1. A progressive or graduated series or classification. 2. An ascending or descending collection of pitches proceeding by a specified scheme of intervals. 3. A standard of measurement or judgment; a criterion. 4. Relative or proportionate size or extent; degree, proportion. slow-scaled. *v. 5. To climb; ascend; move upward; mount. *scales.

Second Birth In the New Testament, man is said to be born first of the flesh and afterwards of the spirit; in Christian theology, occasionally applied to regeneration — being admitted to the Kingdom of God or becoming a Christian. This is an echo of the Mysteries, where the successful candidate was said to be born again, just as in India the initiate is called dvija (twice-born), one who has undergone the second birth or the birth of the inner person in and from the subordinated outer or personal one. The second birth is no mere metaphor but an actual event in the candidate’s inner life, analogous in a way to the physical birth, resulting in a bringing into activity of the spiritual nature within, which thereafter passes through stages of growth from that of the newborn initiate or child upwards and onwards. An Egyptian papyrus bearing the emblem of an egg floating over a mummy typifies the second birth of the Osirified dead (SD 1:365).

Self-consciousness Awareness of oneself as the experiencer, attribution of one’s experiences to an ego, consciousness of being a separate individual; whereas consciousness in the abstract is merely awareness of the experience. Animals and very young children are conscious, man is self-conscious; yet the adult, when engrossed in an experience, may lose his self-consciousness for a while. But even man is only partially self-conscious, because he can contemplate only part of his being; that in him which is now the contemplator may become part of what is contemplated. As the subject, the knower, shifts upwards and inwards, so to speak, more and more of the vestures pass into the category of objects or what is known. The Unknown manifests the universe in order to attain full self-consciousness; and in man, the microcosm, an unself-conscious spark of divinity passes through stages of evolution and experience in order to achieve relatively full self-consciousness. The potentiality of self-consciousness, however, is in every atom. In order to become self-conscious, spirit must pass through every cycle of cosmic being, until every ego has attained full self-consciousness as a human being or equivalent entity. Man’s self-consciousness depends on his triple nature; it is man who is the separator of the One into various contrasted aspects.

SELF-CONSECRATION. ::: The acceptance of a new spiritual idea-foiTc and upward onentatioo in the being, an iliuounation, a tunuflg or cooventon seized on by the will and the heart’s aspiration, — this is the momeatons act u'hicb contains as in a seed all the rest that the yoga bas to give.

Self-directed Evolution That all evolution is caused by, and consists in the self-expression of the svabhava (essential characteristics) combined with the will of the monad dwelling within the form; in contradistinction to the doctrine that external circumstances are the determining evolutionary factor. The expression applies to every evolving entity, from the life-atom upwards, but has a special significance when applied to man, because he is endowed with the power to blend his personal consciousness with that of the monad within-above; so that what in the animal or unawakened person is an unconscious process becomes in the awakened person a process in which his mind and will acquiesce:

Selfishness Making the gratification of the personal self or ego the paramount aim in conduct; a disregard of the interests of others. While individualism is a necessary stage in evolution, yet humanity on the upward arc of evolution is on the road towards realization of the essential unity of all selves. Hence selfishness is our greatest obstacle in spiritual unfolding or development. It is not its grosser manifestations that are most harmful, but the subtler forms in which it may wear the mask of the virtues. It is overcome by aspiration towards the source of our being, by recognizing the barrenness and futility of self-seeking and its destructive results, and by the cultivation of that primal instinct of altruism which is at the heart of every being.

Selflessness The attribute of the atman, the essential self or selfhood; on the upward arc of evolution we strive to wean our lower or personal self from attachments to objects of personal desire and to achieve the universality of feeling which pertains to this divine essence (atman). Without the altruistic intuition, no society, whether of animals or humans, could hold together. Instead of regarding selflessness as a lofty and difficult goal to be attained by climbing, we can regard it as an original “home” from which we have wandered.

serrated ::: a. --> Notched on the edge, like a saw.
Beset with teeth pointing forwards or upwards; as, serrate leaves.


SEX. ::: The sex-impulse is certainly the greatest force in the vital plane ; if it can be sublimated and turned upwards, ojas is created which is a great help to the attainment of higher

Six-pointed Star The double triangle or Solomon’s Seal; in India called the sign of Vishnu, where it “is the emblem of the Trimurti three in one. The triangle with its apex upward indicates the male principle, downward the female; the two typifying, at the same time, spirit and matter.”

skee ::: n. --> A long strip of wood, curved upwards in front, used on the foot for sliding.

slope ::: 1. Upward or downward inclination or slant. 2. An inclined surface. 3. slopes. Hills, esp. foothills or bluffs.

sny ::: n. --> An upward bend in a piece of timber; the sheer of a vessel.

soar ::: v. **1. To rise or fly upwards into the air. 2. Fig. To ascend suddenly above the normal or usual level. n. 3. The act of soaring. soars, soared.**

soar ::: v. i. --> To fly aloft, as a bird; to mount upward on wings, or as on wings.
Fig.: To rise in thought, spirits, or imagination; to be exalted in mood. ::: n. --> The act of soaring; upward flight.


Spark A scintilla or atom of fire. Fire in its septenary or denary forms exists on all planes, so that we hear of sparks in various senses. Atman is the homogeneous divine spark which radiates in millions of rays, in their aggregate producing the primeval seven. The same idea in more mechanical form is found in Lucretius, who says that all fires come from the one scintilla. Sparks may be worlds, monads, or even atoms, though the word usually means the jiva within the atom. The divine spark hangs from the flame by the finest thread of fohat and journeys through the seven worlds of maya, passing upwards in its evolutionary course through the animate kingdoms. In man it is the monad in conjunction with the aroma of manas, and is called a jiva; it is that which remains from each personality and hangs by a thread from atman. The personalities are like the sparks that dance on moonlit waves — fleeting reflections of their spiritual prototype.

spiegel iron ::: --> A fusible white cast iron containing a large amount of carbon (from three and a half to six per cent) and some manganese. When the manganese reaches twenty-five per cent and upwards it has a granular structure, and constitutes the alloy ferro manganese, largely used in the manufacture of Bessemer steel. Called also specular pig iron, spiegel, and spiegeleisen.

spike ::: n. --> A sort of very large nail; also, a piece of pointed iron set with points upward or outward.
Anything resembling such a nail in shape.
An ear of corn or grain.
A kind of flower cluster in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis.
Spike lavender. See Lavender.


stargaser ::: n. --> One who gazes at the stars; an astrologer; sometimes, in derision or contempt, an astronomer.
Any one of several species of spiny-rayed marine fishes belonging to Uranoscopus, Astroscopus, and allied genera, of the family Uranoscopidae. The common species of the Eastern United States are Astroscopus anoplus, and A. guttatus. So called from the position of the eyes, which look directly upward.


steeve ::: v. i. --> To project upward, or make an angle with the horizon or with the line of a vessel&

stilt ::: n. --> A pole, or piece of wood, constructed with a step or loop to raise the foot above the ground in walking. It is sometimes lashed to the leg, and sometimes prolonged upward so as to be steadied by the hand or arm.
A crutch; also, the handle of a plow.
Any species of limicoline birds belonging to Himantopus and allied genera, in which the legs are remarkably long and slender. Called also longshanks, stiltbird, stilt plover, and lawyer.


streamer ::: n. --> An ensign, flag, or pennant, which floats in the wind; specifically, a long, narrow, ribbonlike flag.
A stream or column of light shooting upward from the horizon, constituting one of the forms of the aurora borealis.
A searcher for stream tin.


Sucker_Rally describes an inaccurate indication that a price is heading upward despite a longer downward trend, often during a bear market.

supine ::: 1. Lying on the back or having the face upward. 2. Displaying no interest or animation; lethargic.

tall ::: superl. --> High in stature; having a considerable, or an unusual, extension upward; long and comparatively slender; having the diameter or lateral extent small in proportion to the height; as, a tall person, tree, or mast.
Brave; bold; courageous.
Fine; splendid; excellent; also, extravagant; excessive.


Tempter In general, the human mind, whether reacting to outside impulsions or impressions, or from within its own relatively small and uninspired powers; it has been commonly typified by the dragon, Satan, Zeus, etc. “Zeus is represented as a serpent — the intellectual tempter of man — which, nevertheless, begets in the course of cyclic evolution the ‘Man-Saviour,’ the solar Bacchus or ‘Dionysus,’ more than a man” (SD 2:419-20). Indeed, often it is our higher nature which “tempts” us upwards by calling forth latent or inner powers which, once evoked, are the ladder by which we climb. Thus our tempter is also our redeemer. The esoteric teaching of the tempting of humankind by awakening in its light of intellect has been materialized into a sensual temptation by a Devil in the Garden of Eden; and in the Bible, an evolutionary phase has been theologically degraded into a sin. The astral light is also spoken of as the tempter, especially by Eliphas Levi.

The apex of the light triangle symbolizes the spiritual-divine monad, having its habitat in the spiritual-divine realms; the apex of the dark triangle, the human monad, having its habitat in the middle realm of conflict between spirit and matter, the apex itself being in the worlds of manifestation, the two sides extending from it reaching upwards towards the spiritual realm and representing evolution through aspiration and efforts towards a spiritual life. On the other hand, the two sides extending downwards from the apex of the light triangle represent the rays streaming from the spiritual-divine monad to enlighten, inspire, and uplift all beings in the manifested worlds. In the case of man, the human monad represented by the apex of the dark triangle is the reflection or child of the spiritual-divine monad or inner god.

The ascent can only be achieved by a one-centred all-gather- ing upward aspiration of the soul and mind and life and body ; the descent can only come by a call of the whole being towards

the awakened Yop-Shakii arises, if is often fcU like a snake uncoiling and standing up straight and lifting itself more and more upwards. When it meets the Divine Consciousness above, then the force of the Divine Consciousness can more easily descend into the body and be fell working there to change the nature.

"The colours of the lotuses and the numbers of petals are respectively, from bottom to top: — (1) the Muladhara or physical consciousness centre, four petals, red; (2) the abdominal centre, six petals, deep purple red; (3) the navel centre, ten petals, violet; (4) the heart centre, twelve petals, golden pink; (5) the throat centre, sixteen petals, grey; (6) the forehead centre between the eye-brows, two petals, white; (7) the thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around. The functions are, according to our yoga, — (1) commanding the physical consciousness and the subconscient; (2) commanding the small vital movements, the little greeds, lusts, desires, the small sense-movements; (3) commanding the larger life-forces and the passions and larger desire-movements; (4) commanding the higher emotional being with the psychic deep behind it; (5) commanding expression and all externalisation of the mind movements and mental forces; (6) commanding thought, will, vision; (7) commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The seventh is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error — the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, sunya , either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.” Letters on Yoga*

“The colours of the lotuses and the numbers of petals are respectively, from bottom to top:—(1) the Muladhara or physical consciousness centre, four petals, red; (2) the abdominal centre, six petals, deep purple red; (3) the navel centre, ten petals, violet; (4) the heart centre, twelve petals, golden pink; (5) the throat centre, sixteen petals, grey; (6) the forehead centre between the eye-brows, two petals, white; (7) the thousand-petalled lotus above the head, blue with gold light around. The functions are, according to our yoga,—(1) commanding the physical consciousness and the subconscient; (2) commanding the small vital movements, the little greeds, lusts, desires, the small sense-movements; (3) commanding the larger life-forces and the passions and larger desire-movements; (4) commanding the higher emotional being with the psychic deep behind it; (5) commanding expression and all externalisation of the mind movements and mental forces; (6) commanding thought, will, vision; (7) commanding the higher thinking mind and the illumined mind and opening upwards to the intuition and overmind. The seventh is sometimes or by some identified with the brain, but that is an error—the brain is only a channel of communication situated between the thousand-petalled and the forehead centre. The former is sometimes called the void centre, sunya , either because it is not in the body, but in the apparent void above or because rising above the head one enters first into the silence of the self or spiritual being.” Letters on Yoga

The continuous interchange of the physical material of the earth itself and that of everything upon it, provides for the body’s nutrition, endurance, and renewal. The similarity of material, chemically and otherwise, in the earth and in man has prevailed from the time when the filmy presentments of early root-races appeared on the then condensing globe. When the earth reached its depth of materiality during the middle of the Atlantean or fourth root-race, the physical bodies of the Atlanteans were the grossest and coarsest of any before or after this long period. Since then, everything having begun the turn on the upward or luminous arc, matter and man are slowly radiating finer qualities of substance and of force. This progressive refinement of matter reflecting humanity’s mental and spiritual evolution, will continue until, in the far distant future, the human encasement will be relatively transparent, or diaphanous and luminous — an ethereal body of actually condensed light.

The deceased, entering the domain as a khu, performs the same activities that he did on earth: plowing, reaping, sailing his boat, and making love. On entering Amenti, Anubis conducts the soul to the hall of Osiris where it is judged by the 42 judges and its heart is weighed against the feather of truth. If the soul passes the test, it goes to the fields of Aalu. If the names of the 15 Aats, the 7 Arrets (circles), the 21 Pylons, as well as the gods and guardians of these domains are all known, the deceased is enabled to pass from one mansion to the other, and finally to enter the Night Boat of the Sun, which passes through the Tuat on its way to arise in the heavens. The shades who miss this boat, the unprogressed egos, must remain in the afterworld or kama-loka, while those who enter the boat are carried to the heaven world or devachan where they wander about until they return to earth for rebirth. This refers to the passing from world to world by the ego proficient in knowledge of the “names,” and thereafter entering the secret or invisible pathways to the sun. The knowledge of the names indicates spiritual, intellectual, and psychic development, by which the ego of the defunct is no longer attracted to the lower spheres, but having knowledge of them correctly answers the challenges and thereafter follows the attraction upwards and onwards.

The “door” was closed into the human kingdom in the middle of the fourth round because the turning point had been reached between the monadic evolution of matter, or descent into matter on the downward arc, and the reverse process of involution, which automatically replaced it on the upward arc of the great light cycle. Thus, as we are now past the middle of the fourth round, none of the monads now working in and through the animal kingdom can enter the human kingdom during the remainder of this round; with one probably exception, however: that of the anthropoid apes.

— the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender. Let your faith be pure, cancfid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by arabidoo, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for petty satisfaction of the lower nature is a low and smokc-obscurcd flame that cannot bum upwards to heaven. Regard your life as given you only for the divine work and to help in the dirine manifestation.

The human body was once in far-distant ages a globe of light, and will once more become ethereal and radiant as man in his evolutionary development rises upwards along the ascending arc. As the inner man unfolds himself, so his bodies on all planes of his constitution become more refined, ethereal, and perfect in their coordinated activities.

The human kingdom’s moment of choice is that point in the evolutionary cycle reached on this globe in the fifth round when the monads not ready to continue their upward evolutionary journey must perforce wait for a future manvantara. The evolutionary moment of choice for the animal kingdom was that point in the cycle when the door to the human kingdom was closed, after which no monads can enter the human life-wave until the next manvantara. This occurred at the midpoint of the fourth round on globe D of the earth-chain, during the fourth root-race.

"The individual is in nature one expression of the universal Being, in spirit an emanation of the Transcendence. For if he finds his self, he finds too that his own true self is not this natural personality, this created individuality, but is a universal being in its relations with others and with Nature and in its upward term a portion or the living front of a supreme transcendental Spirit.” The Synthesis of Yoga

“The individual is in nature one expression of the universal Being, in spirit an emanation of the Transcendence. For if he finds his self, he finds too that his own true self is not this natural personality, this created individuality, but is a universal being in its relations with others and with Nature and in its upward term a portion or the living front of a supreme transcendental Spirit.” The Synthesis of Yoga

The left half of an upward arrow placed between (e.g.) a and R denotes the relation which holds between x and y if and only if x∈a and xRy, in other words, the relation R with its domain limited to the class a.

The life-atoms belonging to the astral plane which make up the linga-sarira or model-body of men and beasts, are also liberated at death and follow along the same general lines as the physical life-atoms: they find their way into and out of other astral vehicles with which they are in magnetic sympathy. In this way they help form the astral vehicles of individuals of the three lower kingdoms as well as of the beast and human kingdoms. In similar manner peregrinate the psychic, intellectual, spiritual, and divine life-atoms. In order that the spiritual monad may proceed on its afterdeath journey, all sheaths of the spiritual consciousness must be dropped on their appropriate planes, thus finally permitting the spiritual ego to pursue its upward and inward journey unhampered by the attractions to the lower planes which these life-atoms bring about.

Theosophy holds that a nebula is the first stage of manifestation on the highest subplanes of the physical cosmic plane of the physical vehicle of a planet or star. Virtually all of the true irresolvable nebulae, however, are composed of matter which is hardly physical at all — physical matter in its 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th state or condition counting upwards, and hence not the physical matter known and experimented upon in the laboratory.

The phrase does not mean that each person should follow the bent of his own personal inclinations, but that he should follow the path of duty, which is the path of evolution, as revealed to him by intuition and purity of aspiration. He should become the master of his destiny, spiritually willing his future through self-devised training and efforts upwards.

  "The progress of Life involves the development and interlocking of an immense number of things that are in conflict with each other and seem often to be absolute oppositions and contraries. To find amid these oppositions some principle or standing-ground of unity, some workable lever of reconciliation which will make possible a larger and better development on a basis of harmony and not of conflict and struggle, must be increasingly the common aim of humanity in its active life-evolution, if it at all means to rise out of life"s more confused, painful and obscure movement, out of the compromises made by Nature with the ignorance of the Life-mind and the nescience of Matter. This can only be truly and satisfactorily done when the soul discovers itself in its highest and completest spiritual reality and effects a progressive upward transformation of its life-values into those of the spirit; for there they will all find their spiritual truth and in that truth their standing-ground of mutual recognition and reconciliation. The spiritual is the one truth of which all others are the veiled aspects, the brilliant disguises or the dark disfigurements, and in which they can find their own right form and true relation to each other.” *The Human Cycle, etc.

“The progress of Life involves the development and interlocking of an immense number of things that are in conflict with each other and seem often to be absolute oppositions and contraries. To find amid these oppositions some principle or standing-ground of unity, some workable lever of reconciliation which will make possible a larger and better development on a basis of harmony and not of conflict and struggle, must be increasingly the common aim of humanity in its active life-evolution, if it at all means to rise out of life’s more confused, painful and obscure movement, out of the compromises made by Nature with the ignorance of the Life-mind and the nescience of Matter. This can only be truly and satisfactorily done when the soul discovers itself in its highest and completest spiritual reality and effects a progressive upward transformation of its life-values into those of the spirit; for there they will all find their spiritual truth and in that truth their standing-ground of mutual recognition and reconciliation. The spiritual is the one truth of which all others are the veiled aspects, the brilliant disguises or the dark disfigurements, and in which they can find their own right form and true relation to each other.” The Human Cycle, etc.

The real person is the reimbodying ego, who carves its own destiny as and how it chooses, and its imbodiments correspond. It might readily happen that for the purposes of discipline and improvement of soul, a reimbodying ego might deliberately choose a body in which it would have to face, meet, and overcome a great many of what the world calls misfortunes. It is not always therefore in the best interests of a learning and evolving soul to be born “with a silver spoon in its mouth,” because with such surroundings as wealth and social position might bring, a weak soul could easily receive tendencies downwards because lacking the stern discipline urging it upwards and awakening the transcendent powers of the spirit within. Luxury, ease, power, and wealth are by no means always unmixed blessings, but quite frequently become positive misfortunes to weak souls.

"There is a clear distinction in Vedic thought between kavi, the seer and manîshî, the thinker. The former indicates the divine supra-intellectual Knowledge which by direct vision and illumination sees the reality, the principles and the forms of things in their true relations, the latter, the labouring mentality, which works from the divided consciousness through the possibilities of things downward to the actual manifestation in form and upward to their reality in the self-existent Brahman.” The Upanishads*

“There is a clear distinction in Vedic thought between kavi, the seer and manîshî, the thinker. The former indicates the divine supra-intellectual Knowledge which by direct vision and illumination sees the reality, the principles and the forms of things in their true relations, the latter, the labouring mentality, which works from the divided consciousness through the possibilities of things downward to the actual manifestation in form and upward to their reality in the self-existent Brahman.” The Upanishads

  “There is a dhyani-bodhisattva for this globe, and also for each of the three globes which precede this globe on the downward arc, and likewise a bodhisattva for each of the three globes which follow this globe on the upward arc — one bodhisattva for each. This dhyani-bodhisattva is the spiritual head of the spiritual-psychological hierarchy of each globe. . . . Our dhyani-bodhisattva is the Wondrous Being, the Great Initiator, the Silent Watcher of our globe . . .” (Fund 275).

..the release from subconscient ignorance and from disease, duration of life at will, and a change in the functioning of the body must be among the ultimate results of a supramental change.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 330 ::: .Supraphysical Worlds ::: This organisation includes, as on our earth, the existence of beings who have or take forms, manifest themselves or are naturally manifested in an embodying substance, but a substance other than ours, a subtle substance tangible only to subtle sense, a supraphysical form-matter. These worlds and beings may have nothing to do with ourselves and our life, they may exercise no action upon us; but often also they enter into secret communication with earth-existence, obey or embody and are the intermediaries and instruments of the cosmic powers and influences of which we have a subjective experience, or themselves act by their own initiation upon the terrestrial world’s life and motives and happenings. It is possible to receive help or guidance or harm or misguidance from these beings; it is possible even to become subject to their influence, to be possessed by their invasion or domination, to be instrumentalised by them for their good or evil purpose. At times the progress of earthly life seems to be a vast field of battle between supraphysical Forces of either character, those that strive to uplift, encourage and illumine and those that strive to deflect, depress or prevent or even shatter our upward evolution or the soul’s self-expression in the material universe. Some of these Beings, Powers or Forces are such that we think of them as divine; they are luminous, benignant or powerfully helpful: there are others that are Titanic, gigantic or demoniac, inordinate Influences, instigators or creators often of vast and formidable inner upheavals or of actions that overpass the normal human measure. There may also be an awareness of influences, presences, beings that do not seem to belong to other worlds beyond us but are here as a hidden element behind the veil in terrestrial nature. As contact with the supraphysical is possible, a contact can also take place subjective or objective—or at least objectivised— between our own consciousness and the consciousness of other once embodied beings who have passed into a supraphysical status in these other regions of existence. It is possible also to pass beyond a subjective contact or a subtle-sense perception and, in certain subliminal states of consciousness, to enter actually into other worlds and know something of their secrets. It is the more objective order of other-worldly experience that seized most the imagination of mankind in the past, but it was put by popular belief into a gross-objective statement which unduly assimilated these phenomena to those of the physical world with which we are familiar; for it is the normal tendency of our mind to turn everything into forms or symbols proper to its own kind and terms of experience.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22 Page: 806-07


The right half of a double -- upward and downward -- arrow placed between (e.g.) R and a denotes the relation which holds between x and y if and only if xRy and both x and y are members of the class a; in other words, the relation R with its field limited to a.

The right half of an upward arrow placed between (e.g.) R and b denotes the relation which holds between x and y if and only if xRy and y∈b; in other words the relation R with its converse domain limited to b.

These four distinct states of consciousness into which the human egoic self can enter, are the manifestations during imbodiment of what takes place on a more profound and radical scale at death. Sleep is a small death, and death may be called a larger sleep: in both, the ego, liberated successively form various bonds, travels inwards and upwards through different grades of consciousness and reaches the experiences proper to those planes.

The serpent is characteristically a dual symbol. In the beginnings of creation two poles were emanated, spirit and matter; and forthwith began interaction between the downward forces of the one and the upward forces of the other. Hermes, Mercury, intelligence, may represent a sage or a thief; the serpentine wisdom may work in every plane of materiality. The perverse will of man may turn natural forces to evil purposes, and thus we speak of the good serpent and the bad, of Agathodaemon and Kakodaemon, of Ophis and Ophiomorphos. A serpent can be a sage or a sorcerer.

The subconscient is not the whole foundation of the nature; it is only the lower basis of the Ignorance and affects mostly the lower vital and physical exterior consciousness and these again affect the higher parts of the nature. While it is well to see what it is and how it acts, one must not be too preoccupied with this dark side or this apparent aspect of the instrumental being. One should rather regard it as something not oneself, a mask of false nature imposed on the true being by the Ignorance. The true being is the inner with all its vast possibilities of reaching and expressing the Divine and especially the inmost, the soul, the psychic Purusha which is always in its essence pure, divine, turned to all that is good and true and beautiful. The exterior being has to be taken hold of by the inner being and turned into an instrument no longer of the upsurging of the ignorant subconscient Nature, but of the Divine. It is by remembering always that and opening the nature upwards that the Divine Consciousness can be reached and descend from above into the whole inner and outer existence, mental, vital, physical, the subconscient, the subliminal, all that we overtly or secretly are. This should be the main preoccupation. To dwell solely on the subconscient and the aspect of imperfection creates depression and should be avoided. One has to keep a right balance and stress on the positive side most, recognising the other but only to reject and change it. This and a constant faith and reliance on the Mother are what is needed for the transformation to come. P.S. It is certainly the abrupt and decisive breaking that is the easiest and best way for these things—vital habits.
   Ref: SABCL Vol. 22-23-24, Page: 355


The sun, like each of the planets, is a chain of globes, of which we see only the globe on the fourth cosmic plane — a highly ethereal body composed of the fifth, sixth, and seventh, states of matter (counting upwards) of the fourth cosmic plane.

The symbol of the kali yuga is the five-pointed star reversed, with the two points or horns of the star pointing upwards. This is also a sign of sorcery.

"The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while the supreme energy is there, asleep; it is said to be coiled up and slumbering like a snake, — therefore it is called the kundalinî sakti, — in the lowest of the chakras, in the mûlâdhâra. When by Pranayama the division between the upper and lower prana currents in the body is dissolved, this Kundalini is struck and awakened, it uncoils itself and begins to rise upward like a fiery serpent breaking open each lotus as it ascends until the Shakti meets the Purusha in the brahmarandhra in a deep samadhi of union.” The Synthesis of Yoga

“The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while the supreme energy is there, asleep; it is said to be coiled up and slumbering like a snake,—therefore it is called the kundalinî sakti,—in the lowest of the chakras, in the mûlâdhâra. When by Pranayama the division between the upper and lower prana currents in the body is dissolved, this Kundalini is struck and awakened, it uncoils itself and begins to rise upward like a fiery serpent breaking open each lotus as it ascends until the Shakti meets the Purusha in the brahmarandhra in a deep samadhi of union.” The Synthesis of Yoga

Th-o movements in yoga ::: Yoga means union witli the Divine, but it also means awaking first to your'hner self and then to your highest self, — a movement inward and a movement upward, ft is, in fact, only through the awakening and coming to the front of the inner being that you can get into union with the Divine.

tight loop ::: (programming) A loop of code that executes without releasing any resources to other programs or the operating system.Consider the following pointless BASIC loop that counts upward indefinitely 10 i = i + 120 GOTO 10 operating system such as Windows 3, the system would appear to freeze.A pre-emptive multitasking operating system such as UNIX or Windows NT would steal cycles away from the program and continue to run other programs.See also busy-wait and multitasking. (1999-05-06)

tight loop "programming" A {loop} of code that executes without releasing any resources to other programs or the {operating system}. Consider the following pointless {BASIC} loop that counts upward indefinitely 10 i = i + 1 20 GOTO 10 Run on a single-user system such as {MS-DOS} this will not cause any problems. Run on a {cooperative multitasking} operating system such as {Windows 3}, the system would appear to freeze. A {pre-emptive multitasking} operating system such as {UNIX} or {Windows NT} would "steal" cycles away from the program and continue to run other programs. See also {busy-wait} and {multitasking}. (1999-05-06)

tossing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Toss ::: n. --> The act of throwing upward; a rising and falling suddenly; a rolling and tumbling.
A process which consists in washing ores by violent agitation in water, in order to separate the lighter or earhy


toss ::: n. 1. A rolling or pitching motion. v. 2. To throw upward of in a certain direction. 3. To fling or be flung about, esp. constantly or regularly in an agitated or violent way. 4. To throw with a light motion. 5. To be thrown here and there; be flung to and fro. 6. To throw, fling, or heave continuously about; pitch to and fro. tosses, tossed, laugh-tossed.

toss ::: v. t. --> To throw with the hand; especially, to throw with the palm of the hand upward, or to throw upward; as, to toss a ball.
To lift or throw up with a sudden or violent motion; as, to toss the head.
To cause to rise and fall; as, a ship tossed on the waves in a storm.
To agitate; to make restless.
Hence, to try; to harass.


Towers An edifice which rests on earth and, mystically speaking, aspires upwards toward heaven; coming under the general description of high places appropriate, like mountaintops and other natural and artificial elevations, to the worship of celestial powers. Found in many parts of the world, their origin is lost in the obscurity of ages. Prominent among them are the round towers found in Ireland, Scotland, Corsica, Sardinia, etc., undoubtedly used for different purposes at different times: by warriors as fortresses, by priests as sanctuaries and initiation chambers, or as watchtowers, belfries, or places of refuge. The cylindrical shape indicates symbolically the great positive and active principle in nature. In the Bible the tower is erected physically, and spoken of metaphorically, as an emblem of might and aspiration.

trajectory ::: n. --> The curve which a body describes in space, as a planet or comet in its orbit, or stone thrown upward obliquely in the air.

Transmigration ::: This word is grossly misunderstood in the modern Occident, as also is the doctrine comprised under theold Greek word metempsychosis, both being modernly supposed to mean, through the commonmisunderstanding of the ancient literatures, that the human soul at some time after death migrates into thebeast realm and is reborn on earth in a beast body. The real meaning of this statement in ancient literaturerefers to the destiny of what theosophists call the life-atoms, but it has absolutely no reference to thedestiny of the human soul, as an entity.Theosophy accepts all aspects of the ancient teaching, but explains and interprets them. Our doctrine inthis respect unless, indeed, we are treating of the case of a "lost soul,"is "once a man, always a man." Thehuman soul can no more migrate over and incarnate in a beast body than can the psychical apparatus of abeast incarnate in human flesh. Why? Because in the former case, the beast vehicle offers to the humansoul no opening at all for the expression of the spiritual and intellectual and psychical powers andfaculties and tendencies which make a man human. Nor can the soul of the beast enter into a humanbody, because the impassable gulf of a psychical and intellectual nature, which separates the twokingdoms, prevents any such passage from the one up into another so much its superior in all respects. Inthe former case, there is no attraction for the man beastwards; and in the latter case there is theimpossibility of the imperfectly developed beast mind and beast soul finding a proper lodgment in whatto it is truly a godlike sphere which it simply cannot enter.Transmigration, however, has a specific meaning when the word is applied to the human soul: the livingentity migrates or passes over from one condition to another condition or state or plane, as the case maybe, whether these latter be in the invisible realms of nature or in the visible realms, and whether the stateor condition be high or low. The specific meaning of this word, therefore, implies nothing more than achange of state or of condition or of plane: a migrating of the living entity from one to the other, butalways in conditions or estates or habitudes appropriate and pertaining to its human dignity.In its application to the life-atoms, to which are to be referred the observations of the ancients withregard to the lower realms of nature, transmigration means briefly that the particular life-atoms, which intheir aggregate compose man's lower principles, at and following the change that men call death migrateor transmigrate or pass into other bodies to which these life-atoms are attracted by similarity ofdevelopment -- be these attractions high or low, and they are usually low, because their own evolutionarydevelopment is as a rule far from being advanced. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that theselife-atoms compose man's inner -- and outer -- vehicles or bodies, and that in consequence there arevarious grades or classes of these life-atoms, from the physical upwards (or inwards if you please) to theastral, purely vital, emotional, mental, and psychical.This is, in general terms, the meaning of transmigration. The word means no more than the specificsenses just outlined, and stops there. But the teaching concerning the destiny of the entity is continuedand developed in the doctrine pertaining to the word metempsychosis.

Trend_trading ::: is a trading strategy that attempts to capture gains through the analysis of a security's momentum in a particular direction. Trend traders enter into a long position when a security is trending upward (e.g. successively higher highs) and/or enter a short position when a security is trending lower (e.g. successively lower highs).

UDANA. ::: Life-current that moves upward from the body to the crown of the head, a regular channel of communication bet- ween the physical life and the greater life of the spirit/

udana ::: [one of the five pranas] : it moves upward from the body to the crown of the head and is a regular channel of communication between the physical life and the greater life of the spirit.

udana ::: one of the five workings of the life-force (pañcapran.a), that which "moves upward from the body to the crown of the head and is a regular channel of communication between the physical life and the greater life of the spirit".

Udana (Sanskrit) Udāna [from ud out + the verbal root an to breathe, blow] The life-current which rises upwards; one of the vital airs or life-currents of the human or animal body which vitalize, build, and sustain it. Udana is said to have its physical expression in speech, including mouth, tongue, and voice. Mystically, it is the vital current or fluid which cooperates with and reinforces all the other pranas, such as samana, vyana, prana, and apana. “And the control of this [udana], which is the control of all five . . . leads to the Supreme Self” (SD 2:568).

udana. ::: the fifth of the five vital airs, whose seat is in the neck, which is responsible for controlling the ability to ascend, rise up and grow; the general force of assimilation that rules the region of the body above the larynx and governs the use of the special inner sense of intuition; associated with the upward movement of the kundalini in the subtle body; its prevalent element is ether

unicostate ::: a. --> Having a single rib or strong nerve running upward from the base; -- said of a leaf.

Unity Kosmic unity, incomprehensible to humans, implies wholeness, homogeneity, uniformity, indivisibility — individuality. Its primary expression is kosmic space. Unity can be applied to any individual, such as the First Logos or any subordinate logos; again, any individual monadic unit is de facto a unity. Unity, in contrast with duality or multiplicity, is relative, as when we speak of a whole in relation to its parts, the unitary essence of a compound body, or the hyparxis of a hierarchy. The tendency of evolution on an upward arc is towards unity; on a downward arc, towards diversity; and both tendencies are active in the human being.

upbreak ::: v. i. --> To break upwards; to force away or passage to the surface. ::: n. --> A breaking upward or bursting forth; an upburst.

upburst ::: n. --> The act of bursting upwards; a breaking through to the surface; an upbreak or uprush; as, an upburst of molten matter.

upcast ::: a. --> Cast up; thrown upward; as, with upcast eyes. ::: n. --> A cast; a throw.
The ventilating shaft of a mine out of which the air passes after having circulated through the mine; -- distinguished from the downcast. Called also upcast pit, and upcast shaft.


updive ::: v. i. --> To spring upward; to rise.

upgaze ::: v. i. --> To gaze upward.

upgush ::: n. --> A gushing upward. ::: v. i. --> To gush upward.

uphill ::: adv. --> Upwards on, or as on, a hillside; as, to walk uphill. ::: a. --> Ascending; going up; as, an uphill road.
Attended with labor; difficult; as, uphill work.


uplead ::: v. t. --> To lead upward.

upright ::: a. --> In an erect position or posture; perpendicular; vertical, or nearly vertical; pointing upward; as, an upright tree.
Morally erect; having rectitude; honest; just; as, a man upright in all his ways.
Conformable to moral rectitude.
Stretched out face upward; flat on the back. ::: n.


uprise ::: v. i. --> To rise; to get up; to appear from below the horizon.
To have an upward direction or inclination. ::: n. --> The act of rising; appearance above the horizon; rising.


uprush ::: v. i. --> To rush upward. ::: n. --> Act of rushing upward; an upbreak or upburst; as, an uprush of lava.

upseek ::: v. i. --> To seek or strain upward.

upshoot ::: v. i. --> To shoot upward.

upstare ::: v. i. --> To stare or stand upward; hence, to be uplifted or conspicuous.

upstroke ::: n. --> An upward stroke, especially the stroke, or line, made by a writing instrument when moving upward, or from the body of the writer, or a line corresponding to the part of a letter thus made.

uptake ::: v. t. --> To take into the hand; to take up; to help. ::: n. --> The pipe leading upward from the smoke box of a steam boiler to the chimney, or smokestack; a flue leading upward.
Understanding; apprehension.


upturn ::: v. t. --> To turn up; to direct upward; to throw up; as, to upturn the ground in plowing.

upwaft ::: v. t. --> To waft upward.

Upward Cycle. See ARC, ASCENDING AND DESCENDING

upwhirl ::: v. t. & i. --> To rise upward in a whirl; to raise upward with a whirling motion.

upwreath ::: v. i. --> To rise with a curling motion; to curl upward, as smoke.

ūrdhvagati (urdhwagati) ::: literally "upward movement"; same as urdhvagati utthapana or utthapana-sakti.

Urdhvasrotas (Sanskrit) Ūrdhvasrotas [from ūrdhva upwards, straight + srotas current, channel, canal] Those whose digestive organs or life-currents are upright. In the Puranas, the sixth of the seven creations of Brahma, or emanations of living beings, being the emanation or spiritual beings or dhyanis. “These (divinities) are simply the prototypes of the First Race, the fathers of their ‘mind-born’ progeny with the soft bones. It is these who became the Evolvers of the ‘Sweat-born’ . . .” (SD 1:456). These creations or stages in evolutionary development refer especially to globe D, but have a cosmic significance likewise when the reference is to cosmic time periods.

Utpala-varna (Sanskrit) Utpala-varṇā [from utpala flower of the blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea) from ut-pal to move upwards + varṇā color, from the verbal root varṇ to color] A woman, said in some accounts to be one of the three wives of Gautama Buddha, along with Gopa and Yasodhara. But these are names for three mystical powers which are possessed by every initiated adept.

Uttanapad (Sanskrit) Uttānapad [from uttāna stretched out + pad foot, progression, permeation] Often signifies vegetation, the whole range of upward-germinating plants.

Vibhuti ::: There are some men who are self-evidently superhuman, great spirits who are only using the human body. Europe calls them supermen,we call them vibhutis. They are manifestations of Nature, of divine power presided over by a spirit commissioned for the purpose, and that spirit is an emanation from the Almighty, who accepts human strength and weakness but is not bound by them. They are above morality and ordinarily without a conscience, acting according to their own nature. For they are not men developing upwards from the animal to the divine and struggling against their lower natures, but beings already fulfilled and satisfied with themselves.
   Ref: CWSA Vol. 01, Page: 519


Wages and prices chasing each other as the aggregate demand curve continually shifts to the right and the aggregate supply curve continually shifts upwards.

wart hog ::: --> Either one of two species of large, savage African wild hogs of the genus Phacoch/rus. These animals have a pair of large, rough, fleshy tubercles behind the tusks and second pair behind the eyes. The tusks are large and strong, and both pairs curve upward. The body is scantily covered with bristles, but there is long dorsal mane. The South African species (Phacoch/rus Aethiopicus) is the best known. Called also vlacke vark. The second species (P. Aeliani) is native of the coasts of the Red Sea.

way ::: 1. A road, path, or highway affording passage from one place to another. Also fig. 2. Any line of passage or progression, esp. in a particular direction. 3. A direction or vicinity. 4. A course of life, action, or experience. 5. A prescribed course of life or conduct; also in pl. 6. A method, plan, or means for attaining a goal. 7. A method, plan, or means for attaining a goal. 8. Space for passing or advancing. 9. Characteristic or habitual manner. 10. Distance. ways, earth-ways, half-way, world-ways, Angel of the Way, evolving Way, heavenly Way, middle Way, shining upward Way, terrestrial Way, the Way.

Way, the upward

way, the upward ::: Sri Aurobindo: "For the gods are the guardians and increasers of the Truth, the powers of the Immortal, the sons of the infinite Mother; the way to immortality is the upward way of the gods, the way of the Truth, a journey, an ascent by which there is a growth into the law of the Truth, rtasya panthâh.” The Renaissance in India

weever ::: n. --> Any one of several species of edible marine fishes belonging to the genus Trachinus, of the family Trachinidae. They have a broad spinose head, with the eyes looking upward. The long dorsal fin is supported by numerous strong, sharp spines which cause painful wounds.

We realise also the consciousness Itself as moving upward, ascending through many planes, physical, vital, mental, over- mental to the supramental and Ananda planes. We become aware of a pouring do\vn of the posver of the higher Self, so that there comes in the possibility of a descent of the supramental

Whipsaw ::: describes the movement of a security when, at a certain time, the security's price is moving in one direction but then quickly pivots to move in the opposite direction. There are two types of whipsaw patterns. The first involves an upward movement in a share price, which is then followed by a drastic downward move causing the share's price to fall relative to its original position. The second type occurs when a share price drops in value for a short time and then suddenly surges upward to a positive gain relative to the stock's original position.

whirlwind ::: n. --> A violent windstorm of limited extent, as the tornado, characterized by an inward spiral motion of the air with an upward current in the center; a vortex of air. It usually has a rapid progressive motion.
Fig.: A body of objects sweeping violently onward.


Within the large circle formed by the serpent are two interlaced triangles (called in India the seal of Vishnu, in the West the seal of Solomon). The white triangle pointing upwards denotes the spiritual fire of consciousness, concealed wisdom, or spirit. The downward-pointing black triangle, sometimes colored blue or red, refers to the manifested worlds of matter, or to wisdom revealed in the worlds of manifestation. The two triangles interlaced form a six-pointed star, which means the manifested Logos, or the third cosmic emanation of the ineffable One. Again, the six-pointed star refers to the six general forces or powers of nature, the six principles, the six planes — which are represented as being all synthesized by their origin, the seventh, when a point or dot is placed within the star, for this point is what Pythagoras called the Monas monadum (the monad of monads).

"Within us, there are two centres of the Purusha, the inner Soul through which he touches us to our awakening; there is the Purusha in the lotus of the heart which opens upward all our powers and the Purusha in the thousand-petalled lotus whence descend through the thought and will, opening the third eye in us, the lightnings of vision and the fire of the divine energy. The bliss existence may come to us through either one of these centres. When the lotus of the heart breaks open, we feel a divine joy, love and peace expanding in us like a flower of light which irradiates the whole being.” The Synthesis of Yoga

“Within us, there are two centres of the Purusha, the inner Soul through which he touches us to our awakening; there is the Purusha in the lotus of the heart which opens upward all our powers and the Purusha in the thousand-petalled lotus whence descend through the thought and will, opening the third eye in us, the lightnings of vision and the fire of the divine energy. The bliss existence may come to us through either one of these centres. When the lotus of the heart breaks open, we feel a divine joy, love and peace expanding in us like a flower of light which irradiates the whole being.” The Synthesis of Yoga

:::   "Within us, there are two centres of the Purusha, the inner Soul through which he touches us to our awakening; there is the Purusha in the lotus of the heart which opens upward all our powers and the Purusha in the thousand-petalled lotus whence descend through the thought and will, opening the third eye in us, the lightnings of vision and the fire of the divine energy.” *The Synthesis of Yoga

“Within us, there are two centres of the Purusha, the inner Soul through which he touches us to our awakening; there is the Purusha in the lotus of the heart which opens upward all our powers and the Purusha in the thousand-petalled lotus whence descend through the thought and will, opening the third eye in us, the lightnings of vision and the fire of the divine energy.” The Synthesis of Yoga

Yet on the upward arc of an evolutionary cycle, partaking of this sacred ambrosial food signifies initiation, the partaking by the initiant in the Mysteries of the “drink” of spiritual immortality. This drink is symbolized by the cup and its contained liquid, but actually is the receiving into the consciousness from the inner nature of the life-giving streams, the draught of everlasting life, or the elixir of life. After partaking of this ambrosial elixir, brought about by lives of selflessness and by final initiation, the adept learns to live in the minor and intermediate spheres of the solar system as a fully self-conscious co-laborer with the gods in their cosmic work. Such are the higher nirmanakayas, true buddhas, etc.



QUOTES [45 / 45 - 1500 / 1683]


KEYS (10k)

   31 Sri Aurobindo
   4 The Mother
   2 Plato
   1 Thomas A Kempis
   1 Saint Maximus of Turin
   1 nay
   1 Matt Mercer
   1 Joseph Campbell
   1 Hermann Hesse
   1 Bertrand Russell
   1 Anonymous

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   27 Anonymous
   21 Sri Aurobindo
   21 Lisa Kleypas
   12 Charles Dickens
   11 Rainer Maria Rilke
   11 J K Rowling
   11 Elizabeth Gilbert
   10 Jordan Peterson
   10 Jordan B Peterson
   10 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
   10 Friedrich Nietzsche
   9 Plato
   8 Ursula K Le Guin
   8 Kristin Cashore
   8 J D Vance
   8 Haruki Murakami
   7 Richard Rohr
   7 Elizabeth Barrett Browning
   7 Cassandra Clare
   6 Thomas Hardy

1:Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Job, 5 7,
2:44. If God draw me towards Heaven, then, even if His other hand strive to keep me in Hell, yet must I struggle upward.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, Jnana,
3:Consciousness uses the brain which its upward strivings have produced, brain has not produced nor does it use the consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine 1.10-13,
4:The noble love of Jesus spurs to great deeds and excites longing for that which is more perfect. Love tends upward; it will not be held down by anything low. ~ Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ,
5:Always ascends the zigzag of the gods
And upward points the spirit's climbing Fire. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind,
6:That which has helped man upward, must be preserved in order that he may not sink below the level he has attained. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings, The National Value of Art,
7:It is the constant upward effort that has kept humanity alive and maintained for it its place in the front of creation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Evolutionary Process - Ascent and Integration,
8:Because of Christ's resurrection the thief ascends to paradise, the bodies of the blessed enter the holy city, and the dead are restored to the company of the living. There is an upward movement in the whole of creation. ~ Saint Maximus of Turin,
9:Aspiration is a turning upward of the inner being with a call, yearning, prayer for the Divine, for the Truth, for the Consciousness, Peace, Ananda, Knowledge, descent of Divine Force or whatever else is the aim of one's endeavour.
   ~ The Mother, [T2],
10:The mind and intellect must develop to their fullness so that the spirituality of the race may rise securely upward upon a broad basis of the developed lower nature in man, the intelligent mental being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Infrarational Age of the Cycle,
11:when it arrives at an intellectual perception or conclusion, to attach no final value to it, but rather look upward, refer all to the divine principle and wait as in complete silence as it can command for the light from above.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, 316,
12:Like a flame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward without wavering, my love goes to Thee; and like the child who does not reason and has no care, I trust myself to Thee that Thy Will may be done, that Thy Light may manifest, Thy Peace radiate, Thy Love cover the world.
   ~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations,
13:Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society ~ nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community.,
14:Sri Aurobindo: With the mental will you can suppress it temporarily but that does not bring real mastery. This pull shows that you have a strong vital force - this has to be regenerated. All thoughts, desires, conventions, attachments which come from outside must be ruthlessly pushed away. The inside must be made entirely calm and quiet and there should reign an upward aspiration - a state of awaiting. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Anilbaran Roy Interviews and Conversations,
15:The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures. Like cattle, always looking downward with their heads bent toward the ground and the banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their possessions they kick and butt with horns and hoofs of steel and kill each other, insatiable as they are. ~ Plato,
16:God must be seen and loved in the ignorant, the humble, the weak, the vile, the outcaste. In the Vibhuti himself it is not, except as a symbol, the outward individual that is to be thus recognised and set high, but the one Godhead who displays himself in the power But this does not abrogate the fact that there is an ascending scale in manifestation and that Nature mounts upward in her degrees of self-expression from her groping, dark or suppressed symbols to the first visible expressions of the Godhead.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays On The Gita,
17:The supramental Yoga is at once an ascent towards God and a descent of Godhead into the embodied nature.
   The ascent can only be achieved by a one-centered all-gathering upward aspiration of the soul and mind and life and body; the descent can only come by a call of the whole being towards the infinite and the eternal Divine. If this call and this aspiration are there, or if by any means they can be born and grow constantly and seize all the nature, then and then only a supramental uplifting and transformation becomes possible.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, [T2],
18:Here first she crawled out from her cabin of mud
Where she had lain inconscient, rigid, mute:
Its narrowness and torpor held her still,
A darkness clung to her uneffaced by Light.
There neared no touch redeeming from above:
The upward look was alien to her sight,
Forgotten the fearless godhead of her walk;
Renounced was the glory and felicity,
The adventure in the dangerous fields of Time:
Hardly she availed, wallowing, to bear and live.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.04
19:Yoga, as Swami Vivekananda has said, may be regarded as a means of compressing one's evolution into a single life or a few years or even a few months of bodily existence. A given system of Yoga, then, can be no more than a selection or a compression, into narrower but more energetic forms of intensity, of the general methods which are already being used loosely, largely, in a leisurely movement, with a profuser apparent waste of material and energy but with a more complete combination by the great Mother in her vast upward labour.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Life and Yoga, [6],
20:As gnostic knowledge, will and ananda are a direct instrumentation of spirit and can only be won by growing into the spirit, into divine being, this growth has to be the first aim of our Yoga. The mental being has to enlarge itself into the oneness of the Divine before the Divine will perfect in the soul of the individual its gnostic outflowering. That is the reason why the triple way of knowledge, works and love becomes the key-note of the whole Yoga, for that is the direct means for the soul in mind to rise to its highest intensities where it passes upward into the divine oneness.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
21:It may yet be said that a logical succession of the states of progress would be very much in this order. First, there is a large turning in which all the natural mental activities proper to the individual nature are taken up or referred to a higher standpoint and dedicated by the soul in us, the psychic being, the priest of the sacrifice, to the divine service; next, there is an attempt at an ascent of the being and a bringing down of the Light and Power proper to some new height of consciousness gained by its upward effort into the whole action of the knowledge.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent Of The Sacrifice - I, [T1],
22:All true Truth of love and of the works of love the psychic being accepts in their place: but its flame mounts always upward and it is eager to push the ascent from lesser to higher degrees of Truth, since it knows that only by the ascent to a highest Truth and the descent of that highest Truth can Love be delivered from the cross and placed upon the throne; for the cross is the sign of the Divine Descent barred and marred by the transversal line of a cosmic deformation which turns it into a stake of suffering and misfortune. Only by the ascent to the original Truth can the deformation be healed and all the works of love, as too all the works of knowledge and of life, be restored to a divine significance and become part of an integral spiritual existence.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,
23:So it is that when Dante had taken the last step in his spiritual adventure, and came before the ultimate symbolic vision of the Triune God in the Celestial Rose, he had still one more illumination to experience, even beyond the forms of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. "Bernard," he writes, "made a sign to me, and smiled, that I should look upward; but I was already, of myself, such as he wished; for my sight, becoming pure, was entering more and more, through the radiance of the lofty Light which in Itself is true. Thenceforward my vision was greater than our speech, which yields to such a sight, and the memory yields to such excess. [167]
[167] "Paradiso," XXXIII, 49-57 (translation by Norton, op. cit., Vol. Ill, pp. 253-254, by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers). ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Ultimate Boon,
24:MATT: Okay. You spiral upward and upward and upward, climbing an extremely long period of time.

Your legs begin to ache a little bit. Then another floor opens up. It appears the tower is now divided into two chambers. From the bottom floor up, it's now two sides to a tower and you're on the right side. The hallway curves around the outer edge of the tower. On the opposite side, you can see the staircase continues upward. The interior of this chamber appears to be an incredible arcane laboratory, occupying the center space of the tower inside. You see six overlapping circles of dulled runes and glyphs that encompass the entire 30-foot walkway between here and the stairs. Shelves and tables of countless glass tubes and metallic vices lay out across tables, organized in a near-OCD pattern. Tomes and books line the inner chamber walls. What do you guys do? ~ Matt Mercer, Critical Role,
25:He found the vast Thought with seven heads that is born of the Truth; he created some fourth world and became universal. . . .
The Sons of Heaven, the Heroes of the Omnipotent, thinking the straight thought, giving voice to the Truth, founded the plane of illumination and conceived the first abode of the Sacrifice. . . . The Master of Wisdom cast down the stone defences and called to the Herds of Light, . . . the herds that stand in the secrecy on the bridge over the Falsehood between two worlds below and one above; desiring Light in the darkness, he brought upward the Ray-Herds and uncovered from the veil the three worlds; he shattered the city that lies hidden in ambush, and cut the three out of the Ocean, and discovered the Dawn and the Sun and the Light and the Word of Light. Rig Veda.2 ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge,
26:It is true that the root of all this evil is the ego-sense and that the seat of the conscious ego-sense is the mind itself; but in reality the conscious mind only reflects an ego already created in the subconscious mind in things, the dumb soul in the stone and the plant which is present in all body and life and only finally delivered into voicefulness and wakefulness but not originally created by the conscious mind. And in this upward procession it is the life-energy which has become the obstinate knot of the ego, it is the desire-mind which refuses to relax the knot even when the intellect and the heart have discovered the cause of their ills and would be glad enough to remove it; for the Prana in them is the Animal who revolts and who obscures and deceives their knowledge and coerces their will by his refusal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Heart and the Mind,
27:DISCIPLE: It is said that the psychic is a spark of the Divine.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
DISCIPLE: Then it seems that the function of the psychic being is the same as that of Vedic Agni, who is the leader of the journey?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Agni is the God of the Psychic and, among the other things it does, it leads the upward journey.
DISCIPLE: How does the psychic carry the personalities formed in this life into another life?
SRI AUROBINDO: After death, it gathers its elements and carries them onward to another birth. But it is not the same personality that is born. People easily misunderstand these things, specially when they are put in terms of the mind. The past personality is taken only as the basis but a new personality is put forward. If it was the same personality, then it would act exactly in the same manner and there would be no meaning in that. ~ Sri Aurobindo, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, RECORDED BY A B PURANI (page no 665-666),
28:But in whatever way it comes, there must be a decision of the mind and the will and, as its result, a complete and effective self-consecration. The acceptance of a new spiritual idea-force and upward orientation in the being, an illumination, a turning or conversion seized on by the will and the heart's aspiration, -this is the momentous act which contains as in a seed all the results that the Yoga has to give. The mere idea or intellectual seeking of something higher beyond, however strongly grasped by the mind's interest, is ineffective unless it is seized on by the heart as the one thing desirable and by the will as the one thing to be done. For truth of the Spirit has not to be merely thought but to be lived, and to live it demands a unified single-mindedness of the being; so great a change as is contemplated by the Yoga is not to be effected by a divided will or by a small portion of the energy or by a hesitating mind. He who seeks the Divine must consecrate himself to God and to God only.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,
29:...the present terms are there not as an unprofitable recurrence, but in active pregnant gestation of all that is yet to be unfolded by the spirit, no irrational decimal recurrence helplessly repeating for ever its figures, but an expanding series of powers of the Infinite. What is in front of us is the greater potentialities, the steps yet unclimbed, the intended mightier manifestations. Why we are here is to be this means of the spirit's upward self-unfolding. What we have to do with ourselves and our significances is to grow and open them to greater significances of divine being, divine consciousness, divine power, divine delight and multiplied unity, and what we have to do with our environment is to use it consciously for increasing spiritual purposes and make it more and more a mould for the ideal unfolding of the perfect nature and self-conception of the Divine in the cosmos. This is surely the Will in things which moves, great and deliberate, unhasting, unresting, through whatever cycles, towards a greater and greater informing of its own finite figures with its own infinite Reality.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga,
30:In order to strengthen the higher knowledge-faculty in us we have to effect the same separation between the intuitive and intellectual elements of our thought as we have already effected between the understanding and the sense-mind; and this is no easy task, for not only do our intuitions come to us incrusted in the intellectual action, but there are a great number of mental workings which masquerade and ape the appearances of the higher faculty. The remedy is to train first the intellect to recognise the true intuilion, to distinguish it from the false and then to accustom it, when it arrives at an intellectual perception or conclusion, to attach no final value to it, but rather look upward, refer all to the divine principle and wait in as complete a silence as it can command for the light from above. In this way it is possible to transmute a great part of our intellectual thinking into the luminous truth-conscious vision, -- the ideal would be a complete transition, -- or at least to increase greatly the frequency, purity and conscious force of the ideal knowledge working behind the intellect. The latter must learn to be subject and passive to the ideal faculty.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, 316,
31:In Rajayoga the chosen instrument is the mind. our ordinary mentality is first disciplined, purified and directed towards the divine Being, then by a summary process of Asana and Pranayama the physical force of our being is stilled and concentrated, the life-force released into a rhythmic movement capable of cessation and concentrated into a higher power of its upward action, the mind, supported and strengthened by this greater action and concentration of the body and life upon which it rests, is itself purified of all its unrest and emotion and its habitual thought-waves, liberated from distraction and dispersion, given its highest force of concentration, gathered up into a trance of absorption. Two objects, the one temporal, the other eternal,are gained by this discipline. Mind-power develops in another concentrated action abnormal capacities of knowledge, effective will, deep light of reception, powerful light of thought-radiation which are altogether beyond the narrow range of our normal mentality; it arrives at the Yogic or occult powers around which there has been woven so much quite dispensable and yet perhaps salutary mystery. But the one final end and the one all-important gain is that the mind, stilled and cast into a concentrated trance, can lose itself in the divine consciousness and the soul be made free to unite with the divine Being.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609,
32:There is in her an overwhelming intensity, a mighty passion of force to achieve, a divine violence rushing to shatter every limit and obstacle. All her divinity leaps out in a splendour of tempestuous action; she is there for swiftness, for the immediately effective process, the rapid and direct stroke, the frontal assault that carries everything before it. Terrible is her face to the Asura, dangerous and ruthless her mood against the haters of the Divine; for she is the Warrior of the Worlds who never shrinks from the battle. Intolerant of imperfection, she deals roughly with all in man that is unwilling and she is severe to all that is obstinately ignorant and obscure; her wrath is immediate and dire against treachery and falsehood and malignity, ill-will is smitten at once by her scourge. Indifference, negligence and sloth in the divine work she cannot bear and she smites awake at once with sharp pain, if need be, the untimely slumberer and the loiterer. The impulses that are swift and straight and frank, the movements that are unreserved and absolute, the aspiration that mounts in flame are the motion of Mahakali. Her spirit is tameless, her vision and will are high and far-reaching like the flight of an eagle, her feet are rapid on the upward way and her hands are outstretched to strike and to succour. For she too is the Mother and her love is as intense as her wrath and she has a deep and passionate kindness. When she is allowed to intervene in her strength, then in one moment are broken like things without consistence the obstacles that immobilise or the enemies that assail the seeker
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [19],
33:But if somewhere in your being - either in your body or even in your vital or mind, either in several parts or even in a single one - there is an incapacity to receive the descending Force, this acts like a grain of sand in a machine. You know, a fine machine working quite well with everything going all right, and you put into it just a little sand (nothing much, only a grain of sand), suddenly everything is damaged and the machine stops. Well, just a little lack of receptivity somewhere, something that is unable to receive the Force, that is completely shut up (when one looks at it, it becomes as it were a little dark spot somewhere, a tiny thing hard as a stone: the Force cannot enter into it, it refuses to receive it - either it cannot or it will not) and immediately that produces a great imbalance; and this thing that was moving upward, that was blooming so wonderfully, finds itself sick, and sometimes just when you were in the normal equilibrium; you were in good health, everything was going on well, you had nothing to complain about. One day when you grasped a new idea, received a new impulse, when you had a great aspiration and received a great force and had a marvellous experience, a beautiful experience opening to you inner doors, giving you a knowledge you did not have before; then you were sure that everything was going to be all right.... The next day, you are taken ill. So you say: "Still that? It is impossible! That should not happen." But it was quite simply what I have just said: a grain of sand. There was something that could not receive; immediately it brings about a disequilibrium. Even though very small it is enough, and you fall ill.

~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 175,
34:Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
   I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.
   With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
   Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
   This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. ~ Bertrand Russell,
35:mastering the lower self and leverage for the march towards the Divine :::
   In proportion as he can thus master and enlighten his lower self, he is man and no longer an animal. When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a still greater enlightened thought and sight and will in touch with the Infinite, consciously subject to a diviner will than his own, linked to a more universal and transcendent knowledge, he has commenced the ascent towards tile superman; he is on his upward march towards the Divine.
   It is, then, in the highest mind of thought and light and will or it is in the inner heart of deepest feeling and emotion that we must first centre our consciousness, -- in either of them or, if we are capable, in both together, -- and use that as our leverage to lift the nature wholly towards the Divine. The concentration of an enlightened thought, will and heart turned in unison towards one vast goal of our knowledge, one luminous and infinite source of our action, one imperishable object of our emotion is the starting-point of the Yoga. And the object of our seeking must be the very fount of the Light which is growing in us, the very origin of the Force which we are calling to move our members. Our one objective must be the Divine himself to whom, knowingly or unknowingly, something always aspires in our secret nature. There must be a large, many-sided yet single concentration of the thought on the idea, the perception, the vision, the awakening touch, the soul's realisation of the one Divine. There must be a flaming concentration of the heart on the All and Eternal and, when once we have found him, a deep plunging and immersion in the possession and ecstasy of the All-Beautiful. There must be a strong and immovable concentration of the will on the attainment and fulfilment of all that the Divine is and a free and plastic opening of it to all that he intends to manifest in us. This is the triple way of the Yoga.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 80-81,
36:the omnipresent Trinity :::
   In practice three conceptions are necessary before there can be any possibility of Yoga; there must be, as it were, three consenting parties to the effort,-God, Nature and the human soul or, in more abstract language, the Transcendental, the Universal and the Individual. If the individual and Nature are left to themselves, the one is bound to the other and unable to exceed appreciably her lingering march. Something transcendent is needed, free from her and greater, which will act upon us and her, attracting us upward to Itself and securing from her by good grace or by force her consent to the individual ascension. It is this truth which makes necessary to every philosophy of Yoga the conception of the Ishwara, Lord, supreme Soul or supreme Self, towards whom the effort is directed and who gives the illuminating touch and the strength to attain. Equally true is the complementary idea so often enforced by the Yoga of devotion that as the Transcendent is necessary to the individual and sought after by him, so also the individual is necessary in a sense to the Transcendent and sought after by It. If the Bhakta seeks and yearns after Bhagavan, Bhagavan also seeks and yearns after the Bhakta. There can be no Yoga of knowledge without a human seeker of the knowledge, the supreme subject of knowledge and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of knowledge; no Yoga of devotion without the human God-lover, the supreme object of love and delight and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of spiritual, emotional and aesthetic enjoyment; no Yoga of works without the human worker, the supreme Will, Master of all works and sacrifices, and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of power and action. However Monistic maybe our intellectual conception of the highest truth of things, in practice we are compelled to accept this omnipresent Trinity.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga,
37:But this is not always the manner of the commencement. The sadhaka is often led gradually and there is a long space between the first turning of the mind and the full assent of the nature to the thing towards which it turns. There may at first be only a vivid intellectual interest, a forcible attraction towards the idea and some imperfect form of practice. Or perhaps there is an effort not favoured by the whole nature, a decision or a turn imposed by an intellectual influence or dictated by personal affection and admiration for someone who is himself consecrated and devoted to the Highest. In such cases, a long period of preparation may be necessary before there comes the irrevocable consecration; and in some instances it may not come. There may be some advance, there may be a strong effort, even much purification and many experiences other than those that are central or supreme; but the life will either be spent in preparation or, a certain stage having been reached, the mind pushed by an insufficient driving-force may rest content at the limit of the effort possible to it. Or there may even be a recoil to the lower life, - what is called in the ordinary parlance of Yoga a fall from the path. This lapse happens because there is a defect at the very centre. The intellect has been interested, the heart attracted, the will has strung itself to the effort, but the whole nature has not been taken captive by the Divine. It has only acquiesced in the interest, the attraction or the endeavour. There has been an experiment, perhaps even an eager experiment, but not a total self-giving to an imperative need of the soul or to an unforsakable ideal. Even such imperfect Yoga has not been wasted; for no upward effort is made in vain. Even if it fails in the present or arrives only at some preparatory stage or preliminary realisation, it has yet determined the soul's future.

But if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not as an important part of life, but as the whole of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,
38:requirements for the psychic :::
   At a certain stage in the Yoga when the mind is sufficiently quieted and no longer supports itself at every step on the sufficiency of its mental certitudes, when the vital has been steadied and subdued and is no longer constantly insistent on its own rash will, demand and desire, when the physical has been sufficiently altered not to bury altogether the inner flame under the mass of its outwardness, obscurity or inertia, an inmost being hidden within and felt only in its rare influences is able to come forward and illumine the rest and take up the lead of the sadhana. Its character is a one-pointed orientation towards the Divine or the Highest, one-pointed and yet plastic in action and movement; it does not create a rigidity of direction like the one-pointed intellect or a bigotry of the regnant idea or impulse like the one-pointed vital force; it is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the Truth, automatically distinguishes the right step from the false, extricates the divine or Godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine. Its action is like a searchlight showing up all that has to be changed in the nature; it has in it a flame of will insistent on perfection, on an alchemic transmutation of all the inner and outer existence. It sees the divine essence everywhere but rejects the mere mask and the disguising figure. It insists on Truth, on will and strength and mastery, on Joy and Love and Beauty, but on a Truth of abiding Knowledge that surpasses the mere practical momentary truth of the Ignorance, on an inward joy and not on mere vital pleasure, -- for it prefers rather a purifying suffering and sorrow to degrading satisfactions, -- on love winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feet sunk in the mire, on beauty restored to its priesthood of interpretation of the Eternal, on strength and will and mastery as instruments not of the ego but of the Spirit. Its will is for the divinisation of life, the expression through it of a higher Truth, its dedication to the Divine and the Eternal.
   But the most intimate character of the psychic is its pressure towards the Divine through a sacred love, joy and oneness. It is the divine Love that it seeks most, it is the love of the Divine that is its spur, its goal, its star of Truth shining over the luminous cave of the nascent or the still obscure cradle of the new-born godhead within us.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,
39:The modern distinction is that the poet appeals to the imagination and not to the intellect. But there are many kinds of imagination; the objective imagination which visualises strongly the outward aspects of life and things; the subjective imagination which visualises strongly the mental and emotional impressions they have the power to start in the mind; the imagination which deals in the play of mental fictions and to which we give the name of poetic fancy; the aesthetic imagination which delights in the beauty of words and images for their own sake and sees no farther. All these have their place in poetry, but they only give the poet his materials, they are only the first instruments in the creation of poetic style. The essential poetic imagination does not stop short with even the most subtle reproductions of things external or internal, with the richest or delicatest play of fancy or with the most beautiful colouring of word or image. It is creative, not of either the actual or the fictitious, but of the more and the most real; it sees the spiritual truth of things, - of this truth too there are many gradations, - which may take either the actual or the ideal for its starting-point. The aim of poetry, as of all true art, is neither a photographic or otherwise realistic imitation of Nature, nor a romantic furbishing and painting or idealistic improvement of her image, but an interpretation by the images she herself affords us, not on one but on many planes of her creation, of that which she conceals from us, but is ready, when rightly approached, to reveal.

   This is the true, because the highest and essential aim of poetry; but the human mind arrives at it only by a succession of steps, the first of which seems far enough from its object. It begins by stringing its most obvious and external ideas, feelings and sensations of things on a thread of verse in a sufficient language of no very high quality. But even when it gets to a greater adequacy and effectiveness, it is often no more than a vital, an emotional or an intellectual adequacy and effectiveness. There is a strong vital poetry which powerfully appeals to our sensations and our sense of life, like much of Byron or the less inspired mass of the Elizabethan drama; a strong emotional poetry which stirs our feelings and gives us the sense and active image of the passions; a strong intellectual poetry which satisfies our curiosity about life and its mechanism, or deals with its psychological and other "problems", or shapes for us our thoughts in an effective, striking and often quite resistlessly quotable fashion. All this has its pleasures for the mind and the surface soul in us, and it is certainly quite legitimate to enjoy them and to enjoy them strongly and vividly on our way upward; but if we rest content with these only, we shall never get very high up the hill of the Muses.

   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry,
40:Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can be also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it. ... Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it and all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other ways.
   That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward and in the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it begins to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head in only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental concentration is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the most desirable.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,
41:[desire and its divine form:]
   Into all our endeavour upward the lower element of desire will at first naturally enter. For what the enlightened will sees as the thing to be done and pursues as the crown to be conquered, what the heart embraces as the one thing delightful, that in us which feels itself limited and opposed and, because it is limited, craves and struggles, will seek with the troubled passion of an egoistic desire. This craving life-force or desire-soul in us has to be accepted at first, but only in order that it may be transformed. Even from the very beginning it has to be taught to renounce all other desires and concentrate itself on the passion for the Divine. This capital point gained, it has to be aught to desire, not for its own separate sake, but for God in the world and for the Divine in ourselves; it has to fix itself upon no personal spiritual gain, though of all possible spiritual gains we are sure, but on the great work to be done in us and others, on the high coming manifestation which is to be the glorious fulfilment of the Divine in the world, on the Truth that has to be sought and lived and enthroned for eveR But last, most difficult for it, more difficult than to seek with the right object, it has to be taught to seek in the right manner; for it must learn to desire, not in its own egoistic way, but in the way of the Divine. It must insist no longer, as the strong separative will always insists, on its own manner of fulfilment, its own dream of possession, its own idea of the right and the desirable; it must yearn to fulfil a larger and greater Will and consent to wait upon a less interested and ignorant guidance. Thus trained, Desire, that great unquiet harasser and troubler of man and cause of every kind of stumbling, will become fit to be transformed into its divine counterpart. For desire and passion too have their divine forms; there is a pure ecstasy of the soul's seeking beyond all craving and grief, there is a Will of Ananda that sits glorified in the possession of the supreme beatitudes.
   When once the object of concentration has possessed and is possessed by the three master instruments, the thought, the heart and the will,-a consummation fully possible only when the desire-soul in us has submitted to the Divine Law,-the perfection of mind and life and body can be effectively fulfilled in our transmuted nature. This will be done, not for the personal satisfaction of the ego, but that the whole may constitute a fit temple for the Divine Presence, a faultless instrument for the divine work. For that work can be truly performed only when the instrument, consecrated and perfected, has grown fit for a selfless action,-and that will be when personal desire and egoism are abolished, but not the liberated individual. Even when the little ego has been abolished, the true spiritual Person can still remain and God's will and work and delight in him and the spiritual use of his perfection and fulfilment. Our works will then be divine and done divinely; our mind and life and will, devoted to the Divine, will be used to help fulfil in others and in the world that which has been first realised in ourselves,- all that we can manifest of the embodied Unity, Love, Freedom, Strength, Power, Splendour, immortal Joy which is the goal of the Spirit's terrestrial adventure.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration [83] [T1],
42:In the process of this change there must be by the very necessity of the effort two stages of its working. First, there will be the personal endeavour of the human being, as soon as he becomes aware by his soul, mind, heart of this divine possibility and turns towards it as the true object of life, to prepare himself for it and to get rid of all in him that belongs to a lower working, of all that stands in the way of his opening to the spiritual truth and its power, so as to possess by this liberation his spiritual being and turn all his natural movements into free means of its self-expression. It is by this turn that the self-conscious Yoga aware of its aim begins: there is a new awakening and an upward change of the life motive. So long as there is only an intellectual, ethical and other self-training for the now normal purposes of life which does not travel beyond the ordinary circle of working of mind, life and body, we are still only in the obscure and yet unillumined preparatory Yoga of Nature; we are still in pursuit of only an ordinary human perfection. A spiritual desire of the Divine and of the divine perfection, of a unity with him in all our being and a spiritual perfection in all our nature, is the effective sign of this change, the precursory power of a great integral conversion of our being and living. By personal effort a precursory change, a preliminary conversion can be effected; it amounts to a greater or less spiritualising of our mental motives, our character and temperament, and a mastery, stilling or changed action of the vital and physical life. This converted subjectivity can be made the base of some communion or unity of the soul in mind with the Divine and some partial reflection of the divine nature in the mentality of the human being. That is as far as man can go by his unaided or indirectly aided effort, because that is an effort of mind and mind cannot climb beyond itself permanently: at most it arises to a spiritualised and idealised mentality. If it shoots up beyond that border, it loses hold of itself, loses hold of life, and arrives either at a trance of absorption or a passivity. A greater perfection can only be arrived at by a higher power entering in and taking up the whole action of the being. The second stage of this Yoga will therefore be a persistent giving up of all the action of the nature into the hands of this greater Power, a substitution of its influence, possession and working for the personal effort, until the Divine to whom we aspire becomes the direct master of the Yoga and effects the entire spiritual and ideal conversion of the being. Two rules there are that will diminish the difficulty and obviate the danger. One must reject all that comes from the ego, from vital desire, from the mere mind and its presumptuous reasoning incompetence, all that ministers to these agents of the Ignorance. One must learn to hear and follow the voice of the inmost soul, the direction of the Guru, the command of the Master, the working of the Divine Mother. Whoever clings to the desires and weaknesses of the flesh, the cravings and passions of the vital in its turbulent ignorance, the dictates of his personal mind unsilenced and unillumined by a greater knowledge, cannot find the true inner law and is heaping obstacles in the way of the divine fulfilment. Whoever is able to detect and renounce those obscuring agencies and to discern and follow the true Guide within and without will discover the spiritual law and reach the goal of the Yoga. A radical and total change of consciousness is not only the whole meaning but, in an increasing force and by progressive stages, the whole method of the integral Yoga.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Integral Perfection [618],
43:The principle of Yoga is the turning of one or of all powers of our human existence into a means of reaching the divine Being. In an ordinary Yoga one main power of being or one group of its powers is made the means, vehicle, path. In a synthetic Yoga all powers will be combined and included in the transmuting instrumentation.
   In Hathayoga the instrument is the body and life. All the power of the body is stilled, collected, purified, heightened, concentrated to its utmost limits or beyond any limits by Asana and other physical processes; the power of the life too is similarly purified, heightened, concentrated by Asana and Pranayama. This concentration of powers is then directed towards that physical centre in which the divine consciousness sits concealed in the human body. The power of Life, Nature-power, coiled up with all its secret forces asleep in the lowest nervous plexus of the earth-being,-for only so much escapes into waking action in our normal operations as is sufficient for the limited uses of human life,-rises awakened through centre after centre and awakens, too, in its ascent and passage the forces of each successive nodus of our being, the nervous life, the heart of emotion and ordinary mentality, the speech, sight, will, the higher knowledge, till through and above the brain it meets with and it becomes one with the divine consciousness.
   In Rajayoga the chosen instrument is the mind. our ordinary mentality is first disciplined, purified and directed towards the divine Being, then by a summary process of Asana and Pranayama the physical force of our being is stilled and concentrated, the life-force released into a rhythmic movement capable of cessation and concentrated into a higher power of its upward action, the mind, supported and strengthened by this greater action and concentration of the body and life upon which it rests, is itself purified of all its unrest and emotion and its habitual thought-waves, liberated from distraction and dispersion, given its highest force of concentration, gathered up into a trance of absorption. Two objects, the one temporal, the other eternal,are gained by this discipline. Mind-power develops in another concentrated action abnormal capacities of knowledge, effective will, deep light of reception, powerful light of thought-radiation which are altogether beyond the narrow range of our normal mentality; it arrives at the Yogic or occult powers around which there has been woven so much quite dispensable and yet perhaps salutary mystery. But the one final end and the one all-important gain is that the mind, stilled and cast into a concentrated trance, can lose itself in the divine consciousness and the soul be made free to unite with the divine Being.
   The triple way takes for its chosen instruments the three main powers of the mental soul-life of the human being. Knowledge selects the reason and the mental vision and it makes them by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of a Goddirected seeking its means for the greatest knowledge and the greatest vision of all, God-knowledge and God-vision. Its aim is to see, know and be the Divine. Works, action selects for its instrument the will of the doer of works; it makes life an offering of sacrifice to the Godhead and by purification, concentration and a certain discipline of subjection to the divine Will a means for contact and increasing unity of the soul of man with the divine Master of the universe. Devotion selects the emotional and aesthetic powers of the soul and by turning them all Godward in a perfect purity, intensity, infinite passion of seeking makes them a means of God-possession in one or many relations of unity with the Divine Being. All aim in their own way at a union or unity of the human soul with the supreme Spirit.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609,
44:summary of the entire process of psychic awakening :::
You have asked what is the discipline to be followed in order to convert the mental seeking into a living spiritual experience. The first necessity is the practice of concentration of your consciousness within yourself. The ordinary human mind has an activity on the surface which veils the real Self. But there is another, a hidden consciousness within behind the surface one in which we can become aware of the real Self and of a larger deeper truth of nature, can realise the Self and liberate and transform the nature. To quiet the surface mind and begin to live within is the object of this concentration. Of this true consciousness other then the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it an d all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other way.
   That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward to all that is above mind. After a time one feels the consciousness rising upward and it the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it behind to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head is only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental consciousness is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the more desirable.
   The other side of the discipline is with regard to the activities of the nature, of the mind, of the life-self or vital, of the physical being. Here the principle is to accord the nature with the inner realisation so that one may not be divided into two discordant parts. There are here several disciplines or processes possible. One is to offer all the activities to the Divine and call for the inner guidance and the taking up of one's nature by a Higher Power. If there is the inward soul-opening, if the psychic being comes forward, then there is no great difficulty - there comes with it a psychic discrimination, a constant intimation, finally a governance which discloses and quietly and patiently removes all imperfections, bring the right mental and vital movements and reshapes the physical consciousness also. Another method is to stand back detached from the movements of the mind, life, physical being, to regard their activities as only a habitual formation of general Nature in the individual imposed on us by past workings, not as any part of our real being; in proportion as one succeeds in this, becomes detached, sees mind and its activities as not oneself, life and its activities as not oneself, the body and its activities as not oneself, one becomes aware of an inner Being within us - inner mental, inner vital, inner physical - silent, calm, unbound, unattached which reflects the true Self above and can be its direct representative; from this inner silent Being proceeds a rejection of all that is to be rejected, an acceptance only of what can be kept and transformed, an inmost Will to perfection or a call to the Divine Power to do at each step what is necessary for the change of the Nature. It can also open mind, life and body to the inmost psychic entity and its guiding influence or its direct guidance. In most cases these two methods emerge and work together and finally fuse into one. But one can being with either, the one that one feels most natural and easy to follow.
   Finally, in all difficulties where personal effort is hampered, the help of the Teacher can intervene and bring above what is needed for the realisation or for the immediate step that is necessary.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II, 6, {871},
45:To what gods shall the sacrifice be offered? Who shall be invoked to manifest and protect in the human being this increasing godhead?

Agni first, for without him the sacrificial flame cannot burn on the altar of the soul. That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with Knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity.

Indra, the Puissant next, who is the power of pure Existence self-manifested as the Divine Mind. As Agni is one pole of Force instinct with knowledge that sends its current upward from earth to heaven, so Indra is the other pole of Light instinct with force which descends from heaven to earth. He comes down into our world as the Hero with the shining horses and slays darkness and division with his lightnings, pours down the life-giving heavenly waters, finds in the trace of the hound, Intuition, the lost or hidden illuminations, makes the Sun of Truth mount high in the heaven of our mentality.

Surya, the Sun, is the master of that supreme Truth, - truth of being, truth of knowledge, truth of process and act and movement and functioning. He is therefore the creator or rather the manifester of all things - for creation is out-bringing, expression by the Truth and Will - and the father, fosterer, enlightener of our souls. The illuminations we seek are the herds of this Sun who comes to us in the track of the divine Dawn and releases and reveals in us night-hidden world after world up to the highest Beatitude.

Of that beatitude Soma is the representative deity. The wine of his ecstasy is concealed in the growths of earth, in the waters of existence; even here in our physical being are his immortalising juices and they have to be pressed out and offered to all the gods; for in that strength these shall increase and conquer.

Each of these primary deities has others associated with him who fulfil functions that arise from his own. For if the truth of Surya is to be established firmly in our mortal nature, there are previous conditions that are indispensable; a vast purity and clear wideness destructive of all sin and crooked falsehood, - and this is Varuna; a luminous power of love and comprehension leading and forming into harmony all our thoughts, acts and impulses, - this is Mitra; an immortal puissance of clear-discerning aspiration and endeavour, - this is Aryaman; a happy spontaneity of the right enjoyment of all things dispelling the evil dream of sin and error and suffering, - this is Bhaga. These four are powers of the Truth of Surya. For the whole bliss of Soma to be established perfectly in our nature a happy and enlightened and unmaimed condition of mind, vitality and body are necessary. This condition is given to us by the twin Ashwins; wedded to the daughter of Light, drinkers of honey, bringers of perfect satisfactions, healers of maim and malady they occupy our parts of knowledge and parts of action and prepare our mental, vital and physical being for an easy and victorious ascension.

Indra, the Divine Mind, as the shaper of mental forms has for his assistants, his artisans, the Ribhus, human powers who by the work of sacrifice and their brilliant ascension to the high dwelling-place of the Sun have attained to immortality and help mankind to repeat their achievement. They shape by the mind Indra's horses, the chariot of the Ashwins, the weapons of the Gods, all the means of the journey and the battle. But as giver of the Light of Truth and as Vritra-slayer Indra is aided by the Maruts, who are powers of will and nervous or vital Force that have attained to the light of thought and the voice of self-expression. They are behind all thought and speech as its impellers and they battle towards the Light, Truth and Bliss of the supreme Consciousness.

There are also female energies; for the Deva is both Male and Female and the gods also are either activising souls or passively executive and methodising energies. Aditi, infinite Mother of the Gods, comes first; and there are besides five powers of the Truthconsciousness, - Mahi or Bharati, the vast Word that brings us all things out of the divine source; Ila, the strong primal word of the Truth who gives us its active vision; Saraswati, its streaming current and the word of its inspiration; Sarama, the Intuition, hound of heaven who descends into the cavern of the subconscient and finds there the concealed illuminations; Dakshina, whose function is to discern rightly, dispose the action and the offering and distribute in the sacrifice to each godhead its portion. Each god, too, has his female energy.

All this action and struggle and ascension is supported by Heaven our Father and Earth our Mother Parents of the Gods, who sustain respectively the purely mental and psychic and the physical consciousness. Their large and free scope is the condition of our achievement. Vayu, master of life, links them together by the mid-air, the region of vital force. And there are other deities, - Parjanya, giver of the rain of heaven; Dadhikravan, the divine war-horse, a power of Agni; the mystic Dragon of the Foundations; Trita Aptya who on the third plane of existence consummates our triple being; and more besides.

The development of all these godheads is necessary to our perfection. And that perfection must be attained on all our levels, - in the wideness of earth, our physical being and consciousness; in the full force of vital speed and action and enjoyment and nervous vibration, typified as the Horse which must be brought forward to upbear our endeavour; in the perfect gladness of the heart of emotion and a brilliant heat and clarity of the mind throughout our intellectual and psychical being; in the coming of the supramental Light, the Dawn and the Sun and the shining Mother of the herds, to transform all our existence; for so comes to us the possession of the Truth, by the Truth the admirable surge of the Bliss, in the Bliss infinite Consciousness of absolute being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, The Doctrine of the Mystics,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:Onward and Upward! To Narnia and the North! ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
2:Were toiling upward in the night. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove
3:In a world of upward mobility, choose downward servility. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove
4:It is a man dying with his harness on that angels love to escort upward. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove
5:God gave man an upright countenance to survey the heavens, and to look upward to the stars. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove
6:Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious. ~ carl-jung, @wisdomtrove
7:Here's to opening and upward... and to yourself and up with you and up with and up with laughing. ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove
8:Nature gropes and blunders and performs the crudest acts. There is no steady advance upward. There is no design. ~ oliver-sacks, @wisdomtrove
9:The inside must be made entirely calm and quiet and there should reign an upward aspiration - a state of awaiting. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
10:From forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward. ~ oliver-wendell-holmes-jr, @wisdomtrove
11:What if, when this fog scatters and flies upward, the whole rotten, slimey city goes with it, rises with the fog and vanishes like smoke. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove
12:Stotting is jumping upward with all four legs simultaneously. My advice: do not die until you've seen a large black poodle stotting in the snow. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove
13:(and from my thighs which shrug and pant a murdering rain leapingly reaches the upward singular deepest flower which she carries in a gesture of her hips) ~ e-e-cummings, @wisdomtrove
14:For a while I didn't have a car . . . I had a helicopter . . . no place to park it, so I just tied it to a lamp post and left it running. [slow glance upward] ~ steven-wright, @wisdomtrove
15:Let a man go down as low as possible; there must come a time when out of sheer desperation he will take an upward curve and will learn to have faith in himself. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
16:The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove
17:Have I not walked without an upward look Of caution under stars that very well Might not have missed me when they shot and fell? It was a risk I had to take-and took. ~ robert-frost, @wisdomtrove
18:At the violet hour, when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove
19:Oh Agnes, Oh my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward! ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
20:Plants are the young of the world, vessels of health and vigour; but they grope ever upward towards consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground. ~ ralph-waldo-emerson, @wisdomtrove
21:I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air beat upward to god's throne in loud access of shrieking and reproach ~ elizabeth-barrett-browning, @wisdomtrove
22:Once you have maintained a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it forever. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove
23:I am conscious of a soul-sense that lifts me above the narrow, cramping circumstances of my life. My physical limitations are forgotten- my world lies upward, the length and the breadth and the sweep of the heavens are mine! ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove
24:There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over... Faint to my ears came the gathered rumor of all lands: the springing and the dying, the song and the weeping, and the slow everlasting groan of overburdened stone. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove
25:I suppose [my life] has most resembled a blue chip stock: fairly stable, more ups than downs, and gradually trending upward over time. A good buy, a lucky buy, and I've learned that not everyone can say that about his life. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove
26:By education I mean justice that training in excellence from youth upward which makes a man passionately desire to be a perfect citizen, and teaches him to rule, and to obey, with justice. This is the only education which deserves the name. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove
27:If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio's market value. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove
28:Man can never come up to his ideal standard. It is the nature of the immortal spirit to raise that standard higher and higher as it goes from strength to strength, still upward and onward. The wisest and greatest men are ever the most modest. ~ margaret-fuller, @wisdomtrove
29:I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history&
30:It was a marvelous night, the sort of night one only experiences when one is young. The sky was so bright, and there were so many stars that, gazing upward, one couldn't help wondering how so many whimsical, wicked people could live under such a sky. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove
31:You cannot rise about your words. A lot of people use foul, pornographic, filthy, language and you SEE, all of those words paint pictures and they reveal the internal thinking of the person on the inside. YOU cannot RISE (forward, onward upward) above your words. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove
32:Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove
33:You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. ~ sonja-lyubomirsky, @wisdomtrove
34:We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavour to see the good that dwells in everything. If we sit down and lament over the imperfection of our bodies and our minds, we profit nothing; it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upward. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
35:Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them... . If they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck their power of usefulness is gone. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove
36:The fact is that the more we take flight upward, the more our words are confined to the ideas we are capable of forming; so that now as we plunge into that darkness which is beyond intellect, we shall find ourselves not simply running short of words but actually speechless and unknowing. ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove
37:The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility.  It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets and choosing the last place!  Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing?  Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove
38:Well has it been said that man is the only animal that naturally looks upwards; every other animal naturally looks down. That looking upward and going upward and seeking perfection are what is called salvation; and the sooner a man begins to go higher, the sooner he raises himself towards this idea of truth as salvation. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
39:When I am praying the most eloquently, I am getting the least accomplished in my prayer life. But when I stop getting eloquent and give God less theology and shut up and just gaze upward and wait for God to speak to my heart He speaks with such power that I have to grab a pencil and a notebook and take notes on what God is saying to my heart. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove
40:The navel region is the centre of the vital. It is from here that the movements of the vital rise upward. Above the navel and behind the chest is the centre of the play of emotions and below this takes place the play of the physical. Mulādhāra is the base of the physical. In between the Mulādhāra and the navel, there is another centre of the vital. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove
41:The Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up, nay, you have to cut every step with an ice axe; only with incessant labor in cutting and chipping can you make any progress... If you want to know how to backslide, leave off going forward. Cease going upward and you will go downward of necessity. You can never stand still. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove
42:Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets that numb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith-the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen! ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove
43:Books are good but they are only maps. Reading a book by direction of a man I read that so many inches of rain fell during the year. Then he told me to take the book and squeeze it between my hands. I did so and not a drop of water came from it. It was the idea only that the book conveyed. So we can get good from books, from the temple, from the church, from anything, so long as it leads us onward and upward. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove
44:Love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. But they don't know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who've never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you've felt what it means to love as you and I know it - total passion for the total height - you're incapable of anything less. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove
45:Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove
46:That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. But they don’t know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who’ve never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt, and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you’ve felt what it means to love as you and I know it – the total passion for the total height – you’re incapable of anything less. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove
47:Blackened skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward to the convent, as if the ghosts of former travellers, overwhelmed by the snow, haunted the scene of their distress. Icicle-hung caves and cellars built for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of the perils of the place; never-resting wreaths and mazes of mist wandered about, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting danger of the mountain, against which all its defences were taken, drifted sharply down. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
48:But the moon came slowly up in all her gentle glory, and the stars looked out, and through the small compass of the grated window, as through the narrow crevice of one good deed in a murky life of guilt, the face of Heaven shone bright and merciful. He raised his head; gazed upward at the quiet sky, which seemed to smile upon the earth in sadness, as if the night, more thoughtful than the day, looked down in sorrow on the sufferings and evil deeds of men; and felt its peace sink deep into his heart. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
49:I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul... Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
50:Where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, I sat and looked toward the building where Naoko lived. It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove
51:I had learned to dwell with pleasure as a beloved daydream on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each I told myself could be housed in separate identities life would be relieved of all that was unbearable the unjust might go his way delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path doing the good things in which he found his pleasure and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. ~ robert-louis-stevenson, @wisdomtrove
52:Jesus' whole life and mission involve accepting powerlessness and revealing in this powerlessness the limitlessness of God's love. Here we see what compassion means. It is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out from on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull. On the contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove
53:She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Onward and upward. ~ Lev Grossman,
2:Upward and Onward ~ Stephen Zimmer,
3:Onward and upward. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
4:Upward, not Northward ~ Edwin A Abbott,
5:Love that goes upward is worship; ~ Donald Barnhouse,
6:Onward and Upward! To Narnia and the North! ~ C S Lewis,
7:And we may be led, then, upward through more ~ John Ashbery,
8:Temptation provokes me to look upward to God. ~ John Bunyan,
9:The way upward and the way downward are the same. ~ Heraclitus,
10:The boy grows upward, but the girl grows up. ~ Patrick Rothfuss,
11:At low temperatures, liquid helium can flow upward. ~ Max Tegmark,
12:Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. ~ Marilynne Robinson,
13:Man is born to trouble
as the sparks fly upward. ~ Cassandra Clare,
14:The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on! ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
15:In a world of upward mobility, choose downward servility. ~ Max Lucado,
16:Schiller moves upward. Goethe comes from up above. ~ Franz Grillparzer,
17:The eternal feminine doth draw us upward. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
18:Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward. ~ Anonymous,
19:pointed dramatically upward. “Look,” he said. “Look, all of ~ Harper Lee,
20:Love that leads life upward is the noblest and the best. ~ Henry Van Dyke,
21:In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile. ~ Hunter S Thompson,
22:upward mobility fell off in the 1970s and never really recovered ~ J D Vance,
23:It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward. ~ Andre Gide,
24:Politics moves upward into ethics, and ethics ascends to theology. ~ Russell Kirk,
25:She fell upward into brilliance, where all suffering was released. ~ Mark Salzman,
26:Where people are gone the night falls upward, black and unmanned. ~ Rachel Kushner,
27:All signs were pointing upward; his wheel was revolving skyward. ~ John Kennedy Toole,
28:We will move forward, we will move upward, and yes, we will move onward. ~ Dan Quayle,
29:Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. Its their way of falling. ~ Andre Gide,
30:Fish die belly upward, and rise to the surface. It's their way of falling. ~ Andr Gide,
31:It's very easy to go down, so always live up. Incline yourself upward. ~ Jack Nicholson,
32:Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. ~ Anonymous, The Bible, Job 5 7,
33:something was going on. His finger shot upward. “What the hell’s that?” he ~ Douglas Adams,
34:You love me.”
He kept gazing upward, his answer coming softly. “Yeah. I do. ~ Toni Blake,
35:A single face turned upward toward all Time One flesh, one ecstasy, one peace. ~ Ray Bradbury,
36:It is a man dying with his harness on that angels love to escort upward. ~ Henry Ward Beecher,
37:I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward. ~ Charlotte Bront,
38:Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split the boulder. ~ Carl Sandburg,
39:The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
40:I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward. ~ Charlotte Bronte,
41:Life has no smooth road for any of us, we just have to keep looking upward ~ Alfusainey jallow,
42:By nature sparks fly upward, but the sinful souls of men fall downward. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
43:I want your sun to reach my raindrops, so your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud. ~ Rumi,
44:Man's upward progress means ever increasing difficulty, which is to be welcomed. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
45:Muttering, rolling our eyeballs upward,
we are becoming a new kind of bivalve ~ Joseph Brodsky,
46:O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall? ~ Dante Alighieri,
47:Show business is a great place to fail upward... and I guess that's what I've done. ~ Kurt Fuller,
48:God gave man an upright countenance to survey the heavens, and to look upward to the stars. ~ Ovid,
49:.. every step of the upward way is strewn with wreckage of body, mind, and morals. ~ G Stanley Hall,
50:Janner found his feet and struck the charging Fang’s blade upward with his sword. ~ Andrew Peterson,
51:The horizon curved upward to both sides. Not good, not right. Horizons do not curve up. ~ Greg Bear,
52:Things at the worst will cease or else climb upward To what they were before. ~ William Shakespeare,
53:Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward to what they were before. ~ William Shakespeare,
54:...in the intoxication of falling, man was prone to believe himself propelled upward. ~ Hermann Broch,
55:Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious. ~ Carl Jung,
56:No matter what happens below you, just turn your eyes upward and relax your heart. ~ Michael A Singer,
57:OK,’ Duffy said. ‘So what have we got?’ We had rugs. The door rattled upward and daylight ~ Lee Child,
58:If you use a positive word, the corners of your lips go upward and it makes you smile. ~ Maxine Powell,
59:....it gets easier, not harder, to administer as you move upward in an organization. ~ Herbert A Simon,
60:The way upward from inertia to illumination passes through the sphere of action. ~ Swami Prabhavananda,
61:"Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious." ~ Carl Jung,
62:Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
To what they were before. ~ William Shakespeare,
63:No,” he countered, “you owe me two.” He pointed upward. “One is for the repair of my floor. ~ Andrew Rowe,
64:he noticed that something was going on. His finger shot upward. “What the hell’s that?” he ~ Douglas Adams,
65:I feel an unfamiliar but pleasant sensation in my lips, tugging them upward. This is... new. ~ Isaac Marion,
66:Bailey’s eyes rolled upward. “The man ran a merry-go-round in a backwater town. Get over it. ~ Shelley Noble,
67:"Humanity's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious." ~ Carl Jung,
68:One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering. ~ Alfred North Whitehead,
69:Be a role model of happiness and joy, which will pull everyone - including yourself - upward. ~ Doreen Virtue,
70:Because praying—reaching outward and upward to Him—is the way His passion comes down. Even ~ Priscilla Shirer,
71:We must produce a great age, or see the collapse of the upward striving of our race. ~ Alfred North Whitehead,
72:You look upward when you long for elevation. And I look down because I am elevated. Who ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
73:Most variables can show either an upward or downward trend, depending on the base year chosen. ~ Thomas Sowell,
74:The first impression is always the right one. I rarely change my mind upward about people. ~ Hunter S Thompson,
75:A self-reinforcing upward spiral: performance stimulating pride stimulating performance. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter,
76:Keep in mind that when you’ve reached the valley floor, the only direction you can go is upward. ~ Wayne W Dyer,
77:Let me be one of the upward and outward lookers, not one of the downward and inward lookers. ~ Alfred Edersheim,
78:Here's to opening and upward... and to yourself and up with you and up with and up with laughing. ~ e e cummings,
79:The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
80:We can follow a steady upward course in a world of change without fear, welcoming opportunities ~ Henry B Eyring,
81:He hated that upward inflection. How did the young let each other know when an answer was required? ~ Mick Herron,
82:Education had been the primary instrument of change in my own life, my lever upward in the world. ~ Michelle Obama,
83:All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. ~ Joseph Conrad,
84:Here's to opening and upward...
and to yourself and up with you and up with and up with laughing. ~ E E Cummings,
85:The measure of self-motivation in a young person will become the best way to predict upward mobility. ~ Tyler Cowen,
86:When a person gets right with God, my eyes are upward...I'm poor in spirit. I'm spiritually bankrupt. ~ Johnny Hunt,
87:History could claw upward as well as down. The powerful could be deafened by the cries of the poor. ~ Salman Rushdie,
88:The kundalini flows upward. It also flows downward in different ways. It is quite complex, actually. ~ Frederick Lenz,
89:The upward thrust of evolution as part of the design becomes something to preserve and revere. ~ Roger Wolcott Sperry,
90:The path to God is rarely a steady climb upward. We climb, we fall back, and we climb higher again. ~ Harold S Kushner,
91:ammunition boxes. They were both packed tight with cartridges standing on their firing pins, points upward. ~ Lee Child,
92:One of the drawbacks of upward social mobility is a sense of guilty indebtedness to the old neighborhood. ~ Mary Gordon,
93:The force that propels the human spirit on the clear way forward and upward is the abstract spirit. ~ Wassily Kandinsky,
94:The mountain path leads always in two directions, upward and downward—all depends on what we put behind us. ~ The Mother,
95:The way to a man's heart is through his stomach...just make sure you thrust upward through his ribcage. ~ Stephen Colbert,
96:If a man is not rising upward to be an angel, depend on it, he is sinking downward to be a devil. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
97:...If you'd like to go back in there and try kicking him, I recommend aiming upward and a bit to the left-- ~ Cassandra Clare,
98:Nature gropes and blunders and performs the crudest acts. There is no steady advance upward. There is no design. ~ Oliver Sacks,
99:Evolution was a random walk across a minefield, not a pre-ordained trajectory, onward and upward toward “perfection. ~ Greg Egan,
100:But the thing about rising is we have to continue upward; the thing about going beyond is we have to keep going. ~ Cheryl Strayed,
101:In all advanced industrial societies, education has become the single most important vehicle of upward mobility. ~ Peter L Berger,
102:Instead of trying to make your life perfect, give yourself the freedom to make it an adventure, and go ever upward. ~ Drew Houston,
103:The inside must be made entirely calm and quiet and there should reign an upward aspiration - a state of awaiting. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
104:The dust's for crawling, heaven's for flying, Wherefore, O Soul, whose wings are grown, Soar upward to the sun! ~ Edgar Lee Masters,
105:it led his eyes outward and upward into the sky, where he looked as if toward a possibility for which he had no name. ~ John Williams,
106:Try to bring me down, but you will never succeed because I'm always moving upward. Maybe not before, but now ... I am. ~ Aaron Carter,
107:our own communities that reinforce the outsider attitude, it’s the places and people that upward mobility connects us with— ~ J D Vance,
108:St. Gregory of Nyssa already said in the fourth century, “Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep growing. ~ Richard Rohr, Falling Upward,
109:To ensure assimilation we want to ensure that it works. Assimilation, an important word. Integration and upward mobility. ~ Donald Trump,
110:Faith is the soul looking upward to God, hope is looking forward to the future, and love is looking outward to others. ~ Norman L Geisler,
111:If we are serious about providing upward mobility and building a skilled workforce, pre-school is the place to begin. ~ Madeleine M Kunin,
112:I think the mysterious pull that draws you to another person is identical to the one that moves our eyes upward to the stars. ~ Lang Leav,
113:The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women ~ Queen Elizabeth II,
114:A typhoon’s ultimate intensity largely depends on the temperature of deep seawater churned upward as the storm passes overhead. ~ Anonymous,
115:Falling upward is a “secret” of the soul, known not by thinking about it or proving it but only by risking it—at least once. ~ Richard Rohr,
116:The blues is not the creation of a crushed-spirited people. It is the product of a forward-looking, upward-striving people. ~ Albert Murray,
117:It is believed that meditative energy flows from the feet upward,” he says. “Only with bare feet can you feel God within you. ~ Sejal Badani,
118:"The unconscious has contents peculiar to itself which, slowly growing upward from the depths, at last come into consciousness." ~ Carl Jung,
119:History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below. ~ Voltaire,
120:You can turn a tendency toward a downward spiral of depression and anxiety into an upward spiral of joy and clarity in your life. ~ Alex Korb,
121:Two forces pervade human life, the Gita says: the upward thrust of evolution and the downward pull of our evolutionary past. ~ Eknath Easwaran,
122:We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. ~ Lyndon B Johnson,
123:There's a quality we could call vertical attention, which is an attention upward toward ancestors, spiritual states, angels, gods. ~ Robert Bly,
124:So, has anyone ever told you that you cuss a lot?” he says finally. “Oh, fuck you.” But the corners of my lips twitch upward. ~ Becky Albertalli,
125:When you and I are inclined to nestle down in indolence and self indulgence. God "stirs up our nests" and bids us fly upward. ~ Theodore L Cuyler,
126:You see somewhere along the way, we've allowed the pursuit of fame and things to blind us to the issues that prevent us from moving upward. ~ T I,
127:But why look back at all? Why turn your eyes to your shadow, when, by looking upward, you see your rainbow in the same direction? ~ Maria Mitchell,
128:She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars. ~ Neil Gaiman,
129:The data show we can do something about upward mobility. Every extra year of childhood spent in a better neighborhood seems to matter. ~ Raj Chetty,
130:America being behind France in upward mobility is a little bit like France being behind America in Croissants and Afternoon Sex. ~ Arianna Huffington,
131:Trump's claims that he's making taxes more democratic for the people, but it actually is a vast sucking of income and wealth upward. ~ Michael Hudson,
132:History, in other words, provides little indication, let alone assurance, that political success is a prerequisite of upward mobility. ~ Jason L Riley,
133:If you aim upward, you will at shoot higher things (future prospects). If you aim downwards, you may shoot your feet (foundation). ~ Israelmore Ayivor,
134:But Mr. Success reacted differently when he got knocked down. He bounced up, learned a lesson, forgot the beating, and moved upward. ~ David J Schwartz,
135:From forty to fifty a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of life will carry him rapidly downward. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr,
136:Two forces pervade human life, the Gita says: the upward thrust of evolution and the downward pull of our evolutionary past. ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa,
137:According to the happiness research, “upward comparisons” are particularly corrosive to our well-being. Envy doesn’t leave room for joy. ~ Dalai Lama XIV,
138:A lot of people confuse free climbing with free solo. Free climbing is when we use ropes, but we only make upward progress with our bodies. ~ Dean Potter,
139:Generally our confidences move downward rather than upward; in our secret affairs, we employ our inferiors much more than our bettors. ~ Honore de Balzac,
140:Our way is upward, from the species across to the super-species. But the degenerate mind which says ‘All for me’ is a horror to us. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
141:Morrell turned his head upward as if to appraise the azure, featureless sky and nodded, apparently approving of God's use of negative space. ~ Steve Toltz,
142:She, who had descended with such joy and pain, had begun her upward climb—upward, with her baby, on the steep, steep side of the mountain. ~ James Baldwin,
143:Be like a tree in pursuit of your cause. Stand firm, grip hard, thrust upward. Bend to the winds of heaven. And learn tranquility. ~ Richard St Barbe Baker,
144:Information contains an almost mystical power of free flow and self replication, just as water seeks it's own level or sparks fly upward. ~ Neal Stephenson,
145:Lady, you who are so great, so powerful,
that who seeks grace without recourse to you
would have his wish fly upward without wings. ~ Dante Alighieri,
146:New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth. ~ James Russell Lowell,
147:The truth can be like people,” he repeated. “How so?” “Sometimes,” the side of his mouth tugged upward with a humorless smile, “it’s real ugly. ~ Penny Reid,
148:Alien eyes watched the strange metal object as it floated upward. There was blood in the water. Their home had been invaded. They would respond. ~ Mira Grant,
149:The human race is doomed to sink back farther and farther into the primitive night ere again it begins its bloody climb upward to civilization. ~ Jack London,
150:What if, when this fog scatters and flies upward, the whole rotten, slimey city goes with it, rises with the fog and vanishes like smoke. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky,
151:Always ascends the zigzag of the gods
And upward points the spirit’s climbing Fire. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind,
152:Na·zi sa·lute   n. a gesture or salute in which the right arm is straightened and inclined upward, with the hand open and palm down. ~ Oxford University Press,
153:Stotting is jumping upward with all four legs simultaneously. My advice: do not die until you've seen a large black poodle stotting in the snow. ~ Douglas Adams,
154:The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead. ~ Anonymous,
155:The third option—alertness, passive alertness—is also an effort but the dimension is different. The energy moves upward. In the beginning it is an effort. ~ Osho,
156:Turn around, and keep your eyes closed shut, For if the Gorgon, Medusa, does appear, and you see her, You would never be able to return upward. ~ Dante Alighieri,
157:What if, when this fog scatters and flies upward, the whole rotten, slimey
city goes with it, rises with the fog and vanishes like smoke. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
158:What we gotta do is, we gotta figure out a way to reverse gravity, so that we all fall upward, through the clouds and sky, all the way to Heaven. ~ Justin Torres,
159:cockneys (which would make it one of the few instances in modern linguistics in which a manner of utterance traveled upward from the lower classes). ~ Bill Bryson,
160:Have you ever watched a leaf leave a tree? It falls upward first, and then it drifts toward the ground, just as I find myself drifting towards you. ~ Beth Kephart,
161:Iseult’s nostrils twitched. Her face hardened. The defiance, the determination—they were back, and against his will, Aeduan’s lips twitched upward. ~ Susan Dennard,
162:Many a man, under the old and the new systems, has made the upward step from candidate to legislator, only to achieve his level of incompetence. ~ Laurence J Peter,
163:Tomorrow, the market will probably continue upward driven by the dollar, but it won't go up much because of caution before the employment figures. ~ Hugh S Johnson,
164:You must consciously and deliberately counter the pull of the comfort zone as you move upward and onward toward ever higher levels of accomplishment. ~ Brian Tracy,
165:For it is obvious to everybody, I think, that this study [of astronomy] compels the soul to look upward and leads it away from things here to higher things. ~ Plato,
166:Serve God and be cheerful, look upward, beyond, beyond the darkness of masks, the surprises of dawn, in the deep green grasses of the blood-stained world. ~ Bob Dylan,
167:You refuse all help, reject all hope, and seem intent on living the most abject existence possible. If anyone is punishing you, look inward, not upward. ~ Gary Whitta,
168:The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead. ~ Suzanne Collins,
169:The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night. ~ Jeffrey Archer,
170:The night is alive with stars, and when I lie down and look up, I get lost up there. I feel like I’m falling, but upward, into the abyss of sky above me. ~ Markus Zusak,
171:The prayer life does not consist of perpetual repetition of petitions. The prayer life consists of life that is always upward and onward and Godward ~ G Campbell Morgan,
172:We believe that the government has an important role to create the conditions that promote entrepreneurship, upward mobility, and individual responsibility. ~ Paul Ryan,
173:44. If God draw me towards Heaven, then, even if His other hand strive to keep me in Hell, yet must I struggle upward.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, Jnana,
174:(and from my thighs which shrug and pant a murdering rain leapingly reaches the upward singular deepest flower which she carries in a gesture of her hips) ~ e e cummings,
175:I gripped the hem of his shirt and pulled it upward and over his head,taking a long moment to enjoy the view:smooth,eternally golden skin over lean muscle. ~ Chloe Neill,
176:Making CEOs’ pay public didn’t dampen the astronomical salaries; to the contrary, it pushed them upward. Nobody wants to be the loser CEO in his industry. ~ Rolf Dobelli,
177:Religion and science, then, in my analysis are the two great sister forces which have pulled, and are still pulling, mankind onward and upward. ~ Robert Andrews Millikan,
178:Big government inevitably drives an upward distribution of wealth to those whose wealth, confidence and sophistication enable them to manipulate government. ~ George Will,
179:Consciousness uses the brain which its upward strivings have produced, brain has not produced nor does it use the consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine 1.10-13,
180:...and the hermit's spirit detaches itself, ever so gently, and begins its lonely passage upward, to find its final resting place among the stars. ~ Eleanor Catton,
181:Of the bodies in the cosmos, some imitate mind and move in orbits; some imitate soul and move in a straight line, fire and air upward, earth and water downward. ~ Sallust,
182:Floating upward through a confusion of dreams and memory, curving like a trout through the rings of previous risings, I surface. My eyes open. I am awake. ~ Wallace Stegner,
183:Her strawberry hair bounced when she walked, her chin tilted upward when she saw us, and her body was the most perfectly fuckable thing to ever grace the earth. ~ C D Reiss,
184:Listen, life isn’t about what happened to you in your past, it’s about where you are now and where you’re going. Onward and upward and all that jazz.” “That’s ~ T M Frazier,
185:This assumes an upward revision of the European Budget, which is precisely what Jacques Chirac refuses to do. On the contrary, he has demanded a reduction. ~ Laurent Fabius,
186:Holding a tear back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you're left with a stub of a neck and nothing more. ~ Alice Hoffman,
187:Throw back the shoulders, let the heart sing, let the eyes flash, let the mind be lifted up, look upward and say to yourself ... nothing is impossible! ~ Norman Vincent Peale,
188:Instead of swirling downward into frustration, “Yes and” spirals upward toward possibility. When you stop you’ve got a set of options, not a sense of futility. ~ Daniel H Pink,
189:Yonder cloud That rises upward always higher, And onward drags a laboring breast, And topples round the dreary west, A looming bastion fringed with fire. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,
190:A man in the view of absolute goodness, adores, with total humility. Every step downward, is a step upward. The man who renounceshimself, comes to himself. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
191:Many [book] even lay flat in the floor open. Their spines upward. Elinor couldn't bear to look! Didn't the monster know that was the way to break a book's neck? ~ Cornelia Funke,
192:She did not like her name. It was a mean, small name, with a kind of facetious twist, she thought, about its end like the upward curve of a pug dog's tail. ~ Elizabeth von Arnim,
193:(and from my thighs which shrug and pant
a murdering rain leapingly reaches the
upward singular deepest flower which she
carries in a gesture of her hips) ~ E E Cummings,
194:It was the blue of the sky that caught him first: a rapturous, painfully pure spike of color that hooked his eyes like fish and reeled them upward into the heights. ~ Josh Ritter,
195:Next she turned the gun upward and thrust the muzzle into her mouth. Now it was aimed directly at her cerebrum-- the gray labyrinth where consciousness resided. ~ Haruki Murakami,
196:Delight is to him -- a far, far upward, and inward delight -- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. ~ Herman Melville,
197:No matter what happens below you, just turn your eyes upward and relax your heart. You do not have to leave the seat of Self in order to deal with the darkness. ~ Michael A Singer,
198:The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross. ~ Henri J M Nouwen,
199:Let a man go down as low as possible; there must come a time when out of sheer desperation he will take an upward curve and will learn to have faith in himself. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
200:The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
201:Have I not walked without an upward look Of caution under stars that very well Might not have missed me when they shot and fell? It was a risk I had to take-and took. ~ Robert Frost,
202:A free economy and strong communities honor the dignity of every person, rewarding effort with justice, promoting upward mobility, and building solidarity among citizens. ~ Paul Ryan,
203:LIVE UPWARD. "Do what thou dost as if the stake were heaven, And this thy last deed ere the judgment day." If you wish to reach the highest begin at the lowest. ~ Orison Swett Marden,
204:Rock Bottom
I've
hit rock
bottom.

What's
a guy
to do?

I
certainly
can't
head
upward,
so
I'll
try
digging
through! ~ Bo Burnham,
205:We don't have marriage in Cokyri."
My eyebrows shot upward. "You don't have... marriage? Well then, how do you... I mean where... where do your children come from? ~ Cayla Kluver,
206:We seldom break our leg so long as life continues a toilsome upward climb. The danger comes when we begin to take things easily and choose the convenient paths. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
207:When man has reached the periphery of the spiderweb of his own reason and logic, he can find the ropes of revelation upon which he can climb upward forever and ever. ~ Neal A Maxwell,
208:He must examine his objectives and see that true progress is achieved through moving forward to a better way of life, rather than upward to total life incompetence. ~ Laurence J Peter,
209:Successful gamblers, instead, think of the future as speckles of probability, flickering upward and downward like a stock market ticker to every new jolt of information. ~ Nate Silver,
210:That which has helped man upward, must be preserved in order that he may not sink below the level he has attained. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Early Cultural Writings, The National Value of Art,
211:In the end millions (some state upward of three million, mostly children) had died, mainly from starvation due to the federal government of Nigeria’s blockade policies. ~ Chinua Achebe,
212:My brows arched upward. “That’s an interesting selection. You’re feisty tonight, aren’t you?” He rolled his shoulders and grinned, slow and sexy. My stomach quickened. ~ Kerry Lonsdale,
213:Too many of our prejudices are like pyramids upside down. They rest on tiny, trivial incidents, but they spread upward and outward until they fill our minds. ~ William McChesney Martin,
214:White men seem to have difficulty in realizing that people who live differently from themselves still might be traveling the upward and progressive road of life. ~ Luther Standing Bear,
215:In the dimension of space and time,
We chew as rhythmically as we breathe.
Maintaining the lives of all our ancestors,
Opening an upward path for descendants. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,
216:I think it's better to be overly ambitious and fail than to be underambitious and succeed in a mundane way. I have been very fortunate. I failed upward in my life! ~ Francis Ford Coppola,
217:Make me a story.”
“Hunter, I don’t have a stitch of clothes on,” she squeaked.
One of his dark eyebrows flicked upward. “You must have clothes to make stories? ~ Catherine Anderson,
218:Will you wait for me on the platform then?’
Suki looked at Rollo and cast her eyes upward. ‘I suppose so.’
Retra smiled at her. ‘Don’t you mean, “I guess so”? ~ Marianne de Pierres,
219:Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit. ~ Felix Adler,
220:I was about to inhale the river when I noticed a faint green glow above me. Air? Radiation? Limeade? Any of those sounded better than drowning in the dark. I kicked upward. ~ Rick Riordan,
221:it’s a never-ending upward spiral. And if you think at any point you’re allowed to stop climbing, I’m afraid you’re missing the point. Because the joy is in the climb itself. ~ Mark Manson,
222:They talked about God. They had no picture in their minds of some mist steaming upward: rather of strong, skillful hands thrust down to make, and mend, perhaps even to destroy. ~ C S Lewis,
223:The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
224:Although I am almost illiterate mathematically, I grasped very early in life that any one who can count to ten can count upward indefinitely if he is fool enough to do so. ~ Robertson Davies,
225:The nightsea journey may be absurd, but here we swim, will-we nill-we, against the flood, onward and upward, toward a shore that may not exist and couldn't be reached if it did. ~ John Barth,
226:There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson,
227:Takeovers wouldn't cause the stock market to rise unless there is an upward reassessment of earnings (potential). People are more optimistic and confident about the future. ~ Lawrence Summers,
228:Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world. Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life. ~ Sophia Lyon Fahs,
229:And many of the rest were essentially escalator riders—people who worked hard to get on a machine with an automatic upward trajectory, and, once they got there, only had to hold on. ~ Anonymous,
230:As the day died and the afterglow stretched upward in the soft, empty sky, the Hat Creek outfit, seven strong, crossed the river and rode southeast, toward the Hacienda Flores. ~ Larry McMurtry,
231:He fitted his mask in place – a smiling red fiend with black horns extending upward. I cocked a brow.
“The devil?”
With a rakish grin, he stepped closer. “Always, baby. ~ Juliette Cross,
232:Look upward to your God for direction! Look inward into yourself and discover your talents! Look outward into your environment and get helped! Stop looking at one direction! ~ Israelmore Ayivor,
233:See: it’s a never-ending upward spiral. And if you think at any point you’re allowed to stop climbing, I’m afraid you’re missing the point. Because the joy is in the climb itself. ~ Mark Manson,
234:At the violet hour, when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives. ~ T S Eliot,
235:... here, where the gaze is stopped everywhere, the whole earth is designed so that the face turns upward and the gaze implores. Oh! I hate this world where we are reduced to God. ~ Albert Camus,
236:As he slowly climbed the stairs, Cassidy looked upward and vowed in Scarlett O"Hara-like fashion, “As God is my witness, I shall never kick a man who"s got my dick in his mouth again. ~ Ethan Day,
237:The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.” –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ~ John Wooden,
238:And so, lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ere long. ~ Mary Church Terrell,
239:Better--while life is quick And every pain immense and joy supreme, And all I have and am Flames upward to the dream ... Than like a taper forgotten in the dawn, Burning out the quick. ~ Lola Ridge,
240:but since every created being is ultimately an emanation of God, partaking of His Essence in a measure diminishing with distance, the soul will always strive upward, to its source. ~ Arthur Koestler,
241:The human brain comprises about 2 percent of a person's body weight, but it consumes upward of 20 pcent of that body's oxygen intake, and it controls 100 percent of that body's actions. ~ Elyn R Saks,
242:The upward flow of ancient heat to the Earth’s surface is measured in tens of milliwatts per square metre; the flow from the Sun above is measured in hundreds of watts per square metre. ~ Bill Bryson,
243:What you might not have come across is the fact that Hubble is basically a photoreconnaissance satellite whose cameras point upward at the heavens rather than downward at Earth. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson,
244:One way our upper class can promote upward mobility, then, is not only by pushing wise public policies but by opening their hearts and minds to the newcomers who don’t quite belong. Though ~ J D Vance,
245:A hospital that transports its bodies upward, that sites its cold chambers on the upper floors is practically inconceivable. The dead are stored as close to the ground as possible. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd,
246:It's not going to be a straight upward progression, but there's no doubt that consciousness is growing. Prejudices die regularly in the Western world. We don't burn witches anymore. ~ John Shelby Spong,
247:I venture that those of us who are most serene when faced with the possibility of nothingness are the ones who've reached furthest to the downward and upward of their beings. ~ Francine du Plessix Gray,
248:The students lurked on the edges of their teachers' lives for years, and brought bulletins from their own lives, which over time began to include lovers, ambitions, an upward trajectory. ~ Meg Wolitzer,
249:How do you thank a brother who refused to let you go, who seized your hand and wrenched you upward, just as you had decided to stop kicking and sink? There aren’t words for that, either. ~ Tara Westover,
250:The saw made a wet, ripping sound as it tore through flesh and bone. The wounded man jerked upward, his torso coming off the table. “Damn it! Hold him!” “I’m trying,” responded Rebecca. ~ James D Shipman,
251:It is the constant upward effort that has kept humanity alive and maintained for it its place in the front of creation. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Evolutionary Process - Ascent and Integration,
252:One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). ~ Kay Arthur,
253:It is when we presume to intimacy, having been granted only tolerance, that the harsh stick falls across our impudent knuckles and we rub the pain, staring upward, startled by our ignorance. ~ Beryl Markham,
254:As for the trees themselves, water that flows into a giant redwood through its roots takes two weeks or longer to reach the top of the tree, moving slowly upward through the tree’s sapwood. ~ Richard Preston,
255:For me, prayer is an upward leap of the heart, an untroubled glance towards heaven, a cry of gratitude and love which I utter from the depths of sorrow as well as from the heights of joy. ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux,
256:Just as it takes great exertion to draw the bucket up but it descends easily, so beings have to expend great effort to draw themselves upward to a happier life but easily descend into painful ~ Dalai Lama XIV,
257:The meaning of conservatism is not that it impedes movement forward and upward, but that it impedes movement backwards and downwards—to chaotic darkness and the return to a primitive state. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev,
258:In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile - and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to Win, but mainly to keep from Losing Completely. ~ Hunter S Thompson,
259:Men were springing up, a black avenging host was slowly germinating in the furrows, thrusting upward for the harvests of future ages. And very soon their germination would crack the earth asunder. ~ mile Zola,
260:When you forget to take the sail at all, then the wind is constantly in your favour both ways. But there! this world is only a probation, and man was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. ~ Jerome K Jerome,
261:I wouldn't be your best and most marvelous friend in the galaxy if I didn’t point out there might be a few negative consequences from all…” she gazed upward and twirled her hand in the air “…this. ~ G S Jennsen,
262:It is extremely urgent to try and adapt our thoughts realistically to a world which has no fixed general direction either upward or downward, but is likely to vary largely according to what we do. ~ Mary Midgley,
263:Let that be as it will, thus much is certain, that, however spiritual intrigues begin, they generally conclude like all others; they may branch upward toward heaven, but the root is in the earth. ~ Jonathan Swift,
264:For me, prayer is an upward leap of the heart, an untroubled glance towards heaven, a cry of gratitude and love which I utter from the depths of sorrow as well as from the heights of joy. ~ Saint Therese of Lisieux,
265:He made an angry clicking sound behind his teeth. “You already broke my leg.” And he had the permanent limp to prove it. Willa’s eyebrows wrenched upward. “You have two legs. I can play that game twice. ~ T S Joyce,
266:Will you oblige me then?' His voice was low and smooth, nearly whispered ...
Everything froze for a moment. Even the flickering lamps seemed to pause, flames surging upward and waiting ...
'No. ~ Anne Mallory,
267:But I do think that when people say 'a learning curve,' they make a mistake. Learning to me always seems to go in a straight, ignorant line and then, every so often, takes a jump straight upward. ~ Diana Wynne Jones,
268:When people panic, he said, they panic upward. They make for lifts, escalators, stairs, any way to go up, not down. By the time the boys go in, anyone who is not too petrified to move is in the attic. ~ John le Carr,
269:All things transitory
But as symbols are sent.
Earth's insufficiency
Here grows to event.
The indescribable
Here it is done.
The Woman-Soul leads us upward and on! ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
270:O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward! ~ Charles Dickens,
271:The massive upward distribution of wealth engineered by our political class over the last few decades has solidified the plutocratic control of the rule-making machinery in Washington and state capitals. ~ Bill Moyers,
272:Waiting to be happy limits our brain's potential for success, whereas cultivating positive brains makes us more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative, and productive, which drives performance upward. ~ Shawn Achor,
273:21  And they shall pass through it hardly bestead and hungry; and it shall come to pass that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. ~ Joseph Smith Jr,
274:Oh Agnes, Oh my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward! ~ Charles Dickens,
275:It's you."
My eyes shoot upward. The prince of Midas stares down at us, horrified and awestruck. His lips tilt a little to the left. "Look at you." He whispers. "My little monster, come to find me. ~ Alexandra Christo,
276:And in her reverence of his skin, he felt that shame wither and curl, like paper on a flame, and float upward, disintegrating into nothing more substantial than ash, and with her breath, she blew it all away. ~ Amy Harmon,
277:The Bible says that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. Well, trouble followed me like sharks trailing a slave ship. Even when I tried to get away it was there swirling in a vortex around me. ~ Adrian McKinty,
278:Think of a lifeless forest in which a small plant pushes its head upward, out of the ruin. In our grief process, we are moving into life from death, without denying the devastation that came before. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross,
279:You stake a guy out on an anthill in the desert—see? He’s facing upward, and you put honey all over his balls and pecker, and you cut off his eyelids so he has to stare at the sun till he dies.” So it goes. ~ Kurt Vonnegut,
280:To see, to know, to understand, even though the seeing blind, though the knowledge sadden, though the understanding shatter the dearest hopes—such has ever been the craving of the upward-striving mind in man. ~ Annie Besant,
281:Graduating high school was really emotional for me. I'd obviously made a huge thing out of what that experience was for me, and saying goodbye to it was very weird. So I had to be like, boom, onward and upward. ~ Tavi Gevinson,
282:It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutalized his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion. ~ Robert Southey,
283:May I make a suggestion," said Will. "About twenty paces behind us, in the Council room, is Benedict. If you'd like to go back in there and try kicking him, I recommend aiming upward and a little to the left- ~ Cassandra Clare,
284:Plants are the young of the world, vessels of health and vigor; but they grope ever upward towards consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
285:The United States is no longer first in the world in upward mobility. We can reverse that trend by giving our young children an equal start in life as they begin their journey to fulfill the American Dream. ~ Madeleine M Kunin,
286:I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air beat upward to god's throne in loud access of shrieking and reproach ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
287:A dirty, joyous, bare-limbed freedom, which rose in his imagination like a vast airy cathedral, ruined perhaps, roofless, fan-vaulted to the skies, where they would weightlessly drift upward in a powerful embrace... ~ Ian McEwan,
288:Galway Kinnell, almost a prose poem. (“If one day it happens / you find yourself with someone you love / in a café at one end /of the Pont Mirabeau, at the zinc bar / where wine stands in upward opening glasses… ~ Paul Kalanithi,
289:Here in our solar system, a hundred-meter-wide asteroid sails into Earth every millennium or so at speeds upward of fifty thousand miles an hour, generating a destructive impact equal to 2,500 atomic bombs. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson,
290:If I might make a suggestion,” said Will. “About twenty paces behind us, in the Council room, is Benedict. If you’d like to go back in there and try kicking him, I recommend aiming upward and a bit to the left— ~ Cassandra Clare,
291:Most of [her ashes] fell into the river in a long gray curtain. But some was caught by the wind and blown upward toward the blue spring sky where it swirled a moment in the air, before dissolving into sunlight. ~ Kimberly Cutter,
292:They'd all be buried together, and Haris imagined the seeds in the girl's pocket growing shoots that would swaddle them beneath the earth, the barley sprouting upward, an unexpected crop reaching toward the sun. ~ Elliot Ackerman,
293:Under the rough and ridiculous circumstances of life in the Rocky Mountains there was something exciting and vital, full of rude poetry: the heartbeat of the West as it fought its way upward toward civilization. ~ Wallace Stegner,
294:Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community. ~ Albert Einstein,
295:Anger is an agro-chemical that makes self-destruction to grow faster. Like a stone thrown upward, all angry people eventually fall down into the dirty ditch of sorrowful self-harm and a pathetic loss of real-self. ~ Israelmore Ayivor,
296:It’s hard to explain,” she says. “I would say that I’m more spiritual than religious at this point.” “What does that even mean?” I stare upward at the gleaming stars. “To me, religion is the Walmart of spirituality. ~ Bill Konigsberg,
297:Pain might escalate upward and, just when you thought you’d reached your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. ~ Kristin Cashore,
298:...the holiest among us has but attained so far above his fellows as to discern more clearly the Mercy which looks down, and repudiate more utterly the phantom of human merit, which would look aspiringly upward. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne,
299:But as I pursued that dream of upward mobility preparing for college, things just didn't fit together. As I read Scriptures about how the last will be first, I started wondering why I was working so hard to be first. ~ Shane Claiborne,
300:In an extreme credit crunch, leveraged purchases of gold cause forced sales, because any price correction triggers margin calls. As a result, gold can be very volatile - upward and downward - at the peak of a crisis. ~ Nouriel Roubini,
301:The humans build their stupid fence to keep us out, but that is nothing. The sky is our fence!” Human leapt upward—startlingly high, for his legs were powerful. “Look how the fence throws me back down to the ground! ~ Orson Scott Card,
302:The classic decision is always the same, whether to retreat or go on. There comes a time when it is easier to continue upward, when the summit, in fact, is the only way out. At such a moment one must still have strength. ~ James Salter,
303:Today it’s just “the Sun.” Familiarity is the enemy of awe, and for the most part people walk the busy streets with no upward glance. In fact, one of the common bits of advice about the Sun is that we shouldn’t look at it. ~ Bob Berman,
304:When a person is too deep in systemic poverty, there is no upward trajectory. Life is struggle and nothing else. But for me, many of my decisions came from an assumption that things would, eventually, start to improve. ~ Stephanie Land,
305:People are not plants. They are not fixed to any roots or dependent on them. People are mobile and free to move far from their beginnings—far away, if that satisfies them—far upward, if they have the ambition and ability. ~ Gary Jennings,
306:Cease believing in the false beliefs, opinions, superstitions, and fears of mankind. Begin to believe in the eternal verities and truths of life, which never change. Then, you will move onward, upward, and Godward. Whoever ~ Joseph Murphy,
307:Have you ever thought about telling the truth?”
“I did that some when I was younger. It always seemed to get me in trouble, though.”
Cass felt her lips curve upward, despite the situation. “You’re impossible,” she said. ~ Fiona Paul,
308:As we continued upward, I thought about how adults sometimes complain that kids only think about ourselves, but it’s not true. We care a lot about other people, but most times, we don’t have the power to change things for them. ~ Anonymous,
309:Beginning to reason is like stepping onto an escalator that leads upward and out of sight. Once we take the first step, the distance to be traveled is independent of our will and we cannot know in advance where we shall end. ~ Peter Singer,
310:I am conscious of a soul-sense that lifts me above the narrow, cramping circumstances of my life. My physical limitations are forgotten- my world lies upward, the length and the breadth and the sweep of the heavens are mine! ~ Helen Keller,
311:Like water, many decent individuals will seek lower ground if left to their own inclinations. In most cases you are the one who inspires and demands they go upward rather than settle for the comfort of doing what comes easily. ~ Bill Walsh,
312:There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over... Faint to my ears came the gathered rumor of all lands: the springing and the dying, the song and the weeping, and the slow everlasting groan of overburdened stone. ~ J R R Tolkien,
313:You won’t let me touch you, Erin? You sure as hell better ride me rough for the both of us.” He gave an upward thrust of his hips. “My cock is big and angry because you made it that way. That makes it your responsibility. Move. ~ Anonymous,
314:By education I mean that training in excellence from youth upward which makes a man passionately desire to be a perfect citizen, and teaches him to rule, and to obey, with justice. This is the only education which deserves the name. ~ Plato,
315:I suppose [my life] has most resembled a blue chip stock: fairly stable, more ups than downs, and gradually trending upward over time. A good buy, a lucky buy, and I've learned that not everyone can say that about his life. ~ Nicholas Sparks,
316:I was on a down escalator now. If I stood still I’d go all the way to the bottom, but if I started to run up maybe I could at least stay in the same place. The important thing was to keep moving upward no matter what happened. ~ Daniel Keyes,
317:One should meditate on one's chosen Deity as one goes on making Japa. In meditation the face of the chosen Deity of course comes first; but one should meditate on the whole figure, starting from the feet upward. ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi,
318:The surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward; 31 for from Jerusalem a remnant shall go out, and from Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. ~ Anonymous,
319:You have two choices: You can come down from the mountain and spend the rest of your days thinking it was so beautiful there, or you can create a vision, look upward, see the next mountain, and start the climb all over again. ~ Oprah Winfrey,
320:His tip hit her core, both of them yelling. She bucked upward at the touch, her hands clutching his shoulders. "Holy shit!" Luke cried. He breathed hard through his nose. "That as... I'm not sure... I think I might lose it... ~ Amanda Carlson,
321:We must promote upward mobility, starting with solutions that speak to our broken education system, broken immigration policy, and broken safety-net programs that foster dependency instead of helping people get back on their feet. ~ Paul Ryan,
322:You won’t let me touch you, Erin? You sure as hell better ride me rough for the both of us.” He gave an upward thrust of his hips. “My cock is big and angry because you made it that way. That makes it your responsibility. Move. ~ Tessa Bailey,
323:Dane touched my chin and lifted my face upward, and kissed me gently. Only then did I understand that Dane had always been a friend I had slept with, and how entirely different that was from having a lover who could be a friend. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
324:All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. All intellectual and artistic ambitions are permissible, up to and even beyond the limit of prudent sanity. They can hurt no one. ~ Joseph Conrad,
325:Excelsior," Gansey said bleakly.
Blue asked, "What does that even mean?"
Gansey looked over his shoulder at her. He was once more, just a little bit closer to the boy she'd seen in the churchyard.
"Onward and upward. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
326:Maximoff isn’t cautious or worried. His lips inch upward. “You’re in my world.” He’s excited about that.
I nod a few times. “It’s a good thing I love your world, wolf scout. And that your world is mine.” That gets to us both. ~ Krista Ritchie,
327:Simplicity and subtlety make for the best con. A distraction should lead the mark's attention upward, either toward the sky or to some better vision of himself. Color signals danger. Try to appear to have as many eyes as possible. ~ Jeffrey Ford,
328:Though my life is low, if my spirit looks upward habitually at an elevated angle, it is as if it were redeemed. When the desire to be better than we are is really sincere we are instantly elevated, and so far better already. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
329:Let the soul be drawn out and upward, that God may grant us a breath of the heavenly atmosphere. We may keep so near to God that in every unexpected [100] trial our thoughts will turn to Him as naturally as the flower turns to the sun. ~ Anonymous,
330:Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich as what they are -- a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told. ~ Ha Joon Chang,
331:Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rick as what they are -- a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told. ~ Ha Joon Chang,
332:We have no time for regrets or second thoughts. If a plan goes awry we make another, if one weapon breaks in our hands we find a second. If the steps fall down before us we overleap them and go up. It is always onward and upward ~ Philippa Gregory,
333:From this vantage point he came to a realization that everything that had happened to him before this had been a journey upward through time, everything that occurred after it a descent. If he could not control his fate, why be born? ~ Irving Stone,
334:Let there be no mistake, Sen Sanders, his campaign and the vigorous debate that we've had about how to raise incomes, how to reduce inequality, increase upward mobility, has been very good for the Democratic Party and for America. ~ Hillary Clinton,
335:People fascinated by the idea of progress never suspect that every step forward is also a step on the way to the end and that behind all the joyous "onward and upward" slogans lurks the lascivious voice of death urging us to make haste. ~ Anonymous,
336:When she tipped her head and looked upward at the glowing dark blue dome pricked with its millions of lights, bigger and brighter than stars had ever been, she felt the mountains breathe in her face their ancient, frightening cold. ~ Wallace Stegner,
337:Let it be my motto, as well as yours. Ever upward, as a new life, a new day begins. Have faith that something unexpected and wonderful is moving toward you at incredible speed-EXCELSIOR! Yes, ever upward we must go, and go together. ~ Anderson Cooper,
338:Zane couldn’t stop the shout, but it came out muffled as Ty’s cock filled his throat. He shoved his hips upward, knees squeezing at Ty’s shoulders. Ty’s needy noises came nonstop. Zane’s cock brushed along the back of Ty’s throat. Zane ~ Abigail Roux,
339:He saw time turn back upon itself, a river flowing upward to the spring. He held the contemporaneity of two moments in his left and right hands; as he moved them apart he smiled to see the moments separate like dividing soap bubbles. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
340:Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault. My dad, for example, has never disparaged hard work, but he mistrusts some of the most obvious paths to upward mobility. When ~ J D Vance,
341:Americans are better off in a dynamic, free-enterprise-based economy that fosters economic growth, opportunity and upward mobility instead of a stagnant, government-directed economy that stifles job creation and fosters government dependency. ~ Paul Ryan,
342:she was offering me a glimpse into a crowded life, rather like those women who value one largely as a reflector, and to whom one has to pay one’s dues for being allowed to join them for a minute or two on their brilliant upward progress. ~ Anita Brookner,
343:All these years, I told her, it’s like I’ve been circling beneath a giant, my gaze fixed upon its foot resting at the ground. But now, I said, it’s like I’m starting to crane my head upward, like I’m finally seeing the thing that crushes. ~ Francisco Cant,
344:Encased in an elaborate illusion of unlimited power and progress, each of us subscribes, at least until one’s mid-life crisis, to the belief that existence consists of an eternal, upward spiral of achievement, dependent on will alone. This ~ Irvin D Yalom,
345:I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing, In my veins, in my bones I feel it,- The small water seeping upward, The tight grains parting at last. When sprouts break out, Slippery as fish, I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet. ~ Theodore Roethke,
346:I want people to understand how upward mobility feels. And I want people to understand something I learned only recently: that for those of us lucky enough to live the American Dream, the demons of the life we left behind continue to chase us. ~ J D Vance,
347:How can you be so cold-blooded about everything?"
She could have sworn that one corner of the Mage's mouth twitched upward for just an instant as he gestured toward the sun beating down upon them. "I am actually quite warm at the moment. ~ Jack Campbell,
348:If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others and punish you carefully when you do not. ~ Jordan Peterson,
349:Death and pleasure we experience asymptotically. We spend much time working upward on the slope, and most people only sometimes approach the lines of pure pleasure or death, close enough to touch. Maybe once or twice in a lifetime, for each ~ Zinzi Clemmons,
350:If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio's market value. ~ Warren Buffett,
351:The core principle is that we want an economy that works for everyone, not just for a small elite. We want equal opportunity, not equality of outcome. We want to make sure that there's upward mobility again, in our society and in our economy. ~ Robert Reich,
352:Then, because I’d realized what I’d done, I started thinking of Stewie from Family Guy talking about one of Brian’s girlfriends phrasing everything with an upward inflection, like she was asking a question every time she opened her mouth. ~ Nicole Jacquelyn,
353:If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others and punish you carefully when you do not. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
354:I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history--whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline. ~ Barack Obama,
355:If any one be in rapture with his own knowledge, looking only on those below him, let him but turn his eye upward towards past ages, and his pride will be abated, when he shall there find so many thousand wits that trample him under foot. ~ Michel de Montaigne,
356:Man can never come up to his ideal standard. It is the nature of the immortal spirit to raise that standard higher and higher as it goes from strength to strength, still upward and onward. The wisest and greatest men are ever the most modest. ~ Margaret Fuller,
357:The objective world simply is, it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the world line of my body, does a section of the world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time. ~ Dean Buonomano,
358:It seems obvious to me that the notion of God has never been anything but a kind of ideal projection, a reflection upward of the human personality, and that theology never has been and never can be anything but a more and more purified mythology. ~ Alfred Loisy,
359:An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through his whole body and the next second, in a rush of wings, they were flying upward through the pipe. Harry could hear Lockhart dangling bellow him, saying, "Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic! ~ J K Rowling,
360:Aspiration is a turning upward of the inner being with a call, yearning, prayer for the Divine, for the Truth, for the Consciousness, Peace, Ananda, Knowledge, descent of Divine Force or whatever else is the aim of one's endeavour.
   ~ The Mother, [T2], #index,
361:Love is watchful. Sleeping, it does not slumber. Wearied, it is not tired. Pressed, it is not straitened. Alarmed, it is not confused, but like a living flame, a burning torch, it forces its way upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle. ~ Thomas a Kempis,
362:One thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. PHILIPPIANS 3:13-14 AMP ~ Various,
363:The objective world simply is, it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the world line of my body, does a section of the world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time.”15 ~ Dean Buonomano,
364:But by casting aside Fear we take several steps upward in the scale, and place ourselves in touch with the strong, helpful, fearless, courageous thought of the world, and leave behind us all the old weaknesses and troubles of the old life. ~ William Walker Atkinson,
365:I assumed the girl was a passenger like myself. She was my age, perhaps a year older, but a year makes a great deal of difference at that time of life. The Tahl have a saying about children of our age. The boy grows upward, but the girl grows up. ~ Patrick Rothfuss,
366:If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed. ~ William James,
367:One of the seeds has split its shell and reaches a white hand upward. An apple tree growing from an apple seed growing in an apple. I show the little plantseed to Ms. Keen. She gives me extra credit. David rolls his eyes. Biology is so cool. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson,
368:mother, with her upbringing in the primitive Baptist church, believed that converting to Roman Catholicism was a step upward in the social order. Of course she was wrong; when I grew up in the South, a Roman Catholic was the weirdest thing you could be. ~ Pat Conroy,
369:Charlie explained to me that an exploding shell is going to spread its shrapnel on an angle upward. You get down and stay down and let it sail over you. Otherwise it cuts you in half right across your chest. When we were kids I looked out for Diggsy, ~ Charles Brandt,
370:I learned that it pays to hang around with people better than you are, because you will float upward a little bit. And if you hang around with people that behave worse than you, pretty soon you’ll start sliding down the pole. It just works that way. ~ Alice Schroeder,
371:On the bleakst days you have to keep your eyes onward and upward and on the saddest days you have to leave them open to let them cry. To then let them dry. To give theam a chance to wash out the pain in order to see fresh and clear once again. (p. 193) ~ Tahereh Mafi,
372:But 'tis common proof, that lowliness is young ambition's ladder, whereto the climber-upward turns his face; but when he once attains the upmost round, he then turns his back, looks in the clouds, scorning the vase defrees by which he did ascend. ~ William Shakespeare,
373:Come now, Miss Snow. We both know that’s a lie.” He forced her gaze upward, his fingers slipping into her hair against her scalp, loosening her bun. A pin popped and fell to the floor. He dipped his head low, lips hovering close. “You want to indulge. ~ Juliette Cross,
374:Her body was tense, her small teeth sunk into her upper lip. Her eyes flashed upward at Aloysius, and he started at what he saw in them.
Pain. It was normal to feel some pain at the bestowing of a Mark, but what he saw in Adele's eyes- was agony. ~ Cassandra Clare,
375:There is also an important distinction to be made between “upward” and “downward” counterfactuals. Upward counterfactuals are imagined states that are better than what actually happened, and downward counterfactuals are imagined states that are worse. ~ Barry Schwartz,
376:On the other hand, the cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousnessinspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric, at the same time that it conducts the human soul upward to the Author of its being. ~ Daniel Webster,
377:Sannyas is the art of flying... the art that stops the process of gravitation and starts the process of grace. All that is needed is a state of let-go. All that is needed is a readiness to be possessed by the upward dimension, a readiness to open to the sky. ~ Rajneesh,
378:It was a marvelous night, the sort of night one only experiences when one is young. The sky was so bright, and there were so many stars that, gazing upward, one couldn't help wondering how so many whimsical, wicked people could live under such a sky. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky,
379:It was a marvelous night, the sort of night one only experiences when one is young. The sky was so bright, and there were so many stars that, gazing upward, one couldn't help wondering how so many whimsical, wicked people could live under such a sky. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
380:Not only could you travel upward toward success but you could travel downward as well; up and down, in retreat as well as in advance, crabways and crossways and around in a circle, meeting your old selves coming and going and perhaps all at the same time. ~ Ralph Ellison,
381:Once again he cawed four times and was about to caw again when he heard the sound of humans coming through the woods. The bird turned on the window ledge, flapped its black wings, and rose slowly toward the trees. He caught the wind and soared upward. ~ Stuart M Kaminsky,
382:The protective powers of such “upward hostility” seem striking: abused employees who fought back harder were less prone to see themselves as victims, more satisfied with their jobs and careers, less distressed, and more committed to their organizations. ~ Robert I Sutton,
383:Dost though even know what would become of me?...Friends would disown me. It is our way. I would be alone!"

"No," he said unexpectdly. He turned and held his hand to her, palm upward, empty, a simple masculine offering. "Maddygirl. With...me. ~ Laura Kinsale,
384:The mind and intellect must develop to their fullness so that the spirituality of the race may rise securely upward upon a broad basis of the developed lower nature in man, the intelligent mental being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Infrarational Age of the Cycle,
385:The whole of progress tends in the direction of solution. Some day we shall be amazed. As the human race mounts upward, the deep layers emerge naturally from the zone of distress. The obliteration of misery will be accomplished by a simple elevation of level. ~ Victor Hugo,
386:When they shook hands, it felt like a promise had been made. A commitment.

“Now,” Ethan said, “where do you keep the guns?”
Ravenel’s brows shot upward. “Ransom, if you don’t mind, I prefer easing into a new topic with a transitional phrase or two. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
387:If he had been a man with strength of purpose to face those troubles and fight them, he might have broken the net that held him, or broken his heart; but being what he was, he languidly slipped into this smooth descent, and never more took one step upward. ~ Charles Dickens,
388:The hills roll for miles; green, flourishing, dotted with trees and hikers. The blue sky is endless and the sun illuminates through the thin white clouds. There’s a breeze coming upward and also across and as they collide it makes me feel as if I’m flying. ~ Jessica Sorensen,
389:to be sure: except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into that kingdom of heaven [and Zarathustra pointed upward with his hands]. but we have no wish whatever to enter into the kingdom of heaven: we have become men — so we want the earth. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
390:We can go up or we can do down. I think generally the world is going on an upward swing. We're in a part of a cycle where people are discovering more. The communications are better. We're getting more into the subtle electricities that control the universe. ~ George Harrison,
391:Income is sucked upward to the creditors, who then foreclose on the assets of debtors. This shrinks tax revenue, forcing public budgets into deficit. And when governments are indebted, they becomemore subject to pressure to privatization of public enterprise. ~ Michael Hudson,
392:That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,
393:For a fair proportion of Americans in the bottom 50 percent of the income distribution, these inequalities are of secondary importance for the very simple reason that they were born in a less wealthy country and see themselves as being on an upward trajectory. ~ Thomas Piketty,
394:Let us look upward and look inward, in the faith of the Son and the Spirit, and God will show us that every word written in the Book of the Covenant is not only true, but that it can be made spirit and truth within us, and in our daily life. This can indeed be. ~ Andrew Murray,
395:Personally, for me, I am happy that I largely mended myself without the aid of medication, and feel that having to experience the pain minus any “anesthetic” meant I got to know my pain very well, and become alert to the subtle upward or downward shifts in my mind. ~ Matt Haig,
396:Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
397:The storm has passed." He nodded toward the clearing skies. "The stars have come out." He paused and gazed upward. "I miss them when I'm not at sea. Out on the ocean they sparkle all around you. 'Tis like standing at the gates of heaven."
"Sounds glorious. ~ Elizabeth Boyle,
398:Only One Thing One thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. PHILIPPIANS 3:13-14 AMP ~ Various,
399:When you dare aspire upward, you reveal the inadequacy of the present and the promise of the future. Then you disturb others, in the depths of their souls, where they understand that their cynicism and immobility are unjustifiable. You play Abel to their Cain. ~ Jordan Peterson,
400:Don’t try to use this pattern solely to tame a big, unruly subject. This technique doesn’t scale upward in information density very well; the visual metaphors break down, and you are left with a lot of distracting, visually noisy, seemingly random movement. Mechanics ~ Neal Ford,
401:Proverbs 15:24-26 24 The path of life leads upward for the wise;        they leave the grave[*] behind. 25 The LORD tears down the house of the proud,        but he protects the property of widows. 26 The LORD detests evil plans,        but he delights in pure words. ~ Anonymous,
402:I (God) will leave man to make the fateful guess, Will leave him torn between the no and yes, Leave him unresting till he rests in me, Drawn upward by the choice that makes him free, Leave him in tragic loneliness to choose, With all in life to win or all to lose. ~ Edwin Markham,
403:Trees that, like the poplar, lift upward all their boughs, give no shade and no shelter, whatever their height. Trees the most lovingly shelter and shade us, when, like the willow, the higher soar their summits, the lower drop their boughs. ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton 1st Baron Lytton,
404:When you dare aspire upward, you reveal the inadequacy of the present and the promise of the future. Then you disturb others, in the depths of their souls, where they understand that their cynicism and immobility are unjustifiable. You play Abel to their Cain. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
405:Marsha was a beautiful woman with an oval face that sometimes looked sad-sack, and a nervous upward glance as if making sure the black cloud was in place. That was a physical thing, of course, no more a true reflection on her personality than being short or scarred. ~ Harlan Coben,
406:Seattle, the mild green queen: wet and willing, cedar-scented, and crowned with slough grass, her toadstool scepter tilted toward Asia, her face turned ever upward in the rain; the sovereign who washes her hands more persistently than the most fastidious proctologist. ~ Tom Robbins,
407:Short term, the most important thing is to put people back to work ... If they're working, that means they're paying taxes, that means that they're buying goods and services - and the economy, instead of being on a downward spiral, starts back up on an upward spiral. ~ Barack Obama,
408:He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow : his navel, bud of flesh : and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower. [84] ~ James Joyce,
409:The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above? ~ Henry David Thoreau,
410:And I have been able to give freedom and life which was acknowledged in the ecstasy of walking hand in hand across the most beautiful bridge of the world, the cables enclosing us and pulling us upward in such a dance as I have never walked and never can walk with another. ~ Hart Crane,
411:There is a l-life lesson here for all of us, is there, M-Mrs. Keeping?” he asked her. “We should all and always look upward, and all our t-troubles will be at an end?” She smiled. “If only life were that simple.” “But for daffodils it is,” he said. “We are not daffodils. ~ Mary Balogh,
412:There is probably nothing finer than to climb free and unencumbered by equipment, reveling in the gymnastic upward movement, like Preuss or a Dulfer before you, relying only upon yourself, keeping a sharp eye on things, feeling the rock beneath your feet and fingertips. ~ Hermann Buhl,
413:Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
414:Teach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves. Urge them toward excellence, drive them toward gentleness, pull them deep into yourself, pull them upward toward manhood, but softly like an angel arranging clouds. Let your spirit move through them softly. ~ Pat Conroy,
415:Moving along the upward spiral requires us to learn, commit, and do on increasingly higher planes. We deceive ourselves if we think that any one of these is sufficient. To keep progressing, we must learn, commit, and do-learn, commit, and do-and learn, commit, and do again. ~ Stephen Covey,
416:The soul grows by reincarnation in bodies provided by nature, more complex, more powerful, as the soul unfolds greater and greater faculties. And so the soul climbs upward into the light eternal. And there is no fear for any child of man, for inevitably he climbs towards God. ~ Annie Besant,
417:When a man looks at the stars, he grows calm and forgets small things. They answer his questions and show him that his earth is only one of the million worlds. Hold your soul still and look upward often, and you will understand their speech. Never forget the stars. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett,
418:He captured one of her legs, stilling her for a moment so he could fit his own between hers. Sliding upward, he insinuated his thigh against the part of her that ached the most, then rubbed, her nightgown bunched between her flesh in a way that only increased her craving. ~ Tracy Anne Warren,
419:sometimes when everything seems at its worst when all conspires and gnaws and the hours, days, weeks years seem wasted— stretched there upon my bed in the dark looking upward at the ceiling I get what many will consider an obnoxious thought: it’s still nice to be Bukowski. ~ Charles Bukowski,
420:The sun, like a boil on the bright blue ass of day, rolled gradually forward and spread its legs wide to reveal the pubic thatch of night, a hairy darkness in which stars crawled like lice, and the moon crabbed slowly upward like an albino dog tick striving for the anal gulch. ~ Joe R Lansdale,
421:Looking up into the trees, I noticed that one still had a few dark leaves clinging to the upper branches. Under my gaze, the leaves became a semé of birds, scattering upward and away in a salutary swoop, leaving only a plastic bag, caught and hanging listlessly in the bare limbs. ~ Sheridan Hay,
422:The destiny of the human race is to widen the gap separating it from the lower races of animals. Any code of morality which retains its permanence and authority after the conditions of existence which gave rise to it have changed, works against this upward progress of man. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
423:Baloo and Bagheera, for, at the pace the monkeys were going, he knew his friends would be left far behind. It was useless to look down, for he could only see the top sides of the branches, so he stared upward and saw, far away in the blue, Rann, the Kite, balancing and wheeling ~ Rudyard Kipling,
424:I think the mirror should be tilted slightly upward when it's reflecting life -- toward the cheerful, the tender, the compassionate, the brave, the funny, the encouraging, all those things -- and not tilted down to the gutter part of the time, into the troubled vistas of conflict. ~ Greer Garson,
425:Adam seemed clothed in a viscosity that slowed his movements and held his thoughts down. He saw the world through gray water. Now and then his mind fought its way upward, and when the light broke in it brought him only sickness of the mind, and he retired into the grayness again. ~ John Steinbeck,
426:What I wish I had said in the book [Falling Upward] is that part of the attraction of conservative religions, such as Mormonism, Mennonite, Amish, groups we would consider very traditional, is that they actually do the first half of life very well. They are often very happy people. ~ Richard Rohr,
427:yet energy flowed between them. As her surrender and response heightened his own pleasure and increased his ability to read her, he could play her better, which increased her response, and on and on, spiraling upward into the instinctive dance linking a dominant and submissive. ~ Cherise Sinclair,
428:But while I fill up my mouth with prayers, they bring no comfort. My words rattle against each other like the last beech leaves on a winter branch, and though a hard wind scours the forest, it cannot free them from the bough; it will not lift them upward into the wide white sky. ~ Geraldine Brooks,
429:There was the horror of morning, underslept, feeling she was on the precipice of something that felt like mono, the day already galloping away from her, her chasing on foot, carrying her boots. Then the brief upward respite after a second cup of coffee, when all seemed possible, when ~ Dave Eggers,
430:The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far - the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. ~ Elon Musk,
431:Nietzsche says: “Nicht nur fort sollst du dich pflanzen sondern hinauf”—you should propagate yourself not only onward but upward: procreation need not be a senseless continuation of an essentially meaningless story and an addition of more and more zeros—it can really be a creation. ~ Walter Kaufmann,
432:Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
433:A savage awareness seemed to ride the spinning sand, reaching relentlessly past the folds of their telaban, a thousand abrasive fingers clawing paths across their skin. Loose cloth and rope ends spiked upward, whipping with urgent rhythm. The roar filled the air, filled their skulls. ~ Steven Erikson,
434:when it arrives at an intellectual perception or conclusion, to attach no final value to it, but rather look upward, refer all to the divine principle and wait as in complete silence as it can command for the light from above.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, 316,
435:The triangle pointing downward is a female symbol corresponding to the yoni and the upward pointing triangle is the male, the lingam ... When the two triangles are interlaced, it represents the union of the active and passive forces in nature; it represents the male and female elements. ~ Albert Mackey,
436:And what first name are you called?” Illythe asked softly, moving up very close to Bryant.

“Bryant.” When he said it, Alex saw the upward tilt of Bryant’s chin, and the squaring of his shoulders. He was playing tough, and all Alex could do was to stand by and wait for the train wreck. ~ Lia Black,
437:We'll fight back, we'll fight back, we'll fight back," a man near Doctor Stockstill was chanting. Stockstill looked at him in astonishment, wondering who he would fight back against. Things were falling on them; did the man intend to fall back upward into the sky in some sort of revenge? ~ Philip K Dick,
438:When I was figuring out what to say for the wedding, I kept thinking about you and me.” Cinder jolted. “I knew it!” Kai’s eyebrows shot upward. “I mean, there seemed to be a lot of overlap,” she added. “Especially that part about defying race and distance and physiological tampering.” He ~ Marissa Meyer,
439:A few moments before the sun sets, the dark Earth shadow begins to rise in the east... It is nothing less than the shadow of the entire Earth, cast upward onto the atmosphere itself... I saw it over the great plains, and I felt as if I could sense the Earth pivoting silently under my feet. ~ James Elkins,
440:It would seem to be an inexorable law of Nature that no man shall shine at both ends. If he has a high forehead and a thirst for wisdom, his fox-trotting (if any) shall be as the staggerings of the drunken; while, if he is a good dancer, he is nearly always petrified from the ears upward. ~ P G Wodehouse,
441:The first theory is that if we make the rich richer, somehow they will let a part of their prosperity trickle down to the rest of us. The second theory was the theory that if we make the average of mankind comfortable and secure, their prosperity will rise upward through the ranks. ~ Franklin D Roosevelt,
442:Can I look back over my walk with God and see very clearly that a sinful behavior I used to be caught up in is no longer an issue? Are there thoughts, attitudes, or habits that used to dominate my life but don’t anymore? If you can answer yes, you’re moving forward and upward with God. ~ Bruce H Wilkinson,
443:I read a report from Starfleet Command last year that said you’d met the Greek deity Apollo. I was just wondering . . . did that really happen?” Kirk glanced at someone off-screen, then his mouth curled upward with playful mischief. “I prefer to think that Apollo met me. . . . Enterprise out. ~ David Mack,
444:... the whole design of the gospel is to lead us onward and upward to greater achievement, even, eventually, to godhood. This great possibility was enunciated by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the King Follet sermon. It is this grand and incomparable concept: As God now is, man may become! ~ Gordon B Hinckley,
445:There is a myth that the purpose of education is to give one the means for upward mobility and success. The plain truth is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does need desperately more peacemakers, healers, restorers, story tellers, and lovers of every shape and form. ~ David W Orr,
446:An entire tree swept past the door, upside down, its roots sprouting upward like horns. “You see that?” “Yeah. It’s gonna wake up in the middle of the ocean, say, ’Wait a second. This isn’t right.’ “’I’m supposed to be over there.’ “’Took me years to get that hill looking the way I wanted it. ~ Dennis Lehane,
447:Children of the Law,’ I said, ‘he is not dead.’ M’ling turned his sharp eyes on me. ‘He has changed his shape - he has changed his body,’ I went on. ‘For a time you will not see him. He is.. there’ - I pointed upward - ‘where he can watch you. You cannot see him. But he can see you. Fear the Law. ~ H G Wells,
448:Dost though even know what would become of me? Thou dost not." She exhaled sharply. "Friends would disown me. It is our way. I would be alone!"

"No," he said unexpectedly. He turned and held his hand to her, palm upward, empty, a simple masculine offering. "Maddygirl. With...me. ~ Laura Kinsale,
449:Leviathan laughs at the javelin, but he trembles at prayer. Sword and spear need furbishing, but prayer never rusts, and when we think it most blunt it cuts the best. Prayer is an open door which none can shut. Devils may surround you on all sides, but the way upward is always open. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
450:You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. ~ Sonja Lyubomirsky,
451:From across the woods, as if by common accord, birds left their trees and darted upward. I joined them, flew amount them, they did not recognize me as something apart from them, and I was happy, so happy, because for the first time in years, and forevermore, I had not killed, and never would. ~ George Saunders,
452:Tonight , I leave the bathroom light on and double-check the lock on the front door. I rest in the middle of the bed again and make a few more snow angels. It is a fruitless exercise though, because when I am done moving my arms upward and downward, I end up in exactly the same place I started. ~ Julie Buxbaum,
453:We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavour to see the good that dwells in everything. If we sit down and lament over the imperfection of our bodies and our minds, we profit nothing; it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upward. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
454:Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them.... If they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck their power of usefulness is gone. ~ Theodore Roosevelt,
455:For any two portions of fire, small or great, will exhibit the same ratio of solid to void; but the upward movement of the greater is quicker than that of the less, just as the downward movement of a mass of gold or lead, or of any other body endowed with weight, is quicker in proportion to its size. ~ Aristotle,
456:I have always wanted to do daytime television, but past handlers and agents had steered me away from it because they would say to me, "Darius, you have already passed that mark in your career. You have done prime time and feature films and continue to go upward," and I go, "Are you kidding me?". ~ Darius McCrary,
457:The fact is that the more we take flight upward [to God], the more our words are confined to the ideas we are capable of forming; so that now as we plunge into that darkness which is beyond intellect, we shall find ourselves not simply running short of words but actually speechless and unknowing. ~ Pope Dionysius,
458:Coming from light into the dark, he was looking ahead of him, not down at me. My lunge, as I came to my feet, took him in the chest as I drove the sword upward with the strength of my legs. Even rusted, the sword slid through him, and I found, for the first time, how easy it is to kill a man. ~ Megan Whalen Turner,
459:Now, with the glamour of the past upon them we are inclined to look back on old world festivities with regret and consider present day dances as a poor substitute for the old. From an artistic point of view, they maybe, but in individual freedom and independence of spirit they mark a stage upward. ~ Flora Thompson,
460:Communists, socialists and fascists everywhere, from Mr. Obama upward, have taken to the global warming cause like a quack to colored water. Just about every word they utter on this subject is a falsehood calculated to deceive, or - in plain English - a lie. ~ Christopher Monckton 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley,
461:he economy favors throughput over quality and craftsmanship, and economists are terrified because the American savings rate has crept upward from about zero to almost five percent. But the mortgage crisis and the burgeoning credit card crisis are causing Americans to become wary of irresponsible debt. ~ Denis Hayes,
462:Humans like stories. Humans need stories. Stories are good. Stories work. Story clarifies and captures the essence of the human spirit. Story, in all its forms—of life, of love, of knowledge—has traced the upward surge of mankind. And story, you mark my words, will be with the last human to draw breath, ~ Anonymous,
463:Thank you for this, Megan. I have not enjoyed something—or someone—as much in too long to recall.” “Me neither.” She smiled at him, pulsing her hips upward as if trying to capture this moment for all time. “You’re one hell of a lover, Dante.” “I aim to please,” he joked. “Your aim is dead on, cowboy. ~ Bianca D Arc,
464:I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,- When he beats his bars and would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings- I know why the caged bird sings! ~ Paul Laurence Dunbar,
465:Actually, however, life begins less by reaching upward, than by turning upon itself. But what a marvelously insidious, subtle image of life a coiling vital principle would be! And how many dreams the leftward oriented shell, or one that did not conform to the rotation of its species, would inspire! ~ Gaston Bachelard,
466:Thick is the darkness--
Sunward, O, sunward!
Rough is the highway--
Onward, still onward!
Dawn harbors surely
East of the shadows.
Facing us somewhere
Spread the sweet meadows.
Upward and forward!
Time will restore us:
Light is above us,
Rest is before us. ~ William Ernest Henley,
467:Humans like stories. Humans need stories. Stories are good. Stories work. Story clarifies and captures the essence of the human spirit. Story, in all its forms—of life, of love, of knowledge—has traced the upward surge of mankind. And story, you mark my words, will be with the last human to draw breath. ~ Jasper Fforde,
468:If you go on TV and say there's no other country in the world where you can be born poor and become rich, you get a huge megaphone. If you tell the truth, which is that most of the studies show actually the United States is worse than anybody except Britain in upward mobility, there is no audience for you. ~ David Frum,
469:Does not man lack the force at the very point where he needs it most? And when he soars upward in joy, or sinks down in suffering, is not checked in both, is he not returned again to the dull, cold sphere of awareness, just when he was longing to lose himself in the fullness of the infinite. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
470:Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge—has marked the upward surge of mankind. (Gordon Gekko, in Wall Street. ~ Sidney Sheldon,
471:Nature presides in all her dignity, permitting us the study and the use of such of her forces as we may understand. It is when we presume to intimacy, having been granted only tolerance, that the harsh stick falls across our impudent knuckles and we rub the pain, staring upward, startled by our ignorance. ~ Beryl Markham,
472:Two are the pathways by which mankind can to virtue mount upward;
If thou should find the one barred, open the other will lie.
'Tis by exertion the happy obtain her, the suffering by patience.
Blest is the man whose kind fate guides him along upon both!

~ Friedrich Schiller, The Two Paths Of Virtue
,
473:She tried to smile, but she had been born during the years of Esi's unsmiling, and she had never learned how to do it quite right. The corners of her lips always seemed to twitch upward, unwillingly, then fall within milliseconds, as though attached to that sadness that had once anchored her own mother's heart. ~ Yaa Gyasi,
474:The white scar on his cheek was slightly puckered at one end, as when a seamstress leaves the needle in the fabric, before she quits for the day; this phantom needle lay just beyond the edge of his mouth, and seemed to tug it upward, as if trying to coax his stern expression - unsuccessfully - into a smile. ~ Eleanor Catton,
475:A delicious fragrance wafted upward—roasted pork and crispy bacon and apples glazed in a rich wine sauce, resting on a bed of browned potatoes. Beside it was a bowl of fresh peas, swimming in butter seasoned with tarragon from the garden. And of course there was the baguette Vianne had made yesterday morning. ~ Kristin Hannah,
476:Let us hopethat by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us; and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away. ~ Abraham Lincoln,
477:The column hung above the middle of the pentacle, bubbling ever upward against the ceiling like the cloud of an erupting volcanoe. There was a barely perceptible pause. Then two yellow staring eyes materialized in the heart of the smoke.
Hey, it was his first time. I wanted to scare him. And it did, too. ~ Jonathan Stroud,
478:But--" she tried not to wail, but her voice crept upward, anyway "--I want to go HOME--"
"And I want a palace and a handsome, young prince who has an unnatural lust for old women, and neither of us are going to get what we crave, so let's concentrate on what we can do something about!" Granny said sharply. ~ Mercedes Lackey,
479:Man must choose either of the two courses, the upward or the downward; but as he has the brute in him, he will more easily choose the downward course than the upward, especially when the downward course is presented to him in a beautiful garb. Man easily capitulates when sin is presented in the garb of virtue. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
480:If you're like most people, you've always wanted something better for your life - it's really how we are designed - we're supposed to want improvement, and we're designed to climb upward. But most people stop at that - the WANT. They rarely take any action that actually begins moving their dreams into true reality! ~ Bob Proctor,
481:the “smile graph.” With the percentage of sign-ups represented on the y-axis and time spent on the service on the x-axis, the chart showed that, although usage plummeted at first, it rocketed upward as people formed a habit of using the service. The resulting down-and-up curve gave the chart its emblematic smile shape ~ Nir Eyal,
482:The true keys to happiness lie in changing the way we think and behave, seeking out experiences such as savoring a beautiful moment and taking a picture of it, thanking a friend, writing a gratitude journal, or performing random acts of kindness. Such habits add up to create an upward spiral that boosts happiness. ~ Dan Buettner,
483:I've recently noticed "as if for the first time" that when people pray they always look "upward" - i.e. perpendicular to whatever place they're standing - or kneeling or groveling. I deduce that they conceive of their "god" as topologically isomorphic to a huge donut, about a thousand miles wider than Earth. ~ Robert Anton Wilson,
484:Clarke shifted so she was leaning against Bellamy. He wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned back, so they were both looking up at the sky. The roar of the fire was enough to muffle the voices of everyone around them, and with their eyes tilted upward, it almost felt like they were the only two people on Earth. ~ Kass Morgan,
485:But apparently you don't need dot-com wealth to ruin an area for its low-income residents. The Pioneer Press quotes Secretary of HUD Andrew Cuomo ruing the "cruel irony" that prosperity is shrinking the stock of affordable housing nationwide: "The stronger the economy, the stronger the upward pressure on rents. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich,
486:sometimes when everything seems at
its worst
when all conspires
and gnaws
and the hours, days, weeks
years
seem wasted –
stretched there upon my bed
in the dark
looking upward at the ceiling
i get what many will consider an
obnoxious thought:
it’s still nice to be
Bukowski. ~ Charles Bukowski,
487:We’re hardwired by nature to find common social ground, to believe that whatever we’re doing today is normal and not much different from the way people have always behaved. We assume human achievement is on an upward slope, that learning from the past has made us stronger and smarter than anyone of the past. ~ Christopher McDougall,
488:What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward toward the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
489:Outside, as she passed the kitchen window, she watched her breath appear before her in the lamplight and then it died away in moist clouds. This was the smoke of her internal fire and her soul. Every breath was a letter to the world. These she mailed into the cold air leaning back with pursed lips to send it upward. ~ Paulette Jiles,
490:As soon as she was out of sight, I sent a silent prayer upward that she emerged from this situation unscathed and that Drill didn’t spot her.

If anything happens to her, I swear to God—

Whoa there, feisty britches.

—they won’t find the bodies.

Okay. Settle down. No need to pull the Rambo card. ~ Penny Reid,
491:Outside, as she passed the kitchen window, she watched her breath appear before her in the lamplight and then it died away in moist clouds. This was the smoke of her internal fire and her soul. Every breath was a letter to the world. These she mailed into the cold air leaning back with pursed lips to send it upward. ~ Paulette Jiles,
492:I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,-
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings-
I know why the caged bird sings! ~ Paul Laurence Dunbar,
493:So you were good enough for the Cullach Gorrym, good enough to marry Dorelei mab Breidaia, good enough to beget Alba a successor, but not good enough for the Queen’s daughter?” Urist’s lips curled with scorn. The tip of his knife flicked upward. “Well, that’s what I think of that, lad.” The red yarn parted and fell. ~ Jacqueline Carey,
494:We live in a country [USA] where the belief is that anyone can succeed, but for so many here, and for the majority of the world, that's not the case. In many parts of the world, women and poor people are at a huge disadvantage - certain rights and protections don't exist, and they don't have the chance of upward mobility. ~ Joy Bryant,
495:Do you love me?' I say quietly, still staring at the water.
He pauses. I turn to look at him. His eyes are soft and big and the corners of his mouth turn upward into a shy grin.
'Yeah. Yeah, I do. I was going to tell you. It's just, I've never said it to anyone, so I was... I kept...'
'I love you, too' I say. ~ Colleen Clayton,
496:I asked, "You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell - the destinations - are the same thing anyway?"
"Same - same," he said. "Same in end, so better to be happy on journey."
I said, "So, if heaven is love, then hell is..."
"Love, too," he said. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
497:Like a flame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward without wavering, my love goes to Thee; and like the child who does not reason and has no care, I trust myself to Thee that Thy Will may be done, that Thy Light may manifest, Thy Peace radiate, Thy Love cover the world.
   ~ The Mother, Prayers And Meditations,
498:Q25 What's the reason you jump?
When I'm jumping it's as if my feelings are going upward to the sky. Really, my urge to be swallowed up by the sky is enough to make my heart quiver. When I'm jumping, I can feel my body parts really well, too--my bounding legs and my clapping hands--and that makes me feel so, so good. ~ Naoki Higashida,
499:What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward toward the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
500:Nowhere was the complacency of the establishment, with its blind faith in progress, more evident than in its attitude toward an elite degree: as long as my child goes to the right schools, upward mobility will continue. A university education had become the equivalent of a very expensive insurance policy, like owning a gun. ~ George Packer,
501:What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
502:The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life. ~ Henri Nouwen,
503:Well has it been said that man is the only animal that naturally looks upwards; every other animal naturally looks down. That looking upward and going upward and seeking perfection are what is called salvation; and the sooner a man begins to go higher, the sooner he raises himself towards this idea of truth as salvation. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
504:In our own lives, having a mind-set of expecting to win increases our odds of winning. It helps us get better results. And better results help us increase our credibility and self-confidence, which leads to more positive self-expectancy, and more winning - and the upward cycle continues. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. ~ Stephen Covey,
505:Now…I live and breathe weirdness. It goes with the territory when you’re a demigod. But there are still moments when I do a mental double take: like when I’m flying upward inside a giant glowing vulture, flapping my arms to control make-believe wings, holding an almost-immortal magician in my talons…all so I can steal his hat. ~ Rick Riordan,
506:She did a little shimmy dance move, threw her arms in the air, and turned to face her brothers and Ford at the table with a smile that lit up her whole face.
Maybe there was some asshole out there who could look at her and not return her grin. Ford was a dickhead, but he couldn’t stop the end of his lips from curling upward. ~ Avery Flynn,
507:Daddy just repeated the word, internship. As an alibi, it was a thing of beauty: its overtones of responsibility, of upward aspiration, were perfectly calculated to jam his circuits. Well, you know, we've already booked you a seat on the first manned spaceflight, but I suppose if you have an internship . . . ~ Garth Risk Hallberg,
508:It was what accidental deaths did to people, made everybody's sea floor irregular and uneven, causing tidal currents to collide, surge upward, thereby resulting in small yet volatile eddies churning at everybody's surface. (In the more dangerous cases, it created a lasting whirlpool in which the strongest swimmers could drown.) ~ Marisha Pessl,
509:...and to his eyes, casually glancing upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches, with their characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, the dark-creviced elm all appeared now as black and flat outlines upon the sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their flickering seemed like the flapping of wings. ~ Thomas Hardy,
510:Deep in the soul, below pain, below all the distraction of life, is a silence vast and grand - an infinite ocean of calm, which nothing can disturb; Nature's own exceeding peace, which "passes understanding". That which we seek with passionate longing, here and there, upward and outward; we find at last within ourselves. ~ Richard Maurice Bucke,
511:It is an error to imagine that evolution signifies a constant tendency to increased perfection. That process undoubtedly involves a constant remodeling of the organism in adaptation to new conditions; but it depends on the nature of those conditions whether the direction of the modifications effected shall be upward or downward. ~ Thomas Huxley,
512:Karen Hansen Clement sank deep in melancholy. She heard till she could hear no more. She saw until she could see no more. She was exhausted and confused, and the will to go on was being drained from her blood. Then, as so often happens when one reaches the end of the line, there was a turning upward and she emerged into the light. It ~ Leon Uris,
513:There is a myth flourishing in the church today that has caused incalculable harm: once converted, fully converted. In other words, once I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, an irreversible, sinless future beckons. Discipleship will be an untarnished success story; life will be an unbroken upward spiral toward holiness. ~ Brennan Manning,
514:Just think of it like this: you’ve got two options, and you have to pick one.” I held out my hands, palms upward, juggling them up and down like the arms of a scale. “Free money? Bullet in the head? Free money? Bullet in the head? Now, I’m no professional merchant such as yourself, but if it was up to me? I’d take the free money. ~ Craig Schaefer,
515:The basic principle is that the very things that can be your downfall in life can be used to raise yourself. If you simply change your perspective, what is down can be up. What is a downward chute can be used as an upward process. Whatever draws you into compulsive nature, you use that to become conscious. You use that momentum to grow. ~ Sadhguru,
516:Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground covered we have covered before, only higher up; as we look down the winding stair below us we measure our progress by the number of places where we were but no longer are. The journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward. ~ William Butler Yeats,
517:For me upward social mobility is possible through talent and hard work and is a glowing endorsement of the benefits of living in a modern capitalist society. It's not so much evidence of a meritocracy, as evidence of healthy nepotism. Nepotism is at the core of a good group dynamic. A good group dynamic is at the core of rock'n'roll. ~ Alex Kapranos,
518:One attribute of the human being is the potential to keep on growing, to keep on developing. And I think there's room in each of us. I hate to hear someone say, oh well, that man or that woman is sixty or seventy or eighty or ninety or a hundred, so he's finished. There's always something that can be transformed on the upward spiral. ~ William Segal,
519:...Borrower's don't steal."
"Except from human beings," said the boy.
Arrietty burst out laughing; she laughed so much that she had to hide her face in the primrose. "Oh dear," she gasped with tears in her eyes, "you are funny!" She stared upward at his puzzled face. "Human beans are for Borrowers - like bread's for butter! ~ Mary Norton,
520:In a moment, at the very center of the swept and cleaned veranda, she had drawn two intersecting triangles, one upward- pointing and the other downward-pointing. In one, god's grace descended from heaven to earth; in the other, the soul ascended, aspiring toward god. Because of Sitamma's faultless eye, both met in perfect harmony. ~ U R Ananthamurthy,
521:Nongrade measures of educational output—like students taking Advanced Placement classes or tests, or kids applying to college—have trended upward, along with labor productivity in other sectors. It’s a twisted system that aspires to train every student for “A” work, then calls it a crisis when the distribution shifts in that direction. ~ Malcolm Harris,
522:The fastest I ever did that was when Kill the Moonlight came out after Girls Can Tell, and I remember both labels I was working with at the time saying, "If this was any other period, I would probably say this is too fast, but because this is first time anybody has ever paid attention to Spoon, let's keep it on an upward trajectory." ~ John Britt Daniel,
523:In much of urban and Western civilization today, with no proper tragic sense of life, we try to believe that it is all upward and onward--and by ourselves. It works for so few, and it cannot serve us well in the long run--because it is not true. It is an inherently win-lose game, and more and more people find themselves on the losing side. ~ Richard Rohr,
524:My dad, for example, has never disparaged hard work, but he mistrusts some of the most obvious paths to upward mobility. When he found out that I had decided to go to Yale Law, he asked whether, on my applications, I had “pretended to be black or liberal.” This is how low the cultural expectations of working-class white Americans have fallen. ~ J D Vance,
525:Trant's deep need to climb ever upward, crushing anyone in his path, the qualities, while making Trant an interesting associate at times, at others made him decidedly predictable and boring. After all, a ladder contained a single directional path. Someone like Trant rarely tried the twisting vines, tree branches, and handholds to the side. ~ Anne Mallory,
526:But let's

suppose for a moment that my inspiration is not divine. Still, you would agree, my

speaking is not inferior to the workings of a bee? The Quran says, God has inspired

the bee. This universe is filled with honey. Human beings feed on it and evolve upward

with the same, but more profound, inspiration as the bee. ~ Rumi,
527:The loss of religion has shaken the movement forward. Without God there is no path. Call Him what one will, the highest Hierarchic Principle must be observed, otherwise there is nothing to adhere to. Thus, one must understand how the upward aspiration of people's wills surrounds the planet like a protective net. ~ Agni Yoga, Fiery World Part I, 628, (1933),
528:We pushed past branches and through humidity thick enough to bind. The gummy smell of pine clawed the air. We trudged through high grass. Mosquitoes and the like buzzed upward in our wake. Trees cast long shadows that you could interpret any way you wanted, like trying to figure out what a cloud looked like or one of Rorschach’s inkblots. We ~ Harlan Coben,
529:But to carve the Grand Canyon, Earth required millions of years. To excavate Meteor Crater, the universe, using a sixty-thousand-ton asteroid traveling upward of twenty miles per second, required a fraction of a second. No offense to Grand Canyon lovers, but for my money, Meteor Crater is the most amazing natural landmark in the world. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson,
530:When my fingers began, involuntarily, to loose their hold on Hella, I realized that I was dangling from a high place and that I had been clinging to her for my very life. With each moment, as my fingers slipped, I felt the roaring air beneath me and felt everything in me bitterly contracting, crawling furiously upward against that long fall. ~ James Baldwin,
531:Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights—then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend. ~ Jon Meacham,
532:Boopsy's Boutique catered to the woman, or man, with money and lots of it. Date dresses ran upward of a thousand dollars, and some of the high-end designer frocks touched five figures. The dresses were exquisite, emblazoned with crystals and pearls, complete with jewel-encrusted shoes to match. Needless to say, it wasn't a place I frequented. ~ Carolyn Haines,
533:But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable,walking through this life half-sleeping,everything at arm's length or farther away.
I understood those mermaids.I didn't care if they sang to me.All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again,pulling me upward into light,to drown. ~ Sarah Dessen,
534:They say that each night, when the duties of state permit, she climbs, on foot, and limps, alone, to the highest peak of the palace, where she stands for hour after hour, seeming not to notice the cold peak winds. She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars. ~ Neil Gaiman,
535:The plane turned onto the runway, amid noisy billows of dry brown air, and it accelerated slowly, complacently, as if fully aware the mysteries of flight had been worked out long ago, and it lifted off calmly, and glinted in the sun, and sideslipped in the haze, and curved upward on trails of soot, setting a dark but graceful course north and east. ~ Lee Child,
536:But what he didn't understand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown. ~ Sarah Dessen,
537:I shook my head. Was this guy for real? “As a matter of fact, no, it doesn’t satisfy me. You ordered me a burger, not asking me what I wanted on it or anything. I could be a vegetarian for all you know.” A partial smile curved the left side of his lips upward. “You just said anything was fine. ‘A burger, whatever,’ I believe were your exact words. ~ Helen Hardt,
538:The Bible holds up before us ideals that are within sight of the weakest and the lowliest, and yet so high that the best and the noblest are kept with their faces turned ever upward. It carries the call of the Saviour to the remotest corners of the earth; on its pages are written the assurances of the present and our hopes for the future ~ William Jennings Bryan,
539:The striving for significance, this sense of yearning, always points out to us that all psychological phenomena contain a movement that starts from a feeling of inferiority and reach upward. The theory of Individual Psychology of psychological compensation states that the stronger the feeling of inferiority, the higher the goal for personal power. ~ Alfred Adler,
540:The navel region is the centre of the vital. It is from here that the movements of the vital rise upward. Above the navel and behind the chest is the centre of the play of emotions and below this takes place the play of the physical. Mulādhāra is the base of the physical. In between the Mulādhāra and the navel, there is another centre of the vital. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
541:We fly, but we have not 'conquered' the air. Nature presides in all her dignity, permitting us the study and the use of such of her forces as we may understand. It is when we presume to intimacy, having been granted only tolerance, that the harsh stick fall across our impudent knuckles and we rub the pain, staring upward, startled by our ignorance. ~ Beryl Markham,
542:Stay together,” he said, helping Marte amid the surging crowd. “At least we’re off that godforsaken train. Look . . . ” He pointed upward to letters forming an arch high above the gate. “What does it say, Papa?” Lucy asked. It was in German. “Work will set you free. See, you have to get strong again, Marte. If we work here, we will be safe. You’ll see. ~ Andrew Gross,
543:sometimes when everything seems at
its worst
when all conspires
and gnaws
and the hours, days, weeks
years
seem wasted--
stretched there upon my bed
in the dark
looking upward at the ceiling
I get what many will consider an
obnoxious thought:
it's still nice to be
Bukowski.
-- Well, That's Just the Way it Is ~ Charles Bukowski,
544:They climb the stairs with the proper tactical approach, securing each staircase with a single soldier—a scout—before the rest of the team proceeds upward. There are blind spots everywhere. Ambush opportunities on each level. Their contact at the front desk has given an all-clear on the stairwells, but he is only as competent as the cameras he monitors. ~ Bill Clinton,
545:Nature religions, for example, speak of summer, fall, winter, and spring. They see the downward path as the necessary prelude to any kind of upward path again. Our vocabulary is different. We Christians speak of the death and resurrection of Jesus. But unfortunately, we've projected it all onto Jesus and it didn't become a life agenda for the rest of us. ~ Richard Rohr,
546:The tops of her breasts pushed upward, beckoning. Lovely, so lovely. Yet they weren’t what claimed his attention. Knives were strapped to every inch of visible skin. Some were twined with the bra’s straps. Some were simply taped. With what, he didn’t know. He only knew he liked it. A lot. Took him a while, but he finally dropped the last to the floor. He ~ Gena Showalter,
547:As a family they still flew the flight of the immigrant rocket, the upward, unbroken immigrant trajectory from slave-driven great-grandfather to self-driven grandfather to self-confident, accomplished, independent father to the highest high flier of them all, the fourth-generation child for whom America was to be heaven itself. No wonder he couldn’t shut up. ~ Philip Roth,
548:The term Hispanic, coined by technomarketing experts and by the designers of political campaigns, homogenizes our cultural diversity (Chicanos, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans become indistinguishable), avoids our indigenous cultural heritage and links us directly with Spain. Worse yet, it possesses connotations of upward mobility and political obedience. ~ Guillermo Gomez Pena,
549:Even from the abyss of horror in which we try to feel our way today, half-blind, our hearts distraught and shattered, I look up again and again to the ancient constellations that shone on my childhood, comforting myself with the inherited confidence that, some day, this relapse will appear only an interval in the eternal rhythm of progress onward and upward. ~ Stefan Zweig,
550:This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. Our problems birth our happiness, along with slightly better, slightly upgraded problems. See: it’s a never-ending upward spiral. And if you think at any point you’re allowed to stop climbing, I’m afraid you’re missing the point. Because the joy is in the climb itself. ~ Mark Manson,
551:Up on the roof Tatiana thought about the evening minute, the minute she used to walk out the factory doors, turn her head to the left even before her body turned, and look for his face. The evening minute as she hurried down the street, her happiness curling her mouth upward to the white sky, the red wings speeding her to him, to look up at him and smile. ~ Paullina Simons,
552:For instance, let us say that a new stock has been listed in the last two or three years and its high was 20, or any other figure, and that such a price was made two or three years ago. If something favorable happens in connection with the company, and the stock starts upward, usually it is safe play to buy the minute it touches a brand new high. ~ Jesse Lauriston Livermore,
553:He used you, yeah. But what if you hadn't come? My family would have run again, but we would never have been free. We would never stop hunting us."
"I know." I thought of my frustration in Paris and I couldn't even imagine how sick of running Seth must be.
"That's why I had to come."
His eyebrow cocked upward. "And here I thought you came to see me. ~ Linda Gerber,
554:I know what you are. I've always known from the beginning, Kushiel's Chosen. It is folly, to make claim on one whom the gods have marked for their own. And unlike the others, I am no fool, to grasp at that which burns to the touch. What you have given..." she raised one hand, palm upward, the garnet seal dangling at her wrist, "... I hold in an open hand. ~ Jacqueline Carey,
555:The Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up, nay, you have to cut every step with an ice axe; only with incessant labor in cutting and chipping can you make any progress... If you want to know how to backslide, leave off going forward. Cease going upward and you will go downward of necessity. You can never stand still. ~ Charles Spurgeon,
556:grading upward from the most casual brush between man and man to the fullest, most intimate communion of which the human soul is capable. Religion, so far as it is genuine, is in essence the response of created personalities to the Creating Personality, God. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. ~ A W Tozer,
557:It was the upward-reaching and fathomlessly hungering, heart-breaking love for the beauty of the world at its most beautiful, and, beyond that, for that beauty east of the sun and west of the moon which is past the reach of all but our most desperate desiring and is finally the beauty of Beauty itself, of Being itself and what lies at the heart of Being. ~ Frederick Buechner,
558:showed that even with the considerable increase in the average level of education over the course of the twentieth century, earned income inequality did not decrease. Qualification levels shifted upward: a high school diploma now represents what a grade school certificate used to mean, a college degree what a high school diploma used to stand for, and so on. ~ Thomas Piketty,
559:For decades, Scaife was described as a recluse, mysterious even to the recipients of his largesse. Over a fifty-year period, he personally spent what he estimated to be upward of $1 billion from his family fortune on philanthropy, once the sum was adjusted for inflation. Most of it, some $620 million, he reckoned, was aimed at influencing American public affairs. ~ Jane Mayer,
560:If this book accomplishes anything it will be to have exposed a number of myths about the American dream, to have disabused readers of the notion that upward mobility is a function of the founders’ ingenious plan, or that Jacksonian democracy was liberating, or that the Confederacy was about states’ rights rather than preserving class and racial distinctions. ~ Nancy Isenberg,
561:I crept into his bed and curled myself around him, resting my head against his back, wrapping my arms around his chest. I wanted to seal him to me, to fuse him to my skin, to reassure myself that he was actually mine. I pressed my lips against his back and slid my hands up under his T-shirt, pressing my hands against his flat abdomen, stroking upward to his chest. ~ Amy Harmon,
562:Though there are exceptions, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism tend to stress desirable states of consciousness, escaping the fretful, self-aware state of mind that so often makes everyday living a burden. For mystics from the Abrahamic faiths, however, the inward odyssey is also an upward odyssey, a quest for personal and vital communion with an infinite Being. ~ David C Downing,
563:her mouth he had seen nothing to equal on the face of the earth. To a young man with the least fire in him that little upward lift in the middle of her red top lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening. He had never before seen a woman's lips and teeth which forced upon his mind with such persistent iteration the old Elizabethan simile of roses filled with snow. ~ Thomas Hardy,
564:I turned my palms upward in the sunlight. In an instant, they felt warm, as though the light were seeping into the skin, soaking into the very lines of my fingerprints. The light ruled over everything out here. Bathed in light, each object glowed with the brilliant color of summer. Even intangibles such as time and memory shared the goodness of the summer light. ~ Haruki Murakami,
565:No other modern country gives corporations the unfettered power found in America to gouge customers, shortchange workers and erect barriers to fair play. A big reason is that so little of the news, which informs us about the world around us, addresses the private, government-approved mechanisms by which price gouging is employed to redistribute income upward. ~ David Cay Johnston,
566:On the darkest days you have to search for a spot of brightness, on the coldest days you have to seek out a spot of warmth; on the bleakest days you have to keep your eyes onward and upward and on the saddest days you have to leave them open to let them cry. To then let them dry. To give them a chance to wash out the pain in order to see fresh and clear once again. ~ Tahereh Mafi,
567:Professional standards, the standards of ambition and selfishness, are always sliding downward toward expense, ostentation, and mediocrity. They tend always to narrow the ground of judgment. But amateur standards, the standards of love, are always straining upward toward the humble and the best. They enlarge the ground of judgment. The context of love is the world. ~ Wendell Berry,
568:The important issue is not how much inequality there is but how much opportunity there is for individuals to get out of the bottom classes and into the top. If there is enough movement upward, people will accept the efficiency of the markets. If you have opportunity, there is a great tolerance for inequality. That has been the saving grace of the American system. ~ Milton Friedman,
569:I’m here,” I told him, picking at the taxi company decal on
the interior of the car window.“My face is relaxed and content. My lips are curved upward.”
Sam did not laugh, because he was immune to my charms.
“Have you been to the place you’re staying yet? Is it okay?”
“I’m fine, Mother,” I replied. “I haven’t been yet. I’m going
to go see Baby now. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
570:Turn around, and keep your eyes closed shut, For if the Gorgon, Medusa, does appear, and you see her, You would never be able to return upward."   This the Master said; and he turned me around Himself, and not trusting my own hands, He covered my eyes with his own.   For those of you who are educated, understand the hidden meaning Of the strange words that follow! ~ Dante Alighieri,
571:Love wakes much and sleeps little and, in sleeping, does not sleep. It faints is not weary; it is restricted in its liberty and is great freedom. It sees reasons to fear and does not fear, but, like an ember or a spark of fire, flames always upward, by the fervor of its love, toward God, and through the special help of grace is delivered from all perils and dangers ~ Thomas a Kempis,
572:Here we find not the collapse of order, like the one-way dissipative crash of Humpty-Dumpty. Rather, things build up, from small to large, from pebbles to rocks layered with moss. This upward process sings to stratified stability. Step by step, the development of complexity from level to level is an arrow in possibility space. ~ Tyler Volk, Metapatterns - Across Space, Time, and Mind,
573:Junk Economics is the cover story for all this. Claiming to be scientific, it is sponsored by financial interests to redistribute income and wealth upward, reversing the policies urged by the 19th-century classical economists and Progressive Era reformers. Instead of progressive taxation, this ideology advocates shifting taxes off the One Percent onto the 99 Percent. ~ Michael Hudson,
574:Appearances are deceiving. Having authority is not the same as being an authority. Having the right and being right are not the same either. Being promoted doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing good work and it doesn’t mean you are worthy of promotion (they call it failing upward in such bureaucracies). Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive. ~ Ryan Holiday,
575:Sphere Music - Some sounds seem to reverberate along the plain, and then settle to earth again like dust; such are Noise, Discord, Jargon. But such only as spring heavenward, and I may catch from steeples and hilltops in their upward course, which are the more refined parts of the former, are the true sphere music - pure, unmixed music - in which no wail mingles. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
576:Today even the attitude of the Southern whites toward the blacks is not, as so many assume, in all cases the same; the ignorant Southerner hates the Negro, the workingmen fear his competition, the money-makers wish to use him as a laborer, some of the educated see a menace in his upward development, while others—usually the sons of the masters—wish to help him to rise. ~ W E B Du Bois,
577:You've got to let people work out the situation and work out what's happening. The danger in calling is that they'll tell you anything to get you off their backs, and if you act on that and take it at face value, you could make a mistake. Plus you are diverting them. Now they are looking upward instead of downward. You're preventing them from resolving the situation. ~ Malcolm Gladwell,
578:As we have said, robust souls are sometimes almost, but not entirely, overthrown by strokes of misfortune....Despair has steps leading upward. From total depression we rise to despondency, from despondency to affliction, from affliction to melancholy. Melancholy is a twilight state in which suffering transmutes into a somber joy....Melancholy is the enjoyment of being sad. ~ Victor Hugo,
579:I want to know you’re mine,” he grated. “Of course I’m yours.” She heard the despair in her voice. If he only knew how true those words were. “When I’m inside you, like this, I know that.” His unexpected vulnerability breached her barriers against revealing her love. “It’s always true,” she confessed, pressing upward, frustration fizzing in her blood. “Make me believe it. ~ Anna Campbell,
580:People fascinated by the idea of progress never suspect that every step forward is also a step on the way to the end and that behind all the joyous "onward and upward" slogans lurks the lascivious voice of death urging us to make haste. (If the obsession with the word "onward" has become universal nowadays, isn't it largely because death now speaks to us at such close range?) ~ Anonymous,
581:In 2006, the Secure Fence Act was signed into law, requiring the Department of Homeland Security to build upward of 700 miles of double layered fencing along the U. S-Mexico border. While the Obama administration is quick to state that the targets have been met, only a small fraction - in fact, less than 40 miles - of the newly implemented infrastructure is double-layered. ~ Duncan Hunter,
582:The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A reductionist philosophy, arbitrarily proclaiming that the growth of understanding must go only in one direction, makes no scientific sense. Indeed, dogmatic philosophical beliefs of any kind have no place in science. ~ Freeman Dyson,
583:For some reason, Leah struggled to carry on a casual conversation. She couldn’t make sense of this new, happier Gideon. She picked at the eggs on her plate, spearing a few onto her fork. She raised her eyes to sneak a glance at him. He was watching her, unashamed. He didn’t look away, didn’t say anything, but the tips of his mouth quirked upward in a grin. Who was this man? ~ Misty M Beller,
584:Tho' the world could turn from you, This, at least, I learn from you: Beauty and Truth, tho' never found, are worthy to be sought, The singer, upward-springing, Is grander than his singing, And tranquil self-sufficing joy illumes the dark of thought. This, at least, you teach me, In a revelation: That gods still snatch, as worthy death, the soul in its aspiration. ~ Robert Williams Buchanan,
585:Persons, especially salaried people who schedule their spare time, to provide for home study (or attend specialized short courses, seminars or training) seldom remain at the bottom very long. Their action opens the way for the upward climb, removes many obstacles from their path, and gains the friendly interest of those who have the power to put them in the way of opportunity ~ Napoleon Hill,
586:Continually trying to look on the bright side interferes with our finding the wisdom that lies in the fruitful darkness. Continually striving upward toward the light means we never grow downward into our own feet, never become firmly rooted on the earth, never explore the darkness within and around us, a darkness without whose existence the light would have no meaning. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner,
587:There is part of a structure in which every species is related to every other species. And they're built up on species, like a pyramid. The simpler cell organisms, and then the more complicated ones, all the way up to the mammals and birds and so forth. We call it 'developing upward'... The whole thing depends on every part of it. And we're taking out the stones from the pyramid. ~ W S Merwin,
588:God never places us in any position in which we can not grow. We may fancy that He does. We may fear we are so impeded by fretting, petty cares that we are gaining nothing; but when we are not sending any branches upward, we may be sending roots downward. Perhaps in the time of our humiliation, when everything seems a failure, we are making the best kind of progress. ~ Elizabeth Payson Prentiss,
589:I don’t like people who attack when their opponent’s back’s turned,” growled Moody as the ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain. “Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do. . . .” The ferret flew through the air, its legs and tail flailing helplessly. “Never — do — that — again —” said Moody, speaking each word as the ferret hit the stone floor and bounced upward again. ~ J K Rowling,
590:Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets that numb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith-the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen! ~ Lewis Carroll,
591:They who have drunk beer, fall on their back, but there is a peculiarity in the effects of the drink made from barley, for they that get drunk on other intoxicating liquors fall on all parts of their body, they fall on the left side, on the right side, on their faces, and and on their backs. But it is only those who get drunk on beer that fall on their backs with their faces upward. ~ Aristotle,
592:12Not that I have already  l obtained this or  m am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do:  n forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on toward the goal for  o the prize of the upward  p call of God in Christ Jesus. ~ Anonymous,
593:He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower. ~ James Joyce,
594:In the contest of upward mobility, Barack and Michelle Obama have won. But they’ve won by being twice as good—and enduring twice as much. Malia and Sasha Obama enjoy privileges beyond the average white child’s dreams. But that comparison is incomplete. The more telling question is how they compare with Jenna and Barbara Bush—the products of many generations of privilege, not just one. ~ Anonymous,
595:She sank to her knees and lifted her head. She had become so accustomed to the rippling blue tides closing her in, pressing down on her, but this sky was open . . . this night was infinite.
She felt like she might fall upward forever, drifting into space. Floating across the stars. Sable had spoken of embers scattered across the roof of the universe. It was a good description. ~ Veronica Rossi,
596:He tilted her face upward as if he meant to kiss her. Shocked, Maria resisted, glancing toward the people at the table, some of them are smiling, some disapproving, some thoroughly appalled.
She looked back at him, doubtful.
"Does a gentleman kiss a woman in front of other people?"

He tilted her head back.
"This one does," he said and captured her lips with his. ~ Laura Lee Guhrke,
597:Labels can be phrased as statements or questions. The only difference is whether you end the sentence with a downward or upward inflection. But no matter how they end, labels almost always begin with roughly the same words: It seems like … It sounds like … It looks like … Notice we said “It sounds like …” and not “I’m hearing that …” That’s because the word “I” gets people’s guard up. ~ Chris Voss,
598:Say it,' Ronan told Gansey.

'Say what?'

'Excelsior.'

'That's onward and upward,' Gansey said. 'It means to ascend. That's opposite.'

'Oh well,' Ronan said. 'Squash one, squash two, squash three on and on and on-'

Then he disappeared into the hole, his voice still carrying up.

Adam said, 'I'm not singing along!' but he followed Ronan in. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
599:Pain might escalate upward and, just when you thought you'd reached your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. She had thought herself trapped in a place outside the ordinary feeling lives of people; she had not noticed how many other people were trapped in that place with her. ~ Kristin Cashore,
600:Pain might escalate upward and, just when you thought you’d reached your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. She had thought herself trapped in a place outside the ordinary feeling lives of people; she had not noticed how many other people were trapped in that place with her. ~ Kristin Cashore,
601:Then he gave thanks as the Senecas always had, to the whole universe beginning with the ground at their feet and moving upward and outward. He thanked the earth, the waters, the fish, the plants, the edible plants, the medicinal herbs, the animals, the trees, the birds, the four winds, the thunders that bring rains, the sun, the moon, the stars, all spirit messengers, and the Creator. ~ Thomas Perry,
602:It is clear, then, that the earth must be at the centre and immovable, not only for the reasons already given, but also because heavy bodies forcibly thrown quite straight upward return to the point from which they started, even if they are thrown to an infinite distance. From these considerations then it is clear that the earth does not move and does not lie elsewhere than at the centre. ~ Aristotle,
603:It was still twilight when they reached the flat rock. They sat, and the stone still held the warmth of the day's sun. At first there were only occasional sparkles, but as it got darker Chuck was lost in a daze pf delight as a galaxy of fireflies twinkled on and off, flinging upward in a blaze of light, dropping earthward like falling stars, moving in contiuous effervescent dance. ~ Madeleine L Engle,
604:Can this be death?’ Prince Andrei wondered, casting a fleeting glance of quite unwonted envy at the grass, the wormwood and the thread of smoke that curled upward from the whistling black ball. ‘I can’t die, I don’t want to die. I love life – I love this grass, this earth, this air.…’ These were the thoughts in his mind, and at the same time he remembered that people were looking at him. ~ Leo Tolstoy,
605:I remember being unusually pensive that May evening, perhaps it was the heat of Spring's first warm day which, encountering my thick winter blood, forced a dilution upward into a brain weary of straining the last six months to overcome freezing and the long absent thinning of blood stirred a weakening desire for the softer things, a nostalgia, yet a death, a precognition, if you will... ~ Neal Cassady,
606:Out of that dark, unstitched wound, that sink of abominations, that craddle of black-thronged cities where the music of ideas is drowned in cold fat, out of strangled Utopias is born a clown, a being divided between beauty and ugliness, between light and chaos, a clown who when he looks down and sidelong is Satan himself and when he looks upward sees a buttered angel, a snail with wings. ~ Henry Miller,
607:The only truly new ideas [the right] has come up with in the last twenty years are (1) supply side economics, which is a way of redistributing the wealth upward toward those who already have more than they know what to do with, and (2) creationism, which is a parallel idea for redistributing ignorance out from its fundamentalist strongholds to those who know more than they need to. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich,
608:Branches grew from his hands, his hair. His thoughts tangled like roots in the ground. He strained upward. Pitch ran like tears down his back. His name formed his core; ring upon ring of silence built around it. His face rose high above the forests. Gripped to earth, bending to the wind's fury, he disappeared within himself, behind the hard, wind-scrolled shield of his experiences. ~ Patricia A McKillip,
609:There are moments when everything shifts, when the world becomes eerily like the kaleidoscope toy given to children, where with the turn of a cheap plastic knob everything changes, becomes different. Fiona looked at the man in front of her and the calm of downtown Portsmouth disappeared; the colors changed; the air smelled different. Everything flew upward, scattered, and landed again. ~ Simone St James,
610:Those who had been riding the upward wave decide now is the time to get out. Those who thought the increase would be forever find their illusion destroyed abruptly, and they, also, respond to the newly revealed reality by selling or trying to sell. And thus the rule, supported by the experience of centuries: the speculative episode always ends not with a whimper but with a bang. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith,
611:After approximately two decades and several billion dollars....Among the various types of cancer that account for 78% of the incidence..the upward trend in survival rates has not exceeded a few %....a far gloomier picture than has been generally conveyed to a hopeful public by our leading cancer research institutions...A generally passive lay press has been the means of transmission. ~ Daniel S Greenberg,
612:You would fare far better with a lover who makes you laugh than one who makes you curse - and cry," he added, stepping to the cone of colored light.

Beyond mortified, Phoebe dashed a quick hand across her damp eyes, hoping he might at least miss that much of her shame. "Sir, you should have made your presence known."

One dark brow arched upward, "I believe I am doing just that. ~ Hope C Tarr,
613:Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous “blow” with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface. The ~ Frank Herbert,
614:I am trying to stress a point which they do not sufficiently emphasize, or tend to overlook altogether-namely, that the organism is not a mosaic aggregate of elementary physico-chemical processes, but a hierarchy in which each member, from the sub-cellular level upward, is a closely integrated structure, equipped with self-regulatory devices, and enjoys an advanced form of self-government. ~ Arthur Koestler,
615:Are you sure we can’t kiss?” He knew the answer. He was just feeling needy.
Thomas shifted and pressed a finger up under Hans’s chin, gently tilting it upward. “We can kiss goodnight.”
They did, and it was sweet and wonderful, but it ended far too quickly. They both sighed as they drew apart.
“I like you, Hans,” Thomas said softly. “I like you a lot. I’ll see you in the morning. ~ Jamie Fessenden,
616:Isao had never felt that he might want to be a woman. He had never wished for anything else but to be a man, live in a manly way, die a manly death. To be thus a man was to give constant proof of one's manliness-to be more a man today than yesterday, more a man tomorrow than today. To be a man was to forge ever upward toward the peak of manhood, there to die amid the white snows of that peak. ~ Yukio Mishima,
617:I pray to the birds. I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward. I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day—the invocations and benedictions of Earth. I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen. ~ Terry Tempest Williams,
618:Lorenzo il Magnifico, the Plato Four, the humanists had taught him that man was the center of the universe; and this was never more demonstrable that when he stood looking upward and found himself, a lone individual, serving as the central pole holding up the tarpaulin of sun and clouds, moon and stars, knowing that, lone or abandoned as he might feel, without his support the heavens would fall. ~ Irving Stone,
619:Why do you sound like your cat just died?” My lips tug upward. It’s Parker. “I don’t own a cat.” His answering chuckle is deeply arousing. “I happen to know for a fact, Ms. Price, you own a beautiful pussycat.” My smile grows wider. “Oh? Do tell.” “Well, let’s just say she’s pretty high-maintenance and demanding, but if you stroke her exactly right, she’ll purr so loud, the neighbors will hear. ~ J T Geissinger,
620:I am a thing not new, I am as old As human nature. I am that which lurks, Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed; The ancient trait which fights incessantly Against restraint, balks at the upward climb; The weight forever seeking to obey The law of downward pull; and I am more: The bitter fruit am I of planted seed; The resultant, the inevitable end Of evil forces and the powers of wrong. ~ James Weldon Johnson,
621:In harvesting of evil deeds, the human race is busy; and doing so is to taste the pangs of Hell . . . The piling up of wealth is the piling up of others' property; what one thus storeth formeth but provisions for one's enemies... I wash off human scandal by devotion true; and by my zeal, I satisfy the Deities. By compassion, I subdue the demons; all blame I scatter to the wind, and upward turn my face. ~ Milarepa,
622:Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk only on feelings. That faces upward and in its mirror receives heavenly roads, which travel along themselves. That has learned to walk upon water when it scoops, that walks upon wells, transfiguring every path. That steps into other hands, changes those that are like it into a landscape: wanders and arrives within them, fills them with arrival. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,
623:...just as the edifice of all the virtues strives upward toward perfect prayer so will all these virtues be neither sturdy nor enduring unless they are drawn firmly together by the crown of prayer. This endless, unstirring calm of prayer... can neither be achieved nor consummated without these virtues. And likewise virtues are the prerequisite foundation of prayer and cannot be effected without it. ~ John Cassian,
624:The cats at the edge of the clearing were staring up at the sky, their eyes huge with fear. As he looked upward, Fireheart heard the beating of wings and saw a hawk circling above the trees, its harsh cry drifting on the air. At the same time he realized that one cat had not taken shelter; Snowkit was tumbling and playing in the middle of the open space.
"Snowkit!" Speckletail yowled desperately. ~ Erin Hunter,
625:Why should my head be slightly upturned? Sadhguru: Sitting with your face slightly upturned is not because you want to see something floating in the sky or imagine something. You keep your head upturned because when your system “looks” upward it becomes receptive. It is like opening a window. This is about becoming receptive to Grace. When you become willing and receptive, your body naturally arches up. ~ Sadguru,
626:We can with confidence set a goal to make this Christmas brighter than the last and each year that follows brighter still. The trials of mortality may increase in intensity, yet for us, darkness need not increase if we focus our eyes more singly on the light that streams down on us as we follow the Master. He will lead us and help us along the path that leads upward to the home for which we yearn. ~ Henry B Eyring,
627:For me the world has always been more of a puppet show. But when one looks behind the curtain and traces the strings upward he finds they terminate in the hands of yet other puppets, themselves with their own strings which trace upward in turn, and so on. In my own life I saw these strings whose origins were endless enact the deaths of great men in violence and madness. Enact the ruin of a nation. ~ Cormac McCarthy,
628:You're getting me wet." He looked me in the eyes for the first time, and the corners of his mouth turned upward. "Although I suppose I shouldn't complain about that since it's like your trademark or something. If we're going to hang out together , I'll need to start wearing my raincoat."
"Are we going to hang out?"
He tilted his head and considered me lazily. "I've always wanted my own elf. ~ Janette Rallison,
629:Harry scanned the note with a bleary glance. Tucking it into his coat pocket, he smiled ruefully at Poppy. “I seem to have nodded off while you were reading.” He stared at her, his eyes warmer than she had ever seen them. “An interlude,” he murmured for no apparent reason, and a corner of his mouth hitched upward. “I’d like another one soon.” And he left while she was still struggling to form a reply. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
630:The things we once thought of as luxuries soon become necessities (although, by the same token, our sense of well-being would quickly adapt to losing half our income). What we care about is not our absolute wealth but our rung on the ladder. Ruut Veenhoven, a leading researcher of happiness, says, “When we have overtaken the Joneses, our reference drifts upward to the Smiths, and we feel unhappy again. ~ Simon Kuper,
631:The door slammed shut and her gaze made a leisurely journey up the denim. Long, lean legs with nicely muscled thighs led into lean hips and a narrow waist. Her breath caught as she moved upward to a chest barely contained in the black skinny fit t-shirt up to a face she’d have expected to find on set rather than in the ass-end of beyond. “Fuck me…” she breathed. She’d walked right into a jeans commercial. ~ Mina Carter,
632:I was brought up in a very naval, military, and conservative background. My father and his friends had very typical opinions of the British middle class - lower-middle class actually - after the war. My father broke into the middle class by joining the navy. I was the first member of my family ever to go to private school or even to university. So, the armed forces had been upward mobility for him. ~ Christopher Hitchens,
633:He laid her hands, palms upward, against his face, and she sat looking down at his bent head, a little disturbed in her soul that he should fling away his principles and his convictions quite so heedlessly for her sake. Mr. Murray, for instance, seemed not to have altered his chosen course a single degree because of Eden. Of course Mr. Murray was a Yankee. Virginia men, she had heard, were more considerate. ~ Elswyth Thane,
634:wild pumpkin--the only vegetation that had any vitality. It is a vine, remarkable for its tendency, not to spread and ramble, but to mass and mount. Its long, sharp, arrow- shaped leaves, frosted over with prickly silver, are thrust upward and crowded together; the whole rigid, up-thrust matted clump looks less like a plant than like a great colony of grey-green lizards, moving and suddenly arrested by fear. ~ Willa Cather,
635:I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on, The windows and the stars illumined, one by one, The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily, And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass; And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass, I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight, And build me stately palaces by candlelight. ~ Charles Baudelaire,
636:Scores climb with titles, from the bottom of the corporate ladder upward toward middle management. Middle managers stand out, with the highest EQ scores in the workforce. But up beyond middle management, there is a steep downward trend in EQ scores. For the titles of director and above, scores descend faster than a snowboarder on a black diamond. CEOs, on average, have the lowest EQ scores in the workplace. ~ Travis Bradberry,
637:The irony was that the "great men" who were now humiliated and writing reports on their own mistakes were never the source of those errors. They only believed they were. And the underlings who had really originated the problems saw themselves as merely instruments of their commanders' will. But it was in the nature of underlings to use power recklessly, since blame could always be passed either upward or downward. ~ Anonymous,
638:Books are good but they are only maps. Reading a book by direction of a man I read that so many inches of rain fell during the year. Then he told me to take the book and squeeze it between my hands. I did so and not a drop of water came from it. It was the idea only that the book conveyed. So we can get good from books, from the temple, from the church, from anything, so long as it leads us onward and upward. ~ Swami Vivekananda,
639:neither we nor our planet enjoys a privileged position in Nature. This insight has since been applied upward to the stars, and sideways to many subsets of the human family, with great success and invariable opposition. It has been responsible for major advances in astronomy, physics, biology, anthropology, economics and politics. I wonder if its social extrapolation is a major reason for attempts at its suppression. ~ Carl Sagan,
640:Science, in its ultimate ideal, consists of a set of propositions arranged in a hierarchy, the lowest level of the hierarchy being concerned with particular facts, and the highest with some general law, governing everything in the universe. The various levels in the hierarchy have a two-fold logical connection, travelling one up, one down; the upward connection proceeds by induction, the downward by deduction. ~ Bertrand Russell,
641:I followed the curve that rose from the capitals of the semicircle of columns and ran along the ribs of the vault toward the key, mirroring the mystery of the ogive, that supreme static hypocrisy which rests on an absence, making the columns believe that they are thrusting the great ribs upward and the ribs believe that they are holding the columns down, the vault being both all and noting, at once cause and effect. ~ Umberto Eco,
642:A robe-straining belly offered itself. I stepped in and the Tebbit knife leapt upward, unzipping. I went eye to eye with the man I was gutting. A lined, bearded visage glared back. I could smell his breath. Our faces were centimetres apart for what seemed like minutes before the realisation of what I had done detonated behind his eyes. I jerked a nod, felt the twitch of a smile in one clamped corner of my mouth. ~ Richard K Morgan,
643:What I said in the study earlier was unkind, and untrue, and I’m s-sorry for it. It was very wrong of me. I shall make that very clear to Mr. Totthill and Mr. Fogg. And your brother.”
His expression changed, one corner of his mouth curling upward in the hint of a smile that sent her heartbeat into chaos. “You needn’t bother mentioning it to them. All three will be calling me far worse before all is said and done. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
644:He turns the pages from right to left. He begins at the beginning and ends at the end. This makes a quirky sense to me—but Mikio and I are definitely in the minority here. And how can we two be right? It would make so many others wrong. Water moves upward. It seeks the highest level. What did you expect? Smoke falls. Things are created in the violence of fire. But that’s all right. Gravity still pins us to the planet. ~ Martin Amis,
645:Tyrena did not laugh again but her smile slashed upward in a twist of green lips. “Martin, Martin, Martin,” she said, “the population of literate people has been declining steadily since Gutenberg’s day. By the twentieth century, less than two percent of the people in the so-called industrialized democracies read even one book a year. And that was before the smart machines, dataspheres, and user-friendly environments. ~ Dan Simmons,
646:And in the bug, which moved upward more surely on the gentler grade, he kept looking out between them as the road unwound, affording occasional glimpses of the Overlook Hotel, its massive bank of westward-looking windows reflecting back the sun. It was the place he had seen in the midst of the blizzard, the dark and booming place where some hideously familiar figure sought him down long corridors carpeted with jungle. ~ Stephen King,
647:Finally, if life happened by chance on this earth and evolved upward, then it could seemingly happen elsewhere in the universe. But if, as we believe, human life resulted from a purposeful act of God, and if sin is inevitable for such beings, and if the human soul is the prize for which Satan and God do battle, then it hardly makes sense to have this same process repeated on countless other planets throughout the cosmos. ~ Dave Hunt,
648:It occurred to him that perhaps this was how shooting stars were made: a bird or a dragon or some other earthly creature snatched upward by the inexorable wind and thrown skyward with such speed, they flamed like siege arrows. If so, then he guessed he, Saphira, and Glaedr would make the brightest, most spectacular shooting star in living memory, if anyone was close enough to see their demise so far out to sea. ~ Christopher Paolini,
649:Where are you going?” I demanded.
He looked over his shoulder at me with an exasperated sigh. “To my room, of course.”
“Can’t we write the paper down here?” I asked.
The corners of Wesley’s mouth turned slightly upward as he hooked a finger over his belt. “We could, Duffy, but the writing will go much faster if I’m typing, and my computer’s upstairs. You’re the one who said you wanted to get this over with. ~ Kody Keplinger,
650:The jester walked in the garden:
The garden had fallen still;
He bade his soul rise upward
And stand on her window-sill.

It rose in a straight blue garment,
When owls began to call:
It has grown wise-tongued by thinking
Of a quiet and light footfall;

But the young queen would not listen;
She rose in her pale night-gown;
She drew in the heavy casement
And pushed the latches down... ~ W B Yeats,
651:If the blue morning held in the glass of the window,
if my fingers, my palms. If my thighs.
If your hands, if my thighs.
If the seeds, among all the lost gold oft the grass.
If your hands on my thighs, if your tongue.
If the leaves. If the singing fell upward. If grief.
For a moment if singing and grief.
If the blue of the body fell upward, out of our hands.
If the morning held it like leaves. ~ Jane Hirshfield,
652:A map of Esmeralda should include, marked in different colored inks, all these routes, solid and liquid, evident and hidden. It is more difficult to fix on the map the routes of the swallows, who cut the air over the roofs, dropping long invisible parabolas with their still wings, darting to gulp a mosquito, spiraling upward, grazing a pinnacle, dominating from every point of their airy paths all the points of the city. ~ Italo Calvino,
653:Encased in an elaborate illusion of unlimited power and progress, each of us subscribes, at least until one's midlife crisis, to the belief that existence consists of an eternal, upward spiral of achievement, dependent on will alone.
This comforting illusion may be shattered by some urgent irreversible experience ... None more potently confronts us with finiteness and contingency than the imminence of our own death. ~ Irvin D Yalom,
654:When I choose the title [for my book], which was my favorite title, I felt sure there was going to be a dozen books maybe with that name already because it's so obvious to me that that's the message. I was surprised it hasn't been the title of a single book. Well, there is a Shel Silverstein children's book called Falling Upwards. But no one has chosen Falling Upward as a title and I'm very happy it's right on the cover. ~ Richard Rohr,
655:Here’s what turns a successful hierarchy into one that impedes progress: when too many people begin, subconsciously, to equate their own value and that of others with where they fall in the pecking order. Thus, they focus their energies on managing upward while treating people beneath them on the organizational chart poorly. The people I have seen do this seem to be acting on animal instinct, unaware of what they are doing. ~ Ed Catmull,
656:Dawn in Mongolia was an amazing thing. In one instant, the horizon became a faint line suspended in the darkness, and then the line was drawn upward, higher and higher. It was as if a giant hand had stretched down from the sky and slowly lifted the curtain of night from the face of the earth. It was a magnificent sight, far greater in scale...than anything that I, with my limited human faculties, could fully comprehend. ~ Haruki Murakami,
657:The sentiments and opinions these authors express are frequently not acceptable to present-day readers, who have to be often saying to themselves: “This is not true, or not correct, or not in accordance with our beliefs.” It is, however, precisely this encounter with the mental states of other generations which enlarges the outlook and sympathies of the cultivated man, and persuades him of the upward tendency of the human race. ~ Various,
658:I am a very good cook.” When she did cook.

“Good. I like to eat.” He lightly bit her palm.

The too-much-air feeling in Lucy’s stomach pressed upward into her heart. “What?” she asked past the constriction in her chest.

“What do I like to eat?”

“Yeah.”

“Blondes with blue eyes.”

Oh God. She pulled her hand from his. “Are you hungry?”

His gaze lowered to her mouth. “I could eat. ~ Rachel Gibson,
659:Because God has been reduced in the minds of people, they do not have that boundless confidence in His character that used to be prominent among Christians. Confidence is necessary to respect. You cannot respect a man in whom you have no confidence. Extend that respect upward to God and if you cannot respect God, you cannot worship Him. You cannot have confidence in Him, because where there is no respect there can be no worship. ~ A W Tozer,
660:The natural heat, say the good-fellows,
first seats itself in the feet: that concerns infancy; thence it mounts into the middle
region, where it makes a long abode and produces, in my opinion, the sole true pleasures of human life; all other pleasures in comparison sleep; towards the end, like a vapor that still mounts upward, it arrives at the throat, where it makes its final residence, and concludes the progress. ~ Michel de Montaigne,
661:Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. ~ Bertrand Russell,
662:The single most empowering thing we can do for ourselves is to transform fear. While fear contains tremendous power, it doesn't propel us forward and upward, but, rather, drags us down and chains us to the past. Freeing ourselves from fear is a loving intention because, as fear subsides, we are better able to access the soft, sweet power of our hearts, which naturally leads to loving ourselves and others more freely and completely. ~ Sue Thoele,
663:Out of that belief, thus instilled, then comes action—the bidding up of values, whether in land, securities, or, as recently, art. The upward movement confirms the commitment to personal and group wisdom. And so on to the moment of mass disillusion and the crash. This last, it will now be sufficiently evident, never comes gently. It is always accompanied by a desperate and largely unsuccessful effort to get out. Inherent ~ John Kenneth Galbraith,
664:Suddenly, over the slope, as if tethered to a cord of air drawing quickly upward, came a Northern Harrier, motionless but for its rising. So still was the bird - wings, tail, head - it might have been a museum specimen. Then, as if atop the wind, it slid down the ridge, tilted a few times, veered, tacked up the hill, its wings hardly shifting. I though, if I could be that hawk for one hour I'd never again be just a man. ~ William Least Heat Moon,
665:Every crew brings its own small, tethered "g meter", a toy or figurine we hang in front of us so we know when we are weightless. Ours was Klyopa, a small knitted doll based on a character in a Russian children's television program, courtesy of Anastasia, Roman's 9-year-old daughter. When the string that was holding her suddenly slackened and she began to drift upward, I had a feeling I'd never felt before in space: I'd come home. ~ Chris Hadfield,
666:At the base of the immense pillar, tiny Babylon was in shadow. Then the darkness climbed the tower, like a canopy unfurling upward. It moved slowly enough that Hillalum felt he could count the moments passing, but then it grew faster as it approached, until it raced past them faster than he could blink, and they were in twilight... For the first time, he knew night for what it was: the shadow of the earth itself, cast against the sky. ~ Ted Chiang,
667:Luck is waiting for something to turn up; labor, with keen eye and strong will, will turn something up. Luck lies in bed and wishes the postman would bring him news of a legacy; labor turns out at six o'clock, and, with busy pen or ringing hammer, lays a foundation for a competence. Luck whines; labor whistles. Luck relies on charms; labor depends on character. Luck slips down to indigence; labor strides upward to independence. ~ Orison Swett Marden,
668:Maybe your misery is the weapon you brandish in your hatred for those who rose upward while you waited and sank. Maybe your misery is your attempt to prove the world’s injustice, instead of the evidence of your own sin, your own missing of the mark, your conscious refusal to strive and to live. Maybe your willingness to suffer in failure is inexhaustible, given what you use that suffering to prove. Maybe it’s your revenge on Being. ~ Jordan Peterson,
669:The smell of hot popcorn drifted upward from the concourse below, lingering in the warm Californian air like an atmospheric irony, and a Jumbotron directly in front of me displayed a blandly handsome announcer seated behind a curved desk emblazoned with DARPA’s logo: a sports broadcast mise-en-scène from some speculative future, vaguely fascist, in which the machinery of national defense had become a spectacle of mass entertainment. ~ Mark O Connell,
670:His lips twitched upward, and warmth spread through him as he said, "I can't dance."

"Dancing is for people who don't truly appreciate the buffet."

"I have nothing to wear."

"I'll find something for you."

"The nobility will gossip about you until the day you die," he said. One last attempt to talk sense into her even though he knew it was a lost cause.

"They need a new hobby anyway." She smiled at him. ~ C J Redwine,
671:… she stepped into him, tipping her face upward until their mouths brushed. Her soft lips heated under his, encouraging him to press his tongue against their parted seam. She made a sound of acquiescence, of excitement. The deeper he slid, the more she made the noise. Almost a purr. Carefully, he reached up to hold her head in his palms, tilting her so he could explore. She tasted like grape bubblegum. Sweet, a little wicked. A lot sexy. ~ Cari Quinn,
672:Appearances are deceiving. *Having* authority is not the same as *being* an authority. *Having* the right and *being* the right are not the same either. Being promoted doesn't necessarily mean you're doing good work and it doesn't mean you are worthy of promotion (they call it failing upward in such bureaucracies). *Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.*

To be or to do - life is a constant roll call. ~ Ryan Holiday,
673:Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk
only on feelings. That faces upward
and in its mirror
receives heavenly roads, which travel
along themselves.
That has learned to walk upon water
when it scoops,
that walks upon wells,
transfiguring every path.
That steps into other hands,
changes those that are like it
into a landscape:
wanders and arrives within them,
fills them with arrival. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,
674:Maybe your misery is the weapon you brandish in your hatred for those who rose upward while you waited and sank. Maybe your misery is your attempt to prove the world’s injustice, instead of the evidence of your own sin, your own missing of the mark, your conscious refusal to strive and to live. Maybe your willingness to suffer in failure is inexhaustible, given what you use that suffering to prove. Maybe it’s your revenge on Being. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
675:Aging is a staircase - the upward ascension of the human spirit, bringing us into wisdom, wholeness and authenticity. As you may know, the entire world operates on a universal law: entropy, the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy means that everything in the world, everything, is in a state of decline and decay, the arch. There's only one exception to this universal law, and that is the human spirit, which can continue to evolve upwards. ~ Jane Fonda,
676:I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on,
The windows and the stars illumined, one by one,
The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily,
And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see
The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass;
And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,
I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,
And build me stately palaces by candlelight. ~ Charles Baudelaire,
677:I will reach upward. I will attempt to do better. I will not be a burden upon those who have helped me too much already. I will always be grateful for what pleasures I have enjoyed, what joys I have yet to experience. I will take opportunities as they come, but at the same time, I will not trust so easily. I will look at who is at the door before opening it. I will try to be fierce. I will argue when necessary. I will be willing to fight. ~ Dave Eggers,
678:Aunt Birdie laughed. “That’s my Sophie.” “What the . . .” Travis picked up the shotgun and ejected both shells. “Aunt Birdie, you brought a loaded gun over here with that baby?” “She’ll be six years old in a few weeks. And there ain’t a way in hell I can kill a man with an unloaded gun. I don’t have the strength to beat him to death with the butt,” Aunt Birdie fussed. “Lord!” He rolled his eyes upward. “You probably can’t kill him with an ~ Carolyn Brown,
679:beneficial results possible. They become the basis of a person’s character, creating an empowering center of correct maps from which an individual can effectively solve problems, maximize opportunities, and continually learn and integrate other principles in an upward spiral of growth. They are also habits of effectiveness because they are based on a paradigm of effectiveness that is in harmony with a natural law, a principle I call the ~ Stephen R Covey,
680:Speaking the words he had been taught, directing them no longer upward but to the earth on which he knelt, he prayed: 'For what we are about to receive make us truly thankful.' ... he... felt his heart suddenly flow over with thankfulness... like a gush of warm water... All that remains is to live here quietly for the rest of my life, eating food that my own labour has made the earth to yield. All that remains is to be a tender of the soil. ~ J M Coetzee,
681:In that house, Rob read. Rather, Jackie read to him, but she felt as if he were reading along with her. With the opening of a book, a shift occurred in his eyes and he nestled an inch deeper into her lap while angling his chin upward, and he seemed to age a year or two. Not a reader herself, Jackie went to the local library for the first time and pulled the popular titles: the Berenstain Bears, Richard Scarry wordbooks, Dr. Seuss, Eric Carle. ~ Jeff Hobbs,
682:I think of consciousness as a bottomless lake, whose waters seem transparent, yet into which we can clearly see but a little way.But in this water there are countless objects at different depths; and certain influences will give certain kinds of those objects an upward influence which may be intense enough and continue long enough to bring them into the upper visible layer. After the impulse ceases they commence to sink downwards. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce,
683:Let me use a second metaphor. Imagine that you found a tangle of seaweed on the edge of the shore and lifted it. The heaviest parts rest on the sand in a mesh, but some skeins extend vertically. This neural network is shaped like that: it looks like a tangled skein of a hundred thousand golden threads that has been drawn upward. The mass of it gathers in the pelvis, but strands from the same network extend upward to the spinal cord and brain. ~ Naomi Wolf,
684:straddled the knot, so that it acted as a seat. Then you got up all your nerve, took a deep breath, and jumped. For a second you seemed to be falling to the barn floor far below, but then suddenly the rope would begin to catch you, and you would sail through the barn door going a mile a minute, with the wind whistling in your eyes and ears and hair. Then you would zoom upward into the sky, and look up at the clouds, and the rope would twist and ~ E B White,
685:I search his eyes for the slightest sign of anything, fear, remorse, anger. But there's only the same look of amusement that ended our last conversation. It's as if he's speaking the words again. "Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other." He's right. We did. The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead. ~ Suzanne Collins,
686:I am ignorant of how I was formed and how I was born. Through a quarter of my lifetime I was absolutely ignorant of the reasons for everything I saw and heard and felt, and was merely a parrot prompted by other parrots... When I sought to advance along that infinite course, I could neither find one single footpath or fully discover one single object, and from the upward leap I made to contemplate eternity I fell back into the abyss of my ignorance. ~ Voltaire,
687:Santer and his colleagues have shown that the troposphere is warming and the stratosphere is cooling. In fact, because the boundary between these two atmospheric layers is in part defined by temperature, that boundary is now moving upward. In other words, the whole structure of our atmosphere is changing. These results are impossible to explain if the Sun were the culprit. It shows that the changes we are seeing in our climate are not natural. ~ Naomi Oreskes,
688:Ah, guilt and sorrow had dogged Juan's footsteps too, for he was not a Catholic who could rise refreshed from the cold bath of confession. Yet the banality stood: that the past was irrevocably past. And conscience had been given man to regret it only in so far as that might change the future. For man, every man, Juan seemed to be telling him, even as Mexico, must ceaselessly struggle upward. What was life but a warfare and a stranger's sojourn? ~ Malcolm Lowry,
689:A smile played around Aomame's straight lips. People were focused on her actions. No one was surprised to see her pull a gun out of her bag-- or at least they did not show surprise on their faces. Maybe they didn't believe it was a real gun. 'It is, though,' Aomame told them mentally. Next she turned the gun upward and thrust the muzzle into her mouth. Now it was aimed directly at her cerebrum-- the gray labyrinth where consciousness resided. ~ Haruki Murakami,
690:He was known to hit low, drive upward from the hips, and flip other boys over his shoulder and onto their backs, knocking the wind out of them on the glass-littered asphalt, sometimes causing a fumble and always inciting cheers from onlookers up and down the street––especially when he punctuated the hit with the words "Patent that!"...This permissible violence was unique in that it elicited respect from the victim rather than calls for retribution. ~ Jeff Hobbs,
691:Never waste time and energy wishing you were somewhere else, doing something else. Accept your situation and realize you are where you are, doing what you are doing, for a very specific reason. Realize that nothing is by chance, that you have certain lessons to learn and that the situation you are in has been given to you to enable you to learn those lessons as quickly as possible, so that you can move onward and upward along this spiritual path. ~ Eileen Caddy,
692:All social intercourse between human beings is a response of personality to personality, grading upward from the most casual brush between man and man to the fullest, most intimate communion of which the human soul is capable. Religion, so far as it is genuine, is in essence the response of created personalities to the Creating Personality, God. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. ~ A W Tozer,
693:One of my favorite verses is from Proverbs 15:24: “The way of life winds upward for the wise.” Sadly, rather than winding upward, some people go on a steep decline, a downward spiral, because here’s what happens: Sin leads to guilt, guilt leads to shame, and ultimately shame leads to condemnation. Condemnation leads to death. If a building is condemned, that means it’s unfit for use. It’s disqualified. It’s only good for being pulled down. That’s ~ Brian Houston,
694:Sri Aurobindo: With the mental will you can suppress it temporarily but that does not bring real mastery. This pull shows that you have a strong vital force - this has to be regenerated. All thoughts, desires, conventions, attachments which come from outside must be ruthlessly pushed away. The inside must be made entirely calm and quiet and there should reign an upward aspiration - a state of awaiting. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Anilbaran Roy Interviews and Conversations,
695:That is the Earth, he thought. Not a globe thousands of kilometers around, but a forest with a shining lake, a house hidden at the crest of the hill, high in the trees, a grassy slope leading upward from the water, fish leaping and birds strafing to take the bugs that lived at the border between water and sky. Earth was the constant noise of crickets and winds and birds. And the voice of one girl, who spoke to him out of his far-off childhood. ~ Orson Scott Card,
696:Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
697:I search his eyes for the slightest sign of anything, fear, remorse, anger. But there's only the same look of amusement that ended our last conversation. It's as if he's speaking the words again. "Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other."
He's right. We did.
The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead. ~ Suzanne Collins,
698:Man is more than his environment. It is from the innate quality of the Spirit in him, his inner storehouse, that he draws those ideas, his intuitions, which unify his perceptions of the external world instantaneously with a value which is qualitative and not quantitative, and which he embodies in the works of his culture - those achievements which belong not only to one particular time but to all times, and mark the path of his upward progress. ~ Nilakanta Sri Ram,
699:A novel’s architecture, the lovely slope of predicament, the tendrils of surface detail, the calculated curving upward into inevitability, yet allowing spells of incorrigibility, and then the ending, a corruption of cause and effect and the gathering together of all the characters into a framed operatic circle of consolation and ecstasy, backlit with fibre-optic gold, just for a moment on the second-to-last page, just for an atomic particle of time. ~ Carol Shields,
700:In one way, we're on an upward swing, but at the same time there's still a lot of evil that goes on in the world. I think it's definitely heading in a better direction, but it seems to take so long for all the people with the power, who control the negative side of life and all the bad inventions they have like guns and bombs and hate. But there has to be a balance. We've got to all try harder to manifest more love in order to counteract all that. ~ George Harrison,
701:And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hands, staring down at his enemy's shell. ~ J K Rowling,
702:The American Dream is individualistic. Martin Luther King's dream was collective. The American Dream says, "I can engage in upward mobility and live the good life." King's dream was fundamentally Christian. His commitment to radical love had everything to do with his commitment to Jesus of Nazareth, and his dream had everything to do with community, with a "we" consciousness that included poor and working people around the world, not just black people. ~ Cornel West,
703:There are 30,000 days in your life. When I was 24, I realized I’m almost 9,000 days down. There are no warm-ups, no practice rounds, no reset buttons. Your biggest risk isn’t failing, it’s getting too comfortable. Every day we’re writing a few more words of a story. I wanted my story to be an adventure and that’s made all the difference. Instead of trying to make your life perfect, give yourself the freedom to make it an adventure, and go ever upward. ~ Drew Houston,
704:Never make heads straight on the shoulders, but turn them aside to the right or to the left, even though they look down, or upward, or straight ahead, because it is necessary for them to look lively and awake and not asleep. And do not depict the front or rear half of the whole person so that too much straightness is displaced, one half above or below the other half; and if you should wish to use stiff figures, do so only in portraying old people. ~ Leonardo da Vinci,
705:Interior of the hand. Sole that has come to walk
only on feelings. That faces upward
and in its mirror
receives heavenly roads, which travel
along themselves.
That has learned to walk upon water
when it scoops,
that walks upon wells,
transfiguring every path.
That steps into other hands,
changes those that are like it
into a landscape:
wanders and arrives within them,
fills them with arrival.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Palm
,
706:I feel grateful to the Milesian wench who, seeing the philosopher Thales continually spending his time in contemplation of the heavenly vault and always keeping his eyes raised upward, put something in his way to make him stumble, to warn him that it would be time to amuse his thoughts with things in the clouds when he had seen to those at his feet. Indeed she gave him or her good counsel, to look rather to himself than to the sky. —Michel de Montaigne ~ Benjamin Graham,
707:O soul, leave behind this world of separation
and come with us to the world of union.
How long will you play in this dusty world
like a child filling his skirt with worthless stones?

Cast away the burdens of the earth
and fly upward toward heaven!
Put away your childish care
and join the royal banquet.

Behold the countless ways this body has entrapped you!
Break its deadly hold.
Rise up, lift your head clear of this delusion. ~ Rumi,
708:I pour upward through the long dark tunnel of the spout. I am a funnel of smoke, a whirlwind of fire. I open myself and multiply, swelling into a great cloud over the boy’s head. I press a thousand smoky hands against the stone ceiling of the cave. I roll a thousand fiery eyes and stretch a thousand glittering legs. I unfold and unfold and unfold. How good it feels to be out! I crackle with energy and excitement, my blood lightning and my breath thunder. ~ Jessica Khoury,
709:That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. But they don’t know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who’ve never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt, and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you’ve felt what it means to love as you and I know it – the total passion for the total height – you’re incapable of anything less. ~ Ayn Rand,
710:The Year
A storm of white petals,
Buds throwing open baby fists
Into hands of broad flowers.
II
Red roses running upward,
Clambering to the clutches of life
Soaked in crimson.
III
Rabbles of tattered leaves
Holding golden flimsy hopes
Against the tramplings
Into the pits and gullies.
IV
Hoarfrost and silence:
Only the muffling
Of winds dark and lonesome-Great lullabies to the long sleepers.
~ Carl Sandburg,
711:He surged upward and paused at her entrance.
“Look at me, Alexa.”
Half drugged, she opened her eyes and gazed at the man she loved with every part of her being, waiting for him to claim her, waiting to take anything he could give.
“It’s always been you.” He paused as if to be sure she heard and understood the words. Intensity gleamed within amber depths. He gripped her fingers, as if trying to speak beyond words.
“And it will always be you. ~ Jennifer Probst,
712:Instead, power went to those who made things happen: businessmen and local magistrates. Over time, human nature being what it is, these men would create a kind of nobility, sometimes even buying titles from cash-poor foreigners, but this in itself underscores the point. Upward mobility was part of the Dutch character: if you worked hard and were smart, you rose in stature. Today that is a byword of a healthy society; in the seventeenth century it was weird. ~ Russell Shorto,
713:Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it. ~ Charles Dickens,
714:To love is also good: because love is difficult. For one person to love another: that is perhaps the hardest thing that is handed to us, the utmost, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their powers, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,
715:He slid his thumb to the top of her wet sex and flicked it with soft, rapid strokes, building her pleasure rapidly until she curled against him with a sob, overwhelmed by explosive sensation. Hitching his hips upward in desperate thrusts, he growled and buried his face in the curve of her neck, his passion reaching a blinding culmination.
They both breathed in long gasps, while their naked flesh was locked together beneath the layers of disheveled clothing. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
716:That strange feeling came back to Nick’s stomach, although this time it traveled upward to the vicinity of his heart. His hands stroked and soothed the mare, but all his attention centered on the woman kneeling in the straw. The haughty attitude Elizabeth sometimes displayed had vanished. Happiness lit up her face, and her eyes shone with love. Look at me that way, he silently pleaded. He knew Star didn’t appreciate her loving attention the same way he would. ~ Debra Holland,
717:The development of the Vertebrate proceeds from an axis upward, in two layers, which coalesce at the edges, and also downward, in two layers, which likewise coalesce at the edges. Thus two main tubes are formed, one above the other. During the formation of these, the embryo separates into strata, so that the two main tubes are composed of subordinate tubes which enclose each other as fundamental organs, and are capable of developing into all the organs. ~ Karl Ernst von Baer,
718:In the interest of ultimate honesty,” Celine cut in, “I’m pretty sure that everyone present would appreciate it if you two got a room.”
“I wouldn’t,” Dean grumbled.
“I am unbothered by displays of physical and emotional intimacy,” Sloane volunteered. “The nuances and statistics underlying courtship behavior are quite fascinating.”
The edges of Celine’s lips quirked upward as she met Sloane’s gaze. “You don’t say.”
Sloane frowned. “I just did. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes,
719:It began with the twitch of her lower lip as it took on a life of its own, rippling outward to the corners of her mouth and forcing them upward into a helpless smile. She instantly clasped one hand over her mouth in a frantic attempt to silence the sound that was coming from her throat. The result was that she half-spluttered, half-coughed, her eyes painfully wide as she desperately wished a hole would emerge in the oriental carpet and mercifully swallow her up. ~ Sophie Barnes,
720:The child of the lower or lower middle class is urged in both overt and subtle ways to surpass his background, his well-meaning parents and friends never anticipating that if their dream of upward mobility is realized, the child may adopt the prejudices of the class to which he's lifted and, with a touch of neurotic distress, may permanently scorn his former life and also, to a certain extent, himself, since the class he's invaded is unlikely to accept him fully. ~ John Gardner,
721:Had it been possible for me to fix the plane permanently in the sky, to defy the winds and clouds and all the forces pushing it upward and pulling it earthward, I would have willingly done so. I would have stayed in my seat with my eyes closed, all strength and passion gone, my mind as quiescent as a coat rack under a forgotten hat, and I would have remained there, timeless, unmeasured, unjudged, bothering no one, suspended forever between my past and my future. ~ Jerzy Kosi ski,
722:There are two more turds, smaller ones, and when he has eaten these, residual shit to lick out of her anus. He prays that she'll let him drop the cape over himself, to be allowed, in the silk-lined darkness, to stay a while longer with his submissive tongue straining upward into her asshole. But she moves away. The fur evaporates from his hands. She orders him to masturbate for her. She has watched Captain Blicero with Gottfried, and has learned the proper style. ~ Thomas Pynchon,
723:So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for. ~ George Leigh Mallory,
724:Pilgrims with no vision of the promised land become proprietors of their own land … Instead of looking upward at [the Lord] they look inward at themselves and outward at each other. The result? Cabin fever. Quarreling families. Restless leaders. Fence building. Staked-off territory. No trespassing! signs are hung on hearts and homes. Spats turn into fights as myopic groups turn to glare at each other’s weaknesses instead of turning to worship their common Strength.2 ~ Stuart K Weber,
725:Why is it we are not constantly awed by the size and majesty of the universe?” “Habit,” he said. “We are accustomed to it. I suppose if we had been blind from birth—in both eyes—and could suddenly see, we would be so overwhelmed by a night like this that we would either gaze upward at it until dawn or else cling to the earth, afraid that we were about to fall off. Or perhaps we would simply assume that we were at the center of it all and the lords of all we beheld.” The ~ Mary Balogh,
726:Materialistic success can be explained quite simply. Those who succeed focus their attention on success - not on their talent. Remember these words! All of their efforts are focused toward the upward movement rather than the perfection of their artistic ability. Neither do they allow anyone to anything to stand in the way of reaching their goals. This includes wives, families, friends and their children. They are prepared to pay the very high price that success demands. ~ Brad Steiger,
727:To live in modernity--an era contemporaneous with the triumph of the news--is to be constantly reminded that, thanks to science and technology, change and improvement are continuous and relentless. This is part of the reason we must keep checking the news in the first place: we might at any moment be informed of some extraordinary development that will fundamentally alter reality. Time is an arrow following a precarious, rapid and yet tantalizingly upward trajectory. ~ Alain de Botton,
728:So tired am I, so weary of to-day,
So unrefreshed from foregone weariness,
So overburdened by foreseen distress,
So lagging and so stumbling on my way,
I scarce can rouse myself to watch or pray,
To hope, or aim, or toil for more or less,--
Ah, always less and less, even while I press
Forward and toil and aim as best I may.
Half-starved of soul and heartsick utterly,
Yet lift I up my heart and soul and eyes
Which fail in looking upward ~ Christina Rossetti,
729:Life itself is a moment like this, the soul beat down and held to knowledge: you keep on trudging upward, the goal shifts in and out of sight, always further away than you expected, and the work is hard and unremitting. And the questions are the same as always: What are you doing? Is it the right thing? Should you go back? — Nothing up here but the same answers, stripped bare of all complication: Just walk. Keep hiking. That’s all you can do. That is your destiny. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson,
730:To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,
731:In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore, in the Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. ~ Mark Twain,
732:1.​You believe that, because your therapy has ended, your recovery has ended. 2.​You are willing to continue your recovery, but you are not sure what to work on. You decide that you’ll join a gym and see what happens. 3.​You develop a plan that takes you to the highest level of recovery possible. You know that your plan will change over time. Your plan has built-in goals. Achieving goals gives rise to new goals and new achievements. This forces an upward spiral of recovery. ~ Peter Levine,
733:I hated what this country had become and wanted nothing more than to hold up a mirror so its citizens could see it for what it truly was, not the Land of Opportunity for which our forefathers fought and died, but as the fascist regime that served to funnel the money upward from those most in need into the pockets of those who would see them all starve in the streets, the same men who took away their livelihoods and stranded them in a city rotting beneath their very feet. ~ Michael McBride,
734:We do know that working-class Americans aren’t just less likely to climb the economic ladder, they’re also more likely to fall off even after they’ve reached the top. I imagine that the discomfort they feel at leaving behind much of their identity plays at least a small role in this problem. One way our upper class can promote upward mobility, then, is not only by pushing wise public policies but by opening their hearts and minds to the newcomers who don’t quite belong. Though ~ J D Vance,
735:At all times, white trash remind us of one of the American nation’s uncomfortable truths: the poor are always with us. A preoccupation with penalizing poor whites reveals an uneasy tension between what Americans are taught to think the country promises—the dream of upward mobility—and the less appealing truth that class barriers almost invariably make that dream unobtainable. Of course, the intersection of race and class remains an undeniable part of the overall story. The ~ Nancy Isenberg,
736:Vhalla blushed and averted her eyes from his handsome face. “It’s still a poor choice,” she whispered. “It always will be.” Aldrik stood. Her breath quickened by his proximity alone. He hooked his fingers under her chin and pulled her face upward gently. “If you want to make the widely accepted appropriate decision, then leave now, have mercy and end this before you entice me further. Because I promise, this will never be easy—for either of us—and I refuse to love you halfway. ~ Elise Kova,
737:Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid stream. This is my body. He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower. ~ James Joyce,
738:He squatted down before her, taking her chin in his hand and lifting her face upward. “You need to eat. You’re pale.” “I’m perfectly fine,” she said curtly. He was surprised by her tone, unpleasantly so. The woman was not as meek as she should have been, given the circumstances. He had saved her, hadn’t he? To his mind, that demanded a bit of gratitude. “You don’t look sound,” he retorted. “I’ve had a few shocks today. I won’t hold you up, if that’s what you’re worried about. ~ Lynn Kurland,
739:Human history, like all great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning. The idea of indefinite progress in a right line was a chimera of the imagination, with no analogue in nature. The parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet better illustration of the career of humanity. Tending upward and sunward from the aphelion of barbarism, the race attained the perihelion of civilization only to plunge downward once more to its nether goal in the regions of chaos. ~ Edward Bellamy,
740:'Yea and I beheld Sisyphus in strong torment, grasping a monstrous stone with both his hands. He was pressing thereat with hands and feet, and trying to roll the stone upward toward the brow of the hill. But oft as he was about to hurl it over the top, the weight would drive him back, so once again to the plain rolled the stone, the shameless thing. And he once more kept heaving and straining, and the sweat the while was pouring down his limbs, and the dust rose upwards from his head. ~ Homer,
741:Life creeps slowly upward.... When some forgotten inventor of the older world smote his rival or enemy with a branch of wood and found that it was good and thereafter made a practice of smiting rivals and enemies with branches of wood, then, and on that day, artificiality may be said to have begun. Then, and on that day, was begun a revolution destined to change the history of life. Then, and on that day, was laid the cornerstone of that most tremendous of artifices, CIVILIZATION! ~ Jack London,
742:As I squat to pee I look upward at the billions of stars and planets in the heavens and somehow my own insignificance no longer terrifies me as it once did, but comforts me, makes me feel a part, however tiny, of the whole complete and perfect universe. . . and when I die the wind will still blow and the stars still shine, for the place I occupy on earth is no more permanent than the water I now make, absorbed by the the sandy soil, dried instantly by the constant prairie wind . . . ~ Jim Fergus,
743:The Daring One
I would my soul were like the bird
That dares the vastness undeterred.
Look, where the bluebird on the bough
Breaks into rapture even now!
He sings, tip-top, the tossing elm
As tho he would a world o’erwhelm.
Indifferent to the void he rides
Upon the wind’s eternal tides.
He tosses gladly on the gale,
For well he knows he can not fail—
Knows if the bough breaks, still his wings
Will bear him upward while he sings!
~ Edwin Markham,
744:The team you belong to must come ahead of the team you lead: this is putting team results (e.g., organizational needs) ahead of individual agendas (e.g., the team or division you lead, your ego, your need for recognition, your career development, etc.) Confidentiality is respected downward more than it is respected upward. Organizational alignment is a direct result of this hierarchy (if it were the other way around, organizational alignment would be very difficult to achieve). ~ Patrick Lencioni,
745:And then, suddenly, calm: we reach Mach 25, orbital speed, the engines wind down, and I notice little motes of dust floating lazily upward. Upward. Experimentally, I let go of my checklist for a few seconds and watch it hover, then drift off serenely, instead of thumping to the ground. I feel like a little kid, like a sorcerer, like the luckiest person alive. I am in space, weightless, and getting here only took 8 minutes and 42 seconds. Give or take a few thousand days of training. ~ Chris Hadfield,
746:However, a few glances at most were cast upward, perhaps followed by isolated comments about how beautiful the evening was, for sights like this were not exceptional, on the contrary, hardly a day passed without the sky being filled with fantastic cloud formations, each and every one illuminated in unique, never-to-be-repeated ways, and since what you see every day is what you never see, we lived our lives under the constantly changing sky without sparing it a glance or thought. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd,
747:Charlotte groaned feverishly, a tension building within her core that begged for release.
Grunting, he lifted his hips slightly, expertly angling his body so that part of him pressed against the nubbin of flesh.
She called out his name, clasping his shoulders. Her hips pumped furiously now, a building, pulsing ache growing and growing, winding tighter and tighter still. Until it exploded.
And then they both cried out, surging upward and down, their bodies shaking with pleasure. ~ Olivia Parker,
748:She felt his fingers pressing her swollen folds open, his tongue touching the delicate peak between them. Her elbows collapsed, and she fell back to the mattress with a groan, staring blindly into the darkness. Oh, God, he was licking her, in long, sinuous laps that made her body quiver with desperate excitement.
She could not stop the motion of her hips, rising upward in repeated surges. His hands slid beneath her, guiding her rhythm while his tongue strummed, bathed, flirted. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
749:She walked as if through a forest. The pillars were furrowed like ancient trees, and into the woods the light seeped, colorful and as clear as song, through the stained-glass windows. High overhead animals and people frolicked in the stone foliage, and angels played their instruments. At an even higher, more dizzying height, the vaults of the ceiling arched upward, lifting the church toward God ... The song cut through her like a blinding light. Now she saw how deep in the dust she lay. ~ Sigrid Undset,
750:There's something they call the Law. Sing hymns about ‘all thine.’ They build themselves their dens, gather fruit, and pull herbs—marry even. But I can see through it all, see into their very souls, and see there nothing but the souls of beasts, beasts that perish, anger and the lusts to live and gratify themselves.—Yet they're odd; complex, like everything else alive. There is a kind of upward striving in them, part vanity, part waste sexual emotion, part waste curiosity. It only mocks me. ~ H G Wells,
751:...you could not measure love on a scale of degrees, and now she understood that it was the same with pain. Pain might escalate upward and, just when you thought you'd reach your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. She had thought herself trapped in a place outside the ordinary feeling lives of people; she had not noticed how many other people were trapped in that place with her. ~ Kristin Cashore,
752:As the plane pulled away from its gate that day, I looked out my window and back at the airport, knowing that my mother stood somewhere behind its black-glass windows, dressed in her winter coat and waving me on. I remember the jet engines firing, shockingly loud. And then we were rattling down the runway and beginning to tilt upward as the acceleration seized my chest and pressed me backward into my seat for that strange, in-between half moment that comes before finally you feel lifted. ~ Michelle Obama,
753:Helen and Winterborne were returning to the rotunda. The corners of Helen’s mouth were curved upward as if they had been tacked there with pins. But something about her posture reminded Kathleen of a lost toddler being led in search of its mother.
Kathleen’s apprehensive gaze was drawn to the glitter on Helen’s left hand. Her stomach dropped, all the sensuous warmth leaving her body as she realized what it was.
A ring.
After a mere two weeks of courtship, the bastard had proposed. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
754:the force for divergence at the top of the wealth hierarchy would win out over the global forces of catch-up and convergence, so that the shares of the top decile and centile would increase significantly, with a large upward redistribution from the middle and upper-middle classes to the very rich. Such an impoverishment of the middle class would very likely trigger a violent political reaction. It is of course impossible at this stage to be certain that such a scenario is about to unfold. ~ Thomas Piketty,
755:As she looked, the smoke puffing out of the chimney stopped curling upward and began to take on the shape of a wavering black question mark.
Sebastian laughed. "I think that means, Who's there?"
Clary pulled her coat closer around her. "It looks like something out of a fairy tale."
"Are you cold?" Sebastian put his arm around her. Immediately the smoke curling from the chimney stopped forming itself into question marks and began puffing out in the shape of lopsided hearts. ~ Cassandra Clare,
756:Indeed, he married her for love. A whisper still goes about that she had not even family; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that perhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more. But she had beauty, pride, ambition, insolent resolve, and sense enough to portion out a legion of fine ladies. Wealth and station, added to these, soon floated her upward, and for years now my Lady Dedlock has been at the centre of the fashionable intelligence and at the top of the fashionable tree. ~ Charles Dickens,
757:We have also finally become aware that something is indeed wrong with most “grand narratives” or upward generalizations. Too much death and suffering accompany these comprehensive and often grandiose ideologies. No wonder that within the Holocaust trauma-drama there lodges a radical—and completely rational—suspicion concerning the demagogic abuse of collective superstitions often accompanying such schemes. There is, in particular, a bitter memory of the pernicious power of stereotypes. ~ Jeffrey C Alexander,
758:We`ve admitted 59 million immigrants to the United States between 1965 and 2015. Many of these arrivals have greatly enriched our country. So true. But we now have an obligation to them and to their children to control future immigration as we are following, if you think, previous immigration waves. We`ve had some big waves, and tremendously positive things have happened. To ensure assimilation, we want to ensure that it works. Assimilation, an important word, integration and upward mobility. ~ Donald Trump,
759:And so, lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ere long. With courage, born of success achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we shall continue to assume, we look forward to a future large with promise and hope. Seeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance. ~ Mary Church Terrell,
760:Why this should be so is hard to say; one might be tempted to believe that it was based on some ancient convention that originally had a practical purpose, such as a cellar being cold and therefore best suited for storing corpses, and that this principle had been retained in our era of refrigerators and cold-storage rooms, had it not been for the notion that transporting bodies upward in buildings seems contrary to the laws of nature, as though height and death are mutually incompatible. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd,
761:Ascend beyond the sickly atmosphere to a higher plane, and purify yourself by drinking as if it were ambrosia the fire that fills and fuels Emptiness. Free from the futile strivings and the cares which dim existence to a realm of mist, happy is he who wings an upward way on mighty pinions to the fields of light; whose thoughts like larks spontaneously rise into the morning sky; whose flight, unchecked, outreaches life and readily comprehends the language of flowers and of all mute things. ~ Charles Baudelaire,
762:Blackened skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward to the convent, as if the ghosts of former travellers, overwhelmed by the snow, haunted the scene of their distress. Icicle-hung caves and cellars built for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of the perils of the place; never-resting wreaths and mazes of mist wandered about, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting danger of the mountain, against which all its defences were taken, drifted sharply down. ~ Charles Dickens,
763:how people’s faces turned slightly upward when they stared at the sea, as if they were straining to see a trace of God or were hearing the silent humming of the universe; she would notice how, at the beach, people’s faces became soft and wistful, reminding her of the expressions on the faces of the sweet old dogs that roamed the streets of Bombay. As if they were all sniffing the salty air for transcendence, for something that would allow them to escape the familiar prisons of their own skin. ~ Thrity Umrigar,
764:Christopher nodded. “Well, can I come with you to see the horses? I promise to be good and not scare them.”
“Sure, why not.” Teddy Jo waved his arms. “The entirety of Hades can come. We’ll have a party.”
Christopher stepped off the porch in to the backyard, spread his wings, and shot upward. The wind nearly blew me off my feet.
“Thank you,” I told Teddy Jo.
“He gives me the creeps,” Teddy Jo growled.
“You’re the nicest angel of death I know.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get in the damn swing. ~ Ilona Andrews,
765:Po swirled upward from where it had been sitting, and floated over to the window. "When you go swimming and you put your head under the water," Po said, "and everything is strange and underwater-sounding, and strange and underwater-looking, you don't miss the air do you? You don't miss the above-water sounds and the above-water look. It's just different."
"True." Liesl was quiet for a moment. Then she added, "But I bet you'd miss it if you were drowning. I bet you'd really miss the air then. ~ Lauren Oliver,
766:I did not know the work of mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night

The mountaintop is not in sight
Because there is no mountaintop
Poor Sisyphus grief

I did not know I would struggle
Through a ragged underbrush
Without an upward path

...

Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders

That’s why it takes courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day. ~ Edward Hirsch,
767:The temple prostitutes from Inanna’s district had come down to mingle in the streets, resulting in public copulations as some male citizens could not withhold their urges until they could find a tent. Spontaneous dancing broke out in the streets, led by the blue dancers and their traveling minstrels. The human dancers jerked and spasmed as if taken over by spirits. Their eyes turned upward, showing only the whites, and they uttered strange guttural sounds as if performed by a distant ventriloquist. ~ Brian Godawa,
768:In the contest of upward mobility, Barack and Michelle Obama have won. But they’ve won by being twice as good—and enduring twice as much. Malia and Sasha Obama enjoy privileges beyond the average white child’s dreams. But that comparison is incomplete. The more telling question is how they compare with Jenna and Barbara Bush—the products of many generations of privilege, not just one. Whatever the Obama children achieve, it will be evidence of their family’s singular perseverance, not of broad equality. ~ Anonymous,
769:But the moon came slowly up in all her gentle glory, and the stars looked out, and through the small compass of the grated window, as through the narrow crevice of one good deed in a murky life of guilt, the face of Heaven shone bright and merciful. He raised his head; gazed upward at the quiet sky, which seemed to smile upon the earth in sadness, as if the night, more thoughtful than the day, looked down in sorrow on the sufferings and evil deeds of men; and felt its peace sink deep into his heart. ~ Charles Dickens,
770:I go to the saltwater and wash off the blood, trying to decide which I hate more, pain or itching. Fed up, I stomp back onto the beach, turn my face upward and snap, "Hey, Haymitch, if you're not too drunk, we could use a little something for our skin." It's almost funny how quickly the parachute appears above me. I reach up and the tube lands squarely in my open hand. "About time" I say, but I can't keep the scowl on my face. Haymitch. What I wouldn't give for five minutes of conversation with him. ~ Suzanne Collins,
771:Maybe your misery is the weapon you brandish in your hatred for those who rose upward while you waited and sank. Maybe your misery is your attempt to prove the world's injustice, instead of the evidence of your own sin, your missing of the mark, your conscious refusal to strive and live. Maybe your willingness to suffer in failure is inexhaustible, given what you use that suffering to prove. Maybe it's your revenge on Being. How exactly should I befriend you when you're in such a place? How could I? ~ Jordan Peterson,
772:Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea; they become powerless when they oppose it. Psycho-analysis will survive this loss and gain new adherents in place of these. In conclusion, I can only express a wish that fortune may grant an agreeable upward journey to all those who have found their stay in the underworld of psycho-analysis too uncomfortable for their taste. The rest of us, I hope, will be permitted without hindrance to carry through to their conclusion our labours in the depths. ~ Sigmund Freud,
773:Shunting closer, I snuggle into his chest, soaking up his fresh woodsy scent. His arms encircle me and pull me close. “You always smell like home,” I whisper under my breath. Smooth, soft fingers tilt my chin upward, and I’m startled when my face meets his. Tears glisten in his eyes as he looks at me adoringly. Pressing his forehead to mine, he kisses me sweetly, his lips making brisk tantalizing sweeps across my mouth.
“My heart is your home,” he whispers, his voice breathless. “It always will be. ~ Siobhan Davis,
774:I felt the heat flood my neck and I could sense myself blushing. I stared at my shoes. I knew that Adam was looking at me now with as much certainty as I knew that if I looked up he was going to kiss me. And it took me by surprise how much I wanted to be kissed by him, to realize that I’d thought about it so often that I’d memorized the exact shape of his lips, that I’d imagined running my finger down the cleft of his chin. My eyes flickered upward. Adam was there waiting for me. That was how it started. ~ Gayle Forman,
775:Maybe your misery is the weapon you brandish in your hatred for those who rose upward while you waited and sank. Maybe your misery is your attempt to prove the world's injustice, instead of the evidence of your own sin, your missing of the mark, your conscious refusal to strive and live. Maybe your willingness to suffer in failure is inexhaustible, given what you use that suffering to prove. Maybe it's your revenge on Being. How exactly should I befriend you when you're in such a place? How could I? ~ Jordan B Peterson,
776:My curiosity, alas, is not the kind that can be satisfied by objective knowledge. Plato said that opinion is worthless and that only knowledge counts, which is a neat formulation. ... But melancholy Danes from the northern mists understand that opinion is all there is. The great questions transcend fact, and discourse is a process of personality. Knowledge cannot respond to knowledge. And wisdom? Is it not opinion refined, opinion killed and resuscitated upward? Maybe Plato would have agreed with this. ~ Hayden Carruth,
777:Connor places his jacket on a wooden table. “I apologize for hurting you.”
“I accept,” I say, “but Janie’s gonna need more than that.”
Connor nods. “I’m aware. She already asked her mom and me to write a three-thousand word essay on why we love her. His lips pull upward, admiration for his daughter clear in his eyes.
My dad flashes a dry smile. “That’s what happens when you raise a bunch of geniuses and make your family motto: loyalty to the death.”
Connor grins a billion-dollar grin. ~ Krista Ritchie,
778:Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
779:Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is. And so, the schools, the churches, the popular literature taught that to be rich was a sign of superiority, to be poor a sign of personal failure, and that the only way upward for a poor person was to climb into the ranks of the rich by extraordinary effort and extraordinary luck. ~ Howard Zinn,
780:He tried to smile, but his bloodied lip wouldn’t do more than twitch. “Want to tell you . . . got interrupted . . .” His eyelid drooped, and his words drifted away. Eden’s chest throbbed. “You can tell me later,” she assured him, stuffing down her disappointment while her fingers brushed the hair at the top of his head. “It’s all right to rest.” “No . . . tell you . . . now.” His words were so low they were hard to make out. Eden leaned closer. Levi’s languid eyelid slowly rolled upward. “Love . . . you. ~ Karen Witemeyer,
781:And he believed it too, believed, in that moment, that the arrow he had made for himself would continue its long upward motion. As if there was no possibility of return, no aphelion or perihelion to chart the long spiral of his orbit around whatever false burning center he had made.
Know this. That the things that go into the fire are forever changed. That all you have ever done can be measured not by distance but by circumference. That these twin spirals of smoke: they are your life, rising in curls. ~ Christian Kiefer,
782:Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factorites, whose lives are filled qith cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is. And so, the schools, the churches, the popular literature taught that to be rich was a sign of superiority, to be poor a sign of personal failure, and that the only way upward for a poor person was to climb into the ranks of the rich by extraordinary effort and extraordinary luck. ~ Howard Zinn,
783:If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?”

“Could we find a map of someplace perfect?”

“Like paradise?” I asked, teasing.

“Here? No.” He stared upward, the first stars shining in his eyes. “A better place. Someplace where nothing goes wrong. There must be a myth like that somewhere.”

I bit my lip; my shoulders fell. “Navigation involves the beliefs of the Navigator and the mapmaker. And I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who truly believes in a world without suffering. ~ Heidi Heilig,
784:Looking back at that moment, I understand that I had lived in books so long, in my narrow university setting, that I had become compressed by them internally. Suddenly, in this echoing house of Byzantium-one of the wonders of history-my spirit leaped out of its confines. I knew in that instant that, whatever happened, I could never go back to my old constraints. I wanted to follow life upward, to expand with it outward, the way this enormous interior swelled upward and outward. My heart swelled with it... ~ Elizabeth Kostova,
785:You should hate me," she said brokenly. "You should leave me—"
"Hush." His grip tightened, just short of bruising her. "Do you think so little of me? Damn you." He crushed his lips in her hair. "You don't understand anything about me. Did you think I wouldn't want to help you? That I would abandon you if I knew?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Damn you," he repeated, his voice choked with anger and love. He forced her face upward. The hopelessness in her eyes caused a cold pressure to squeeze around his heart. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
786:But instead of the portal opening up for more Watchers to come down, the assembly of the gods felt the horrifying pull of the whirlwind upward. This was not the plan.   Abram saw all the gods in the shrine sucked up into the whirlwind. He looked at Mikael, who laughed heartily. It was the opposite of what the gods had expected. Before Abram could grasp what he had seen, the earth rumbled beneath their feet. The land before them rose up like a rug being shaken. The ripple of earth traveled speedily toward Babylon. ~ Brian Godawa,
787:No tree can grow to Heaven,” adds the ever-terrifying Carl Gustav Jung, psychoanalyst extraordinaire, “unless its roots reach down to Hell.”134 Such a statement should give everyone who encounters it pause. There was no possibility for movement upward, in that great psychiatrist’s deeply considered opinion, without a corresponding move down. It is for this reason that enlightenment is so rare. Who is willing to do that? Do you really want to meet who’s in charge, at the very bottom of the most wicked thoughts? ~ Jordan Peterson,
788:Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
789:No tree can grow to Heaven,” adds the ever-terrifying Carl Gustav Jung, psychoanalyst extraordinaire, “unless its roots reach down to Hell.”134 Such a statement should give everyone who encounters it pause. There was no possibility for movement upward, in that great psychiatrist’s deeply considered opinion, without a corresponding move down. It is for this reason that enlightenment is so rare. Who is willing to do that? Do you really want to meet who’s in charge, at the very bottom of the most wicked thoughts? ~ Jordan B Peterson,
790:I go to the saltwater and wash off the blood, trying to decide which I hate more, pain or itching. Fed up, I stomp back onto the beach, turn my face upward and snap, "Hey, Haymitch, if you're not too drunk, we could use a little something for our skin."

It's almost funny how quickly the parachute appears above me. I reach up and the tube lands squarely in my open hand.

"About time" I say, but I can't keep the scowl on my face. Haymitch. What I wouldn't give for five minutes of conversation with him. ~ Suzanne Collins,
791:Daisy was wearing a butter-yellow gown that wrapped tightly around her slender waist and pushed the small, pretty shapes of her breasts upward into a low-cut bodice of gleaming, ruched satin. Yellow satin ribbons had been braided into artful ropes that held the bodice in place. Her black hair had been pulled to the top of her head with a few spiraling curls falling to her neck and shoulders. She looked delicate and perfect, like one of the artful sugared garnishes on the dessert tray that one was never supposed to eat. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
792:Doing the same things you did when the economy was good is not good enough. You will have to put more coals on the fire in a poor economy to get the same heat you received in a good economy. You must give more energy, more thought, more service, and get into positive thinking material more frequently. Become more selective about who you spend time with. Love a little more, hate a little less. Think about it. You can progressively move on an upward path toward any goal. The choice is yours as to who or what controls you! ~ Bob Proctor,
793:Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God so wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell... The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near... Every thing is upward striving; 'T is as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, - 'T is the natural way of living. ~ James Russell Lowell,
794:I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul...Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it. ~ Charles Dickens,
795:Here first she crawled out from her cabin of mud
Where she had lain inconscient, rigid, mute:
Its narrowness and torpor held her still,
A darkness clung to her uneffaced by Light.
There neared no touch redeeming from above:
The upward look was alien to her sight,
Forgotten the fearless godhead of her walk;
Renounced was the glory and felicity,
The adventure in the dangerous fields of Time:
Hardly she availed, wallowing, to bear and live.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms of the Little Life,
796:Every time you meet an acquaintance, whether conscious of it or not, you step upon the scales of his judgment, and he notes whether you weigh more or less than at the last meeting. Everybody you meet puts his measuring line about you and notes your girth. If when they meet you people see that you are looking upward, and that you are a little further on, a little higher up, that you are a little bigger man, stand for a little more than at the last meeting, you will establish yourself in their estimation as a common man. ~ Orison Swett Marden,
797:Where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, I sat and looked toward the building where Naoko lived. It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night. ~ Haruki Murakami,
798:Even the most powerful of Dark Side Adepts believed that shrines of that sort existed only on Sith worlds remote from Coruscant, and even the most powerful of the Jedi believed that the power inherent in the shrine had been neutralized and successfully capped. In truth, that power had seeped upward and outward since its entombment, infiltrating the hallways and rooms above, and weakening the Jedi Order much as the Sith Masters themselves had secretly infiltrated the corridors of political power and toppled the Republic. ~ John Jackson Miller,
799:God must be seen and loved in the ignorant, the humble, the weak, the vile, the outcaste. In the Vibhuti himself it is not, except as a symbol, the outward individual that is to be thus recognised and set high, but the one Godhead who displays himself in the poweR But this does not abrogate the fact that there is an ascending scale in manifestation and that Nature mounts upward in her degrees of self-expression from her groping, dark or suppressed symbols to the first visible expressions of the Godhead.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays On The Gita,
800:But she remembered having told Archer once that you could not measure love on a scale of degrees, and now she understood that it was the same with pain. Pain might escalate upward and, just when you thought you'd reached your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. She had thought herself trapped in a place outside the ordinary feeling lives of people; she had not noticed how many people were trapped in that place with her. ~ Kristin Cashore,
801:I had learned to dwell with pleasure as a beloved daydream on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each I told myself could be housed in separate identities life would be relieved of all that was unbearable the unjust might go his way delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path doing the good things in which he found his pleasure and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson,
802:In the turbulence of this anxious and active world many people are leading uneventful, lonely lives. To them dreariness, not disaster, is the enemy. They seldom realize that on their steadfastness, on their ability to withstand the fatigue of dull repetitive work, and on their courage in meeting constant small adversities depend in great measure the happiness and prosperity of the community as a whole. ... The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women. ~ Queen Elizabeth II,
803:The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures. Like cattle, always looking downward with their heads bent toward the ground and the banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their possessions they kick and butt with horns and hoofs of steel and kill each other, insatiable as they are. ~ Plato,
804:The truth is, the liberal policies of the elite class have done little to improve the lot of those who depend so much on them. In America's black communities, where the goodies have been flowing for decades, rather than seeing improvements in terms of upward mobility, we are seeing deteriorating family structure, increases in violent crimes, growing poverty, and growing dependence. Even with such a blatant record of failure, there is slavish devotion to the elite class who continue to promise more goodies in exchange for votes. ~ Benjamin Carson,
805:I force my eyes upward and look at Mia for the first time. She's still beautiful. Not in an obvious Vanessa LeGrande or Bryn Shraeder kind of way. In a quiet way that's always been devastating to me. Her hair, long and dark, is down now, swimming damply against her bare shoulders, which are still milky white and covered with the constellation of freckles that I used to kiss. The scar on her left shoulder, the one that used to be an angry red weld is silvery pink now. Almost like the latest rage in tattoo accessories. Almost pretty. ~ Gayle Forman,
806:The silver-haired elf woman Yaela had knelt by the side of the grave, taken an acorn from the pouch on her belt, and planted it directly above Wyrden’s chest. And then the twelve elves, Arya included, sang to the acorn, which took root and sprouted and grew twining upward, reaching and grasping toward the sky like a clutch of hands. When the elves had finished, the leafy oak stood twenty feet high, with long strings of green flowers at the end of every branch. Eragon had thought it was the nicest burial he had ever attended. ~ Christopher Paolini,
807:I had learned to dwell with pleasure as a beloved daydream on the
thought of the separation of these elements. If each I told myself could be housed in separate identities life would be relieved of all that was unbearable the unjust might go his way delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path doing the good things in which he found his pleasure and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson,
808:Alston snorted. "Be realistic, Peri. You don't have the power to challenge us. Not unless you possessed all of the Fae stones."
Peri pulled both hands from the pockets in her robes and held them out, fist clenched and palms upward, to the Fae arrayed before he. She slowly unclenched her fists, revealing the five Fae stones, two in her left hand, and three in her right. The Fae stones, which only appeared in times of greatest need, lay ominously in her outstretched hands.
"How do you like me now bee-otch?" She grinned, wickedly. ~ Quinn Loftis,
809:But she remembered having told Archer once that you could not measure love on a scale of degrees, and now she understood that it was the same with pain. Pain might escalate upward and, just when you thought you’d reached your limit, begin to spread sideways, and spill out, and touch other people, and mix with their pain. And grow larger, but somehow less oppressive. She had thought herself trapped in a place outside the ordinary feeling lives of people; she had not noticed how many other people were trapped in that place with her. ~ Kristin Cashore,
810:Praise and Prayer PRAISE is devotion fit for mighty minds, The diff'ring world's agreeing sacrifice; Where Heaven divided faiths united finds: But Prayer in various discord upward flies. For Prayer the ocean is where diversely Men steer their course, each to a sev'ral coast; Where all our interests so discordant be That half beg winds by which the rest are lost. By Penitence when we ourselves forsake, 'Tis but in wise design on piteous Heaven; In Praise we nobly give what God may take, And are, without a beggar's blush, forgiven. ~ William Davenant,
811:We are in this together. None of us truly walk in isolation, even when we cannot sense the presence of another for miles upon miles. Even in the worst of our desolation. Even during our coldest 3am breakdown. Even when we shut out the world and spin in circles until we collapse. Even then the light still gets in. Even then the heart still opens and reaches, tendrils of hope curling and bending toward slivers of light. Upward, outward, in all directions – seeking light at all cost. One way or another, we all grow toward the light. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc,
812:Ascend beyond the sickly atmosphere
to a higher plane, and purify yourself
by drinking as if it were ambrosia
the fire that fills and fuels Emptiness.

Free from the futile strivings and the cares
which dim existence to a realm of mist,
happy is he who wings an upward way
on mighty pinions to the fields of light;

whose thoughts like larks spontaneously rise
into the morning sky; whose flight, unchecked,
outreaches life and readily comprehends
the language of flowers and of all mute things. ~ Charles Baudelaire,
813:Jesus' whole life and mission involve accepting powerlessness and revealing in this powerlessness the limitlessness of God's love. Here we see what compassion means. It is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out from on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull. On the contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there. ~ Henri Nouwen,
814:Karl Popper urges us to be constantly on our guard against the fashionable disease of our time: the assumption that things cannot be taken at their face value, that an apparent syllogism must be the rationale of an irrational motive, that a human avowal must conceal some self-seeking baseness. (Freud assures us that Leonardo’s John the Baptist is a homosexual symbol, his upward-pointing index finger seeking to penetrate the fundament of the universe; art historians know that it is a centuries-old cliché of Christian iconography.) ~ Kyril Bonfiglioli,
815:This morning Ava snuck into my office with an announcement: “I only have a few minutes here, because I have to go to work.” “Oh, all right,” I replied. Ava’s “office” is the closet in our basement. I often see her tucked away in there with her pink toy laptop typing away for several minutes at a time. Curious, I thought I’d probe a bit. “Ava, what do you do when you work?” She thought about it for a few seconds, eyes turned upward. “Well, I . . . I do things, and . . .” She paused again. “Well . . . I don’t know. They haven’t told me yet. ~ Todd Henry,
816:Emulation, even in brutes, is sensitively "nervous." See the tremor of the thoroughbred racer before he starts. The dray-horse does not tremble, but he does not emulate. It is not his work to run a race. Says Marcus Antoninus, "It is all one to a stone whether it be thrown upward or downward." Yet the emulation of a man of genius is seldom with his contemporaries, that is, inwardly in his mind, although outwardly in his act it would seem so. The competitors with whom his secret ambition seems to vie are the dead. ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton 1st Baron Lytton,
817:Even today, many poor and lower-middle-class whites feel more solidarity with Bill Gates and George W. Bush than with African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans of comparable economic status. Indeed, as many have observed, large numbers of working-class whites in the United States oppose welfare and increased government spending on social services, often voting against what might be expected to be their economic self-interest. It is widely suspected that racism (together with a thriving ideology of upward mobility) plays a role in this pattern. ~ Amy Chua,
818:I am not engaged to Christianity by decent forms, or saving ordinances; it is not usage, it is not what I do not understand, that binds me to it -- let these be the sandy foundations of falsehoods. What I revere and obey in it is its reality, its boundless charity, its deep interior life, the rest it gives to my mind, the echo it returns to my thoughts, the perfect accord it makes with my reason through all its representation of God and His Providence; and the persuasion and courage that come out thence to lead me upward and onward. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
819:ACORN, you may recall, is the left-wing activist group with longtime ties to community organizer-turned-President Barack Obama. The nonprofit, which now takes in 40 percent of its revenues from American taxpayers after four decades on the public teat, has a history of engaging in voter fraud, corporate shakedowns, partisan bullying and pro-illegal immigration lobbying. The Democrats' stimulus proposals could make the group - and its lesser known but even more radical ideological allies - eligible for upward of $5 billion in new public cash. ~ Michelle Malkin,
820:Generally there is in man a divinity which strives to push him onward and upward. We believe that this power within him is the spirit that comes from God. Man lived before he came to this earth, and he is here now to strive to perfect the spirit within. At sometime in his life, every man is conscious of a desire to come in touch with the Infinite. His spirit reaches out for God. This sense of feeling is universal, and all men ought to be, in deepest truth, engaged in the same great work—the search for and the development of spiritual peace and freedom. ~ David,
821:Exoterism is a precarious thing by reason of its limits or its exclusions; there comes a moment in history when all kinds of experiences oblige it to modify its claims to exclusiveness, and it is then driven to a choice: escape from these limitations by the upward path, in esoterism, or by the downward path, in a worldly and suicidal liberalism. As one might have expected, the civilizationist exoterism of the West has chosen the downward path, while combining this incidentally with a few esoteric notions which in such conditions remain inoperative.4 ~ Martin Lings,
822:The torrent, swollen by the melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged lip. The long sweep of green water roaring forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever upward, turn a man giddy with their constant whirl and clamor. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
823:For here he was about to take her to that passionate brink and she reached upward, her hips rising, her breath catching as she dared not even exhale...
Yet he stopped, and let himself go farther down, until his lips blew a hot, steamy kiss over her sex, leaving her gasping, and then it was his tongue on her, lapping at her, drawing her into his mouth and sucking at her sex.
He'd slid his fingers inside her again, easing their way in, but it was his mouth, teasing over her, that left her gasping for air, reaching upward, nearly at that brink. ~ Elizabeth Boyle,
824:Thomas Malthus, was one of the first to analyze the relations between population growth and available resources. At the end of the eighteenth century, he argued that any species, regarded purely mathematically, can multiply at a geometric rate, on the upward-curving trend familiar from compound interest. Yet the resources available to feed each species normally increase only at an arithmetic rate, on a straight-line trend. This means, as we have seen in the final section of chapter 5, that available resources set the real limits to population growth. ~ David Christian,
825:When we think of the size or dimensions of, a room, our ideas limit themselves to the walls, and there they stop. But when our eye, or our imagination darts into space, that is, when it looks upward into what we call the open air, we cannot conceive any walls or boundaries it can have; and if for the sake of resting our ideas we suppose a boundary, the question immediately renews itself, and asks, what is beyond that boundary? and in the same manner, what beyond the next boundary? and so on till the fatigued imagination returns and says, there is no end. ~ Thomas Paine,
826:Man has risen, not fallen. He can choose to develop his capacities as the highest animal and to try to rise still farther, or he can choose otherwise. The choice is his responsibility, and his alone. There is no automatism that will carry him upward without choice or effort and there is no trend solely in the right direction. Evolution has no purpose; man must supply this for himself. The means to gaining right ends involve both organic evolution and human evolution, but human choice as to what are the right ends must be based on human evolution. ~ George Gaylord Simpson,
827:The importance of the Industrial Revolution is hard to overstate. Throughout essentially all of human history, economic growth had proceeded at a rate of perhaps 0.1 percent per year, enough to allow for a very gradual increase in population, but not any growth in per capita living standards.26 And then, suddenly, there was progress when there had been none. Economic growth began to zoom upward much faster than the growth rate of the population, as it has continued to do through to the present day, the occasional global financial meltdown notwithstanding.27 ~ Nate Silver,
828:Hey, non dispera! There is a way out. Come to beautiful Oasis. No crime, no madness, no bad stuff of any kind, a brand new home, home on the range, no or antelope but hey, accentuate the positive, there never is a discouraging word, nobody rapes you or tries to reminisce about Paris in the springtime, no sense sniffing that old vomit, right? Cut the strings, blank the slate, let go of Auschwitz and the Alamo and the ... the fucking Egyptians for God’s sake, who needs it, who cares, focus on tomorrow. Onward and upward. Come to beautiful Oasis. ~ Michel Faber,
829:I don't want to be around people who accept me as is, in my unrefined state of becoming. I consistently want people around me who push and encourage me to be my ultimate best, who bring out the inner diamonds. I want to be around those intellectual giants who extract the gold within me, those who force me to read, to attend classes, seminars, conferences, and who steep me in an environment of perpetual growth and upward mobility. Not trying to be funny, but I've learned that I simply cannot afford to invest too much time around mediocrity. It's contagious. ~ Brandi L Bates,
830:if another person got on that elevator to travel eight feet upward, I couldn’t have been responsible for what I did. I had been pushed to the limit. The next time it happens, I swore to myself, I’m going to reach out and pinch that One Floorer and say, “You get out there and walk! You won’t come close to burning a fraction of the three thousand calories you ate at lunch, but maybe by the time you reach the landing, you’ll pass out from exhaustion and get to go home for the rest of the day, you lazy little asshole, because that’s exactly what you want anyway! ~ Laurie Notaro,
831:Perhaps we should wait outside in the hall, Dedalus,” murmured Hestia. She clearly felt that it would be tactless for them to remain in the room while Harry and the Dursleys exchanged loving, possibly tearful farewells.
“There’s no need,” Harry muttered, but Uncle Vernon made any further explanation unnecessary by saying loudly,
“Well, this is good-bye, then, boy.”
He swung his right arm upward to shake Harry’s hand, but at the last moment seemed unable to face it, and merely closed his fist and began swinging it backward and forward like a metronome. ~ J K Rowling,
832:Incidentally, gamma rays and a myriad of subatomic particles are generated by the collision of superhigh-energy cosmic rays with Earth’s atmosphere. Within this cascade lurks striking evidence of time dilation, a feature of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Cosmic-ray particles move through space at upward of 99.5 percent the speed of light. When they slam into the top of Earth’s atmosphere, they break down into many subproducts, each with less and less energy per particle, forming an avalanche of elementary particles that descend toward Earth’s surface. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson,
833:August
When my eyes are weeds,
And my lips are petals, spinning
Down the wind that has beginning
Where the crumpled beeches start
In a fringe of salty reeds;
When my arms are elder-bushes,
And the rangy lilac pushes
Upward, upward through my heart;
Summer, do your worst!
Light your tinsel moon, and call on
Your performing stars to fall on
Headlong through your paper sky;
Nevermore shall I be cursed
By a flushed and amorous slattern,
With her dusty laces' pattern
Trailing, as she straggles by.
~ Dorothy Parker,
834:Every wild apple shrub excites our expectation thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson to man! So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate; and only the most persistent and strongest genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth. Poets and philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast the hosts of unoriginal men. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
835:My own reasoning was certainly complicated, so much so that I can’t fully explain it. At some level, I’m sure I viewed the act of releasing fish as a form of contrition. There was definitely a connection in my mind—or reverse connection, as it were—between killing upward of a thousand furbearing mammals for money and then spending money in order to let other creatures live. And while one might argue that you can do a better job of letting things live by not catching them in the first place, you can’t actively let them live until you’ve had a chance to kill them. ~ Steven Rinella,
836:No politician can praise unemployment or inflation, and there is no way of combining high employment with stable prices that does not involve some control of income and prices. Otherwise the struggle for more consumption and more income to sustain it-a struggle that modern corporations, modern unions and modern democracy all facilitate and encourage-will drive up prices. Only heavy unemployment will then temper this upward thrust. Not many wish to confront the truth that the modern economy gives a choice only between inflation, unemployment, or controls. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith,
837:The scaling curve applies to every blitzscaler, regardless of industry or geography. The same multiple S-curve graph that describes Facebook or Apple also describes Tencent, which launched with QQ, then added a second curve for WeChat after QQ reached maturity in 2010. Just when you’ve finished blitzscaling one business line, you need to blitzscale the next to maintain your company’s upward trajectory. And as blitzscaling continues to spread, established companies with mature business lines should consider turning to intrapreneurs to blitzscale new business units. ~ Reid Hoffman,
838:For those who have dwelt in depression's dark wood, and known its inexplicable agony, their return from the abyss is not unlike the ascent of the poet, trudging upward and upward out of hell's black depths and at last emerging into what he saw as "the shining world." There, whoever has been restored to health has almost always been restored to the capacity for serenity and joy, and this may be indemnity enough for having endured the despair beyond despair.

E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.
And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.
~ William Styron,
839:A birth we embark on a good journey, seeking a destination of happiness. The journeys on our life-road facilitate development of our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual states-of-being, into a way of true power and wisdom. The Heart-center power, expressed as happiness and love, will guide us upward on a path away from frustration, bitter toil and travail. These journeys are directed inward, not outwardly in material mementos of ego and possession. The lesson is relearning that which has been suppressed and forgotten, in ourselves, since our earliest childhood. ~ R Carlos Nakai,
840:Like a bird or animal, you had to fight for your territory. War brought you slaves, land, food, women–the things you needed to survive. But now we have got to learn to avoid war, not because of our nicer natures or our dislike of hurting others, but because war is not profitable, we shall not survive war, but shall, as well as our adversaries, be destroyed by war. The time of the tigers is over; now, no doubt, we shall have the time of the rogues and the charlatans, of the thieves, the robbers and pickpockets; but that is better–it is a stage on the upward way. There ~ Agatha Christie,
841:So what are you going to do? Wade said he’s here until his folks return from Guatemala, and that’s not for—” Her eyes swung upward, over Shay’s head. “His being here is no concern of mine.” “Shay . . .” “I got plenty to keep me busy and—” “Uh, Shay.” “—last thing I’m worried about is—” “Travis McCoy!” Abigail stood to her feet. “I’m Abigail, Wade’s wife.” He is not standing behind me. Shay turned and followed a long denim leg upward. Travis stood behind her with Wade. Towering over her. She stood, dusted off her rear end, and crossed her arms. She wasn’t going to look. ~ Denise Hunter,
842:The supramental Yoga is at once an ascent towards God and a descent of Godhead into the embodied nature.
   The ascent can only be achieved by a one-centered all-gathering upward aspiration of the soul and mind and life and body; the descent can only come by a call of the whole being towards the infinite and the eternal Divine. If this call and this aspiration are there, or if by any means they can be born and grow constantly and seize all the nature, then and then only a supramental uplifting and transformation becomes possible.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine And Human, [T2], #index,
843:We see, as in the universes of the material kosmos, after meteorological, vegetable, and animal cycles, man at last arises, born through them, to prove them, concentrate them, to turn upon them with wonder and love -- to command them, adorn them, and carry them upward into superior realms -- so, out of the series of the preceding social and political universes, now arise these States. We see that while many were supposing things established and completed, really the grandest things always remain; and discover that the work of the New World is not ended, but only fairly begun ~ Walt Whitman,
844:announcement of a 3-for-1 split. As with FAIRCHILD, he dropped the arbitrary 10% stop-loss which he had set up to eliminate the weakest of the four stocks he was interested in. Had he kept it there, he would have been sold out the following week when ZENITH dropped to 93. However, as the price immediately started an upward move, he proceeded as planned and bought 5,000 shares at prices ranging from 99 ¾ to 107 ½ (B). ZENITH moved along nicely after that, and it is worth noting that though its progress was unspectacular compared to its pre-split rise, the “little” difference ~ Nicolas Darvas,
845:Yoga, as Swami Vivekananda has said, may be regarded as a means of compressing one's evolution into a single life or a few years or even a few months of bodily existence. A given system of Yoga, then, can be no more than a selection or a compression, into narrower but more energetic forms of intensity, of the general methods which are already being used loosely, largely, in a leisurely movement, with a profuser apparent waste of material and energy but with a more complete combination by the great Mother in her vast upward labour.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Life and Yoga, [6],
846:The maximum life potential (the age at death of the longest-lived member of the species) has not changed and remains at 120 years. Life span (the age at which the average person would die if there were no premature deaths from accidents or disease) has also not changed and remains at about 85 to 95 years. But life expectancy (the age at which the average individual would die when accidents and disease have been taken into consideration) has skyrocketed upward from 47 years in 1900 in the United States to 78.9 for all Americans born in 2010, and 85.8 for Asian American women. ~ Michael Shermer,
847:He supposed there were worse things than marriage, although right now he couldn't seem to think of any. 'Cade looks happy enough,' Jack reasoned, as his attention returned to the ceremony. 'Why wouldn't he though, when he is marrying an angel?'
His brother's bride, Meg, certainly looked the part, dressed all in white, with her blond hair swept upward in soft waves beneath her lace veil, her lake blue eyes aglow with unconcealed joy. Her love for Cade was clear, as was her gentle sweetness and caring ways. 'Cade is a fortunate man,' he thought. 'I should be half so lucky. ~ Tracy Anne Warren,
848:The Democrat Party is threatened by people whose economic circumstances improve to the point that they do not need government first and foremost. That's a threat. But this happens when the U.S. economy is humming. There is a lot of upward mobility, and people leave the lower depths of poverty and start traversing a pathway through the middle class to the upper middle class, and as they leave, the Democrats have to replace them. That is what illegal immigration has been since 1965 when Ted Kennedy reintroduced the whole concept after 40 years of no immigration from 1921 to 1965. ~ Rush Limbaugh,
849:Standing at the foot of the grand staircase, Wrath finished prepping for the meeting with the glymera by drawing a Kevlar vest onto his shoulders.
“It’s light.”
“Weight doesn’t always do you better,” V said as he fired up a hand-rolled and snapped his gold lighter shut.
“You sure about that.”
“When it comes to bulletproof vests, I am.” Vishous exhaled, the smoke momentarily shading his face before it floated upward to the ornate ceiling. “But if it’ll make you feel better, we can strap a garage door on your chest. Or a car, for that matter.”

-Wrath & Vishous ~ J R Ward,
850:If anyone gets intoxicated with his knowledge when he looks beneath him, let him turn his eyes upward toward past ages, and he will lower his horns, finding there so many thousands of minds that trample him underfoot. If he gets into some flattering presumption about his valor, let him remember the lives of the two Scipios, so many armies, so many nations, all of whom leave him so far behind them. No particular quality will make a man proud who balances it against the many weaknesses and imperfections that are also in him, and, in the end, against the nullity of man’s estate. ~ Michel de Montaigne,
851:Plainly, it was not the new truths that astronomy disclosed about the vastness of physical nature, but old truths man neglected about himself that diminished his stature and importance. Those who looked upward and outward and forward, and were prepared to traverse astronomical distances, forgot to look downward and inward and backward: the Sun God had dazzled and blinded them into conceiving scientific reality as a landscape without figures-forgetting the artists who had spent countless generations painting it, and without whom the universe in its vastness was literally unthinkable. ~ Lewis Mumford,
852:Consider the emotional patterns of infants. Have you ever noticed how changeable they are? A baby may be crying lustily, but if you say, "Goo, goo, goo" and call his attention to something else, suddenly he's giggling. But ten seconds later, he can be crying again. A child's emotions are like that until he gets to a point where the highs and lows are less extreme. Likewise, in spiritual growth, we tend to follow a generally upward trend in which our ups and downs, over time, become less severe. As we grow in maturity, we settle into a more consistent pattern of spiritual behavior.
But ~ R C Sproul,
853:In many ways, large profits are even more insidious than large losses in terms of emotional destabilization. I think it's important not to be emotionally attached to large profits. I've certainly made some of my worst trades after long periods of winning. When you're on a big winning streak, there's a temptation to think that you're doing something special, which will allow you to continue to propel yourself upward. You start to think that you can afford to make shoddy decisions. You can imagine what happens next. As a general rule, losses make you strong and profits make you weak. ~ William Eckhardt,
854:Look...' I find my voice again. 'I'm sorry for scaring you by driving so crazy. I shouldn't have played on your fears like that.'
He opens his door. As it glides upward on its hinges, he sets his feet on the ground and looks over his shoulder.
'You wish to apologize?' He grins. 'Whyever for? Everyone has something that can be used against them. You set aside your innate compassionate nature and used MY weakness to get what you wanted from me. That was well played. You followed your instincts and let down your inhibitions without my even having to coach you ...'
-Unhinged, pg 129 ~ A G Howard,
855:Zane moved to take himself in hand, but Ty reached for him instead. He wrapped talented fingers around Zane’s cock and stroked him lazily as they kissed. Then he scooted down and took Zane’s cock in his mouth. It wasn’t long, maybe a minute or two, and Zane was shouting helplessly as his entire body seized, muscles cramping, fingers digging into Ty’s hair, hips jutting upward. He choked out a last moan and came so hard his vision sparkled, each thin stream coating Ty’s tongue as he sucked Zane through it, driving his moans louder and louder into a pained yell and then a begging sob. Ty ~ Abigail Roux,
856:Desperately she reached for his dark head, pulled him harder against her, and his tongue slipped over the aching bud of her sex. The silence of the room was punctuated by her gasping breaths, the suckling sounds he made, and the creak of the chair as she rocked forward, upward, straining to capture his tantalizing mouth. Just as she thought she could no longer bear the intimate torture, the tension exploded in a rapturous burst of fire. She cried out and shuddered, her legs jerking up against the upholstered chair arms, and the spasms went on and on until she finally begged him to stop. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
857:Everyone was pointing upward at the sky, which was turning into a symphony of color. First, orange streaks appeared in the blue, like an oboe joining a flute, turning a solo into a duet. That harmony built into a crescendo of colors as yellow and then pink added their voices to the chorus. The sky darkened, throwing the array of colors into even sharper relief. The word sunset couldn't possibly contain the meaning of the beauty above them, and for the millionth time since they'd landed, Wells found that the words they'd been taught to describe Earth paled in comparison to the real thing. ~ Kass Morgan,
858:A new beginning done right," she said out loud, because everyone knew that saying it out loud made it true. "You hear that, karma?" She glanced upward through her slightly leaky sunroof into a dark sky, where storm clouds tumbled together like a dryer full of gray wool blankets. "This time, I'm gong to be strong." Like Katharine Hepburn. Like Ingrid Bergman ."So go torture someone else and leave me alone."

A bolt of lightning blinded her, followed by a boom of thunder that nearly had her jerking out of her skin. "Okay, so I meant pretty please leave me alone."

-Maddie ~ Jill Shalvis,
859:Liz: What's it like in hell?
Ketut: Same like heaven. Universe is a circle, Liss. To up, to down -- all same, at end.
Liz: Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?
Ketut: Because of how you go. Heaven, you go up, through seven happy places. Hell you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it better for you to go up, Liss.
Liz: You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell -- same destinations -- are the same thing anyway?
Ketut: Same-same. Same in end, so better be happy on journey. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
860:Over my opponent's shoulder, I saw Other Ash block an upward strike, then lash out with a kick that sent Puck sprawling onto his back. The reflection stepped forward, raising his sword, but Puck reached back, grabbed a handful of twigs and flung it at his assailant. They turned into a swarm of yellow jackets, buzzing around the fake prince, until a vicious burst of cold sent them plummeting to the ground, coated in frost.

"Hey!" Other Puck stabbed forward viciously, making me keep back to avoid him. "The fight's here, ice-boy. Don't worry about your boyfriend, worry about yourself. ~ Julie Kagawa,
861:To pause there would be to confirm the hopeless finality of a belief that two atomic colossi are doomed malevolently to eye each other indefinitely across a trembling world. To stop there would be to accept helplessly the probability of civilization destroyed, the annihilation of the irreplaceable heritage of mankind handed down to us from generation to generation, and the condemnation of mankind to begin all over again the age-old struggle upward from savagery towards decency, and right, and justice. Surely no sane member of the human race could discover victory in such desolation. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower,
862:Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached "reality"; but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya [illusion]. ~ H P Blavatsky,
863:When I'm standing in the middle of the salt flats, where you swear that the pupils of your eyes have turned white because of the searing heat that is rising from the desert, I think of my childhood, I think of my mother, my father, my grandparents; I think of the history that we hold there and it is beautiful to me. But it is both a blessing and a burden to be rooted in place. It's recognizing the pattern of things, almost feeling a place before you even see it. In Southern Utah, on the Colorado plateau where canyon walls rise upward like praying hands, that is a holy place to me. ~ Terry Tempest Williams,
864:an excess of individualism thrives in the isolated family, where inordinate Oedipal pressure generates extreme narcissistic hunger, inner futility, stressful self-making, ferocious and disabling competition, and a “servility toward technology” which aims to solve the problems generated by individualism and rootlessness in the first place. At the same time, unbridled individualists try to compensate for their centrifugal tendency by delegating authority upward. Unable to find social solidarity horizontally, through cooperation, they search for it vertically, through authoritarian imposition. ~ Philip Slater,
865:The Artist
Why do you subdue yourself in golds and purples?
Why do you dim yourself with folded silks?
Do you not see that I can buy brocades in any draper’s shop,
And that I am choked in the twilight of all these colours.
How pale you would be, and startling,
How quiet;
But your curves would spring upward
Like a clear jet of flung water,
You would quiver like a shot-up spray of water,
You would waver, and relapse, and tremble.
And I too should tremble,
Watching.
Murex-dyes and tinsel—
And yet I think I could bear your beauty unshaded.
~ Amy Lowell,
866:Maybe your misery is the weapon you brandish in your hatred for those who rose upward while you waited and sank. Maybe your misery is your attempt to prove the world's injustice, instead of the evidence of your own sin, your missing of the mark, your conscious refusal to strive and live. Maybe your willingness to suffer in failure is inexhaustible, given what you use that suffering to prove. Maybe it's your revenge on Being. How exactly should I befriend you when you're in such a place? How could I? .... Maybe I should at least wait, to help you, until it's clear that you want to be helped. ~ Jordan Peterson,
867:And I am so grateful to you for it, Agnes, so bound to you, that there is no name for the affection of my heart. I want you to know, yet don’t know how to tell you, that all my life long I shall look up to you, and be guided by you, as I have been through the darkness that is past. Whatever betides, whatever new ties you may form, whatever changes may come between us, I shall always look to you, and love you, as I do now, and have always done. You will always be my solace and resource, as you have always been. Until I die, my dearest sister, I shall see you always before me, pointing upward! ~ Charles Dickens,
868:Maybe your misery is the weapon you brandish in your hatred for those who rose upward while you waited and sank. Maybe your misery is your attempt to prove the world's injustice, instead of the evidence of your own sin, your missing of the mark, your conscious refusal to strive and live. Maybe your willingness to suffer in failure is inexhaustible, given what you use that suffering to prove. Maybe it's your revenge on Being. How exactly should I befriend you when you're in such a place? How could I? .... Maybe I should at least wait, to help you, until it's clear that you want to be helped. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
869: “Look …” I find my voice again. “I’m sorry for scaring you by driving so crazy. I shouldn’t have played on your fears like that.”
He opens his door. As it glides upward on its hinges, he sets his feet on the ground and looks over his shoulder.
“You wish to apologize?” He grins. “Whyever for? Everyone has something that can be used against them. You set aside your innate compassionate nature and used my weakness to get what you wanted from me. That was well played. You followed your instincts and let down your inhibitions without my even having to coach you. ~ A G Howard,
870:Jesus says to Nicodemus, “though the light has come into the world, people have preferred darkness to the light” (John 3:19). In me I can feel this strange preference for the darkness. It seems as if I resist coming into the light and enjoy staying in my self-made darkness. Jesus offers the light, the truth, the life coming from above. He makes it clear that God wants to pull me away from the darkness; he wants to offer me a solid love to dwell in, a firm ground to stand on, a faithful presence to trust in. But I have to look upward instead of inward, and embrace the gifts that are given. Yet ~ Henri J M Nouwen,
871:it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.

To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all the tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners at everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,
872:Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached "reality"; but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya [illusion]. ~ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky,
873:Categorization is the central task of the brain, and reentrant signaling allows the brain to categorize its own categorizations, then recategorize these, and so on. Such a process is the beginning of an enormous upward path enabling ever higher levels of thought and consciousness. Reentrant signaling might be likened to a sort of neural United Nations, in which dozens of voices are talking together, while including in their conversations a variety of constantly inflowing reports from the outside world, bringing them together into a larger picture as new information is correlated and new insights emerge. ~ Oliver Sacks,
874:We have known for some time that the poor and ignored were the nonvoters, alienated from a political system they felt didn’t care about them, and about which they could do little. Now alienation has spread upward into families above the poverty line. These are white workers, neither rich nor poor, but angry over economic insecurity, unhappy with their work, worried about their neighborhoods, hostile to government—combining elements of racism with elements of class consciousness, contempt for the lower classes along with distrust for the elite, and thus open to solutions from any direction, right or left. ~ Howard Zinn,
875:The Italian neofascists were learning from the U.S. reactionaries how to achieve fascism's class goals within the confines of quasi-democratic forms: use an upbeat, Reaganesque optimism; replace the jackbooted militarists with media-hyped crowd pleasers; convince people that government is the enemy - especially its social service sector - while strengthening the repressive capacities of the state; instigate racist hostility and antagonisms between the resident population and immigrants; preach the mythical virtues of the free market; and pursue tax and spending measures that redistribute income upward. ~ Michael Parenti,
876:The smoke! The golden smoke!
His robe whipped upward, turning him until his face was directed downward into the abyss. With his gaze on the depths, he recognized a maelstrom of boiling rapids there, the mirror of his life-precipitous currents and plunges, all movement gathering up all substance. Leto’s words wound through his mind on a path of golden smoke: “Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.” Moneo fell freely then in the ecstasy of awareness. The universe opened for him like clear glass, everything flowing in a no Time. ~ Frank Herbert,
877:He lifts my hand from the root and presses it to his bare chest, over his heart. My breath stops. I wonder if he can feel the pulse racing in my wrist, because it’s beating just as quickly as his heartbeat.

“Do you know the Ai’oan word for heart?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“It’s py’a.” We’re so close, his whisper is right in my ear, and his breath warms the side of my neck. “You are my heart, Pia”

I lick my lips. When did they get so dry?

His other hand cradles the back of my head, tipping my face upward. “A body can't live without a heart. And I can’t live without you. ~ Jessica Khoury,
878:Amy Wrzesniewski, associate professor of organizational behavior at Yale University, has been studying a classification system that can help you recognize your orientation toward your work and attain greater job satisfaction. She defines work in three ways: 1.​A JOB is a way to pay the bills. It’s a means to an end, and you have little attachment to it. 2.​A CAREER is a path toward growth and achievement. Careers have clear ladders for upward mobility. 3.​A CALLING is work that is an important part of your life and provides meaning. People with a calling are generally more satisfied with the work they do. ~ Vishen Lakhiani,
879:A World Worth Living In
One who claims that he knows about it
Tells me the earth is a vale of sin;
But I and the bees, and the birds we doubt it,
And think it a world worth living in.
-----Whatever you want, if you wish for it long,
With constant yearning and ceaseless desire,
If your wish soars upward on wings so strong
That they never grow languid, never tire,
Why, over the storm cloud and out of the dark
It will come flying some day to you,
As the dove with the olive branch flew to the ark,
And the wish you've been dreaming,
it will come true.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
880:As gnostic knowledge, will and ananda are a direct instrumentation of spirit and can only be won by growing into the spirit, into divine being, this growth has to be the first aim of our Yoga. The mental being has to enlarge itself into the oneness of the Divine before the Divine will perfect in the soul of the individual its gnostic outflowering. That is the reason why the triple way of knowledge, works and love becomes the key-note of the whole Yoga, for that is the direct means for the soul in mind to rise to its highest intensities where it passes upward into the divine oneness.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,
881:For each stop—each timbre, or type of sound, that the organ could make (viz. blockflöte, trumpet, piccolo)—there was a separate row of pipes, arranged in a line from long to short. Long pipes made low notes, short high. The tops of the pipes defined a graph: not a straight line but an upward-tending curve. The organist/math teacher sat down with a few loose pipes, a pencil, and paper, and helped Lawrence figure out why. When Lawrence understood, it was as if the math teacher had suddenly played the good part of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor on a pipe organ the size of the Spiral Nebula in Andromeda— ~ Neal Stephenson,
882:On the darkest days you have to search for a spot of brightness, on the coldest days you have to seek out a spot of warmth; on the bleakest days you have to keep your eyes onward and upward and on the saddest days you have to learn to open them to let them cry. To then let them dry. To give them a chance to wash out the pain in order to see fresh and clear once again." "I can't believe you have that memorized," I whisper. He leans back again. Closes his eyes again. Says, "Nothing in this life will ever make sense to me but I can't help but try to collect the change and hope it's enough to pay for our mistakes. ~ Tahereh Mafi,
883:sometimes i am alive because with"

sometimes i am alive because with
me her alert treelike body sleeps
which i will feel slowly sharpening
becoming distinct with love slowly,
who in my shoulder sinks sweetly teeth
until we shall attain the Springsmelling
intense large togethercoloured instant

the moment pleasantly frightful

when, her mouth suddenly rising, wholly
begins with mine fiercely to fool
(and from my thighs which shrug and pant
a murdering rain leapingly reaches the upward singular deepest flower which she
carries in a gesture of her hips) ~ E E Cummings,
884:The Mouser made a very small parry in carte so that the thrust of the bravo from the east went past his left side by only a hair's breath. He instantly riposted. His adversary, desperately springing back, parried in turn in carte. Hardly slowing, the tip of the Mouser's long, slim sword dropped under that parry with the delicacy of a princess curtsying and then leaped forward and a little upward, the Mouser making an impossibly long-looking lunge for one so small, and went between two scales of the bravo's armored jerkin and between his ribs and through his heart and out his back as if all were angelfood cake. ~ Fritz Leiber,
885:My dad was a different person when he lectured: his eyes sparkled, his lips turned upward.... 'Think what it must have been like for Darwin, two hundred years ago. He took that voyage on the Beagle [1831] expecting to document the natural world and he stumbled across something impossible. A creature who could defy the laws of physics--straight out of the pages of mythology...In that one moment, the entire landscape of scientific investigation was drastically and irrevocably changed. The impossible became a widespread scientific reality, as omnipresent as gravity and in some cases, nearly as hard to see. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes,
886:Screams of horror reverberated off the walls. Adrenaline took over as Mina lunged for Brody, missing his body entirely but grabbing the shoulder strap of his black Jansport backpack. She had done it without thinking, even though she wasn’t very strong, and now she gritted her teeth as she slammed into the railing, which caused her to cry out in pain. There was a moment of suspended animation when she thought she had him and they were safe, but then her feet slowly lost contact with the floor. Screaming, she started moving upward and over, her feet dangling uselessly. She was going to go over the railing with him. ~ Chanda Hahn,
887:He does not look at the dancers, does not acknowledge her, sitting and staring. He is steeped in a private aural world. He drew out longer notes than her papa ever had; he was more forceful with the bow; she hadn't known the violin contained such wildness. She was reminded of the tarantella, which skipped along its notes and pulled you upward; out of yourself, come and play! But these pieces, these tangos, didn't only lift; they also plunged you downward, deep inside yourself, to the unexamined corners of your heart. Come, they whispered, come and look, see what's here and dance with it, this is music too. ~ Carolina De Robertis,
888:Okay, pull me up."
The rope didn't move.
"Ascanio?" What was it now? Did he see a butterfly and get distracted?
The rope slid up, as fast as if wound by a winch. I shot upward. What the...?
I cleared the edge and found myself face to face with Curran.
Oh boy.
He held the rope with one hand, muscles bulging on his arm under his sweatshirt. No strain showed on Curran's face. It's good to be the baddest shapeshifter in the city. Behind him Ascanio stood very still, pretending to be invisible.
Curran's gray eyes laughed at me. The Beast Lord reached out and touched my nose with his finger. "Boop. ~ Ilona Andrews,
889:You will walk backward in your footsteps and go forward a new way?”
“I--”
He slid her hand upward so it rested on his shoulder, forcing her closer. His height was such that she had to tip her head back to see his face. If he had been a white man, she would have been worrying that he planned to kiss her. But he wasn’t a white man. And she doubted gentle persuasion was what he had in mind. He seemed a yard wide at the shoulders, a looming wall of muscle. There was heat in the depths of his eyes as he studied her, a heat that had never been there before.
“I would have you beside me,” he told her huskily. ~ Catherine Anderson,
890:Hermes had said, the giant was about ten feet tall, which made him small compared to some other giants I’d seen. But Cacus made up for it by being bright and gaudy. He had curly orange hair, pale skin, and orange freckles. His face was smeared upward with a permanent pout, upturned nose, wide eyes, and arched eyebrows, so he appeared both startled and unhappy. He wore a red velour housecoat with matching slippers. The housecoat was open, revealing silky Valentine-patterned boxer shorts and luxurious chest hair of a red/pink/orange color not found in nature. Annabeth made a small gagging sound. “It’s the ginger giant. ~ Rick Riordan,
891:Papa actually looked somewhat cool. He wore a leather jacket, sunglasses pushed up on his forehead, and an expensive cotton dress shirt untucked over jeans. Behind him was the palest non-albino human being I had ever seen. A shock of orangey blond stuck straight up from his ovoid head like a toy troll. His head was cocked upward; his smile seemed like a plastic snap-on attachment, and his features were flattened as if pressed back by an invisible stocking. Though he claimed online to be an avid weight-lifter, his body and face were doughy. Technically, he was a small person. He just had a certain genetic softness. This ~ Neil Strauss,
892:According to Thoth, because of the placement of the Great Pyramid on the Earth connecting into the Earth's huge geometrical field - specifically the octahedral field of the Earth, which is equivalent to our own fields - and because of the pyramid's mass and the geometries used in it, the white-light energy field spirals upward and becomes extremely strong, stretching all the way out to the center of the galaxy. The dark-light energy comes in from above, spirals through zero point and connects with the center of the Earth. In this way the Great Pyramid connects the center of the Earth to the center of our galaxy. ~ Drunvalo Melchizedek,
893:And there is only one way you can live, now. There must be an emotional hand to slap you on the back to make you move. A desire, a want, an emotion. Then the first thing you know you quiver and rise and strike your brow against silk-skinned wood. That emotion surges through you, calling you. If it is not strong enough, you will settle down wearily, and will not wake again. But if you grow with it, somehow, if you claw upward, if you work tediously, slowly, many days, you find ways of displacing earth an inch at a time, and one night you crumble the darkness, the exit is completed, and you wriggle forth to see the stars. ~ Ray Bradbury,
894:And there is only one way you can live, now. There must be an emotional hand to slap oyou on the back to make you move. A desire, a want, an emotion. Then the first thing you know you quiver and rise and strike your brow against silk-skinned wood. That emotion surges thorugh you, calling you. If it is not strong enough, you will settle down wearily, and will not wake again. But if you grow with it, somehow, if you claw upward, if you work tediously, slowly, many days, you find ways of displacing earth an inch at a time, and one night you crumble the darkness, the exit is completed, and you wriggle forth to see the stars. ~ Ray Bradbury,
895:She parked and got out of the car, feeling the wind sweep upward over her, lifting the hem of her jacket, ruffling her hair. She walked to the edge of the cliff and for a long time, stood frozen and stared as though mesmerized by the swirling, white-veined swells that gathered like great fists drawn back for a blow, then smashed themselves against the rocks below, exploding into a spray of diamonds. Some of the spray was so fine that a series of rainbows were thrown up, fleeting and blurred, one after another. The pounding of the sea made a strange and compelling music, driving her to surrender to the feelings inside her. ~ Susan Wiggs,
896:I murmur: "It's a seat," a little like an exorcism. But the word stays on my lips: it refuses to go and put itself on the thing. It stays what it is, with its red plush, thousands of little red paws in the air, all still, little dead paws. This enormous belly turned upward, bleeding, inflated—bloated with all its dead paws, this belly floating in this car, in this grey sky, is not a seat. It could just as well be a dead donkey tossed about in the water, floating with the current, belly in the air in a great grey river, a river of floods; and I could be sitting on the donkey's belly, my feet dangling in the clear water. ~ Jean Paul Sartre,
897:Julian Scott
Toward the last
The truth of others was untruth to me;
The justice of others injustice to me;
Their reasons for death, reasons with me for life;
Their reasons for life, reasons with me for death;
I would have killed those they saved,
And save those they killed.
And I saw how a god, if brought to earth,
Must act out what he saw and thought,
And could not live in this world of men
And act among them side by side
Without continual clashes.
The dust's for crawling, heaven's for flying -Wherefore, O soul, whose wings are grown,
Soar upward to the sun!
~ Edgar Lee Masters,
898:my issue with what they consider beautiful
is their concept of beauty
centers around excluding people
i find hair beautiful
when a woman wears it
like a garden on her skin
that is the definition of beauty
big hooked noses
pointing upward to the sky
like they’re rising
to the occasion
skin the color of earth
my ancestors planted crops on
to feed a lineage of women with
thighs thick as tree trunks
eyes like almonds
deeply hooded with conviction
the rivers of punjab
flow through my bloodstream so
don’t tell me my women
aren’t as beautiful
as the ones in
your country ~ Rupi Kaur,
899:Something sharp grazes her face. She stops and touches her scraped cheek. The culprit floats in front of her, purple-pink, the colors of a fiveyear-old's crazed sketch. Escaping from a metal cage in the sidewalk near her feet is a thing twice her height and half again as wide as her extended arms. A single stout upward path splits into a few thinner ones, and those divide into thousands more, thinner still, each one tentative, forked, full of scars, bent by history, and tipped out in insane flowers. The sight takes root in her, ramifying, and for a moment longer she remembers: her life has been as wild as a plum in spring. ~ Richard Powers,
900:These are cases of the upward redistribution of wealth—transfers of wealth from ordinary taxpayers to wealthy owners, managers, and stockholders. These interventions in the market promote what conservatives believe is the vital national interest. But when government intervenes on behalf of working people, consumers, or the environment, conservatives scream foul and invoke the “free-market” frame, because these interventions don’t mesh with their political philosophy. “Free market” is a slogan used to attack the essential rules that keep the market functioning for the common good. It’s time to end the “free-market” myths. Myth ~ George Lakoff,
901:Bram knocked, and Chas opened the door, her music growing louder. She had strips of tinfoil in her hair and a cigarette dangling from her lips–which she immediately hid behind her back when she saw Bram.
  "Hiiii!"
  Both of Bram's brows flitted upward. "Hi." He looked at the foil. "I'm not even gonna ask."
  "Martians are trying to control my thoughts, stupid." She noticed me then and smiled. "Hi, Nora! Ooh…" Her eyes fell to the weapon. "Shiny."
  "Nora needs some more appropriate clothes if she's to use the shiny," Bram said.
  Chas clapped her hands together. "Makeover!"
  Oh, God no.… ~ Lia Habel,
902:It may yet be said that a logical succession of the states of progress would be very much in this order. First, there is a large turning in which all the natural mental activities proper to the individual nature are taken up or referred to a higher standpoint and dedicated by the soul in us, the psychic being, the priest of the sacrifice, to the divine service; next, there is an attempt at an ascent of the being and a bringing down of the Light and Power proper to some new height of consciousness gained by its upward effort into the whole action of the knowledge.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent Of The Sacrifice - I, [T1],
903:And here one of the most soul-crushing things about the Trump era reveals itself: to get through it with any psychological stability—to get through it without routinely descending into an emotional abyss—a person’s best strategy is to think mostly of himself, herself. As wealth continues to flow upward, as Americans are increasingly shut out of their own democracy, as political action is constrained into online spectacle, I have felt so many times that the choice of this era is to be destroyed or to morally compromise ourselves in order to be functional—to be wrecked, or to be functional for reasons that contribute to the wreck. ~ Jia Tolentino,
904:All Sun-shine
when his Beams at Noon
Culminate from th' Æquator, as they now
Shot upward still direct, whence no way round
Shadow from body opaque can fall, and the Aire,
No where so cleer, sharp'nd his visual ray
To objects distant farr, whereby he soon
Saw within kenn a glorious Angel stand,
The same whom John saw also in the Sun:
His back was turnd, but not his brightness hid;
Of beaming sunnie Raies, a golden tiar
Circl'd his Head, nor less his Locks behind
Illustrious on his Shoulders fledge with wings
Lay waving round; on som great charge imploy'd
He seemd, or fixt in cogitation deep. ~ John Milton,
905:In how many families do you hear the legend that all the goodness and graces of the living are nothing to the peculiar charms of one who is not. It is as if heaven had an especial band of angels, whose office it was to sojourn for a season here, and endear to them the wayward human heart, that they might bear it upward with them in their homewoard flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in the eye,---when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiser than the ordinary words of children,---hope not to retain that child, for the seal of heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks out from its eyes. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe,
906:And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And that remains.

I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me.

My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.

O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward! ~ Charles Dickens,
907:The Great Drum
The circle of the Earth is the head of a great drum;
With the day, it moves upward - booming;
With the night, it moves downward - booming;
The day and the night are its song.
I am very small, as I dance upon the drum-head;
I am like a particle of dust, as I dance upon the drum-head;
Above me in the sky is the shining ball of the drumstick.
I dance upward with the day;
I dance downward with the night;
Some day I shall dance afar into space like a particle of dust.
Who is the Drummer who beats upon the earth-drum?
Who is the Drummer who makes me to dance his song?
~ Anonymous Americas,
908:The Laughing Thrush

O nameless joy of the morning

tumbling upward note by note out of the night
and the hush of the dark valley
and out of what has not been there

song unquestioning and unbounded
yes this is the place and the one time
in the whole of before and after
with all of memory waking into it

and the lost visages that hover
around the edge of sleep
constant and clear
and the words that lately have fallen silent
to surface among the phrases of some future
if there is a future

here is where they all sing the first daylight
whether or not there is anyone listening ~ W S Merwin,
909:Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “Have you spent any time with her this week?”

“I’m afraid she’s too…perfectish.”

She stopped and turned toward him. “Perfectish?”

He lowered his head and gazed into her eyes. “Yes, perfectish. It’s a clear indication that some horrible fault will come to the surface the moment you’ve irrevocably declared your intentions.”

She allowed one corner of her mouth to curve upward. “Well, then. I guess it’s a good thing I could never be considered perfectish.”

His eyes darkened as he leaned closer. “No, you are certainly not too perfectish.”

Sebastian & Charlotte ~ Ally Broadfield,
910:I don’t see any option except to stick to the plan. Split up, infiltrate, find out why they’re here. If things go bad—” “We use the backup plan,” Piper said. Jason hated the backup plan. Before they left the ship, Leo had given each of them an emergency flare the size of a birthday candle. Supposedly, if they tossed one in the air, it would shoot upward in a streak of white phosphorus, alerting the Argo II that the team was in trouble. At that point, Jason and the girls would have a few seconds to take cover before the ship’s catapults fired on their position, engulfing the palace in Greek fire and bursts of Celestial bronze shrapnel. ~ Rick Riordan,
911:She did feel it. A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free. What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveller may never reach the end of it. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
912:The official record for the fastest manmade object is the Helios 2 probe, which reached about 70 km/s in a close swing around the Sun. But it’s possible the actual holder of that title is a two-ton metal manhole cover. The cover sat atop a shaft at an underground nuclear test site operated by Los Alamos as part of Operation Plumbbob. When the 1-kiloton nuke went off below, the facility effectively became a nuclear potato cannon, giving the cap a gigantic kick. A high-speed camera trained on the lid caught only one frame of it moving upward before it vanished—which means it was moving at a minimum of 66 km/s. The cap was never found. ~ Randall Munroe,
913:SKIRTING the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling, 5
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing. ~ Walt Whitman,
914:She did feel it. A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free.
What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
915:You are my woman. You will sure enough marry no other.”
“Well, if you think I’m going to marry you, you have another think coming! Never, do you hear me?”
With that, she wrapped her arms around herself and glared at him. Hunter sighed and flopped onto his back, staring upward sightlessly. Minutes passed. When at last he felt her curl up at the foot of the bed, as far away from him as possible, a knowing smile touched his lips. No woman could possibly get that angry over another woman unless she was jealous. And a woman didn’t get jealous unless she was in love. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one with another think coming. ~ Catherine Anderson,
916:If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together—that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated? ~ Robert Louis Stevenson,
917:It was still dark when Jack left on Friday morning. He sat beside me on the bed and pulled my sleeping body upward, holding me. I awakened with a murmur, and he held my head in one hand, long fingers cupping firmly around my skull. His rich baritone was soft in my ear. “You do what you have to. I won’t stand in the way. But when I come back, you’re not shutting me out, you hear? I’m going to take you somewhere . . . a nice long vacation . . . and we’re going to talk, and I’m going to hold you while you cry until you feel better. And we’ll get you through this.” He kissed my cheek and smoothed my hair, and lowered me back to the mattress. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
918:Thus, the “oppres-
sive weight / of the squat edifice” refers via metaphor and metonymy to the con-
straints imposed by institutionalized Christianity.
The last stanza contrasts oppressive institutional constraints with the “jasmine
lightness of the moon.” The smell of jasmine comes from something living, a frag-
ile flower, as opposed to something abstract and institutionalized, like religious
dogma. The smell of jasmine is light, rising upward from the ground, not heavy
and earthbound. Metaphorically, it represents freedom; there is nothing holding it
down, just as there is nothing holding down the moon. ~ George Lakoff,
919:People seemed to have two different selves—an experiencing self who endures every moment equally and a remembering self who gives almost all the weight of judgment afterward to two single points in time, the worst moment and the last one. The remembering self seems to stick to the Peak-End rule even when the ending is an anomaly. Just a few minutes without pain at the end of their medical procedure dramatically reduced patients’ overall pain ratings even after they’d experienced more than half an hour of high level of pain. “That wasn’t so terrible,” they’d reported afterward. A bad ending skewed the pain scores upward just as dramatically. ~ Atul Gawande,
920:The same laws which produce growth also produce decay. Someday, the sun will grow cold, and life on the Earth will cease. The whole epoch of animals and plants is only an interlude between ages that were too hot and ages that will be too cold. There is no law of cosmic progress, but only an oscillation upward and downward, with a slow trend downward on the balance owing to the diffusion of energy. This, at least, is what science at present regards as most probable, and in our disillusioned generation it is easy to believe. From evolution, so far as out present knowledge shows, no ultimately optimistic philosophy can be validly inferred. ~ Bertrand Russell,
921:Enslaved
Oh when I think of my long-suffering race,
For weary centuries despised, oppressed,
Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place
In the great life line of the Christian West;
And in the Black Land disinherited,
Robbed in the ancient country of its birth,
My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead,
For this my race that has no home on earth.
Then from the dark depths of my soul I cry
To the avenging angel to consume
The white man's world of wonders utterly:
Let it be swallowed up in earth's vast womb,
Or upward roll as sacrificial smoke
To liberate my people from its yoke!
~ Claude McKay,
922:I wish you to know you have been the last dream of my soul. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing…

But I wish you to know that you inspired it. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into the fire. ~ Charles Dickens,
923:That is the real story of my lift, and that is why I wrote this book. I want people to know what it feels like to nearly give up on yourself and why you might do it. I want people to understand what happens in the lives of the poor and the psychological impact that spiritual and material poverty has on their children. I want people to understand the American Dream as my family and I encountered it. I want people to understand how upward mobility really feels. And I want people to understand something I learned only recently: that for those of us lucky enough to live the American Dream, the demons of the life we left behind continue to chase us. ~ J D Vance,
924:... people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
925:And thus Henchard found himself again on the precise standing which he had occupied a quarter of a century before. Externally there was nothing to hinder his making another start on the upward slope, and by his new lights achieving higher things than his soul in its half-formed state had been able to accomplish. But the ingenious machinery contrived by the Gods for reducing human possibilities of amelioration to a minimum--which arranges that wisdom to do shall come pari passu with the departure of zest for doing--stood in the way of all that. He had no wish to make an arena a second time of a world that had become a mere painted scene to him. ~ Thomas Hardy,
926:Where mathematics was a magnificent imaginary building, the world of story as represented by Dickens was like a deep, magical forest for Tengo. When mathematics stretched infinitely upward toward the heavens, the forest spread out beneath his gaze in silence, its dark, sturdy roots stretching deep into the earth. In the forest there were no maps, no numbered doorways.... Tengo began deliberately to put some distance between himself and the world of mathematics, and instead the forest of story began to exert a stronger pull on his heart... Someday he might be able to decipher the spell. That possibility would gently warm his heart from within. ~ Haruki Murakami,
927:His gaze on mine was completely steady and unblinking, and there was an upward curl at the corners of his mouth . . . he was smiling like he was actually enjoying this.
But I couldn't help feeling as if, behind those blue eyes, there was a different Christopher – the old Christopher – begging me to call him on his asinine behavior. To say, I'm asking for your help now. Will you help us? Will you help me?
Only I didn't.
Because I was too angry with him. Why was he acting like such a four-year-old? I'd already explained to him why I'd made the decisions I had. They'd been perfectly decent, rational decisions.
So why was he acting this way? ~ Meg Cabot,
928:She screams. Long. Loud. Violent. The world seems to blur for just a second—for just a moment everything seizes, freezes in place: contorted bodies; angry, distorted faces; all frozen in time—Floorboards peel upward and fissure apart. Cracks like thunderclaps as they shatter up the walls. Light fixtures swing precariously before smashing to the floor. And then, everyone. Every single person in her line of sight. 554 people and all their guests. Their faces, their bodies, the seats they sit in: sliced open like fresh fish. Their flesh feathers outward, swelling slowly as a steady gush of blood gathers in pools around their feet. They all drop dead. ~ Tahereh Mafi,
929:What are you doing?” I squeak. Big, warm hands slide under the hem of my dress, slowly dragging the satin material upward. “What do you mean?” he asks innocently. Surprise makes my pulse race. “Where’s my kiss?” Ignoring me, he pushes my dress all the way up to my waist, then groans so loudly that I shoot a wary glance behind me. But everyone on the lawn is completely out of sight, which means Blake and I are out of sight to them. Which means nobody but Blake can see that I’m not wearing anything under my dress. “No panties?” he croaks. “Seriously? We were walking down that aisle together and you weren’t wearing panties? Are you trying to kill me? ~ Sarina Bowen,
930:Another page turns on the calendar, April now, not March.

.........

I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world...I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.

I wanted to swallow the bitter seeds of forgetfulness...Somehow, I dragged myself out of the dark and asked for help.

I spin and weave and knit my words and visions until a life starts to take shape.

There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.

I am thawing. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson,
931:Eva Gray
PALER, paler, day by day,
Waxeth wordless Eva Gray,
Wasting through the heart away!
How shall those who wish her well,
Lift the shadow erst that fell
Round her from Love’s darken’d spell?
Would they have her feast with Song?
Ah! its voices but prolong
Like far echoes Memory’s wrong.
Would they to beguile her leisure
Sweet reliefs in music measure?
Music dreams of foregone pleasure.
Would they lure her where the spring
Gives the unshadow’d heart to wing
Upward like a bird and sing?
Still paler, paler, day by day,
Waxeth gentle Eva Gray,—
Wasting like a cloud away.
~ Charles Harpur,
932:The ultimate work of energy production is accomplished not in any specialized organ but in every cell of the body. A living cell, like a flame, burns fuel to produce the energy on which life depends. The analogy is more poetic than precise, for the cell accomplishes its ‘burning’ with only the moderate heat of the body’s normal temperature. Yet all these billions of gently burning little fires spark the energy of life. Should they cease to burn, ‘no heart could beat, no plant could grow upward defying gravity, no amoeba could swim, no sensation could speed along a nerve, no thought could flash in the human brain,’ said the chemist Eugene Rabinowitch. ~ Rachel Carson,
933:Euryalus
UPWARD we went by fields of asphodel,
Leaving Ortygia's moat-bound walls below;
By orchards, where the wind-flowers' drifted snow
Lay lightly heaped upon the turf's light swell;
By gardens, whence upon the wayside fell
Jasmine and rose in April's overflow;
Till, winding up in Epipolae's wide brow,
We reached at last the lonely citadel.
There, on the ruined rampart climbing high,
We sat and dreamed among the browsing sheep,
Until we heard the trumpet's startled cry
Waking a clang of arms about the keep,
And seaward saw, with rapt foreboding eye,
The sails of Athens whiten on the deep.
~ Edith Wharton,
934:THE FACE IN THE TOYOTA
Suppose you see a face in a Toyota
One day, and you fall in love with that face,
And it is Her, and the world rushes by
Like dust blown down a Montana street.
And you fall upward into some deep hole,
And you can’t tell God from a grain of sand.
And your life is changed, except that now you
Overlook even more than you did before;
And these ignored things come to bury you,
And you are crushed, and your parents
Can’t help anymore, and the woman in the Toyota
Becomes a part of the world that you don’t see.
And now the grain of sand becomes sand again,
And you stand on some mountain road weeping. ~ Robert Bly,
935:Influence
As in the deeps of embryonic night,
Out of unfathomable obscurities
Of Nature's womb, the little life-germs rise,
Pushing and pulsing upward to the light;
As, when the first day dawns on waking sight,
They leap to liberty and recognize
The golden sunshine and the morning skies
Their home and goal and heritage and right So do our brooding thoughts and deep desires
Grow in our souls, we know not how or why;
Grope for we know not what, all blind and dumb.
So, when the time is ripe, and one aspires
To free his thought in speech, ours hear the cry,
And to full birth and instant knowledge come.
~ Ada Cambridge,
936:Reaching out, I skimmed my fingers along the side of her neck, all the way around to the back of her head. She was wearing her glorious hair down loose so I sifted my fingers through it, and when I got about halfway down the length, I fisted it tight. Her eyes went wide when I started twisting it around my wrist until my hand was drawn back upward to the base of her skull.
Mac's breath immediately got erratic...her eyes shadowy. I pulled her head back, skimming my eyes down the creamy skin of her throat. Bending over her, I bypassed her lips, choosing instead to kiss her lightly near the corner of that proud chin she had stuck out to me not long ago. ~ Sawyer Bennett,
937:Grief
I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death-Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
938:Billy tried to imagine the birth of Cyril's wife's baby. It would happen in grim lights violently. A dripping thing trying to clutch to its hole. Dredged up and beaten. Blood and drool and womb mud. How cute, this neon shrieker made to plunge upward, odd-headed blob, this marginal electric glow-thing. Dressed and powdered now. Engineered to abstract design. Cling, suck and cry. Follow with the eye. Gloom and drought of unprotected sleep. Had there been a light in her belly, dim briny light in that pillowing womb, dusk enough to light a page, bacterial smear of light, an amniotic gleam that I could taste, old, deep, wet and warm? Return, return to negative unity. ~ Don DeLillo,
939:Maybe it is not the destructiveness of the volcano that pleases most, though everyone loves a conflagration, but its defiance of the law of gravity to which every inorganic mass is subject. What pleases first at the sight of the plant world is its vertical upward direction. That is why we love trees. Perhaps we attend to a volcano for its elevation, like ballet. How high the molten rocks soar, how far above the mushrooming cloud. The thrill is that the mountain blows itself up, even if it must then like the dancer return to earth; even if it does not simply descend—it falls, falls on us. But first it goes up, it flies. Whereas everything pulls, drags down. Down. ~ Susan Sontag,
940:Xvi
And yet, because thou overcomest so,
Because thou art more noble and like a king,
Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow
Too close against thine heart henceforth to know
How it shook when alone. Why, conquering
May prove as lordly and complete a thing
In lifting upward, as in crushing low !
And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,
Even so, Beloved, I at last record,
Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,
I rise above abasement at the word.
Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
941:For anyone born after 1945, the welfare state and its institutions were not a solution to earlier dilemmas: they were simply the normal conditions of life - and more than a little dull. The baby boomers, entering university in the mid-'60s, had only ever known a world of improving life chances, generous medical and educated services, optimistic prospects of upward social mobility and - perhaps above all - an indefinable but ubiquitous sense of security. The goals of an earlier generation of reformers were no longer of interest to their successors. On the contrary, they were increasingly perceived as restrictions upon the self-expression and freedom of the individual. ~ Tony Judt,
942:Night
'Tis solemn darkness; the sublime of shade;
Night, by no stars nor rising moon relieved;
The awful blank of nothingness arrayed,
O'er which my eye-balls roll in vain, deceived.
Upward, around, and downward I explore,
E'en to the frontiers of the ebon air,
But cannot, though I strive, discover more
Than what seems one huge cavern of despair.
Oh, Night, art thou so grim, when, black and bare
Of moonbeams, and no cloudlets to adorn,
Like a nude Ethiop 'twixt two houris fair,
Thou stand'st between the evening and the morn?
I took thee for an angel, but have wooed
A cacodaemon in mine ignorant mood.
~ Charles Heavysege,
943:My rule of thumb is that if you spend 2 percent of your nest egg per year, adjusted upward for the cost of living, you are as secure as possible; at 3 percent, you are probably safe; at 4 percent, you are taking real risks; and at 5 percent, you had better like cat food and vacations very close to home. For example, if, in addition to Social Security and pensions, you spend $50,000 per year in living expenses, that means you will need $2.5 million to be perfectly safe, and $1.67 million to be fairly secure. If you have “only” $1.25 million, you are taking chances; if you are starting with $1 million, there is a good chance you will eventually run out of money. ~ William J Bernstein,
944:If you yield yourself up to His divine working, the Lord will alter your nature; He will subdue the old nature, and breathe new life into you. Put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and He will give you a heart of flesh. Where everything was hard, everything shall be tender; where everything was vicious, everything shall be virtuous: where everything tended downward, everything shall rise upward with impetuous force. The lion of anger shall give place to the lamb of meekness; the raven of uncleanness shall fly before the dove of purity; the vile serpent of deceit shall be trodden under the heel of truth. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
945:Borrowed Brains
Writer folk across the bay
Take the pains to see and say
All their upward palms in air:
'Joaquin Miller's cut his hair!'
Hasten, hasten, writer folk
In the gutters rake and poke,
If by God's exceeding grace
You may hit upon the place
Where the barber threw at length
Samson's literary strength.
Find it, find it if you can;
Happy the successful man!
He has but to put one strand
In his beaver's inner band
And his intellect will soar
As it never did before!
While an inch of it remains
He will noted be for brains,
And at last ('twill so befall)
Fit to cease to write at all.
~ Ambrose Bierce,
946:Fortunately, no matter how many times she is pushed down, she bounds up again. No matter how many times she is forbidden, quelled, cut back, diluted, tortured, touted as unsafe, dangerous, mad, and other derogations, she emanates upward in women, so that even the most quiet, even the most restrained woman keeps a secret place for Wild Woman, Even the more repressed woman has a secret life, with secret thoughts and secret feelings which are lush and wild, that is, natural. Even the most captured woman guards the place of the wildish self, for she knows intuitively that someday there will be a loophole, an aperture, a chance, and she will hightail it to escape. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Est s,
947:High Pasture

Come up--come up: in the dim vale below
The autumn mist muffles the fading trees,
But on this keen hill-pasture, though the breeze
Has stretched the thwart boughs bare to meet the snow,

Night is not, autumn is not--but the flow
Of vast, ethereal and irradiate seas,
Poured from the far world's flaming boundaries
In waxing tides of unimagined glow.

And to that height illumined of the mind
he calls us still by the familiar way,
Leaving the sodden tracks of life behind,
Befogged in failure, chilled with love's decay--
Showing us, as the night-mists upward wind,
How on the heights is day and still more day. ~ Edith Wharton,
948:No state, however democratic,” Bakunin wrote, “not even the reddest republic—can ever give the people what they really want, i.e., the free self-organization and administration of their own affairs from the bottom upward, without any interference or violence from above, because every state, even the pseudo–People’s State concocted by Mr. Marx, is in essence only a machine ruling the masses from above, through a privileged minority of conceited intellectuals, who imagine that they know what the people need and want better than do the people themselves. . . .” “But the people will feel no better if the stick with which they are being beaten is labeled ‘the people’s stick ~ Noam Chomsky,
949:The Altar
Alone, remote, nor witting where I went,
I found an altar builded in a dream—
A fiery place, whereof there was a gleam
So swift, so searching, and so eloquent
Of upward promise, that love’s murmur, blent
With sorrow’s warning, gave but a supreme
Unending impulse to that human stream
Whose flood was all for the flame’s fury bent.
Alas! I said,—the world is in the wrong.
But the same quenchless fever of unrest
That thrilled the foremost of that martyred throng
Thrilled me, and I awoke … and was the same
Bewildered insect plunging for the flame
That burns, and must burn somehow for the best.
~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,
950:The ecstatic vision and social program sought to rebuild a society upward from its grass roots but on principles of religious and economic egalitarianism, with free healing brought directly to the peasant homes and free sharing of whatever they had in return. The deliberate conjunction of magic and meal, miracle and table, free compassion and open commensality, was a challenge launched not just at Judaism’s strictest purity regulations, or even at the Mediterranean’s patriarchal combination of honor and shame, patronage and clientage, but at civilization’s eternal inclination to draw lines, invoke boundaries, establish hierarchies, and maintain discriminations. ~ John Dominic Crossan,
951:Sonnet Xvi
And yet, because thou overcomest so,
Because thou art more noble and like a king,
Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow
Too close against thine heart henceforth to know
How it shook when alone. Why, conquering
May prove as lordly and complete a thing
In lifting upward, as in crushing low !
And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,
Even so, Beloved, I at last record,
Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,
I rise above abasement at the word.
Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
952:We have been cut off, the past has been ended and the family has broken up and the present is adrift in its wheelchair. ... That is no gap between the generations, that is a gulf. The elements have changed, there are whole new orders of magnitude and kind. [...]

My grandparents had to live their way out of one world and into another, or into several others, making new out of old the way corals live their reef upward. I am on my grandparents' side. I believe in Time, as they did, and in the life chronological rather than in the life existential. We live in time and through it, we build our huts in its ruins, or used to, and we cannot afford all these abandonings. ~ Wallace Stegner,
953:Samaría is a thunderbolt in stone, a thin gash that splits two rock towers and zigzags eleven miles upward from the beach until it crests on a grassy mountain plateau. It’s a terrific place to hide, because the walls are honeycombed with caverns; tuck inside one and dislodging you could be lethal. No one can get down to you from above, and coming up from below means crossing your kill zone. During the war, the Gorge became a free-for-all zone for Evaders, who could see pursuers coming from miles away and scamper down to the beach whenever they heard rumors of a rescue boat, and the “wind boys”—Cretan desperadoes whose only allegiance was to their own cutthroat gang. ~ Christopher McDougall,
954:But he knew what those stiff patches on the jeans and underpants looked like; he had been masturbating three and sometimes four times a day since he turned fourteen, using an old piece of towel to shoot his spunk into, and then using the backyard tap to rinse it out when his parents were gone. Sometimes he forgot, though, and that piece of toweling got pretty crusty. Only there had been a lot of that stuff, a lot, and really, who would jizz off on a brand-new pair of Adipowers, high-class kicks that cost upward of a hundred and forty dollars, even at Wally World? Dougie might have thought about taking them for himself under other circumstances, but not with that crap on them, ~ Stephen King,
955:Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel--he stared at it for a moment and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky. "It came off," some one explained. He nodded. "At first I din' notice we'd stopped." A pause. Then, taking a long breath and straightening his shoulders he remarked in a determined voice: "Wonder'ff tell me where there's a gas'line station?" At least a dozen men, some of them little better off than he was, explained to him that wheel and car were no longer joined by any physical bond. "Back out," he suggested after a moment. "Put her in reverse." "But the WHEEL'S off!" He hesitated. "No harm in trying," he said. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald,
956:Scarlet O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin-that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns. ~ Margaret Mitchell,
957:So you're saying you came without your Dom." The corners of his luscious mouth tipped upward, just the barest hint of a smile.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     "No," I corrected in a sweet voice. "I'm saying I'm my own Dom. ~ Lucian Bane,
958:Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin - that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns. ~ Margaret Mitchell,
959:Sonnet- I
My soul goes out to meet her, and my heart
Flings wide the portals of its love, and yearns
To have her enter its serene retreat.
A poor stray lamb, not wand'ring from the fold,
But all unstudied in the worldling's art,
Turning life's mintage into seeming gold,
Wherewith to purchase love and love's returns;
Unknowing that love's waters, though so sweet,
Lead to some bitter Marah. So my soul
Goes out to meet her, and it clasps her home,
And seeks to bear her upward to the goal
At which the righteous enter. From the dome
Of starriest Night two blest Immortals come,
To bear us spheral-ward to God's own mercy-seat.
~ Charles Sangster,
960:Here’s what turns a successful hierarchy into one that impedes progress: when too many people begin, subconsciously, to equate their own value and that of others with where they fall in the pecking order. Thus, they focus their energies on managing upward while treating people beneath them on the organizational chart poorly. The people I have seen do this seem to be acting on animal instinct, unaware of what they are doing. This problem is not caused by hierarchy itself but by individual or cultural delusions associated with hierarchy, chiefly those that assign personal worth based on rank. By not thinking about how and why we value people, we can fall into this trap almost by default. ~ Ed Catmull,
961:Men are put into this world, he [the enlightened conservative] realizes, to struggle, to suffer, to contend against the evil that is in their neighbors and in themselves, and to aspire toward the triumph of Love. They are put into this world to live like men, and to die like men. He seeks to preserve a society which allows men to attain manhood, rather than keeping them within bonds of perpetual childhood. With Dante, he looks upward from this place of slime, this world of gorgons and chimeras, toward the light which gives Love to this poor earth and all the stars. And, with Burke, he knows that “they will never love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate. ~ Russell Kirk,
962:Efflorescence is an archetypal example of nature's untrammeled creativity; and the fact that floral beauty cannot be explained or justified on purely utilitarian grounds is precisely what makes this explosion so wonderful-and so typical of other life-processes. Biological creativity and the esthetic creativity that so often accompanies it exist for their own sake and transcend the organism's earlier limitations. If survival were all that mattered, life might have remained in the primal ooze or crept no further upward than the lichens. Though one may abstractly conceive a world with neither colors nor any richness of living structures, that muted world is not the actual world of life. ~ Lewis Mumford,
963:Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
964:On this upward and sometimes hazardous journey, each of us meets our share of daily challenges. If we are not careful, as we peer through the narrow lens of self-interest, we may feel that life is bringing us more than our fair share of trials--that somehow others seem to be getting off more lightly.

But the tests of life are tailored for our own best interests, and all will face the burdens best suited to their own mortal experience. In the end we will realize that God is merciful as well as just and that all the rules are fair. We can be reassured that our challenges will be the ones we needed, and conquering them will bring blessings we could have received in no other way. ~ Jeffrey R Holland,
965:Meditation for the Day “He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends the rain on the just and the unjust.” God does not interfere with the working of natural laws. The laws of nature are unchangeable, otherwise we could not depend on them. As far as natural laws are concerned, God makes no distinction between good and bad people. Sickness or death may strike anywhere. But spiritual laws are also made to be obeyed. Our choice of good or evil depends on whether we go upward to true success and victory in life or downward to loss and defeat. Prayer for the Day I pray that I may choose today the way of the spiritual life. I pray that I may live today with faith and hope and love. ~ Anonymous,
966:Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.
And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
967:Los Angeles is a town where status is all and status is only given to success. Dukes and millionaires and playboys by the dozen may arrive and be glad-handed for a time, but they are unwise if they choose to live there because the town is, perhaps even creditably, committed to recognising only professional success, and nothing else, to be of lasting value. The burdensome obligation imposed on all its inhabitants is therefore to present themselves as successes, because otherwise they forfeit their right to respect in that environment ... There is no place in that town for the "interesting failure" or for anyone who is not determined on a life that will be shaped in a upward-heading curve. ~ Julian Fellowes,
968:Make me a story.”
“Hunter, I don’t have a stitch of clothes on,” she squeaked.
One of his dark eyebrows flicked upward. “You must have clothes to make stories?”
“No. I guess I…well, it might help me think.”
He sighed and rolled onto his back, carrying her along with him in the curve of his arm. Pressing her head onto his shoulder, he made a valiant attempt to ignore the feeling of her silken flesh against his and said, “This Comanche wears breeches. I will make the story.”
And with that, Hunter began talking, smiling to himself every once in a while because he quickly discovered that he had as much trouble concentrating as she did when she didn’t have clothes on. ~ Catherine Anderson,
969:HOW solemn, as one by one,
As the ranks returning, all worn and sweaty—as the men file by where I stand;
As the faces, the masks appear—as I glance at the faces, studying the masks;
(As I glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you are;)
How solemn the thought of my whispering soul, to each in the ranks, and to you;
I see behind each mask, that wonder, a kindred soul;
O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,
Nor the bayonet stab what you really are:
... The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best,
Waiting, secure and content, which the bullet could never kill,
Nor the bayonet stab, O friend! ~ Walt Whitman,
970:I also went to Kyoto. I had found no occasion to visit the city in over twenty years, and was struck to find that the graceful, vital metropolis I remembered was nearly extinct, disappearing like an unloved garden given over to vapid, industrious weeds. Where was the fulgent peak of Higashi Honganji Temple, sweeping upward among the surrounding tiled roofs like the upturned chin of a princess among her retainers? That magnificent view, which had once greeted travelers to the city, was now blotted out by the new train station, an abomination that sprawled along a half-mile length of tracks like a massive turd that had plummeted from space and embedded itself there, too gargantuan to be carted away. ~ Barry Eisler,
971:I opened my eyes to see a silver chain, like his but thinner, longer, with a saint pendant on it. I wasn't the same as his, though; the image was of a man's profile, his eyes turned upward.
'Who is it?' I asked.
'No idea. I found it in a jar my mom has full of them,' he said. 'I was looking for someone like mine, then just someone I recognized. But then I thought maybe it was cooler to have it be a mystery, you know? So it's not just about one thing, but anything. That way, it can be about what you want it to be.'
I turned it over in my hand. Like the image on the front, the back was well-worn, the few words there unreadable.
'Saint Anything.' I looked up at him. 'I love it. Thank you. ~ Sarah Dessen,
972:Sonnet Xvi: And Yet, Because Thou
And yet, because thou overcomest so,
Because thou art more noble and like a king,
Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow
Too close against thine heart henceforth to know
How it shook when alone. Why, conquering
May prove as lordly and complete a thing
In lifting upward, as in crushing low!
And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
To one who lifts him from the bloody earth;
Even so, Belovèd, I at last record,
Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,
I rise above abasement at the word.
Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
973:FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS In an interdependent situation, synergy is particularly powerful in dealing with negative forces that work against growth and change. Sociologist Kurt Lewin developed a “Force Field Analysis” model in which he described any current level of performance or being as a state of equilibrium between the driving forces that encourage upward movement and the restraining forces that discourage it. Driving forces generally are positive, reasonable, logical, conscious, and economic. In juxtaposition, restraining forces are often negative, emotional, illogical, unconscious, and social/psychological. Both sets of forces are very real and must be taken into account in dealing with change. ~ Stephen R Covey,
974:... people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
975:I am reminded of the apocryphal conversation between Confucius and Lao-tzu, when the former had been prating of universal love without the element of self. “What stuff!” cried Lao-tzu. “Does not universal love contradict itself? Is not your elimination of self a positive manifestation of self? Sir, if you would cause the world not to lose its source of nourishment: there is the universe, its regularity is unceasing; there are the sun and moon, their brightness is unceasing; there are the stars, their groupings never change; there are the birds and beasts, they flock together without varying; there are trees and shrubs, they grow upward without exception. Like these, accord with the Tao—with the way of ~ Alan W Watts,
976:My net search is finding only a Cadet Carswell Thorne, of the American Republic, imprisoned in New Beijing prison on—"
"That's him," said Cinder, ignoring Thorne's glare.
Another silence as the heat in the engine room hovered just upside of comfortable. The, "You're... rather handsome, Captain Thorne."
Cinder groaned.
"And you, my fine lady, are the most gorgeous ship in these skies, and don't let anyone ever tell you different."
The temperature drifted upward, until Cinder dropped her arms with a sigh. "Iko, are you intentionally blushing?"
The temperature dropped back down to pleasant. "No," Iko said. Then, "But am I really pretty? Even as a ship?"
"The prettiest," said Thorne. ~ Marissa Meyer,
977:Sicilian Lullaby
Hush, little one, and fold your hands;
The sun hath set, the moon is high;
The sea is singing to the sands,
And wakeful posies are beguiled
By many a fairy lullaby:
Hush, little child, my little child!
Dream, little one, and in your dreams
Float upward from this lowly place,-Float out on mellow, misty streams
To lands where bideth Mary mild,
And let her kiss thy little face,
You little child, my little child!
Sleep, little one, and take thy rest,
With angels bending over thee,-Sleep sweetly on that Father's breast
Whom our dear Christ hath reconciled;
But stay not there,--come back to me,
O little child, my little child!
~ Eugene Field,
978:Awareness started to creep in, clawing its way past the pain and numbness. He was lying on cold ground, his right cheek on a rough, hard floor. Concrete maybe. Adam tried to open his eyes, but it felt like spiders had spun webs across them. When he blinked hard, a fresh surge of pain nearly made him gasp out loud. When his eyes finally did open, he saw a pair of Adidas sneakers. He tried to remember what had happened. He’d been following Gabrielle. He remembered that now. He’d been following her to a lake and then. . . . “Adam?” He knew that voice. He had heard it only once before, but it had echoed in his head ever since. With his cheek still on the concrete, he forced his gaze upward. The stranger. “Why ~ Harlan Coben,
979:There, flanking either side of the walkway were a pair of raised fountains. The base of each was a shell-shaped bowl filled with water and lily pads. Standing in each bowl was the masculine version of Boticelli's famous "Birth of Venus". The man stood in the same pose as Venus, left hand coyly drawn up o cover his chest, right down by his genitals, yet instead of covering them, he held his optimistically endowed penis, pointing it upward. Water jetted from each penis, and over into the basin of the twin statue opposite. The water didn't flow in a smooth stream though. It spurted. "Please tell me there is something wrong with his water pressure" Cassandra said. "No, I believe that's the desired effect. ~ Kelley Armstrong,
980:To stop there would be to accept helplessly the probability of civilization destroyed, the annihilation of the irreplaceable heritage of mankind handed down to us from generation to generation, and the condemnation of mankind to begin all over again the age-old struggle upward from savagery towards decency, and right, and justice. Surely no sane member of the human race could discover victory in such desolation. Could anyone wish his name to be coupled by history with such human degradation and destruction? Occasional pages of history do record the faces of the “great destroyers,” but the whole book of history reveals mankind’s never-ending quest for peace and mankind’s God-given capacity to build. ~ David Wallace Wells,
981:For many years I looked at life like a case at law. It was a series of proofs. When you’re young you prove how brave you are, or smart; then, what a good lover; then, a good father; finally, how wise, or powerful or [whatever.] But underlying it all, I see now, there was a presumption. That one moved…on an upward path toward some elevation, where…God knows what…I would be justified, or even condemned. A verdict anyway. I think now that my disaster really began when I looked up one day…and the bench was empty. No judge in sight. And all that remained was the endless argument with oneself, this pointless litigation of existence before an empty bench…. Which, of course, is another way of saying—despair.20 ~ Timothy J Keller,
982:Substitution
WHEN some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new-What hope ? what help ? what music will undo
That silence to your sense ? Not friendship's sigh,
Not reason's subtle count; not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew;
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales
Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees
To the clear moon; nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted, nor the angels' sweet ' All hails,'
Met in the smile of God: nay, none of these.
Speak THOU, availing Christ !--and fill this pause.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
983:How about that one? Is that a constellation?" I asked, pointing upward. We were down in the small valley where the truck was parked. Alex sat leaning against a rock; I was between his legs with my back against his chest, his arms around me as we stared up at the stars.

"Yeah, that's the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades." He bent his head, and I caught my breath as his warm mouth nuzzled at my neck. I hadn't gotten even remotely used yet to how good it felt to be kissed by Alex.

"It's so sexy how you know all of this," I said when I could speak again.

"Yeah?" I heard the grin in his voice. "I know the summer constellations, too. Will that get me bonus kisses?"

"I think it might, actually. ~ L A Weatherly,
984:Love is an excellent thing and a very great blessing, indeed. It makes every difficulty easy. It bears a burden without being weighted, and renders sweet all that is bitter. Love knows no limits, feels no burden, thinks nothing of troubles, attempts more than it is able, because it believes that it may and can do all things; for this reason it is able to do all, performing much where he who does not love fails and falls. Love is watchful. Sleeping, it does not slumber. Like a living flame, a burning torch, it tends upward and passes unharmed through every obstacle.” Whatever faults may be committed, big or small, whatever clouds may pile up on the horizon, dark and threatening, love will overcome all. ~ Maria Augusta von Trapp,
985:As Christians, we are called to be a people of vision. We must learn to set a goal or target in front of our eyes to gaze upon. It is only when we aim at something that we have any chance of hitting it! The apostle Paul set his sights on knowing Christ, which he acknowledged was a lifelong process: Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude (Philippians 3:13-15a). Like Paul, we need to be a people of vision. Let us set our sights on the Lord and aim at His goals. ~ James W Goll,
986:Sonnet 16 - And Yet, Because Thou Overcomest So
XVI
And yet, because thou overcomest so,
Because thou art more noble and like a king,
Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling
Thy purple round me, till my heart shall grow
Too close against thine heart henceforth to know
How it shook when alone. Why, conquering
May prove as lordly and complete a thing
In lifting upward, as in crushing low!
And as a vanquished soldier yields his sword
To one who lifts him from the bloody earth,
Even so, Beloved, I at last record,
Here ends my strife. If thou invite me forth,
I rise above abasement at the word.
Make thy love larger to enlarge my worth.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
987:He sleeps in Jesus—peaceful rest —     No mortal strife invades, his breast; No pain, or sin, or woe, or care,     Can reach the silent slumberer there.  “He lived, his Saviour to adore,     And meekly all his sufferings bore. He loved, and all resigned to God;     Nor murmured at his chastening rod.  “’Does earth attract thee here?’ they cried,     The dying Christian thus replied: While pointing upward to the sky,     ‘My treasure is laid up on high.’  “He sleeps in Jesus—soon to rise,     When the last trump shall rend the skies; Then burst the fetters of the tomb,     To wake in full, immortal bloom.  “He sleeps in Jesus—cease thy grief;     Let this afford thee sweet relief— That, freed from death’s triumphant ~ James White,
988:My Soul Goes Out To Meet Her And My Heart
My soul goes out to meet her, and my heart
Flings wide the portals of its love, and yearns
To have her enter its serene retreat.
A poor stray lamb, not wand'ring from the fold,
But all unstudied in the worldling's art,
Turning life's mintage into seeming gold,
Wherewith to purchase love and love's returns;
Unknowing that love's waters, though so sweet,
Lead to some bitter Marah. So my soul
Goes out to meet her, and it clasps her home,
And seeks to bear her upward to the goal
At which the righteous enter. From the dome
Of starriest Night two blest Immortals come,
To bear us spheral-ward to God's own mercy-seat.
~ Charles Sangster,
989:Hackham Heath was an open space covered with knee-high gorse, interspersed with clumps of taller bushes. It stretched for half a kilometer and on either side it was bounded by thick forest. The ground sloped upward, and at the beginning of the slope, the Slipsunder River ran in a huge U-shaped curve. The river widened at the semicircular curve, and the water shallowed, providing a ford. The army had crossed that spot the previous day. Around the ford, the banks were wet and muddy, but by no means impassable. To either side, in the arms of the U, the river ran among thick trees. It was narrower, but much deeper. And the current was fast and treacherous. The ford was the only point where it was possible to cross. The ~ John Flanagan,
990:His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of the skull, his forehead was lightly freckled, his fingernails were clean, the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, his right cheek was smooth and hairless, there was a butterfly on his chin, his neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny and it was this wound that had killed him. He lay face-up in the center of the trail, a slim, dead, almost dainty young man. ~ Tim O Brien,
991:Beowulf’s picture was far more elaborate than those of his siblings, and it did need a bit more work coloring in the background, but the gist of it was on full, frightening view. In the sky: a full moon, its eerie glow partially obscured by dark, swirling clouds. In the foreground: the dense, ferny undergrowth of a forest, bordered by a few gnarled tree trunks rising upward. In the center of the page: an old woman, wrapped in a cloak. Her mouth hung open in a leering smile, and her teeth were large and razor sharp, with a prominent set of gleaming white incisors. From the back of her shroudlike garments poked a long, wolfish tail. Cassiopeia and Alexander clapped and barked with admiration, but Penelope’s skin went cold. ~ Maryrose Wood,
992:I woke on my back with Narian’s arm draped across my waist, aware that we had slept later than usual. What time was it? Late enough that the sun was fighting through the gaps in my drapes; late enough that someone was pounding on my parlor door.
I jolted upright, startling Narian into wakefulness. He was on his feet before he had gotten his bearings, and he looked amusingly disoriented until he realized where he was, that he had overslept and that someone wanted to see me.
He snatched up his weapons belt and flew to the window, giving me a nod before vanishing through the opening, crawling upward using the rope he’d left hanging. He would go over the roof and return to his own quarters to avoid being caught in mine. ~ Cayla Kluver,
993:Please look. Can you see us? Can you see us, in our little red car? Picture us from above, as if you were flying above us, in, say, a helicopter, or on the back of a bird, as our car hurtles, low to the ground, straining on the slow upward trajectory but still at sixty, sixty-five, around the relentless, sometimes ridiculous bends of Highway 1. Look at us, goddammit, the two of us slingshotted from the backside of the moon, greedily cartwheeling toward everything we are owed. Every day we are collecting on what's coming to us, each day we're being paid pack for what is owed, what we deserve, with interest, with some extra motherfucking consideration - we are owed, goddammit - and so we are expecting everything, everything. ~ Dave Eggers,
994:I sit on the bed and kick off my shoes, and he kneels before me and takes the riding boots, holding one open for my bare foot. I hesitate; it is such an intimate gesture between a young woman and a man. His smiling upward glance tells me that he understands my hesitation but is ignoring it. I point my toe and he holds the boot, I slide my foot in and he pulls the boot over my calf. He takes the soft leather ties and fastens the boot, at my ankle, then at my calf, and then just below my knee. He looks up at me, his hand gently on my toe. I can feel the warmth of his hand through the soft leather. I imagine my toes curling in pleasure at his touch.

‘Anne, will you marry me?’ he asks simply, as he kneels before me. ~ Philippa Gregory,
995:As a child dragged out of bed at 2 a.m. by my Carl Sagan–worshiping father, I would pick a section of sky and watch it closely, waiting for the meteors to move through it. Waiting for the meteors to come to me. I would frustrate myself, angry when my sisters gasped and squealed as they saw stars fall while my chosen sky remained static. One has to open oneself up, take in the whole canvas without choosing, without discriminating. Relinquish focus and choose expansion. That is the song of the call to prayer. It moves you upward and outward, works you out of three dimensions and into four. Widen your scope, it sings. Unfix yourself. Allow yourself to move endlessly. Why choose a fragment when you can have the whole night sky? ~ Jessa Crispin,
996:One of his hands caught her knee from beneath, urging her leg higher against his, and he pushed strongly within her.
She shuddered, her body locked to him, and then a languorous warmth suffused her as she relaxed to his rhythm. Their clothes rustled together, crushed masses of silk and broadcloth and velvet, separating them everywhere except in the wet, naked heat of their loins. She leaned against the door, her body rising from each upward drive. She was utterly possessed by him, no longer caring about the risk they were taking, conscious only of the ecstasy of his flesh joined to hers. Muttering fiercely into the curve of her neck, he thrust faster, creating silken friction that finally drove her into a scalding orgasm. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
997:The things which certain stupid men invent, who indulge their fancy, and give bodily form to the punishment of sinners and the reward of the just and righteous, and say that there is at the resurrection a reckoning and a pair of scales, the Church does not receive; but each one of us carries his light and his fire within him, and his heaviness and his lightness is found in his own nature. Just as stone and iron naturally possess the property of falling to the earth, and as the air naturally ascends upward on account of its rarity and its lightness; so also in the resurrection, he that is heavy and lying in sins, his sins will bring him down; and he that is free from the rust of sin, his purity will make him rise in the scale.34 ~ Philip Jenkins,
998:One of our greatest failures in our busy, driven culture is that we don't celebrate the temporary untying of a complex narrative...What is your style of celebrating an ending? Do you only throw large parties after someone graduates, gets married, or dies? If so, then all the other endings in your story are lost in the wake of another day's busyness. Perhaps one of the reasons you and I don't party well, is that we don't know what to do with the tragedies that linger in our life...Can you imagine receiving an invitation "JOIN ME IN A CELEBRATION OF NO LONGER BELIEVING I'M STUPID"?

We don't allow endings to be noted, let alone celebrated. Therefore we never allow denouement to be invigorate the upward movement of a new story. ~ Dan B Allender,
999:Dedication To The Edition Of 1876 To H.J.A.
Three graces still attend me, since the day
Your step across my graceless threshold came:
Reverence, and Gratitude, and Love, their name.
Reverence, whose gaze fears from the ground to stray,
And bows its head, and sues to you to lay
Your foot thereon, and keep my base self down:
Next, Gratitude, that, bolder, by degrees
Creeps up the folds of wedlock's rescuing gown,
To make a circling fondness round your knees;
And lastly, Love, which from that low perch sees
Chaste lips, and tender eyes, and tresses brown,
And, darting upward, finds a home with these.
So stand we level in that high embrace,
And I have all your glory on my face.
~ Alfred Austin,
1000:The boss had all but agreed to take him on for some sort of unskilled labor, when, struck by the cadaverous look of the man, he told him to bare his arm. Up went the sleeve of his coat and his ragged flannel shirt, exposing a naked arm with the muscles nearly gone, and the blue-white transparent skin stretched over sinews and the outlines of the bones. Pitiful beyond words was his effort to give a semblance of strength to the biceps which rose faintly to the upward movement of the forearm. But the boss sent him off with an oath and a contemptuous laugh; and I watched the fellow as he turned down the street, facing the fact of his starving family with a despair at his heart which only mortal man can feel and no mortal tongue can speak. ~ Jack London,
1001:The voice was calm and infinitely tender. He didn't understand the words, because unconsciousness still wrapped his mind in layers of blackness, but he heard the voice, felt it, like something warm touching his skin. It made him feel less alone, that tiny, dim contact. Something hard and vital in him focused on the contact, yearning toward it, forcing him upward out of the blackness, even though he sensed the fanged monsters that waited for him, waiting to tear at his flesh with hot knives and brutal teeth. He would have to endure that before he could reach the voice, and he was very weak. He might not make it. Yet the voice reached out to him, pulling at him like a magnet, lifting him out of the deep senselessness that had held him. ~ Linda Howard,
1002:Benjamin and I sat in the middle of one of the large canoes with our grandmother in the stern, directing us past shoals and through rapids and into magnificent stretches of water. One day the clouds hung low and light rain freckled the slate-grey water that peeled across our bow. The pellets of rain were warm and Benjamin and I caught them on our tongues as our grandmother laughed behind us. Our canoes skimmed along and as I watched the shoreline it seemed the land itself was in motion. The rocks lay lodged like hymns in the breast of it, and the trees bent upward in praise like crooked fingers. It was glorious. Ben felt it too. He looked at me with tears in his eyes, and I held his look a long time, drinking in the face of my brother. ~ Richard Wagamese,
1003:He went slowly, running his tongue up and down the full length of her slit. Teasing, tasting. Enjoying the hitch of her quickening breath. Feeling the little tremors in her thighs. Savoring the perfect softness of her most intimate places.
And then, when she began to arch against his mouth, he slid upward and touched his tongue to the place he knew she needed it most.
She cried out a little. Her hips bucked.
He reached under her petticoats, cupping the twin globes of her arse in his hands to hold her still.
So... very... still...
As he worried that sensitive bud with the gentlest flicks of his tongue.
Soon her hips were rolling in an instinctive rhythm. Moving with him, against him. If he withdrew his tongue, she chased it. ~ Tessa Dare,
1004:The luminosity below me seemed confined directly to the area to be lighted; there was no diffusion of light upward or beyond the limits the lamps were designed to light. This was effected, I was told, by lamps designed upon principles resulting from ages of investigation of the properties of light waves and the laws governing them which permit Barsoomian scientists to confine and control light as we confine and control matter. The light waves leave the lamp, pass along a prescribed circuit and return to the lamp. There is no waste nor, strange this seemed to me, are there any dense shadows when lights are properly installed and adjusted, for the waves in passing around objects to return to the lamp, illuminate all sides of them. The ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs,
1005:He played with her, flicking and stroking, his fingers sinking into her wet, gripping depths. It aroused him to see how hard she was trying to be quiet and couldn't manage it, strangled moans and gasps slipping out.
After unbuttoning his trousers and freeing his erection, West braced Phoebe up against the wall and entered her. She let out a cry of surprise at finding herself mounted on his hips, her legs dangling helplessly. Keeping her supported, he began to thrust, nudging against the bud of her sex with every upward plunge.
"Is this good?" he asked gruffly, even though he could feel her throbbing response.
"Yes."
"Too deep?"
"No. No. Keep doing that." She clutched at his shoulders, her pleasure rising rapidly toward climax. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1006:Individuals support growth-oriented policies, because they believe growth will give them an ever increasing welfare. Governments seek growth as a remedy for just about every problem. In the rich world, growth is believed to be necessary for employment, upward mobility, and technical advance. In the poor world, growth seems to be the only way out of poverty. Many believe that growth is required to provide the resources necessary for protecting and improving the environment. Government and corporate leaders do all they can to produce more and more growth. For these reasons growth has come to be viewed as a cause for celebration. Just consider some synonyms for that word: development, progress, advance, gain, improvement, prosperity, success. ~ Donella H Meadows,
1007:There is no 'eugenics' in Nietzsche - despite occasional references to 'breeding'- at least no more than is implicit in the recommendation to choose a partner under decent lightning conditions and with one's self-respect intact. Everything else falls under training, discipline, education and self-design - the Übermensch implies not a biological but an artistic, not to say an acrobatic programme. The only thought-provoking aspect of the marriage recommendation quoted above is the difference between onward and upward propagation. This coincides with a critique of mere repetition - obviously it will no longer suffice in future for children, as one says, to 'return' in their children. There may be a right to imperfection, but not to triviality. ~ Peter Sloterdijk,
1008:Marguerite sighed, some of her tension leaving. “Yes, well he appears to have a strong mind.”
Lissianna nodded. “I noticed. I couldn’t get into his thoughts to calm him. Not at all. That’s why I was feeding on him. I thought it might allow me to merge with his mind and soothe him,” Lissianna explained.
“That seems to have worked well,” Thomas commented with amusement. “Although I wouldn’t say he was soothed exactly.”
Lissianna followed his gaze to the man’s groin, where an erection was pressing his dress pants upward. Even as she peered at it, the tent in his trousers slowly deflated.
“Not a cucumber then,” Thomas commented lightly, and Lissianna had to bite her lip on a nervous giggle.

-Marguerite, Lissianna, & Thomas ~ Lynsay Sands,
1009:We are misidentified—because we ourselves keep growing, keep changing,127 we shed our old bark, we shed our skins every spring, we keep becoming younger, fuller of future,128 taller, stronger, we push our roots ever more powerfully into the depths—into evil—while at the same time we embrace the heavens ever more lovingly, more broadly, imbibing their light ever more thirstily with all our twigs and leaves. Like trees we grow—this is hard to understand, as is all of life—not in one place only but everywhere, not in one direction but equally upward and outward and inward and downward; our energy is at work simultaneously in the trunk, branches, and roots; we are no longer free to do only one particular thing, to be only one particular thing. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,
1010:I spoke of disintegrating, dissolving into your surroundings. About atoms coming undone from each other, and being freed from yourself.

She was free.

She was free to float upward. There was nothing to stop her. She was floating up through the roof of the car, through the atmosphere, through the stratosphere, into the stars. Into outer space. Her atoms were intermingling with stardust. She was floating up here because this was where she belonged. Her atoms were weaving like thread into the fabric of the universe. Together, they formed a tapestry - a great, infinite tapestry - of stars and nebulae, of death and darkness, of life and creation. Swirling together. Endless.

She was the universe.

And the universe accepted her. ~ Preston Norton,
1011:Accident, they say, favors the prepared mind. Opportunity knocks only for those who are ready at the door. If we believe the novels we read, upward mobility is always ambitious, hungry, and aggressive, or at the very least, discontented. The George Willards are forever yearning away from the spiritual starvation of Winesburg toward some vague larger life. But that is not always the way it is. Some of us didn’t know enough to be discontented and ambitious. Some of us had such limited experience and limited aspirations that only accident, or the actions of others, or perhaps some inescapable psychosocial fate, could explode us out of our ruts. In a way, I suppose I had to hitchhike out of my childhood; but if I did, I did it without raising my thumb. ~ Wallace Stegner,
1012:Beth ached where they joined. The friction burned on her petals too long untouched, fire that made her want to open her legs wide. She did, sliding her feet on the covers, letting her hips arch upward.
"Do you feel it?" Ian asked.
A dozen phrases went through Beth's head, but she gasped out, "Yes."
"Your cunny is tight, my Beth. Squeezing me so hard." He smiled when he said it, feral and raw.
No man had ever done bawdy talk with her. Game girls had told her of it, but she'd never dreamed she'd hear it hot in her ear, spoken by a beautiful man.
"Squeeze me some more, love," he murmured. "You feel so damn good."
"Good," Beth echoed. She tightened her muscles, and he groaned.
He felt good. All full and hard and moving inside her. ~ Jennifer Ashley,
1013:I slept far more heavily than I had expected or intended, waking when the room was dark.
Surprised that Luke hadn’t made a sound, I reached for him and felt a thrill of panic as my hand found nothing but empty space. “Luke!” I scrambled upward, gasping.
“Hey . . .” Jack entered the room and turned on the light. “Easy. It’s okay, Ella.” His voice was soothing and soft. “The baby woke up before you did. I took him to the other room to let you get a little more sleep. We’ve been watching a game.”
“Did he cry?” I asked thickly, rubbing my eyes.
“Only when he realized the Astros were having another first-round play-off flameout. But I told him there’s no shame in crying over the Astros. It’s how we Houston guys bond.”

-Ella & Jack ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1014:She reached toward the chessboard, and he caught her hand in his. “Believe me,” he whispered. “When I wish to be, I can be very convincing.” He followed the seam of her fingers with this thumb, tracing slowly upward until he reached the soft cleft below her knuckles. He watched as her eyes widened and her lips parted. Then he stroked the spot lightly—a quick, circular caress—and she made a little sound, half gasp and half sigh. That little sound—that tiny, panting breath—was very nearly his undoing. Jeremy knew that sound. It was the tumbler of a lock falling in place, the charged crackle between lightning and thunderbolt, the hiss of a candlewick the instant before it comes alive with flame. An incomplete sound. A sound that promised—and begged for—more. ~ Tessa Dare,
1015:stepping lithe and incredulous from the study; of Karras, emerging bewildered from the kitchen while the nightmarish poundings and croakings continued. Merrin went calmly up the staircase, a slender hand like alabaster sliding upward on the banister. Karras came up beside Chris, and together they watched from below as Merrin entered Regan’s bedroom and closed the door behind him. For a time there was silence. Then abruptly the demon laughed hideously and Merrin swiftly exited the room, closed the door, then moved quickly down the hall while behind him the bedroom door opened again and Sharon poked her head out, staring after him with an odd expression on her face. Merrin descended the staircase rapidly and put out his hand to the waiting Karras. ~ William Peter Blatty,
1016:And now the solider toiled upward through an extremely steep ascent over rock outcroppings and ravines. At the top, they saw something few white men had ever seen: the preternaturally flat expanse of the high plains, covered only with short buffalo grass. 'As far as the eye could reach,' wrote Carter, 'not an object of any kind or living thing was in sight. It stretched out before us- one uninterrupted plain, only to be compared with the ocean in its vastness.' The scene was terrifying even for men with experience of the plains. 'This is a terrible country,' railroad worker Arthur Ferguson had written a few years earlier, 'the stillness, wildness, and desolation of which is awful... Not a tree to be seen... and it seemed as if the solitude had been eternal. ~ S C Gwynne,
1017:Before you help someone, you should find out why that person is in trouble. You shouldn’t merely assume that he or she is a noble victim of unjust circumstances and exploitation. It’s the most unlikely explanation, not the most probable. In my experience—clinical and otherwise—it’s just never been that simple. Besides, if you buy the story that everything terrible just happened on its own, with no personal responsibility on the part of the victim, you deny that person all agency in the past (and, by implication, in the present and future, as well). In this manner, you strip him or her of all power. It is far more likely that a given individual has just decided to reject the path upward, because of its difficulty. Perhaps that should even be your default ~ Jordan Peterson,
1018:Before you help someone, you should find out why that person is in trouble. You shouldn’t merely assume that he or she is a noble victim of unjust circumstances and exploitation. It’s the most unlikely explanation, not the most probable. In my experience—clinical and otherwise—it’s just never been that simple. Besides, if you buy the story that everything terrible just happened on its own, with no personal responsibility on the part of the victim, you deny that person all agency in the past (and, by implication, in the present and future, as well). In this manner, you strip him or her of all power. It is far more likely that a given individual has just decided to reject the path upward, because of its difficulty. Perhaps that should even be your default ~ Jordan B Peterson,
1019:His name was Anderson and he had little gift for communication. Like most technicians, he had a
terror and a contempt for speculation. The inductive leap was not for him. He dug a step and pulled himself up one single step, the way a man climbs the last shoulder of a mountain. He had great contempt, born of fear, for the Hamiltons, for they all half believed they had wings—and they got some bad falls that way.
Anderson never fell, never slipped back, never flew. His steps moved slowly, slowly upward, and in the end, it is said, he found what he wanted—color film. He married Una, perhaps, because she had little humor, and this reassured him. Una wrote bleak letters without joy but also without self-pity. She was well and she hoped her family was well. ~ John Steinbeck,
1020:Literature...describes a descent. First, gods. Then demigods. Then epic became tragedy: failed kings, failed heroes. Then the gentry. Then the middle class and its mercantile dreams. Then it was about you--Gina, Gilda: social realism. Then it was about them: lowlife. Villains. The ironic age...Literature, for a while, can be about us...:about writers. But that won't last long. How do we burst clear of all this? And he asked them: Whither the novel? ... Supposing...that the progress of literature (downward) was forced in that direction by the progress of cosmology (upward--up, up). For human beings, the history of cosmology is the history of increasing humiliation. Always hysterically but less and less fiercely resisted, as one illusion after another fell away. ~ Martin Amis,
1021:Then the ice on the black pathways through the park fixed an unreflecting gaze upward month after month, the cold unwavering through what should have been spring, so that even in April, in the Bowery in New York City, the braziers still glowed on street corners, and a man trying to warm his hands could watch the firelight picked up and carried in the windows above his head and imagine the glow traveling all the way along the avenues, square by square above the streets, all the way uptown and into the warm apartments of those who, pausing on the threshold to turn off the light, left their rooms and descended in woolens and furs, grumbling about the cold—good god, when will it end?—until it turned without fanfare one morning in May, and spring let loose at last. ~ Sarah Blake,
1022:And finally the two of them plunged into the dark sea, a sea like a pack of wolves, and they dove around the boat trying to find young Reiter's body, with no success, until they had to come up for air, and before they dove again, they asked the men on the boat whether the brat had surfaced. And then, under the weight of the negative response, they disappeared once more among the dark waves like forest beasts and one of the men who hadn't been in before joined them, and it was he who some fifteen feet down spotted the body of young Reiter floating like uprooted seaweed, upward, a brilliant white in the underwater space, and it was he who grabbed the body under the arms and brought him up, and also he who made the young Reiter vomit all the water he had swallowed. ~ Roberto Bola o,
1023:Have you always had this?” He pointed to a purple bruise that showed up the day I met him. “No. It just appeared.” I answered confused. He turned his palm upward to show me a similar mark on his palm. “We were meant to be.” He whispered and placed his palm over mine. Our marks were exactly in the same place; the place where his palm and my palm touched the first day we met. I barely whispered, “Brandon, I don’t understand.” The dizzy, lightheaded feeling was back. Brandon obviously didn’t understand the concept of personal space either as he pulled himself even closer to me. “I know. I’m sorry. We don’t have much time. You’re in danger.” “What do …” I started to lean back, but Brandon’s hands clasped to either side of my face and he pressed his smooth lips to mine. ~ Jordan Deen,
1024:Of the people I know who detest their jobs most, all are stuck in this position. It is their job to implement bad decisions made by others. It is their job to take responsibility for things that are not their fault. They can neither move up, nor move back down. They are more buffeted by storms of office politics than anyone else. It is not pretty. The true problem is not at the top. It is at the bottom. It is how you persuade decent, hardworking people that it is worth trying to advance. Given how bad the journey upward looks, it is no surprise that the people who embark on it and emerge victorious at the top are so often bent out of shape. Meanwhile some of the people who might have fared better at the top remain at the bottom, having wisely declined to climb at all. ~ Anonymous,
1025:Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
1026:The criers of the Mysteries speak again, bidding all men welcome to the House of Light. The great institution of materiality has failed. The false civilization built by man has turned, and like the monster of Frankenstein, is destroying its creator. Religion wanders aimlessly in the maze of theological speculation. Science batters itself impotently against the barriers of the unknown. Only transcendental philosophy knows the path. Only the illumined reason can carry the understanding part of man upward to the light. Only philosophy can teach man to be born well, to live well, to die well, and in perfect measure be born again. Into this band of the elect--those who have chosen the life of knowledge, of virtue, and of utility--the philosophers of the ages invite YOU. ~ Manly P Hall,
1027:(…) there was terror in the Berlin air – the terror felt by many people with good reason – and Christopher found himself affected by it. Perhaps he was also affected by his own fantasies. He had always posed a little to his friends in England as an embattled fighter against the Nazis and some of them had encouraged him jokingly to do so. “Don’t get killed before I come,” Edward Upward had written, “I’ll see you unless you’ve been shot by Hitler.” Now Christopher began to have mild hallucinations. He fancied that he heard heavy wagons drawing up before the house, in the middle of the night. He suddenly detected swastika patterns in the wallpaper. He convinced hinself that everything in his room, whatever its superficial color, was basically brown, Nazi brown. ~ Christopher Isherwood,
1028:Resting beside her, he seemed to Ildiko a living statue, carved from dark granite into a form of supple elegance and power. He was beautiful, and the tremor change in her perception of him robbed her lungs of air.
He opened both eyes suddenly, making her jump. Two shimmering gold coins stared at her unblinking. "Good evening, wife," he said in a voice raspy with the remnants of sleep. A closed-lip smile curved his mouth upward and deepened the tiny lines that fanned from the corners of his eyes. "You're staring. Do I have a fly on my nose?"
Fighting down a blush at being caught gawking at her own husband, Ildiko lightly tapped the tip of his nose with one finger. "I was trying to find a way to kill it without punching you in the face. Lucky for you, it flew away. ~ Grace Draven,
1029:My plans are a jumble for now, but I do know certain things that I will and will not do. [...] I will reach upward. I will attempt to do better. I will not be a burden upon those who have helped me too much already. I will always be grateful for what pleasure I have enjoyed, what joys I have yet to experience. I will take opportunities as they come, but at the same time, I will not trust so easily. I will look at who is at the door before opening it. I will try to be fierce. I will argue when necessary. I will be willing to fight. I will not smile reflexively at every person I see. I will live as a good child of God, and will forgive him each time he claims another of the people I love. I will forgive and attempt to understand his plans for me, and I will not pity myself. ~ Dave Eggers,
1030:We are the Western World. We read, see, think. Left. To. Right. We can't help it.
..The problem with Top to Bottom is that it's unAmerican. We want to begin in the depths and climb our way upward. But our typographic system argues against this and wins, and images follow suit.
..What you have to be careful to remember about Big and Small, is that they can extend to infinity in either direction. Consider: Big can always be bigger and Small smaller. The atom is the Universe and vice versa. And they're both identical.
..Left to Right, Top to Bottom, Big and Small; on a two-dimensional plane, all of these tools rely on a relative truth. Now we come to In Front Of and In Back of, which for us are big, fat lies. Very useful though, and the first of many at your disposal. ~ Chip Kidd,
1031:Annie R. Smith:—  “He sleeps in Jesus—peaceful rest —     No mortal strife invades, his breast; No pain, or sin, or woe, or care,     Can reach the silent slumberer there.  “He lived, his Saviour to adore,     And meekly all his sufferings bore. He loved, and all resigned to God;     Nor murmured at his chastening rod.  “’Does earth attract thee here?’ they cried,     The dying Christian thus replied: While pointing upward to the sky,     ‘My treasure is laid up on high.’  “He sleeps in Jesus—soon to rise,     When the last trump shall rend the skies; Then burst the fetters of the tomb,     To wake in full, immortal bloom.  “He sleeps in Jesus—cease thy grief;     Let this afford thee sweet relief— That, freed from death’s triumphant reign,     In heaven will he live again.  ~ James White,
1032:The Storm And The Bush
There are only two things in the world—
The storm in the air and the stretch of green leaves;
The flesh of the forest that quivers and heaves
As the blast on its bosom is hurled.
Above is the whip of the wind
That scourges the cowering forest beneath:
The Storm spits the hiss of the hail from his teeth,
And leaves the world writhing behind!
Like a beast that is bound in a cage
When the keeper's lash lights and the keeper's goad stings,
Each tree his great limbs to his torturer flings
In a groaning and impotent rage.
As the leaves to a fiercer gust lean
The wind throws their undersides upward to sight,
And the foam of the forest-sea flashes to white
Out over full fathoms of green.
~ Arthur Henry Adams,
1033:He lay in bed staring upward into the darkness. On the bunk above him, he could hear Peter turning and tossing restlessly. Then Peter slid off the bunk and walked out of the room. Ender heard the hushing sound of the toilet clearing; then Peter stood silhouetted in the doorway. He thinks I'm asleep. He's going to kill me. Peter walked to the bed, and sure enough, he did not lift himself up to his bed. Instead he came and stood by Ender's head. But he did not reach for a pillow to smother Ender. He did not have a weapon. He whispered, "Ender, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know how it feels, I'm sorry, I'm your brother, I love you." A long time later, Peter's even breathing said that he was asleep. Ender peeled the bandaid from his neck. And for the second time that day he cried. ~ Orson Scott Card,
1034:Mrs. Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person,–never cried, when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and from the cradle upward had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted; in short, the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Raphael, with the blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got a little too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more and more ineffectual. ~ George Eliot,
1035:Janner and Tink joined her and stared out at the sea, her song conjuring images of Anniera, feelings of home, of fire in the hearth. Then the song changed. It took on a sad tone, the notes bending upward like the croon of a lonely bird, and Janner knew Leeli was playing for Nugget. She poured her heart into the song and filled it with everything she felt. Suddenly, like a dream hovering at the front of his mind, Janner could see Nugget. The image swirled like a reflection in a pot of stirred water, gathering itself into clear, moving pictures of little Nugget running through the pasture, fetching a ball, wagging his tail as Leeli stooped to hand him a hogpig bone. The images hovered like smoke from a pipe, scene after beautiful scene of Nugget in all the stages of his life. ~ Andrew Peterson,
1036:Here's something else I'd like your opinion about," I said. "If he went back underground and sat down again in the same spot, wouldn't the sudden transition from the sunlight mean that his eyes would be overwhelmed by darkness?"

"Certainly," he replied.

"Now, the process of adjustment would be quite long this time, and suppose that before his eyes had settled down and while he wasn't seeing well, he had once again to compete against those same old prisoners at identifying those shadows. Would he make a fool of himself? Wouldn't they say that he'd come back from his upward journey with his eyes ruined, and that it wasn't even worth trying to go up there? And would they -- if they could -- grab hold of anyone who tried to set them free and take them up there and kill him? ~ Plato,
1037:The Holy Longing

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
Because the massman will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter,
now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
1038:I know what you thought!” Gord shouted, moving a threatening step upward. “You thought you could snare me, as you’ve snared so many others. Like a bloodthirsty savage, you feast on the hearts of men! You were so confident, so certain of your victory. I decided to let you think you’d won.” Coralina felt punched in the chest. Her knees gave out and she sat hard, her skirt puffing around her. Unable to lift her eyes to his face, she stared at Gord’s boots. “So... so it was all-” “Pretense,” said Gord. “I played your game, unpleasant though it was. Someone had to avenge the hearts you’ve broken. I knew I could do it - my heart was in no danger. You think yourself beautiful, Princess Coralina, but in my eyes you are ugly. I never admired you. I never cared for you. I never wanted you.” Another ~ Anita Valle,
1039:Masters are doers of the Word of Thelema. That is, they do their own True Will. And they are willing to pay the price for it. They take the greatest chance of all, that of being their own God, their own Individual, their own Self, and their own Leader and Master in a world of senseless followers and slaves. They accept complete responsibility for their own life and they always strive for excellence, continuously moving in an upward and onward manner, with energy and enthusiasm, discipline and diligence, persistence and power. They are strong, able to turn everything to the advantage of their True Will, and able to endure and surmount all the necessary trials and errors that lead to the fulfillment of their Chosen Path. Nothing is against them; they are not victims, and they make no excuses. ~ David Cherubim,
1040:I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world. The tiny elf dancer became a wooden doll whose strings were jerked by people not paying attention. I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.

I wanted to swallow the bitter seeds of forgetfulness. Cassie did, too. We leaned on each other, lost in the dark and wandering in endless circles. She got too tired an went to sleep. Somehow, I dragged myself out of the dark and asked for help.

I spin and weave and knit my words and visions until a life starts to take shape.

There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.


I am thawing. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson,
1041:In and out he went. In and out, over and over again until sparks of her earlier desire began to rekindle. He kissed her- long, wet, open-mouthed kisses that stole her breath, even as the vigorous movements of his hips turned her liquid and wanton with need.
She cried out, only this time not in pain, but in longing. Digging her heels into his buttocks, she urged him onward, clasping him to her with a sudden desperation she was helpless to resist.
Arching, she bounded upward to meet him, to take him as far and fast as her body would allow. Keening sounds came from her mouth, moans she barely recognized as her own as she gripped him harder. She remembered him saying something once about liking to ride, and suddenly she knew what he'd meant.
He was riding her- and it was sheer heaven. ~ Tracy Anne Warren,
1042:I miss my mother."
Mrs. Norton touched Trudy's shoulder in silent sympathy.
"She never had a chance to see any of her daughters get married."
Trudy laid the veil on the bed.
"It's hard to completely enjoy your wedding day when your mother isn't with you."
"Your mother did see your sisters wed and I'm sure she'll be with you today."
Trudy looked at the woman, astonished she hadn't received a more pious answer from a minister's wife.
She pointed a finger upward. "I know she's in heaven."
Mrs. Norton gently folded Trudy's hand until her palm rested on her chest, "In heaven and in your heart, love never fails, my dear Ms. Bower. I know it's not the same as feeling your mother's arms around you on such a special day, nevertheless, I'm sure she's sending you plenty of love. ~ Debra Holland,
1043:The movement of Eros spirituality is upward. Its essence, its drive, is the sinner finding God. The movement of Agape, by contrast, is downward. It is all about God finding the sinner. Eros spirituality is the kind of spirituality that arises from human nature, and it builds on the presumption that it can forge its own salvation. Agape arises in God, was incarnate in Christ, and reaches us through the work of the Holy Spirit opening lives to receive the gospel of Christ's saving death. In this understanding, salvation is given and never forged or manufactured. Eros is the projection of the human spirit into eternity, the immortalizing of its own impulses. Agape is the intrusion of eternity into the fabric of life, coming not from below, but from above. Eros is human love. Agape is divine love. Human ~ John Piper,
1044:You can close your eyes and think of England, if you like."
"I've never even been to England," she said, but she shut her eyelids. She could feel the dank heaviness of her clothes, cold and itchy against her skin, and the cloying sweet air of the cave, colder yet, and the weight of Jace's hands on her shoulders, the only things that were warm. And then he kissed her.
She felt the brush of his lips, light at first, and her own opened automatically beneath the pressure. Almost against her will she felt herself go fluid and pliant, stretching upward to twine her arms around his neck the way that a sunflower twists toward light. His arms slid around her, his hands knotting in her hair, and the kiss stopped being gentle and became fierce, all in a single moment like tinder flaring into a blaze. ~ Cassandra Clare,
1045:What is the object of religions? They are given to the world by men wiser than the masses of the people on whom they are bestowed, and are intended to quicken human evolution. In order to do this effectively they must reach individuals and influence them. Now all men are not at the same level of evolution, but evolution might be figured as a rising gradient, with men stationed on it at every point. The most highly evolved are far above the least evolved, both in intelligence and character... Yet all the types need religion, so that each may reach upward to a life higher than that which he is leading, and no type or grade should be sacrificed to any other. Religion must be as graduated as evolution, else it fails in its object. p. 5 ~ Annie Besant, Esoteric Christianity: Or, The Lesser Mysteries, by Annie Besant (1914),
1046:Ephesians 6 talks about God's armor. You will see that it is not yet a perfect victory, the final victory. We still need armor, but God's armor is so strong. When you read closely you will see that the Lord Jesus Himself is our armor. He is peace. He is truth. He is in you; you are in Him. It might be a battle, but this time it is in a blessed circle. It is the Devil attacking you; you are falling, but you are lifted up, forgiven, cleansed. That road takes you upward. It becomes increasingly victorious. The Lord Jesus will make you victorious, and you will be more than a conqueror. Thank You, Lord Jesus, that You lift us out of this vicious circle of sin and failure and that You have brought us into that wonderful blessed circle of forgiveness, redemption, and holiness. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Amen. ~ Corrie ten Boom,
1047:And following that train of though led him back to Earth, back to the quiet hours in the center of the clear water ringed by a bowl of tree-covered hills. That is the Earth, he though. Not a globe thousands of kilometers around, but a forest with a shining lake, a house hidden at the crest of the hill, high in the trees, a grassy slope leading upward from the water, fish leaping and birds strafing to take the bugs that lived at the border between water and sky. Earth was the constant noise of crickets and winds and birds. And the voice of one girl, who spoke to him out of his far-off childhood. The same voice that had once protected him from terror. The same voice that he would do anything to keep alive, even return to school, even leave Earth behind again for another four or forty or four thousand years. ~ Orson Scott Card,
1048:It was like penetrating deep into white marble with the pounding live thrust of
his chisel beating upward through the warm living marble with one ”Go!”, his whole body behind the heavy hammer, penetrating through ever deeper and deeper furrows of soft yielding living substance until he had reached the explosive climax, and all of his
fluid strength, love, passion, desire had been poured into the nascent form, and the marble block, made to love the and of the true sculptor, and responded, giving of its inner heat
and substance and fluid form, until at last the sculptor and the marble had totally coalesced, so deeply penetrating and infusing each other that they had become one, marble and man and organic unity, each fulfilling the other in the greatest act of art and love known to the human species. ~ Irving Stone,
1049:Appalachia teaches us that breaking people out of bad communities has more promise than changing those communities wholesale; that encouraging family stability—or at least not discouraging it through the tax code or needless incarceration—promotes upward mobility more effectively than transfer payments; that educating people for employment somewhere other than the depressed local labor market is a better investment than short-term public works; and that helping kids overcome low expectations creates more hope than giving money to those kids’ parents. As a policy agenda, this is a little less ambitious than transforming the mountains from a den of poverty into an engine of economic growth. But if the failures of Appalachia are any guide, a narrower policy agenda might actually serve the poor—white and black alike. ~ Anonymous,
1050:When he returned, Edith was in bed with the covers pulled to her chin, her face turned upward, her eyes closed, a thin frown creasing her forehead. Silently, as if she were asleep, Stoner undressed and got into bed beside her. For several moments he lay with his desire, which had become an impersonal thing, belonging to himself alone. He spoke to Edith, as if to find a haven for what he felt; she did not answer. He punt his hand upon her and felt beneath the thin cloth of her nightgown the flesh he had longed for. He moved his hand upon her; she did not stir; her frown deepened. Again he spoke, saying her name to silence; then he moved his hand upon her, gentle in his clumsiness. When he touched the softness of her thighs she turned her head sharply away and lifted her arm to cover her eyes. She made no sound. ~ John Williams,
1051:Remember, it is not the thing believed in, but the belief in your own mind which brings about the result. Cease believing in the false beliefs, opinions, superstitions, and fears of mankind. Begin to believe in the eternal verities and truths of life which never change. Then, you will move onward, upward, and Godward. Whoever reads this book and applies the principles of the subconscious mind herein set forth, will be able to pray scientifically and effectively for himself and for others. Your prayer is answered according to the universal law of action and reaction. Thought is incipient action. The reaction is the response from your subconscious mind which corresponds with the nature of your thought. Busy your mind with the concepts of harmony, health, peace, and good will, and wonders will happen in your life. ~ Joseph Murphy,
1052:There, conspicuous in the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a woman—the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles—the work of a shell.

The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries—something between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey—a startling, soulless, unholy sound, the language of a devil. The child was a deaf mute.

Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down upon the wreck. ~ Ambrose Bierce,
1053:All true Truth of love and of the works of love the psychic being accepts in their place: but its flame mounts always upward and it is eager to push the ascent from lesser to higher degrees of Truth, since it knows that only by the ascent to a highest Truth and the descent of that highest Truth can Love be delivered from the cross and placed upon the throne; for the cross is the sign of the Divine Descent barred and marred by the transversal line of a cosmic deformation which turns it into a stake of suffering and misfortune. Only by the ascent to the original Truth can the deformation be healed and all the works of love, as too all the works of knowledge and of life, be restored to a divine significance and become part of an integral spiritual existence.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,
1054:Uncle Avi. He said he’d heard that upward of thirty thousand Jewish men had been arrested by the Gestapo and the SS. Jacob blanched when he heard the number. But his father seemed to believe neither the number nor the source. “Arrested? Arrested for what?” “For being Jews—what else?” Avi said. “Thirty thousand? That’s ridiculous.” “It’s a fact, Reuben.” “Says who?” “I heard it from one of my suppliers, a goy from Wiesbaden,” Avi replied. “His son is high up in the Gestapo. Tells him everything. The man was practically bragging about it.” “Why would he tell you?” Dr. Weisz asked. “He doesn’t know I’m a Jew,” Avi said. “How’s that possible?” “He thinks I’m Catholic. Remember the crucifix I asked you to get me a few years back from your priest friend in Berlin?” “Of course.” “It’s hanging in my office in Cologne, ~ Joel C Rosenberg,
1055:Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable
than material improvement. To know is a sacrament, to
think is the prime necessity, truth is nourishment as well as
grain. A reason which fasts from science and wisdom grows
thin. Let us enter equal complaint against stomachs and
minds which do not eat. If there is anything more heartbreaking
than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul
which is dying from hunger for the light.
The whole of progress tends in the direction of solution.
Some day we shall be amazed. As the human race mounts
upward, the deep layers emerge naturally from the zone of
1684 Les Miserables
distress. The obliteration of misery will be accomplished by
a simple elevation of level.
We should do wrong were we to doubt this blessed consummation ~ Victor Hugo,
1056:I opened my eyes to find Gary and my mother sitting cross-legged up against a half-fallen wall, both of them laughing so hard they had tears running down their faces. My mother had Gary’s forearm in one hand as she wheezed, “She didn’t, she didn’t!” and wiped tears away with the other, and Gary nodded so merrily it appeared his head would go bobbling off.
It was so completely incongruous with the farewell I’d just experienced I just sat there, offended on general principles, and waited for them to notice I’d woken up. Instead my mother threw her head back and shrieked like a delighted banshee, laughter bouncing off the crumbling walls.
I looked upward. The surviving banshees still sat in the oak rafters, many of them with expressions of accusation. This was not how things were done, and it was clearly all my fault. ~ C E Murphy,
1057:I sat on a somewhat higher sand dune and watched the eastern sky. Dawn in Mongolia was an amazing thing. In one instant, the horizon became a faint line suspended in the darkness, and then the line was drawn upward, higher and higher. It was as if a giant hand had stretched down from the sky and slowly lifted the curtain of night from the face of the earth. It was a magnificent sight, far greater in scale, [...] than anything that I, with my limited human faculties, could comprehend. As I sat and watched, the feeling overtook me that my very life was slowly dwindling into nothingness. There was no trace here of anything as insignificant as human undertakings. This same event had been occurring hundreds of millions - hundreds of billions - of times, from an age long before there had been anything resembling life on earth. ~ Haruki Murakami,
1058:Prelude To Space
An Epithaliamium
So Man, grown vigorous now,
Holds himself ripe to breed,
Daily devises how
To ejaculate his seed
And boldly fertilize
The black womb of the unconsenting skies.
Some now alive expect
(I am told) to see the large,
Steel member grow erect,
Turgid with the fierce charge
Of our whole planet's skill,
Courage, wealth, knowledge, concentrated will,
Straining with lust to stamp
Our likeness on the abyssBombs, gallows, Belsen camp,
Pox, polio, Thais' kiss
Or Judas, Moloch's fires
And Torquemada's (sons resemble sires).
Shall we, when the grim shape
Roars upward, dance and sing?
Yes: if we honour rape,
If we take pride to Ring
So bountifully on space
The sperm of our long woes, our large disgrace.
~ Clive Staples Lewis,
1059:Beyond his volition, Vane's gaze lowered to her lips, to the soft rose-tinted curves he now knew so well. Their shape was etched in his mind, their taste imprinted on his senses.
Patience's lids fluttered down. She stretched upward on her toes.
Vane couldn't have drawn back from the kiss- couldn't have avoided it- had his life depended on it.
Their lips touched, without the heat, without the driving compulsion that remained surging in their souls. Both held it back, denying it, content for one timeless moment simply to touch and be touched. To let the beauty of the fragile moment stretch, to let the magic of their heightened awareness wash over them.
It left them quivering. Yearning. Curiously breathless, as if they'd been running for hours, curiously weak, as if they'd been battling for too long and nearly lost. ~ Stephanie Laurens,
1060:Am I pushing or dying? the light up there, the immense round blazing white light is drinking me. It drinks me slowly, inspires me into space. If I do not close my eyes, it will drink all of me. I seep upward, in long icy threads, too light, and yet inside me there is a fire too, the nerves are twisted, there is no rest from this long tunnel dragging me, or am I pushing myself out of the tunnel, or is the child being pushed out of me, or is the light drinking me. Am I dying? The ice in the veins, the cracking of the bones, this pushing in darkness, with a small shaft of light in the eyes like the edge of the knife, the feeling of a knife cutting the flesh, the flesh somewhere is tearing as if it were burned through by a flame, somewhere my flesh is tearing and the blood is spilling out. I am pushing in the darkness, in utter darkness. ~ Ana s Nin,
1061:Just as I can't see a clear brook without at least stopping to dangle my feet in it, I can't see a meadow in May and simply pass by. There is nothing more seductive then such fragrant earth, the blossoms of clover swaying above it like a light foam, and the petal-bedecked branches of the fruit trees reaching upward, as if they wanted to rescue themselves from this tranquil sea. No, I have to turn from my path and immerse myself in this richness . . .
When I turn my head, my cheek grazes the rough trunk of the apple tree next to me. How protectively it spreads its good branches over me. Without ceasing the sap rises from its roots, nuturing even the smallest of leaves. Do I hear, perhaps, a secret heartbeat? I press my face against its dark, warm bark and think to myself: homeland, and am so indescribably happy in this instant. ~ Sophie Scholl,
1062:If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others and punish you carefully when you do not. This will help you bolster your resolve to do what you should do, in the most appropriate and careful manner. People who are not aiming up will do the opposite. They will become jealous when you succeed, or do something pristine. They will withdraw their presence or support, or actively punish you for it. They will override your accomplishment with a past action, real or imaginary, of their own. Maybe they are trying to test you, to see if your resolve is real, to see if you are genuine. But mostly they are dragging you down because your new improvements cast their faults in an even dimmer light. ~ Jordan Peterson,
1063:If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others and punish you carefully when you do not. This will help you bolster your resolve to do what you should do, in the most appropriate and careful manner. People who are not aiming up will do the opposite. They will become jealous when you succeed, or do something pristine. They will withdraw their presence or support, or actively punish you for it. They will override your accomplishment with a past action, real or imaginary, of their own. Maybe they are trying to test you, to see if your resolve is real, to see if you are genuine. But mostly they are dragging you down because your new improvements cast their faults in an even dimmer light. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
1064:It’s all strange to me. I know I live on a fierce and magical planet, which sheds or surrenders rain or even flings it off in whipstroke after whipstroke, which fires out bolts of electric gold into the firmament at 186,000 miles per second, which with a single shrug of its tectonic plates can erect a city in half an hour. Creation … is easy, is quick. There’s also a universe, apparently. But I cannot bear to see the stars, even though I know they’re there all right, and I do see them, because Tod looks upward at night, as everybody does, and coos and points. The Plough. Sirius, the dog. The stars, to me, are like pins and needles, are like the routemap of a nightmare. Don’t join the dots.… Of the stars, one alone can I contemplate without pain. And that’s a planet. The planet they call the evening star, the morning star. Intense Venus. ~ Martin Amis,
1065:The Incarnation, which is for traditional Christianity synonymous with the historical birth and earthly life of Christ, is for mystics of a certain type, not only this but also a perpetual Cosmic and personal process. It is an everlasting bringing forth, in the universe and also in the individual ascending soul, of the divine and perfect Life, the pure character of God, of which the one historical life dramatized the essential constituents. Hence the soul, like the physical embryo, resumes in its upward progress the spiritual life-history of the race. "The one secret, the greatest of all," says Patmore, is "the doctrine of the Incarnation, regarded not as an historical event which occurred two thousand years ago, but as an event which is renewed in the body of every one who is in the way to the fulfilment of his original destiny."  239 ~ Evelyn Underhill,
1066:Sophie, you saw Alice’s transformation.”
I nodded. “And the murder of my great-grandfather. Weird it showed me that when I’ve had so many other awful things happen directly to me,” I said, beginning to tick them off on my fingers. “Elodie getting killed, having to kill Alice, escaping a burning building with the help of a ghost…” And then, because both my parents looked so deflated, I added, “Oh, and this really heinous pageboy haircut in sixth grade.”
A few wan smiles appeared, but I think it was just to humor me.
“Yes, but that was the act that was directly responsible for all of those other horrible events,” Dad said. “Well, except for the haircut. I suspect that can be laid at your mother’s door.”
“James!” Mom protested, but I swear I heard affection behind it. I think Dad did, too, because his lips quirked upward briefly. ~ Rachel Hawkins,
1067:students need only two well-taught courses—How to Value a Business, and How to Think About Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now. Over time, you will find only a few companies that meet these standards—so when you see one that qualifies, you should buy a meaningful amount of stock. You must also resist the temptation to stray from your guidelines: If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value. Though it’s seldom recognized, this is the exact approach ~ Warren Buffett,
1068:Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind, Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battlefield spreading, Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night, But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed, Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my chin in my hands, Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade—not a tear, not a word, Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier, As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole, Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death, I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall surely meet again,) Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear’d, ~ Walt Whitman,
1069:In Memoriam A. H. H.: 15. To-Night The Winds Begin
To Rise
To-night the winds begin to rise
And roar from yonder dropping day:
The last red leaf is whirl'd away,
The rooks are blown about the skies;
The forest crack'd, the waters curl'd,
The cattle huddled on the lea;
And wildly dash'd on tower and tree
The sunbeam strikes along the world:
And but for fancies, which aver
That all thy motions gently pass
Athwart a plane of molten glass,
I scarce could brook the strain and stir
That makes the barren branches loud;
And but for fear it is not so,
The wild unrest that lives in woe
Would dote and pore on yonder cloud
That rises upward always higher,
And onward drags a labouring breast,
And topples round the dreary west,
A looming bastion fringed with fire.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,
1070:So it is that when Dante had taken the last step in his spiritual adventure, and came before the ultimate symbolic vision of the Triune God in the Celestial Rose, he had still one more illumination to experience, even beyond the forms of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. "Bernard," he writes, "made a sign to me, and smiled, that I should look upward; but I was already, of myself, such as he wished; for my sight, becoming pure, was entering more and more, through the radiance of the lofty Light which in Itself is true. Thenceforward my vision was greater than our speech, which yields to such a sight, and the memory yields to such excess. [167]
[167] "Paradiso," XXXIII, 49-57 (translation by Norton, op. cit., Vol. Ill, pp. 253-254, by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers). ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Ultimate Boon,
1071:When a baby gets hungry and cries his levels of stress hormones will move upward. But if Mom or Dad regularly comes to feed him, they go back down, and over time, they become patterned and repetitive thanks to the daily routine. At times, nonetheless, the baby will feel distress and cry: not hungry, not wet, not in discernible physical pain, she will appear inconsolable. When this happens most parents hug and rock their children, almost instinctively using rhythmic motion and affectionate touch to calm the child. Interestingly, the rate at which people rock their babies is about eighty beats per minute, the same as a normal resting adult heart rate. Faster and the baby will find the motion stimulating; slower and the child will tend to keep crying. To soothe our children we reattune them physically to the beat of the master timekeeper of life. ~ Bruce D Perry,
1072:Officials in the state’s Department of Public Safety executed an operation that, at a stroke, seized more than $1.6 billion in drugs from organized crime. The operation was notable for its stealthiness. It was carried out without a single shot being fired, or a single person being hurt. In fact, no officers even had to get up from their desks, let alone draw their weapons. The billion-dollar bust was made when officials decided that instead of calculating the value of the drugs they seized at the border using wholesale prices, they would instead calculate them using much higher retail prices. With a single tweak to a spreadsheet, the value of drugs intercepted in the state shot up from $161 million to $1.8 billion. Conveniently, the tenfold upward revision came just a week before the department was due to hand in a performance review.1 Whether ~ Tom Wainwright,
1073:He moved in deep nudges that corresponded to the caress of his fingers, refusing to give her the long thrusts she craved. His restraint made her wild. Burying her face in the mattress, she smothered her involuntary cries as her hips churned upward. Heat curled in her abdomen and radiated outward in hectic ripples. Every part of her being was focused on the place where he joined her, the thick pulsing organ that pleasured her until her senses were spurred into an ecstatic explosion.
The shuddering contractions wrapped around his sex, and Ross groaned loudly against her back, letting the climax flow over him, drain and deliver him. Breathing hard, he hung over her until his arms trembled. Collapsing onto his side, he kept her with him, still enclosed in the depths of her body. Bathed in sunshine, they lay amid the tangled sex-scented bedclothes. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1074:I think it has to do with a backward notion of what the past and the present are. The Eastern notion is that the past lies ahead of us, and the future is behind us. We are moving into the future. If we can see it, it is already gone....We are constantly inhabiting the immediate past. How do we get to a place where that's not going on? And I might add this: the fractured quality of a lot of twentieth-century writing comes about because frequently we've taken our eyes off our homeland, our true place, and we've looked at the past. The past looks fractured and confused; we forget when we're doing mimetic art; we think, Well, our art has to look like this reality, which is broken and confused and discontinuous. We've forgotten that this is not where we're supposed to be looking. We're not supposed to be looking forward, upward, if you will, not back. ~ Li Young Lee,
1075:Is it your wish that I should leave you now?” “Why would you think that of me?” His eyebrows rose, the vulnerability gone. “You are not a servant, Mariana, to be thus ordered from my sight.” “No,” I admitted, looking down at my feet, “I am not a servant. I am a mistress. A minor difference, I’ll grant you.” His eyes were steady on my face. “You are my love,” he corrected me, softly, “and there is no shame in that. Do you wish this afternoon undone?” I raised my head. “No,” I told him honestly. “I will not force you to my bed,” he said. “I do not want a frightened woman, nor a coy one, but one who gives me love because she wills it so. If I make no promises, it is because the world is an uncertain place, and words matter little. But if you doubt the honor of my love, come,” he stretched his hand towards me, palm upward, “let me renew my pledge. ~ Susanna Kearsley,
1076:Lana started to make sounds, like the imprecations of a priestess, over the bills that the boy had given her. Whispered numerals and words floated upward from her coral lips, and, closing her eyes, she copied some figures onto a pad of paper. Her fine body, itself a profitable investment through the years, bent reverently over the Formica-top altar. Smoke, like incense, rose from the cigarette in the ashtray at her elbow, curling upward with her prayers, up above the host which she was elevating in order to study the date of its minting, the single silver dollar that lay among the offerings. Her bracelet tinkled, calling communicants to the altar, but the only one in the temple had been excommunicated from the Faith because of his parentage and continued mopping. An offering fell to the floor, the host, and Lana knelt to venerate and retrieve it. ~ John Kennedy Toole,
1077:There is an idea - strange, haunting, evocative - one of the most exquisite conjectures in science and religion. It is entirely undemonstrated; it may never be proved. But it stirs the blood. There is, we are told, an infinite hierarchy of universes, so that an elementary particle, such as an electron, in our universe would, if penetrated, reveal itself to be entire closed universe. Within it, organized into the local equivalent of galaxies and smaller structures, are an immense number of other, much tinier elementary particles, which are themselves universe at the next level, and so on forever - an infinite downward regression, universes within universes, endlessly. And upward as well. Our familiar universe of galaxies and stars, planets and people, would be a single elementary particle in the next universe up, the first step of another infinite regress. ~ Carl Sagan,
1078:Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been; but their names are always on grave-stones, and their sweet smiles, their heavenly eyes, their singular words and ways, are among the buried treasures of yearning hearts. In how many families do you hear the legend that all the goodness and graces of the living are nothing to the peculiar charms of one who is not. It is as if heaven had an especial band of angels, whose office it was to sojourn for a season here, and endear to them the wayward human heart, that they might bear it upward with them in their homeward flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in the eye,—when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiser than the ordinary words of children,—hope not to retain that child; for the seal of heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks out from its eyes. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe,
1079:They were relaxing at the top of a waterfall, in a small, still pool where the mountain waters hit an upward slope of folded granite. It was sort of a rounded bathtub, carved out of the rock throughout the centuries by the rushing river, a river so hidden that it was without a name. Just below were the falls, about a 30-foot drop into another, much larger pool of clearest water that was gathered for a respite, a compromise in the river's relentless schedule downward, between split-level decks of flat rock. Further on, the river reanimated and released into a sharp ravine, pulling westward, down through the rugged mountains and faceless forest--the Black Hills National Forest--gaining force until it joined with the rush of the Castle River, near the old Custer Trail, and was swallowed into the Deerfield Reservoir to collect and prepare for the touch of man. ~ Ron Parsons,
1080:BEAVER MOON—THE SUICIDE OF A FRIEND When somewhere life breaks like a pane of glass, and from every direction casual voices are bringing you the news, you say: I should have known. You say: I should have been aware. That last Friday he looked so ill, like an old mountain-climber lost on the white trails, listening to the ice breaking upward, under his worn-out shoes. You say: I heard rumors of trouble, but after all we all have that. You say: what could I have done? and you go with the rest, to bury him. That night, you turn in your bed to watch the moon rise, and once more see what a small coin it is against the darkness, and how everything else is a mystery, and you know nothing at all except the moonlight is beautiful— white rivers running together along the bare boughs of the trees— and somewhere, for someone, life is becoming moment by moment unbearable. ~ Mary Oliver,
1081:Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been ; but their names are always on gravestones, and their sweet smiles, their heavenly eyes, their singular words and ways, are among the buried treasures of yearning hearts. In how many families do you hear the legend that all the goodness and graces of the living are nothing to the peculiar charms of one who is not I It is as if Heaven had an especial band of angels, whose office it was to sojourn for a season here, and en dear to them the wayward human heart, that they might bear it upward with them in their homeward flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in the eye — when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiser than the ordinary words of children — hope not to retain that child ; for the seal of Heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks out from its eyes. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe,
1082:I should have left yesterday before I found out how hot you run. But I didn’t. And now I’m fucked.” One hand dropped from the wall to grip the side of her hip, squeezing and releasing. “That exquisite body of yours needs a lot of care and attention. I didn’t even get a chance to use my tongue on you. I hate not knowing how you taste.”

Her head dropped back against the door. When his hand slipped under her dress to run up the outside of her thigh, a moan escaped her lips. Unconsciously, she thrust her breasts upward, in the direction of his mouth.

“Yes, I see them, baby. I’d taste you there, too.” Slowly, his hand slid around toward the juncture between her thighs. “You came so quickly for me yesterday, like something out of a fantasy. Were you neglected here?” He ran a knuckle along the seam of her panties. “I know how to make it better. ~ Tessa Bailey,
1083:I'm like a shark," Janie said. "I need to keep moving or die, which means I need to expand-" she stopped there. Her own father's business was successful mainly because he kept expanding, kept moving onward and upward. The only difference was Dan Westerveld didn't have a spouse who gambled away all available equity in the house and business.

But Janie kept that information to herself. Neither her sister nor her parents knew how dire her financial situation was.

"What do you mean? And you're kind of struggling as it is."

"And that's why I need to expand. I'm just trying to make sure I can sustain my current lifestyle, which is hardly extravagant."

"I'll say. I can't believe that beater of a car of yours is still running."

"Regular maintenance helps." And prayer, Janie thought. Something she spent a lot of time on these days. ~ Carolyne Aarsen,
1084:We’re Marching to Zion Isaac Watts (1674–1748) Come, we that love the Lord, And let our joys be known; Join in a song with sweet accord, Join in a song with sweet accord And thus surround the throne, And thus surround the throne. We’re marching to Zion, Beautiful, beautiful Zion; We’re marching upward to Zion, The beautiful city of God. Let those refuse to sing Who never knew our God; But children of the heavenly King, But children of the heavenly King May speak their joys abroad, May speak their joys abroad. The hill of Zion yields A thousand sacred sweets Before we reach the heavenly fields, Before we reach the heavenly fields, Or walk the golden streets, Or walk the golden streets. Then let our songs abound, And every tear be dry; We’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground, We’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground, To fairer worlds on high, To fairer worlds on high. ~ A W Tozer,
1085:Her eyes flew open, however, as she felt a gentle touch at the edge of her jaw. Rohan’s fingers were nudging her face upward, his thumb brushing the tip of her chin. The unexpected intimacy sent a little shock through her. His flame-bright gaze had seized hers again. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit overprotective, chasing your grown brother across London? He’s not doing anything all that unusual. Most young lords in his position would behave the same.” “You don’t know him,” Amelia said, sounding shaken to her own ears. She knew she should pull away from his warm fingers, but her body remained perversely still, absorbing the pleasure of his touch. “It’s far from usual behavior for him. He’s in trouble. He—” She broke off. Rohan let a gentle fingertip follow the shining trail of her bonnet ribbon to the place where it tied beneath her chin. “What kind of trouble? ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1086:Slow me down, Lord. Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind. Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time. Give me, amid the confusion of the day, the calmness of the everlasting hills. Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory. Teach me the art of taking minute vacations—of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, to smile at a child, to read a few lines from a good book. Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life’s enduring values, that I may grow toward my greater destiny. Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed. Let me look upward to the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well. ~ Chip Ingram,
1087:He suddenly leaned forward in his chair and cut off her words with a kiss, tipping her chin upward gently with his fingertips.
As their lips met, a little breathless sigh escaped her. Her eyes fluttered closed. Sliding his hand around her nape, he coaxed her lips apart. Her heart raced. She needed little urging, accepting his kiss eagerly, capturing his clean-shaved face between her fingertips. He tasted of port. She savored it, taking his tongue even more deeply into her mouth in sensuous welcome. Her hands trembled as she stroked the strong line of his jaw and ran her fingers through his silken black hair. With a low moan of desire, he slid his arms around her, shaping the natural contour of her waist below the draped velvet of her gown's high-waisted style, running his hands downward over her hips. She fought to keep a rein on the passion he ignited in her blood. ~ Gaelen Foley,
1088:North And South
O sweet are tropic lands for waking dreams!
There time and life move lazily along.
There by the banks of blue-and-silver streams
Grass-sheltered crickets chirp incessant song,
Gay-colored lizards loll all through the day,
Their tongues outstretched for careless little flies,
And swarthy children in the fields at play,
Look upward laughing at the smiling skies.
A breath of idleness is in the air
That casts a subtle spell upon all things,
And love and mating-time are everywhere,
And wonder to life's commonplaces clings.
The fluttering humming-bid darts through the trees
And dips his long beak in the big bell-flowers,
The leisured buzzard floats upon the breeze,
Riding a crescent cloud for endless hours,
The sea beats softly on the emerald strands-O sweet for quiet dreams are tropic lands!
~ Claude McKay,
1089:MATT: Okay. You spiral upward and upward and upward, climbing an extremely long period of time.

Your legs begin to ache a little bit. Then another floor opens up. It appears the tower is now divided into two chambers. From the bottom floor up, it's now two sides to a tower and you're on the right side. The hallway curves around the outer edge of the tower. On the opposite side, you can see the staircase continues upward. The interior of this chamber appears to be an incredible arcane laboratory, occupying the center space of the tower inside. You see six overlapping circles of dulled runes and glyphs that encompass the entire 30-foot walkway between here and the stairs. Shelves and tables of countless glass tubes and metallic vices lay out across tables, organized in a near-OCD pattern. Tomes and books line the inner chamber walls. What do you guys do? ~ Matt Mercer, Critical Role,
1090:There,” Win said one day after they had rambled through dry meadows and settled to rest in their favorite place. “You’re almost doing it.” “Almost doing what?” Kev asked lazily. They reclined by a clump of trees bordering a winterbourne, a stream that ran dry in the summer months. The grass was littered with purple rampion and white meadowsweet, the latter spreading an almondlike fragrance through the warm, fetid air. “Smiling.” She lifted on her elbows beside him, her fingers brushing his lips. Kev stopped breathing. A pipit rose from a nearby tree on taut wings, drawing out a long note as he descended. Intent on her task, Win shaped the corners of Kev’s mouth upward and tried to hold them there. Aroused and amused, Kev let out a smothered laugh and brushed her hand away. “You should smile more often,” Win said, still staring down at him. “You’re very handsome when you do. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1091:He found the vast Thought with seven heads that is born of the Truth; he created some fourth world and became universal. . . .
The Sons of Heaven, the Heroes of the Omnipotent, thinking the straight thought, giving voice to the Truth, founded the plane of illumination and conceived the first abode of the Sacrifice. . . . The Master of Wisdom cast down the stone defences and called to the Herds of Light, . . . the herds that stand in the secrecy on the bridge over the Falsehood between two worlds below and one above; desiring Light in the darkness, he brought upward the Ray-Herds and uncovered from the veil the three worlds; he shattered the city that lies hidden in ambush, and cut the three out of the Ocean, and discovered the Dawn and the Sun and the Light and the Word of Light. Rig Veda.2 ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge,
1092:Cassius leaned against Merrick and sighed. It felt too perfect, too right, and Merrick feared the tormenting aftermath of this spellbinding evening shared with a man he’d fantasized about almost nightly. “You feel like heaven, and I wish we could stay like this for days.”
When Cassius glanced back at him, Merrick took his mouth again in a bruising kiss. His fingers glided over Cassius’s chest to toy with his nipples as Cassius shuddered against him.
Merrick’s hand brushed over Cassius’s abdomen, and the valet moaned, burying his head against his shoulder. Merrick forked his fingers through the downy hair at his groin, his palm closing around the velvety skin of his cock, stroking the hardened shaft upward.
Cassius whimpered as his back bowed in what Merrick hoped was utter bliss. “I…have dreamed of this moment.”
Merrick groaned in his ear. “Tell me more of this dream ~ Riley Hart,
1093:People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your inner contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1094:It is true that the root of all this evil is the ego-sense and that the seat of the conscious ego-sense is the mind itself; but in reality the conscious mind only reflects an ego already created in the subconscious mind in things, the dumb soul in the stone and the plant which is present in all body and life and only finally delivered into voicefulness and wakefulness but not originally created by the conscious mind. And in this upward procession it is the life-energy which has become the obstinate knot of the ego, it is the desire-mind which refuses to relax the knot even when the intellect and the heart have discovered the cause of their ills and would be glad enough to remove it; for the Prana in them is the Animal who revolts and who obscures and deceives their knowledge and coerces their will by his refusal. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Heart and the Mind,
1095:They hung over the town, muted red, dark-pink, surrounded by every conceivable nuance of gray. The setting was wild and beautiful. Actually everyone should be in the streets, I thought, cars should be stopping, doors should be opened and drivers and passengers emerging with heads raised and eyes sparkling with curiosity and a craving for beauty, for what was it that was going on above our heads? However, a few glances at most were cast upward, perhaps followed by isolated comments about how beautiful the evening was, for sights like this were not exceptional, on the contrary, hardly a day passed without the sky being filled with fantastic cloud formations, each and every one illuminated in unique, never-to-be-repeated ways, and since what you see every day is what you never see, we lived our lives under the constantly changing sky without sparing it a glance or a thought. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd,
1096:Thus the scientific theories of the ancients, expounded in the Mysteries, as to the origin of the soul, its descent, its sojourn here below, and its return, were not a mere barren contemplation of the nature of the world, and of the intelligent beings existing there. They were not an idle speculation as to the order of the world, and about the soul, but a study of the means for arriving at the great object proposed, the perfecting of the soul; and, as a necessary consequence, that of morals and society. This Earth, to them, was not the Soul's home, but its place of exile. Heaven was its home, and there was its birth-place. To it, it ought incessantly to turn its eyes. Man was not a terrestrial plant. His roots were in Heaven. The soul had lost its wings, clogged by the viscosity of matter. It would recover them when it extricated itself from matter and commenced its upward flight. ~ Albert Pike,
1097:As on all its sides a kitchen-match darts white
flickering tongues before it bursts into flame:
with the audience around her, quickened, hot,
her dance begins to flicker in the dark room.

And all at once it is completely fire.

One upward glance and she ignites her hair
and, whirling faster and faster, fans her dress
into passionate flames, till it becomes a furnace
from which, like startled rattlesnakes, the long
naked arms uncoil, aroused and clicking.

And then: as if the fire were too tight
around her body, she takes and flings it out
haughtily, with an imperious gesture,
and watches: it lies raging on the floor,
still blazing up, and the flames refuse to die -
Till, moving with total confidence and a sweet
exultant smile, she looks up finally
and stamps it out with powerful small feet.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, The Spanish Dancer
,
1098:Lady,” he said in greeting. “Lord Prince,” she said quietly. He leaned there for a moment, gaze tilted upward, and Fire wondered if this was to be the extent of their conversation. “Your horse is named Small,” he said finally, startling her with the randomness of it. “Yes.” “Mine is named Big.” And now Fire was smiling. “The black mare? Is she very big?” “Not to my eyes,” Brigan said, “but I did not name her.” Fire remembered the source of Small’s name. Indeed, she could never forget the man Cansrel had abused for her sake. “An animal smuggler gave Small his name. A brutish man called Cutter. He thought any horse that didn’t respond well to flogging was small-minded.” “Ah. Cutter,” Brigan said, as if he knew the man; which, after all, should not be surprising, as Cansrel and Nax had probably shared suppliers. “Well, I’ve seen what your horse is capable of. Obviously he’s not small-minded. ~ Kristin Cashore,
1099:The official record for the fastest manmade object is the Helios 2 probe, which reached about 70 km/s in a close swing around the Sun. But it’s possible the actual holder of that title is a two-ton metal manhole cover. The cover sat atop a shaft at an underground nuclear test site operated by Los Alamos as part of Operation Plumbbob. When the 1-kiloton nuke went off below, the facility effectively became a nuclear potato cannon, giving the cap a gigantic kick. A high-speed camera trained on the lid caught only one frame of it moving upward before it vanished—which means it was moving at a minimum of 66 km/s. The cap was never found. Now, 66 km/s is about six times escape velocity, but contrary to common speculation, it’s unlikely the cap ever reached space. Newton’s impact depth approximation suggests that it was either destroyed completely by impact with the air or slowed and fell back to Earth. ~ Anonymous,
1100:How very lovable her face was to him. Yet there was nothing ethereal about it; all was real vitality, real warmth, real incarnation. And it was in her mouth that this culminated. Eyes almost as deep and speaking he had seen before, and cheeks perhaps as fair; brows as arched, a chin and throat almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen nothing to equal on the face of the earth. To a young man with the least fire in him that little upward lift in the middle of her red top lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening. He had never before seen a woman’s lips and teeth which forced upon his mind with such persistent iteration the old Elizabethan simile of roses filled with snow.
Perfect, he, as a lover, might have called them off-hand. But no — they were not perfect. And it was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity. ~ Thomas Hardy,
1101:The landlady showed up today. Now, there’s an interesting woman.” “She is that.” “She tells me she was the town drunk,” he said. “She was,” Jack confirmed. “She got in treatment and seems to be doing great. She’s a whole new person.” “What was the town drunk like?” Dan asked. Jack looked upward, thinking. Then he brought his gaze down to Dan’s. “Know what? I’m not going to talk about that. Cheryl is a good person who had a mighty big burden with her drinking. I’ll tell you the truth, I never saw any hope. But I see her now and she’s not the same woman. Honest to God, I would’ve thought that even sober, she’d be a little slow-witted, unmotivated. Damaged. But she seems to have beat the odds—she’s just incredible. I want her to make it.” “She’s making it,” Dan said. “That’s nice, that you won’t talk about it. Must’ve been kind of bad.” “Buddy, we’ve all been through bad times we’d like to forget.” And ~ Robyn Carr,
1102:Evernote’s CEO Phil Libin shared some revealing insights about how the company turns non-paying users into revenue generating ones.[xxiii] In 2011, Libin published a chart now known as the “smile graph.” With the percentage of sign-ups represented on the Y-axis and time spent on the service on the X-axis, the chart showed that, although usage plummeted at first, it rocketed upward as people formed a habit of using the service. The resulting down and up curve gave the chart its emblematic smile shape (and Evernote’s CEO a matching grin). In addition, as usage increased over time, so did customers’ willingness to pay. Libin noted that after the first month, only 0.5 percent of users paid for the service; however, this rate gradually increased. By month 33, 11 percent of users had started paying. At month 42, a remarkable 26 percent of customers were paying for something they had previously used for free. ~ Nir Eyal,
1103:Helen extended the thermometer to West. “Under your tongue, please,” she said gravely.
He complied with a long-suffering expression.
“Dear,” Kathleen asked Helen, “will you speak to Mrs. Church about dinner? With three invalids in the house, I think it’s best if we dine informally tonight.”
Two invalids,” West mumbled indignantly around the thermometer. “I’m perfectly well.”
“Yes, of course,” Helen replied to Kathleen. “And I’ll make up a tray for Dr. Weeks. He may be occupied for a while with Lord Trenear and Mr. Winterborne, and he’s certainly earned his supper.”
“Good idea,” Kathleen said. “Don’t forget to include a dish of lemon syllabub. As I recall, Dr. Weeks has a sweet tooth.”
“By all means,” West said around the thermometer, “let’s talk about food in front of a starving man.”
Before leaving, Helen paused to nudge his chin upward, closing his mouth. “No talking. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1104:Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw, or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling imagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, and come in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and deeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved. While she so deemed, an angel may have warned her away from heaven's threshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have bound her, once more, all shuddering and unwilling, to that poor frame, cold and wasted, of whose companionship she was grown more than weary.

I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a moan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a racking sort of struggle. ~ Charlotte Bront,
1105:I love kissing you,” he murmured. “It was the worst punishment you could have devised, not letting me do this.” “It wasn’t a punishment,” Poppy protested. “It’s just that a kiss means something special to me. And after what you’d done, I was afraid to be close to you.” All hint of amusement left Harry’s expression. He smoothed her hair and drew the backs of his fingers softly along the side of her face. “I won’t betray you again. I know you have no reason to trust me, but in time I hope—” “I do trust you,” she said earnestly. “I’m not afraid now.” Harry was baffled by her words, and even more by the intensity of his response to them. An unfamiliar feeling welled up in him, a deep, overwhelming ardor. His voice sounded a bit strange to his own ears as he asked, “How can you trust me when you have no way of knowing if I’m worthy of it?” The corners of her lips tilted upward. “That’s what trust is, isn’t it? ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1106:And the solid thwack of leather and wood colliding in perfect disharmony. The first made his dick hard, the second melted his heart, and the third brought a smile to his face. Todd rounded first base, his lips curving upward as the baseball soared into the centerfield stands. He stepped on second base, vaguely aware of fans scrambling to see who would come up with the homerun ball. Rounding third, his smile faded, even though the entire Mustangs team waited just beyond home plate to celebrate his ninth inning, game-winning homer. High-fiving his teammates, he accepted their jubilant accolades, removed his batting helmet, and waved to the crowd before ducking his six-foot-two frame into the dugout that had been his home for his entire Major League career. Thinking about the yet-to-be-determined dugout he would call home next season made his stomach cramp. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he told the Mustangs team ~ Roz Lee,
1107:Though the colored man is no longer subject to be bought and sold, he is still surrounded by an adverse sentiment which fetters all his movements. In his downward course he meets with no resistance, but his course upward is resented and resisted at every step of his progress. If he comes in ignorance, rags, and wretchedness, he conforms to the popular belief of his character, and in that character he is welcome. But if he shall come as a gentleman, a scholar, and a statesman, he is hailed as a contradiction to the national faith concerning his race, and his coming is resented as impudence. In the one case he may provoke contempt and derision, but in the other he is an affront to pride and provokes malice. Let him do what he will, there is at present, therefore, no escape for him. The color line meets him everywhere, and in a measure shuts him out from all respectable and profitable trades and callings. ~ Frederick Douglass,
1108:O Light Invisible, we praise Thee!
Too bright for mortal vision.

O Greater Light, we praise Thee for the less;
The eastern light our spires touch at morning,
The light that slants upon our western doors at evening,
The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight,
Moon light and star light, owl and moth light,
Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade.
O Light Invisible, we worship Thee!

We thank Thee for the light that we have kindled,
The light of altar and of sanctuary;
Small lights of those who meditate at midnight
And lights directed through the coloured panes of windows
And light reflected from the polished stone,
The gilded carven wood, the coloured fresco.
Our gaze is submarine, our eyes look upward
And see the light that fractures through unquiet water.
We see the light but see not whence it comes.
O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee! ~ T S Eliot,
1109:Just because the educational work of the Anarcho-Syndicalists is directed toward the development of independent thought and action, they are outspoken opponents of all those centralizing tendencies which are so characteristic of political labour parties. But centralism, that artificial organization from above downward which turns over the affairs of everybody in a lump to a small minority, is always attended by barren official routine ; and this crushes individual conviction, kills all personal initiative by lifeless discipline and bureaucratic ossification, and permits no independent action. The organization of Anarcho-Syndicalism is based on the principles of Federalism, on free combination from below upward, putting the right of self-determination of every member above everything else and recognizing only the organic agreement of all on the basis of like interests and common convictions. It has often been ch ~ Rudolf Rocker,
1110:There have been a dozen times in the past when I should have liked a particular gentleman. When it would have been convenient, and appropriate, and easy. But no, I had to wait for someone special. Someone who would make my heart feel as if it’s been trampled by elephants, thrown into the Amazon, and eaten by piranhas.”
Amelia smiled at her compassionately. Her gloved hand slipped over Beatrix’s. “Darling Bea. Would it console you to hear that such feelings of infatuation are perfectly ordinary?”
Beatrix turned her palm upward, returning the clasp of her sister’s hand. Since their mother had died when Bea was twelve, Amelia had been a source of endless love and patience. “Is it infatuation?” she heard herself asking softly. “Because it feels much worse than that. Like a fatal disease.”
“I don’t know, dear. It’s difficult to tell the difference between love and infatuation. Time will reveal it, eventually. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1111:I braced myself for impact, expecting to fall back into the lake of blood, when something raced past me in a blur. The next thing I knew, Julisse crashed to the ground, Caleb on top of her. She struggled beneath him, but Caleb was too quick. Before she could summon a curse, he’d already slashed through both of her palms. Then, lowering his head to her neck, he sank his fangs deep into her flesh and jerked upward, ripping right through her jugular. Blood spurted everywhere, soaking the ground and forming a pool quickly. Finally, extending his nails as far as they would go, he severed her head completely. It rolled around sickeningly on the ground before halting in the middle of the pool of blood, face down. Caleb got off her still-twitching body and when he turned to face me, he looked more menacing than I had ever seen him before. His chest heaved, his mouth dripping with blood, his eyes much darker. Wow. Go Caleb. ~ Bella Forrest,
1112:Make a story for me, yes? About my Loh-rhett-ah when she was small like Blackbird.”
She stared at him, clearly unable to believe he meant it. He forced a yawn, and from the look that crossed her small face, he knew he hadn’t been very convincing.
“You’re not sleepy,” she accused.
Ka, no,” he admitted. “I make a lie, yes? To make you easy? My heart is laid upon the ground when you are afraid. Let us be glad, eh? Make me a story.”
“Hunter, I don’t have a stitch of clothes on,” she squeaked.
One of his dark eyebrows flicked upward. “You must have clothes to make stories?”
“No. I guess I…well, it might help me think.”
He sighed and rolled onto his back, carrying her along with him in the curve of his arm. Pressing her head onto his shoulder, he made a valiant attempt to ignore the feeling of her silken flesh against his and said, “This Comanche wears breeches. I will make the story. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1113:I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this. ~ Ted Hughes,
1114:Silhouette
The sky-line melts from russet into blue,
Unbroken the horizon, saving where
A wreath of smoke curls up the far, thin air,
And points the distant lodges of the Sioux.
Etched where the lands and cloudlands touch and die
A solitary Indian tepee stands,
The only habitation of these lands,
That roll their magnitude from sky to sky.
The tent poles lift and loom in thin relief,
The upward floating smoke ascends between,
And near the open doorway, gaunt and lean,
And shadow-like, there stands an Indian Chief.
With eyes that lost their lustre long ago,
With visage fixed and stern as fate's decree,
He looks towards the empty west, to see
The never-coming herd of buffalo.
Only the bones that bleach upon the plains,
Only the fleshless skeletons that lie
In ghastly nakedness and silence, cry
Out mutely that naught else to him remains
~ Emily Pauline Johnson,
1115:Propaganda campaigns in general have been closely attuned to elite interests. The Red scare of 1919-20 have served well to abort the union-organizing drive that followed World War I in the sell and other industries. The Truman-McCarthy Red scare helped inaugurate the Cold War and the permanent war economy, and it also served to weaken the progressive coalition of the New Deal years. The chronic focus on the plight of Soviet dissidents, on enemy killings in Cambodia, and on the Bulgarian Connection helped weaken the Vietnam syndrome, justify a huge arms buildup and a more aggressive foreign policy, and divert attention from upward redistribution of income that was the heart of Reagan's domestic economic program. The recent propaganda-disinformation attacks on Nicaragua have been needed to avert eyes from the savagery of the war in El Salvador and to justify the escalating U.S. investment in counterrevolution in Central America. ~ Noam Chomsky,
1116:I did not know the work of mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night

The mountaintop is not in sight
Because there is no mountaintop
Poor Sisyphus grief

I did not know I would struggle
Through a ragged underbrush
Without an upward path

Because there is no path
There is only a blunt rock
With a river to fall into

And Time with its medieval chambers
Time with its jagged edges
And blunt instruments

I did not know the work of mourning
Is a labor in the dark
We carry inside ourselves

Though sometimes when I sleep
I'm with him again
And then I wake

Poor Sisyphus grief
I'm not ready for your heaviness
Cemented to my body

Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders

That's why it takes courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day ~ Edward Hirsch,
1117:Let Me Lean Hard
Let me lean hard upon the Eternal Breast;
In all earth's devious ways, I sought for rest
And found it not. I will be strong, said I,
And lean upon myself. I will not cry
And importune all heaven with my complaint,
But not my strength fails, and I fall, I faint:
Let me lean hard.
Let me lean hard upon the unfailing Arm.
I said I will walk on, I fear no harm,
The spark divine within my soul will show
The upward pathway where my feet should go,
But now the heights to which I msot aspire
Are lost in clouds. I stumble and I tire;
Let me lean hard.
Let me lean harder yet. That swerveless force
Which speeds the solar systems on their course
Can take, unfelt, the burden of my woe,
Which bears me to the dust and hurts me so;
I thought my strength enough for any fate,
But lo! I sink beneath my sorrow's weight:
Let me lean hard.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1118:Cool. I haven’t been in a church in years!” “No kidding? I’d never have guessed. Well, people will have certain expectations…” “Okay, no swearing. I’ll be totally polite. And I’ll leave my pasties and G-string at home.” Noah went completely red and she burst out laughing. “I don’t have pasties and G-strings. That club? It wasn’t that bad.” “Just out of curiosity, what was your part?” he asked. “Well,” she said, rolling her eyes upward. “That’s the interesting thing—sometimes a certain costume or look does more for the guys than being totally naked. The two most popular outfits were the cheerleading costume and the candy striper’s costume. The men—they really go for pom-poms.” Ellie looked at Noah. “Hey—are you all right?” “Fine. I’m fine,” Noah said weakly. He’d been in his share of strip clubs, but not for a while. And he hadn’t had much female companionship lately, either. Until today, he hadn’t realized how much he missed that. ~ Robyn Carr,
1119:In time the glowing, cratered moon began its seeming rise from the sea, casting a prism of light across the slowly darkening water, splitting itself into a thousand different parts, each more beautiful than the last. At exactly the same moment, the sun was meeting the horizon in the opposite direction, turning the sky red and orange and yellow, as if heaven above had suddenly opened its gates and let all its beauty escape its holy confines. The ocean turned golden silver as the shifting colors reflected off it, waters rippling and sparkling with the changing light, the vision glorious, almost like the beginning of time. The sun continued to lower itself, casting its glow as far as the eye could see, before finally, slowly, vanishing beneath the waves. The moon continued its slow drift upward, shimmering as it turned a thousand different shades of yellow, each paler than the last, before finally becoming the color of the stars. ~ Nicholas Sparks,
1120:The Clearer Self
Before me grew the human soul,
And after I am dead and gone,
Through grades of effort and control
The marvellous work shall still go on.
Each mortal in his little span
Hath only lived, if he have shown
What greatness there can be in man
Above the measured and the known;
How through the ancient layers of night,
In gradual victory secure,
Grows ever with increasing light
The Energy serene and pure:
The Soul, that from a monstrous past,
From age to age, from hour to hour,
Feels upward to some height at last
Of unimagined grace and power.
Though yet the sacred fire be dull,
In folds of thwarting matter furled,
Ere death be nigh, while life is full,
O Master Spirit of the world,
Grant me to know, to seek, to find,
In some small measure though it be,
Emerging from the waste and blind,
The clearer self, the grander me!
~ Archibald Lampman,
1121:Fear the people, then, Excellency. They consider John a prophet."
Salome now tilted her head upward and stared directly into the eyes of Antipas in an unmistakeably challenging expression. Her mien spoke eloquently what remained unspoken: "I dare you to break your word, Tetrarch Herod Antipas, in front of all your guests."
Pilate, at the outer edge of that stare, caught the smirk of success spelled out by Salome's limpid blue eyes and firmly pressing, perfect lips. But he did not intervene. He had overheard Chuza's advice to Antipas, and it was obviously correct. Only a fool would fail to heed it, and the Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea was no fool.
But Pilate was a Roman, a practical man who could temper absolutes to suit circumstances, as Rome herself had been doing for the last seven hundred years. Here in the East, however, absolutes were not so easily adjusted, and the spoken word was thought to have a power all its own. ~ Paul L Maier,
1122:Beaver Moon - The Suicide of a Friend

When somewhere life
breaks like a pane of glass,
and from every direction casual
voices are bringing you the news,
you say: I should have known.
You say: I should have been aware. That last Friday he looked
so ill, like an old mountain-climber
lost on the white trails, listening
to the ice breaking upward, under
his worn-out shoes. You say: I heard rumors of trouble, but after all
we all have that. You say:
What could I have done? and you go
with the rest, to bury him. That night, you turn in your bed
to watch the moon rise, and once more
see what a small coin it is
against the darkness, and how everything else
is a mystery, and you know
nothing at all except
the moonlight is beautiful-
white rivers running together
along the bare boughs of the trees- and somewhere, for someone, life
is becoming moment by moment
unbearable. ~ Mary Oliver,
1123:Wyatt lowered her to the floor, then paused, his hands on her waist. “McKenna?” His breath was soft on her face. “Yes?” “You can look at me, you know. I’m not going to bite.” Something about the way he said it made her smile, and she lifted her gaze. The room was cast in shadows, and she could make out only the faintest outline of his stubbled jaw. She fought the sudden urge to touch his face. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For making me your husband.” His hand moved, ever so slowly, around her back. “And for giving me the chance . . .” He nodded toward Emma’s bedroom. “To be a father to that sweet little one in there.” The anxious tickle expanding inside her, McKenna matched the softness of his voice. “And thank you for making me your wife, Wyatt. For allowing me to keep her, and to keep my promise to Janie. It was very . . . honorable of you.” She was achingly aware of the progress of his hand on her lower back as it moved upward. ~ Tamera Alexander,
1124:Lindsay strode to the door and picked up his overcoat from the back of the couch, where he'd tossed it when they came in. She wheeled around to hand him his coat; once again, as expected, Fred was standing right behind her. But this time he wasn't looking at her. He was looking up.
At the mistletoe, directly over their heads.
He met her eyes with a look that glimmered with promise. Then he took the overcoat from her hand and tossed it, lightly, onto the back of the sofa once again.
Everything seemed to slow. His intentions were clear, and she had plenty of time to step back. Yet Lindsay did nothing to stop him when he took her chin in his hand, tipped it upward, and brought his lips down to hers, as purposefully as if he'd meant to do it all along.
Lindsay could have sworn she heard bells....
Still dazed, she followed his eyes upward. "And what's the penalty for ignoring mistletoe?"
"Struck by lightning, I think. ~ Sierra Donovan,
1125:...though the jokers around the table be sneaking Whoopee Cushions into the Siege Perilous, under the very descending arse of the grailseeker, and though the grails themselves come in plastic these years, a dime a dozen, penny a gross, still he, at times self-conned as any Christian, praises and prophecies that era of innocence he just missed living in, one of the last pockets of Pre-Christian Oneness left on the planet: "Tibet is a special case. Tibet was deliberately set aside by the Empire as free and neutral territory, a Switzerland for the spirit where there is no extradition, and Alp-Himalayas to draw the soul upward, and danger rare enough to tolerate...Switzerland and Tibet are linked along one of the true meridians of the Earth...true as the Chinese have drawn meridians of the body...We will have to learn such new maps of Earth: and as travel in the Interior becomes more common, as the maps grow another dimension, so must we.... ~ Thomas Pynchon,
1126:Avada Kedavra!” “Expelliarmus!” The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead center of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the spells collided. Harry saw Voldemort’s green jet meet his own spell, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy’s shell. ~ J K Rowling,
1127:Hamilton found it difficult to concentrate on what Eliza was saying. Her lips were moving rapidly, but he couldn't actually decipher what the words coming out of her mouth were. It was such a lovely mouth, and he found it quite quirky, given the fact that it could assume different positions with alarming frequency. Like now, it was pursed in a most attractive manner, and now... it was moving again as if the lady could not get the words out fast enough. His gaze traveled upward, past the eyes that were flashing and settled on her hair. He couldn't help but appreciate the efforts of Mabel. The curls she'd been able to produce on Eliza's head, well, they were tantalizing. He had the strangest urge to reach out and touch them, to feel with his own hand if they were as soft as they appeared, something he'd been contemplating ever since he got a good look at her in the dining room. He pulled abruptly back to reality when Eliza poked him in the chest. ~ Jen Turano,
1128:Tick could feel his eyes start to droop again, so he pressed the stereo unit and turned up the volume. His and Sally’s favorite song was burned on every inch of the CD, so he could play it over and over. “Mustang Sally.” He started to sing along with Wilson Pickett at the top of his lungs, “Ride, Sally, ride!” He was two streets away from where he lived on David Court when he saw the strobe lights shooting upward to the sky. Blue, red, and white just like it was the Fourth of July. But it wasn’t the Fourth of July. He knew what the lights meant. Good cop that he was, he knew he was going to have to stop to offer any assistance if needed. Sally, the kids, and sleep would have to wait just a bit longer. He turned off the CD player and turned the corner, and his world came to a screeching halt. He saw the barricade, the yellow tape, the crazy arcing lights, the crowds of people, and too many police cars to count. All parked in front of his house, in ~ Anonymous,
1129:DISCIPLE: It is said that the psychic is a spark of the Divine.
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes.
DISCIPLE: Then it seems that the function of the psychic being is the same as that of Vedic Agni, who is the leader of the journey?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. Agni is the God of the Psychic and, among the other things it does, it leads the upward journey.
DISCIPLE: How does the psychic carry the personalities formed in this life into another life?
SRI AUROBINDO: After death, it gathers its elements and carries them onward to another birth. But it is not the same personality that is born. People easily misunderstand these things, specially when they are put in terms of the mind. The past personality is taken only as the basis but a new personality is put forward. If it was the same personality, then it would act exactly in the same manner and there would be no meaning in that. ~ Sri Aurobindo, EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO, RECORDED BY A B PURANI (page no 665-666),
1130:Her belly clenched with a painful mixture of shame and reluctant excitement. She met his eyes, then heartily wished she hadn't. The predatory glint was unmistakable.
"There's room for maneuver between nakedness and that tent you're wearing." His gaze sharpened. "Did you think I'd quail at all that flannel?"
"I took what defensive measures I could," she muttered, staring upward again. Although truthfully it hadn't occurred to her to pack anything other than her usual nightwear.
"You underestimate the stimulating power of imagination," he said drily. "I'm intrigued to discover the treasures beneath that billowing fabric."
In wordless horror, Sidonie turned her head to stare at him. His shell of carelessness disintegrated and she read raw hunger in his saturnine face. The air vibrated with sexual awareness. In the bristling silence, the sound of rain sheeting against the windows was a jarring intrusion.
"Take it off," he said softly. ~ Anna Campbell,
1131:At the teasing penetration, my hips jerk upward. Wes chuckles and eases his finger deeper, until the pad of it is stroking my prostate. My entire body trembles. Tingles. Burns. He spends a maddeningly long time torturing me with his mouth and finger—no, fingers. He’s got two inside me now, rubbing that sensitive place and bringing white dots to my eyes. “Wes,” I murmur. He raises his head. His gray eyes are smoky with desire. “Hmmm?” he says lazily. “Stop fucking teasing me and start fucking fucking me,” I rasp. “Fucking fucking you? Did you really need two fuckings?” “One’s an adverb and one’s a verb.” My voice is as tight as every muscle in my body. I’m about to go up in flames if he doesn’t make me come. His laughter warms my thigh. “I love the English language, dude. It’s so creative.” “Are we really having this conversation right now?” I growl when his teeth sink into my inner thigh. His fingers are still lodged inside me, but no longer moving. ~ Sarina Bowen,
1132:I keep remembering one of my Guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will eat away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
1133:if one keeps climbing upward in the chain of command within the brain, one finds at the very top those over-all organizational forces and dynamic properties of the large patterns of cerebral excitation that are correlated with mental states or psychic activity…. Near the apex of this command system in the brain…. we find ideas. Man over the chimpanzee has ideas and ideals. In the brain model proposed here, the causal potency of an idea, or an ideal, becomes just as real as that of a molecule, a cell, or a nerve impulse. Ideas cause ideas and help evolve new ideas. They interact with each other and with other mental forces in the same brain, in neighboring brains, and, thanks to global communication, in far distant, foreign brains. And they also interact with the external surroundings to produce in toto a burst-wise advance in evolution that is far beyond anything to hit the evolutionary scene yet, including the emergence of the living cell. Who ~ Douglas R Hofstadter,
1134:Upon hearing them, Eloise turns as well. Paul watches as she stares at them, and he wonders what she’s thinking: if she sees love or a letdown; salvation or inconvenience. Reaching down, she gathers up the train of her dress and begins trudging up to them, working her way across the broad swath of grass. He stays behind for a moment, and as his sisters and his mother vanish behind the abbey’s arches and spires he stares upward, past his blinding hangover, to a point in the distance that he can’t quite grasp. A bit of infinity where blue bleeds to white, where absence and hope collide. He thinks of the beautiful, gut-wrenching future awaiting them, and the claw marks they’ve left in everything they’ve given up. He thinks of all the times they’ve faced the world on two steady feet, and all the times he knows it will knock them over to the ground. Mostly, though, he thinks—he forces himself to think—that for today, at least for today, they’ll all be okay. ~ Grant Ginder,
1135:Unable to resist any longer, he buried his fingers in the hair at the base of her neck and angled her face upward. He leaned forward and dropped soft little kisses onto her lips, starting at the corner and working his way across until she began to stir. Her lashes flittered. “Gid—?” He smothered her question with his kiss. No longer playful, he took her mouth fully, holding nothing back. She was no longer Adelaide Proctor, governess. She was Adelaide Westcott, wife. His wife. It didn’t take long for her to recover from her surprise. She clasped his shoulder for support and stretched toward him. His pulse surged, and when she finally pulled away, he refused to let her separate from him completely. He rested his forehead against hers and listened to their ragged breaths echoing in the quiet morning. “Feeling better today, are we?” Adelaide asked as she lowered her head back down to her pillow, her face a becoming shade of pink. Gideon grinned. “A little. ~ Karen Witemeyer,
1136:Frogs
The rains have come, and frogs are full of glee.
They sing in chorus, in loud, jubilant voices.
Nothing to fear today: no drought, no dearth of worms,
Nor serpent's jaw, nor stones of wanton boys.
Cloud-like, the grasses thicken: in the fields the lush waters stand;
Louder leaps their hour of brief immortality.
They have no necks, but their throats are rich and swollen;
And o, what sleek bodies, what cold gem-like eyes!
Eyes staring upward, fixed in meditation,
Ecstatic, lidless, like rishis' gazing on God.
The rain has ceased, the shadows slant;
Hymn-like floats their singing, on the slow, attentive air.
Now dies the day in silence, but a sombre drone
Perforates the twilight; the thin sky leans to listen.
Darkness and rain: and we are warm in bed:
Yet one unwearied phrase mingles in our sleepThe final sloka of the mystic chanting,
The croak, croak, croak of the last fanatic frog.
~ Buddhadeb Bosu,
1137:And now, from beneath the audible, came a low reverberation. It came up through the soles of my feet. I stood still while it hummed upward bone by bone. There is no adequate simile. The pulse of the country worked through my body until I recognized it as music. As language. And the language ran everywhere inside me, like blood; and for feeling, it was as if through time I had been made of earth or mud or other insensate matter. Like a rhyme learned in antiquity a verse blazed to mind: O be quick, my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet! And sure enough my soul leapt dancing inside my chest, and my feet sprang up and sped me forward, and the sense came to me of undergoing creation, as the land and the trees and the beasts of the orchard had done some long time before. And the pulse of the country came around me, as of voices lifted at great distance, and moved through me as I ran until the words came clear, and I sang with them a beautiful and curious chant. ~ Leif Enger,
1138:"Unless the person is aiming upward, there is nothing you can do about their situation. And this seems to be about that initial choice between good and evil. Once someone comes to therapy, they've already done something. They've already said: I have a problem, conceivably I can fix it, and I need to do something about it. And so half the work is already done before they show up, because they've already said that 'things aren't as good as they could be, and I want to do something about it.' The question is, can you do anything about that person who is not at that state? You can't. All you can do is serve by example. But until the person has decided, on their own, that they're wrong (that's why they're suffering – there's something wrong about what they are doing) and that they want to fix it… I think that hammering against their situation often makes it worse. That's part of free will. I do not think that people can learn unless they admit that they're wrong." ~ Jordan Peterson,
1139:"Unless the person is aiming upward, there is nothing you can do about their situation. And this seems to be about that initial choice between good and evil. Once someone comes to therapy, they've already done something. They've already said: I have a problem, conceivably I can fix it, and I need to do something about it. And so half the work is already done before they show up, because they've already said that 'things aren't as good as they could be, and I want to do something about it.' The question is, can you do anything about that person who is not at that state? You can't. All you can do is serve by example. But until the person has decided, on their own, that they're wrong (that's why they're suffering – there's something wrong about what they are doing) and that they want to fix it… I think that hammering against their situation often makes it worse. That's part of free will. I do not think that people can learn unless they admit that they're wrong." ~ Jordan B Peterson,
1140:Luca appeared from around the front of the villa. Smiling slightly, he crossed the garden in a few long strides and sat next to her on the bench. He seemed completely healed, both from the wound on his shoulder and th scrapes he’d gotten at Palazzo Dubois. The last remaining evidence of the fight, a bruise on his jawbone, had turned from purple to brownish yellow.
Cass reached up to touch it. She still couldn’t believe they’d infiltrated Joseph Dubois’s home, stolen the Book of the Eternal Rose, and escaped with only a few minor injuries to show for it. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” she said.
A gust of wind sent a bouquet of fallen leaves spinning through the air. Luca wrapped his hand around hers, and their fingers naturally twined together. “I promised I would, Cass.”
Her lips curled upward. Luca had only just started calling her Cass, but she liked it. it made her think that he had finally relaxed around her, that the person he was being was his true self. ~ Fiona Paul,
1141:Though Plente that is goddesse of rychesses hielde adoun with ful horn, and withdraweth nat hir hand, as many richesses as the see torneth upward sandes whan it is moeved with ravysshynge blastes, or elles as manye rychesses as ther schynen bryghte sterres in hevene on the sterry nyghtes; yit, for al that, mankende nolde nat cese to wepe wrecchide pleyntes. And al be it so that God resceyveth gladly hir preiers, and yyveth hem, as fool-large, moche gold, and apparayleth coveytous folk with noble or cleer honours; yit semeth hem haven igeten nothyng, but alwey hir cruel ravyne, devourynge al that they han geten, scheweth othere gapynges (that is to seyn, gapyn and desiren yit after mo rychesses.) What brydles myghte withholden to any certeyn ende the disordene covetise of men, whan evere the rather that it fletith in large yiftes, the more ay brenneth in hem the thurst of havynge? Certes he that qwakynge and dredful weneth hymselven nedy, he ne lyveth nevermo ryche. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer,
1142:hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, then Snape turned the bronze handle. The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table. The room’s usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece surmounted by a gilded mirror. Snape and Yaxley lingered for a moment on the threshold. As their eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light, they were drawn upward to the strangest feature of the scene: an apparently unconscious human figure hanging upside down over the table, revolving slowly as if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in the bare, polished surface of the table below. None of the people seated underneath this singular sight was looking at it except for a pale young man sitting almost directly below it. He seemed unable to prevent himself from glancing upward every minute or so. “Yaxley. Snape,” said a high, clear voice from the ~ J K Rowling,
1143:Baron von Munchausen (1720–97) was a real person who had fought as a soldier in Russia. On his return home he told stories about his exploits that nobody believed. These included riding on a cannonball, taking a brief trip to the moon, and escaping from a marsh by pulling himself out by his own hair. This latter feat is impossible, for the upward force on the Baron’s hair would have been cancelled out by the downward force on his arm. It’s a nice idea, though, and von Munchausen’s preposterous principle was later taken up by Americans, but instead of talking about hair, the Americans started in the late nineteenth century to talk of pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. What’s impossible in physics is possible in computing, and a computer that’s able to load its own programs is, metaphorically, pulling itself up by its own bootstraps. In 1953 the process was called a bootstrap. By 1975 people had got bored with the strap, and from then on computers simply booted up. ~ Mark Forsyth,
1144:For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time ahead and far on into life, is—; solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent—?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,
1145:She let the relaxing song waft over and through her as she lost herself in everything around her: the millions of stars glittering above, the soft quilt beneath her, the man whose hand slipped warmly into hers. And she began to understand something she hadn't only a few short minutes before; she began to feel a certain, undeniable truth seeping into her skin, her muscles, her very bones.

And when the song came to its sweet, peaceful conclusion, she continued peering up at the sky even as she leaned her head over to rest it on Lucky's shoulder. And she whispered, "You love me."

He kept gazing upward, too, his answer coming softly. "Yeah, I do."

And it sounded ... like it wasn't a surprise to him at all.

The new knowledge made Tessa's skin tingle even as her body filled with warmth. And she pulled back just slightly to peer over at him, this man who loved her. He hadn't put it into words, but he hadn't needed to---because he'd shown her, in so many sweet ways. ~ Toni Blake,
1146:Dan’s features showcased a mixture of intense confusion and frustration, and a small little voice in my head wondered if it was too late. If our chance had passed.

I glared at that voice and shut a door in its face. What a stupid voice. You can’t sit here, voice. NEVER COME BACK!

While I was berating my doubt, the cloud of confusion hovering over Dan’s features abruptly cleared and his stare cut to mine. It startled me because—lo and behold—the sexy eyes were back.

Boy oh boy, were they back.

Dan was legit bringing sexy back.

Whoa.

In the next moment, his mouth hooked upward and he pushed away from the wall, sauntering toward me. Instinctively, I took two steps back.

“Kit-Kat.” He wagged a finger at me, like I’d been naughty. “You liked me.”

“You liked me, you just said so,” I volleyed back, the words sounding like an accusation.

“I did.” His grin grew and his voice deepened. “And I do.”

Oh.

Okay.

Here we go. ~ Penny Reid,
1147:It became apparent to enthusiasts of locomotive travel that there was at least one unscheduled train on the tracks of Palimpsest. It did not stop at any of the stations, for one thing. Astrologers and geologists were consulted; they are much the same folk in this part of the world. The astrologer gazes upward and scries out shapes in the sky, and to do this he builds great towers so as to be closest to the element of his choice. The geologist is an astrologer who once, just once, happened to look down. From such great heights she glimpses the enormous shapes stamped on the earth, the long polygons made by the borders of farms and rivers and mill towns, littoral masses and city walls, a reflection of the celestial mosaic. In these loamy constellations Palimpsest is but a decorative flourish; they are so vast and complex that in her lifetime the geologist may chart but the tiniest part of the conterration which contains her tower. It is a long and lonely life to which few are called. ~ Catherynne M Valente,
1148:constantly urging them to ever greater speed. All the villagers had survived such storms before. They could taste the friction on their tongues, feel the hair standing away from their bodies, as if the earth were quarreling with the sky. The storm lasted two and a half days. Below them in the valley, the sand boiled and rushed, like a nightmare river. The Valley of Megiddo was filled from one end to the other, north to south, east to west. The sand was the color of old rust, and the noise was fierce. A howling dominated the world and did not stop, not to draw breath nor to let them sleep. Sand rattled against the doors, fistfuls of grit tossed upward like froth from a crashing wave. The dust settled everywhere. Abigail bathed Dorcas, and before the child was dressed again she would be covered with sand as fine as milled flour. It was in their food and in their water. It clogged their nostrils and filled their ears. They took to wearing their shawls wrapped around their faces even when indoors. ~ Davis Bunn,
1149:I’m going to build the biggest, most exclusive, most impressive S and M club in the world.”
Soren said nothing at first. But he did look up to the ceiling and addressed a few words to it.
“I suppose it wouldn’t have occurred to you to call him to join the Peace Corps, Lord,” Soren said, still gazing upward. “It had to be this?”
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Kingsley demanded.
“God. I was criticizing Him, so perhaps it’s for the best you interrupted. This is your grand calling in life? Your ultimate purpose? An S and M club?”
“No,” Kingsley said, shaking his head. “Not an S and M club. The S and M club. And you’re going to help me, because it’s your fault I’m doing this.”
“My fault?” Soren repeated, pointing at himself. “What leaps in logic did you take to lay this at my doorstep?”
“You turned me kinky,” Kingsley said.
Soren paused. “I want to argue with that assertion,” Soren said.
Oui?”
“I said I wanted to argue with, not that I could.
~ Tiffany Reisz,
1150:I have come!’’ Kostya yelled in a dramatic manner, tossing his head so the sweep of dark auburnhair that had come down over his forehead was flipped back.

‘‘Hello, everyone! Mayling! Isn’t this exciting?’’ Cyrene called, ruining Kostya’s big moment.

He glared at her.

‘‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Go right ahead, punkanoodle. I know you want tomake a good impression on everyone.’’

Even the sigh that Kostya heaved was filled with drama. ‘‘I told you not to call me that! It’s not fitting.’’

‘‘Sorry,’’ Cyrene said, looking remorseful. ‘‘Forgot. Go ahead, Kostie.’’

Even at the distance we were from the door, I could see Kostya cast a glance upward as he obviously soughtpatience. Gabriel made an odd snorting noise, as if he was trying to hold back laughter. Normally I would have had a hard time keeping my own face straight, but I was more concerned about what Cyrene was doing here than the fact that her personality and Kostya’s were so obviously unsuited to each other. ~ Katie MacAlister,
1151:They were men. They crept upon their hands and knees. They used their hands only, dragging their legs. They used their knees only, their arms hanging idle at their sides. They strove to rise to their feet, but fell prone in the attempt. They did nothing naturally, and nothing alike, save only to advance foot by foot in the same direction. Singly, in pairs and in little groups, they came on through the gloom, some halting now and again while others crept slowly past them, then resuming their movement. They came by dozens and by hundreds; as far on either hand as one could see in the deepening gloom they extended and the black wood behind them appeared to be inexhaustible. The very ground seemed in motion toward the creek. Occasionally one who had paused did not again go on, but lay motionless. He was dead. Some, pausing, made strange gestures with their hands, erected their arms and lowered them again, clasped their heads; spread their palms upward, as men are sometimes seen to do in public prayer. ~ Ambrose Bierce,
1152:Hey, Patrick is looking for you.”
The voice startles me so badly that I slosh tea on myself. I look down to find Ryder standing below, his hands thrust into his pants pockets as he stares up at me, his mouth drawn into a tight line.
“Tell him I went to bed,” I say. “And thanks a lot for scaring me half to death.” Scowling, I swipe futilely at the wet splotch on the front of my tank top. He’s lucky the tea wasn’t hot.
Ryder takes a step closer, till he’s standing just beneath the balcony. He tilts his face upward, and I can see the contempt there in his features. “So now you’re just going to blow him off?”
“Why don’t you do me a favor and mind your own business?” I shoot back.
“Patrick is my friend; therefore, it is my business. By the way, you do know he’s one to kiss and tell, right?”
“You just said he was your friend.”
He shrugs. “Hey, it’s your reputation.”
“Since when do you care about my reputation, Ryder? Anyway, we were just kissing, if you must know. ~ Kristi Cook,
1153:Caleb!” I gasped. “What are you doing?” “Told you I wouldn’t let you make a mess. Gonna use my mouth on you. I’m going to suck you off, and swallow everything you’ve got.” A wave of burning hot lust shot down my spine. I flexed my hips upward, because I just had to. Caleb yanked down my underwear and moved, until he was kneeling over my body. And before I could even prepare myself, he’d bent his head down to lap his tongue against my cockhead. My shout of approval could probably be heard all over Nebraska. A big hand grasped the base of my shaft. Then, he began to bathe my dick in kisses. Wet, sloppy kisses everywhere. My hips began shaking with excitement. “Oh, Caleb. I can’t…” He opened his mouth and sucked me down. I never felt anything so amazing in my life. His mouth was tight and wet all around me. He gave a good hard suck. Just one. And then I was coming. And Caleb was swallowing. My whole body shook with joy. Caleb moaned and he cupped my balls in one hand and I’d forgotten to breathe for entirely too long… ~ Sarina Bowen,
1154:From the first note I knew it was different from anything I had ever heard.... It began simply, but with an arresting phrase, so simple, but eloquent as a human voice. It spoke, beckoning gently as it unwound, rising and tensing. It spiraled upward, the tension growing with each repeat of the phrasing, and yet somehow it grew more abandoned, wilder with each note. His eyes remained closed as his fingers flew over the strings, spilling forth surely more notes than were possible from a single violin. For one mad moment I actually thought there were more of them, an entire orchestra of violins spilling out of this one instrument. I had never heard anything like it--it was poetry and seduction and light and shadow and every other contradiction I could think of. It seemed impossible to breathe while listening to that music, and yet all I was doing was breathing, quite heavily. The music itself had become as palpable a presence in that room as another person would have been--and its presence was something out of myth. ~ Deanna Raybourn,
1155:Yes. But ceasing sin is the by-product of seeing God. As we see the beauty of God and feel His weightiness in our hearts, our hearts begin to desire Him more than we desire sin. Before the Bible says, “Stop sinning,” it says, “Behold your God!” Think of it like a balloon. There are two ways to keep a balloon afloat. If you fill a balloon with your breath, then the only way to keep it in the air is to continually smack it upward. That’s how religion keeps you motivated: it repeatedly “hits” you. “Stop doing this!” “Get busy with that!” This is my life as a pastor. People come on a Sunday so I can “smack” them about something. “Be more generous!” And they do that for a week. “Go do missions!” And they sign up for a trip. Every week I smack them back into spiritual orbit. No wonder people don’t like being around me. But there’s another way to keep a balloon afloat. Fill it with helium. Then it floats on its own, no smacking required. Seeing the size and beauty of God is like the helium that keeps us soaring spiritually. ~ J D Greear,
1156:Once when Boughton and I had spent an evening going through our texts together and we were done talking them over, I walked him out to the porch, and there were more fireflies out there than I had ever seen in my life, thousands of them everywhere, just drifting up out of the grass, extinguishing themselves in midair. We sat on the steps a good while in the dark and the silence, watching them. Finally Boughton said, “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” And really, it was that night as if the earth were smoldering. Well, it was, and it is. An old fire will make a dark husk for itself and settle in on its core, as in the case of this planet. I believe the same metaphor may describe the human individual, as well. Perhaps Gilead. Perhaps civilization. Prod a little and the sparks will fly. I don’t know whether the verse put a blessing on the fireflies or the fireflies put a blessing on the verse, or if both of them together put a blessing on trouble, but I have loved them both a good deal ever since. ~ Marilynne Robinson,
1157:There's Work To Be Done
'Tis the song of the morning,
The words of the sun,
As he swings o'er the mountains:
'There's work to be done:
I must wake up the sleepers,
And banish the night;
I must paint up the heavens,
Tuck the stars out of sight;
'Dry the dew on the meadows,
Put warmth in the air,
Chase the fog from the lowlands,
Stay gloom everywhere.
No pausing, no resting,
There's work to be done.
It is upward and onward,
Still on,' says the sun.
'Tis the song of our soldiers
Who bravely march on:
'There are souls to be gathered,
There's work to be done:
We must wake up the sleepers,
And teach them to think;
We must paint in full horrors
The breakers of drink;
'Dry the tears of the mourners,
Put the cups out of sight,
And, Eastward and Westward,
Proclaim, 'There is light.'
'Tis the Marseillaise of ProgressThere's work to be done,'
The song of our soldiers,
The song of the sun.
740
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1158:Auggie said you were too sentimental for your own good sometimes."
Out loud he said, "Perhaps, but you have taught me that sentiment is not always a bad thing."
I stared up at that impossibly beautiful face, and felt love swell up inside me like a physical force. It filled my body, swelling upward until it made my chest ache, my throat tighten, and my eyes burn. It sounded so stupid. But I loved him. Loved all of him, but loved him more because loving me had made him better. That he would say that I had taught him about being sentimental made me want to cry. Richard reminded me at every turn that I was bloodthirsty and cold. If that were true, then I couldn't have taught Jean-Claude about sentimentality. You can't learn, if you don't have it to teach.
He kissed me. He kissed me softly, with one hand lost in the hair to the side of my face. He drew back and whispered, "I never thought to see that look upon your face, not for me."
"I love you," I said, and touched his hand where it lay against my face. ~ Laurell K Hamilton,
1159:For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. For this reason young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and, so loving, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is—solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves. Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate—?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world for himself for another’s sake, it is great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,
1160:It is for this reason that every good example is a fateful challenge, and every hero, a judge. Michelangelo’s great perfect marble David cries out to its observer: “You could be more than you are.” When you dare aspire upward, you reveal the inadequacy of the present and the promise of the future. Then you disturb others, in the depths of their souls, where they understand that their cynicism and immobility are unjustifiable. You play Abel to their Cain. You remind them that they ceased caring not because of life’s horrors, which are undeniable, but because they do not want to lift the world up on to their shoulders, where it belongs. Don’t think that it is easier to surround yourself with good healthy people than with bad unhealthy people. It’s not. A good, healthy person is an ideal. It requires strength and daring to stand up near such a person. Have some humility. Have some courage. Use your judgment, and protect yourself from too-uncritical compassion and pity. Make friends with people who want the best for you. ~ Jordan Peterson,
1161:It is for this reason that every good example is a fateful challenge, and every hero, a judge. Michelangelo’s great perfect marble David cries out to its observer: “You could be more than you are.” When you dare aspire upward, you reveal the inadequacy of the present and the promise of the future. Then you disturb others, in the depths of their souls, where they understand that their cynicism and immobility are unjustifiable. You play Abel to their Cain. You remind them that they ceased caring not because of life’s horrors, which are undeniable, but because they do not want to lift the world up on to their shoulders, where it belongs. Don’t think that it is easier to surround yourself with good healthy people than with bad unhealthy people. It’s not. A good, healthy person is an ideal. It requires strength and daring to stand up near such a person. Have some humility. Have some courage. Use your judgment, and protect yourself from too-uncritical compassion and pity. Make friends with people who want the best for you. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
1162:You wish to go?”
His jaw felt hard and warm. “I--yes, I wish to go.”
He moved her hand from his cheek to his chest, forcing her palm flat against the vibrant muscle of one breast. His eyes held hers, relentless and piercing. Loretta yearned to move away but knew she had little hope of breaking his hold. She could feel his heart thumping, a steady, sturdy beat in contrast with the uneven flutter of hers.
“You will walk backward in your footsteps and go forward a new way?”
“I--”
He slid her hand upward so it rested on his shoulder, forcing her closer. His height was such that she had to tip her head back to see his face. If he had been a white man, she would have been worrying that he planned to kiss her. But he wasn’t a white man. And she doubted gentle persuasion was what he had in mind. He seemed a yard wide at the shoulders, a looming wall of muscle. There was heat in the depths of his eyes as he studied her, a heat that had never been there before.
“I would have you beside me,” he told her huskily. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1163:Blue Eyes, if you do not know the tosi tivo way, we must do it the Comanche way.”
“Well…yes, I suppose. It’s just that I--Hunter?” He bent his dark head and trailed his lips to her other breast, nibbling and nudging her rigidly cupped fingers. “H-Hunter?”
“Be easy,” he whispered. “It is well.” He dipped his tongue between her knuckles, searching for the sensitive, throbbing nubbin that she guarded so protectively. When his plunging tongue grazed what he sought, she snapped taut. He made another pass and another. A cry crawled up her throat. She couldn’t think when he did this.
“It is mine,” he whispered raggedly. “Give it to me. No pain, little one. Trust me.”
As if of their own volition, her fingers parted. Her rosy nipple popped through, its pebbled peak thrusting upward eagerly to meet him. Hunter seized it gently between his teeth and worried it until she began to shiver and moan. His uncertainty fled. No matter how odd her customs, her body, though more lovely than most, responded like any other. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1164:So,” he said, clearing the roughness out of his throat. “Where should we set up?”
There was a narrow galley belowdeck and, he knew from Tom’s brief tour earlier, there was also a small cabin tucked up in front, with a snug queen-size bed wedged inside and a small shower between the two. All completely outfitted, ready for its next occupants. He tried like hell not to think about that.
He knew she’d been about to say or do something when she’d closed the lid of the bin, but whatever it was, she let that go. He had no doubt she’d get back to it, if it was important to her.
“Foredeck,” she said, motioning with her free hand to the expanse of white fiberglass and sealed teak that formed the raised, flat, front end of the boat, where the thick masts soared upward, rigged out under full sail. “You okay to maneuver up there? I can take the hamper.”
“No worries,” he said. “I’ve got it.” Given the way things were going and the war he was waging with his body, better to keep his hands full for as long as humanly possible. ~ Donna Kauffman,
1165:celebration. Textbook authors present our nation as getting ever better in all areas, from race relations to transportation. The traditional portrayal of Reconstruction as a period of Yankee usurpation and Negro debauchery fits with the upward curve of progress, for if relations were bad in Reconstruction, perhaps not as bad as in slavery but surely worse than what came later, then we can imagine that race relations have gradually been getting better. However, the facts about Reconstruction compel us to acknowledge that in many ways race relations in this country have yet to return to the point reached in, say, 1870. In that year, to take a small but symbolic example, A. T. Morgan, a white state senator from Hinds County, Mississippi, married Carrie Highgate, a black woman from New York, and was reelected.48 Today this probably could not happen, not in Hinds County, Mississippi, or in many counties throughout the United States. Nonetheless, the archetype of progress prompts many white Americans to conclude that black Americans ~ James W Loewen,
1166:The Dr. Nuts seemed only as an acid gurgling down into his intestine. He filled with gas, the sealed valve trapping it just as one pinches the mouth of a balloon. Great eructations rose from his throat and bounced upward toward the refuse-laden bowl of the milk glass chandelier. Once a person was asked to step into this brutal century, anything could happen. Everywhere there lurked pitfalls like Abelman, the insipid Crusaders for Moorish Dignity, the Mancuso cretin, Dorian Greene, newspaper reporters, stripteasers, birds, photography, juvenile delinquents, Nazi pornographers. And especially Myrna Minkoff. The musky minx must be dealt with. Somehow. Someday. She must pay. Whatever happened, he must attend to her even if the revenge took years and he had to stalk her through decades from one coffee shop to another, from one folksinging orgy to another, from subway train to pad to cotton field to demonstration. Ignatius invoked an elaborate Elizabethan curse upon Myrna and, rolling over, frantically abused the glove once more. ~ John Kennedy Toole,
1167:The first and last lesson of the useful arts is that Nature tyrannizes over our works. They must be conformed to her law, or they will be ground to powder by her omnipresent activity. Nothing droll, nothing whimsical will endure. Nature is ever interfering with Art. You cannot build your house or pagoda as you will, but as you must. There is a quick bound set to your captice. The leaning tower can only lean so far. The verandah or pagoda roof can curve upward only to a certain point. The slope of your roof is determined by the weight of snow.

It is only within narrow limits that the discretion of the architect may range: gravity, wind, sun, rain, the size of men and animals, and such like, have more to say than he. It is the law of fluids that prescribes the shape of the boat, — keel, rudder, and bows, — and, in the finer fluid above, the form and tackle of the sails. Man seems to have no option about his tools, but merely the necessity to learn from Nature what will fit best, as if he were fitting a screw or a door. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
1168:At some point in the night she had a dream. Or it was possible that she was partially awake, and was only remembering a dream? She was alone among the rocks on a dark coast beside the sea. The water surged upward and fell back languidly, and in the distance she heard surf breaking slowly on a sandy shore. It was comforting to be this close to the surface of the ocean and gaze at the intimate nocturnal details of its swelling and ebbing. And as she listened to the faraway breakers rolling up onto the beach, she became aware of another sound entwined with the intermittent crash of waves: a vast horizontal whisper across the bossom of the sea, carrying an ever-repeated phrase, regular as a lighthouse flashing: Dawn will be breaking soon. She listened a long time: again and again the scarcely audible words were whispered across the moving water. A great weight was being lifted slowly from her; little by little her happiness became more complete, and she awoke. Then she lay for a few minutes marveling the dream, and once again fell asleep. ~ Paul Bowles,
1169:Another example might be found, not in the problem of evil, but in what is called the problem of progress. One of the ablest agnostics of the age once asked me whether I thought mankind grew better or grew worse or remained the same. He was confident that the alternative covered all possibilities. He did not see that it only covered patterns and not pictures; processes and not stories. I asked him whether he thought that Mr. Smith of Golder’s Green got better or worse or remained exactly the same between the age of thirty and forty. It then seemed to dawn on him that it would rather depend on Mr. Smith; and how he chose to go on. It had never occurred to him that it might depend on how mankind chose to go on; and that its course was not a straight line or an upward or downward curve, but a track like that of a man across a valley, going where he liked and stopping where he chose, going into a church or falling drunk in a ditch. The life of man is a story; an adventure story; and in our vision the same is true even of the story of God. ~ G K Chesterton,
1170:Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ISAIAH 43:18-19 The Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. 2 TIMOTHY 4:18 You have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. EPHESIANS 4:21-24 If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17 Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. PHILIPPIANS 3:13-14 ~ Stormie Omartian,
1171:But in whatever way it comes, there must be a decision of the mind and the will and, as its result, a complete and effective self-consecration. The acceptance of a new spiritual idea-force and upward orientation in the being, an illumination, a turning or conversion seized on by the will and the heart's aspiration, -this is the momentous act which contains as in a seed all the results that the Yoga has to give. The mere idea or intellectual seeking of something higher beyond, however strongly grasped by the mind's interest, is ineffective unless it is seized on by the heart as the one thing desirable and by the will as the one thing to be done. For truth of the Spirit has not to be merely thought but to be lived, and to live it demands a unified single-mindedness of the being; so great a change as is contemplated by the Yoga is not to be effected by a divided will or by a small portion of the energy or by a hesitating mind. He who seeks the Divine must consecrate himself to God and to God only.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,
1172:You would do that? You wouldn’t mind the idea of a woman pursuing such unorthodox interests?”
“Of course I wouldn’t. There would be no point in marrying a woman with unorthodox interests and then trying to make her ordinary, would there?”
Her eyes turned round. “Are you going to propose to me now?”
Christopher turned her to face him, his fingers stroking the underside of her chin, coaxing her face upward. “There are some things I want to discuss first.”
Beatrix looked at him expectantly.
His expression sobered. Taking her hand in his, he began to walk with her along a grassy path. “First…we won’t be able to share a bed.”
She blinked. Hesitantly she asked, “We’re going to be platonic?”
He stumbled a little. “No. God, no. What I meant was, we will have relations, but we will not sleep together.”
“But…I think I would like sleeping with you.”
His hand tightened on hers. “My nightmares would keep you awake.”
“I wouldn’t mind that.”
“I might accidentally strangle you in my sleep.”
“Oh. Well, I would mind that. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1173:I want to be loved as a woman. Not as a child, or a sister, or an invalid-"
"That's not how I-"
"Perhaps you are not even capable of love." In her blazing frustration, Win experienced something she had never felt before. The desire to hurt someone. "You don't have it in you."
Merripen moved through a shaft of moonlight that had slipped through the conservatory glass, and Win felt a little shock as she saw his murderous expression. In just a few words she had managed to cut him deeply, enough to open a vein of dark and furious feeling. She fell back a step, alarmed as he seized her in a brutal grip.
He jerked her upward. "All the fires of hell could burn for a thousand years and it wouldn't equal what I feel for you in one minute of the day. I love you so much there is no pleasure in it. Nothing but torment. Because if I could dilute what I feel for you to the millionth part, it would still be enough to kill you. And even if it drives me mad, I would rather see you live in the arms of that cold, soulless bastard than die in mine. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1174:A fox crept up to a vine. He gazed longingly at the fat, purple, overripe grapes. He placed his front paws against the trunk of the vine, stretched his neck and tried to get at the fruit, but it was too high. Irritated, he tried his luck again. He launched himself upward, but his jaw snapped only at fresh air. A third time he leapt with all his might – so powerfully that he landed back down on the ground with a thud. Still not a single leaf had stirred. The fox turned up his nose: ‘These aren’t even ripe yet. Why would I want sour grapes?’ Holding his head high, he strode back into the forest. The Greek poet, Aesop, created this fable to illustrate one of the most common errors in reasoning. An inconsistency arose when the fox set out to do something and failed to accomplish it. He can resolve this conflict in one of three ways: A) by somehow getting at the grapes, B) by admitting that his skills are insufficient, or C) by retrospectively reinterpreting what happened. The last option is an example of cognitive dissonance, or rather, its resolution. ~ Rolf Dobelli,
1175:Black anti-semitism is a form of underdog resentment and envy, directed at another underdog who has made it in American society. The remarkable upward mobility of American Jews--rooted chiefly in a history and culture that places a premium on higher education and self-organization--easily lends itself to myths of Jewish unity and homogeneity that have gained currency among other groups, especially among relatively unorganized groups like black Americans. The high visibility of Jews in the upper reaches of the academy, journalism, the entertainment industry, and the professions--though less so percentage-wise in corporate America and national political office--is viewed less as a result of hard work and success fairly won and more as a matter of favoritism and nepotism among Jews. Ironically, calls for black solidarity and achievement are often modeled on myths of Jewish unity--as both groups respond to American xenophobia and racism. But in times such as these, some blacks view Jews as obstacles rather than allies in the struggle for racial justice. ~ Cornel West,
1176:I'll keep the girl out of trouble," Gray said, in what seemed to him a rather magnanimous gesture. "I'll watch out for her."
"Oh, I've no doubt you will. But who's going to watch out for you?"
Gray's nerves prickled. So, it wasn't the girl Joss was concerned about. No, he expected Gray to cock it all up.
"Right, Joss. I'm an unprincipled, lecherous bastard." He paused, waiting for his brother to argue otherwise.
He didn't.
Gray protested. "She's a governess, for the love of gold. Prim, proper, starched, dull." Soft, he thought in counterpoint. Delicate, sweet. Intriguing.
"Ah. So you'll dally with any chambermaid or serving wench who'll lift her skirts, but you'd draw the line at seducing a governess?"
"Yes. Have a look at me, man." Gray smoothed his brushed velvet lapel, then gestured upward at the banners trimming the freshly tarred rigging. "Look at this ship. I'm telling you, my libertine days are over. I've gone respectable."
"It's easy to change your coat. It's a great deal harder to change your ways. ~ Tessa Dare,
1177:For a moment we are weightless, eyes open and locked underwater, flowers drawn down with us, swirling around us in a current of white bubbles. My hair floats around us both like black silk. His hands are still around my waist, mine pressed against his bare chest. My lamp drifts between us.
Aladdin plants his feet against the bottom of the pool and kicks off, pushing us upward to burst through the surface. He gasps in air and shakes the wet hair from his eyes. Without pulling away, we float in silence, and I cannot take my gaze from him. Water runs down his cheeks and lips, dripping from his jaw. A lock of his hair is stuck to his forehead, and I gently lift it away, curling it around my finger before letting it go.
“What are we doing?” he whispers, pulling me closer.
I cannot reply. I don’t trust my own voice. He brings his forehead down to rest against mine, and everything outside this pool and this moment ceases to exist. All that matters is the gentle sound of our breathing, our reflections on the water, the feel of his hands around me. ~ Jessica Khoury,
1178:Her sense of self was also inseparable from her sense of community. She also believed that we have to learn how to relate to one another again, to smile and laugh again, to fall into one another’s arms and love each other again. We have to live with less and be happy baking bread, restoring a house. We need more control over how things are made, more self-reliance. We need to be closer to the source of what things are made of and how they are made. We need to stop thinking that every problem has to be solved by an expert and to depend more on ourselves and one another. One of the main reasons for today’s violence, Dorothy used to say, is the stress on individual upward mobility: “You can work hard and get good grades in high school, go to college, and yet when you get your degree there is no job for you. So under the pressures of your house note and car note you explode.” Before she met Jimmy and me, Dorothy had never spoken in public. “He encouraged me,” she said at the service we held for Jimmy a week after his death, “and I haven’t shut up since. ~ Grace Lee Boggs,
1179:Older Than You
We are younger in years! Yes, that is true;
But in some things we are older than you.
For instance, you sometimes say with a smile,
'It will do to drink wine once in a while.'
We say, 'It will not do at all!'
Wine is an imp of old Alcohol.
So are gin and beer, and cider, too.
If you drink up them, they will eat up you.
'Cider is not a strong drink,' you say.
Ah! but, my friend, it opens the way
For brandy and whiskey to follow fast.
It has done it many a time in the past.
It tempts and teases the appetite.
Let it alone, boys, keep to the right;
Onward and upward we mean to go.
Heaven is reached that way, you know.
People who drink are behind the time.
They are back with darkness, and woe, and crime.
This age is progressive. You people who drink,
Though ever so little, just pause and thinkThink of the anguish that liquor makes;
Think of the hearts that it burdens and breaks.
Let it alone: stop drinking to-dayThis is what we, the children, say.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1180:One must build to the praise of a Being above, to build the noblest memorial of himself. Then, Angelo may verily " hang the Pantheon in the air." Then the unknown builder, whose personality disappears in his work, may stand an almost inspired mediator between the upward-looking thought and the spheres overhead. Each line then leaps with a swift aspiration, as the vast structure rises, in nave and transept into pointed arch and vanishing spire. The groined roof grows dusky with majestic glooms; while, beneath, the windows flame, as with apocalyptic light of jewels. Angelic presences, sculptured upon the portal, invite the wayfarer, and wave before him their wings of promise. Within is a worship which incense only clouds, which spoken sermons only mar. The building itself becomes a worship, a Gloria in Excelsis, articulate in stone; the noblest tribute offered on earth, by any art, to Him from whom its impulse came, and with the ineffable majesty of whose spirit all skies are filled! ~ Richard Salter Storrs, The Recognition of the Supernatural in Letters and in life (1881),
1181:Is this where it was?” Royce asked, stopping and studying the base of the tower.

“How should I know?” Hadrian replied as his eyes coursed up the length of the south tower. Up close, it blocked everything else out, a solid wall of black rising against the light of the moon. “I can never understand why such small people build such gigantic things.”

“Maybe they’re compensating,” Royce said, dropping several lengths of rope.

“Damn it, Royce. It’s been eight years since we did this. I was in better shape then. I was younger, and if I recall, I vowed I would never do it again.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t make vows. The moment you do, fate starts conspiring to shove them down your throat.”

Hadrian sighed, staring upward. “That’s one tall tower.”

“And if the dwarves were still here maintaining it, it would be impregnable. Lucky for us, they’ve let it rot. You should be happy—the last eight years would only have eroded it further. It should be easier.”

“It’s granite, Royce. Granite doesn’t erode much in eight years ~ Michael J Sullivan,
1182:Let me take you home.” Devon’s tone was pragmatic, as if they were standing in a parlor instead of a violent late-summer storm. Had he said it in an overbearing manner, Kathleen might have been able to refuse him. But somehow he’d guessed that softening his approach was the best way to undermine her.
The dray bobbed its head and pawed the ground with one hoof.
She would have to ride back with him, she realized in despair. There was no alternative. Wrapping her arms around herself, she said anxiously, “F-first I have something to say to you.”
Devon’s brows lifted, his face cold.
“I…” She swallowed hard, and the words came out in a rush. “What I said in the study earlier was unkind, and untrue, and I’m s-sorry for it. It was very wrong of me. I shall make that very clear to Mr. Totthill and Mr. Fogg. And your brother.”
His expression changed, one corner of his mouth curling upward in the hint of a smile that sent her heartbeat into chaos. “You needn’t bother mentioning it to them. All three will be calling me far worse before all is said and done. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1183:Frida
Frida, I knew that thy life-years were counted.
If but before thee a lifting thought mounted,
Upward thy gaze turned all wistful to view it,
As wouldst thou pursue it.
Eyes that so clear saw the wonderful vision
Looked far away beyond earth's indecision.
Snow-white unfolded the pinions that later
Bore thee to the greater.
Speaking or asking thou broughtest me sorrow;
Eyes thine and words thine seemed wanting to borrow
Clearness more pure and thoughts, victory gaining
Beyond my attaining.
When thou wert dancing in all a child's lightness,
Shaking thy locks like a fountain in brightness,
Laughing till heaven was opened in gladness
Over thy gladness,Or when affliction in sternness had spoken,
So that thy heart in that moment seemed broken,
Far from thy thoughts in thy suffering riven
Were both earth and heaven,Then, oh, I saw then: thy joy and thy grieving
Ever the bounds of the mortal were cleaving.
All seems so little where silent we ponder,But room they have yonder.
~ Bjornstjerne Bjornson,
1184:A Coast View
High ’mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet
Riseth in Babylonian mass above,
In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chair
Of grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone,
And gaze with a keen wondering happiness
Out o’er the sea. Unto the circling bend
That verges Heaven, a vast luminous plain
It stretches, changeful as a lover’s dream—
Into great spaces mapped by light and shade
In constant interchange—either ‘neath clouds
The billows darken, or they shimmer bright
In sunny scopes of measureless expanse.
’Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour,
Calm, or but gently heaving;—yet, O God!
What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiled
In slumber, under that wide-shining face!
While o’er the watery gleam—there where its edge
Banks the dim vacancy, the topmost sails
Of some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen,
Hang as if clinging to a cloud that still
Comes rising with them from the void beyond,
Like to a heavenly net, drawn from the deep
And carried upward by ethereal hands
~ Charles Harpur,
1185:She sat back, eyeing the flames now leaping upward to lick at the wooden beams of the ceiling. "If this fire gets out of hand, or if the guards take too long to come, you and I may be in a lot of trouble."
"We are already in a lot of trouble."
"That was my reasoning, too. Of course, if that happens and the fire gets too big before the mighty citizens of Ringhmon stop it, it'll also gut this little palace and destroy everything inside it. Including the enormously expensive Model Six that I just fixed, which they'll be responsible for paying fo, and probably the other Model Six that they openly own." She shrugged, trying to appear unworried. "That'll teach them to kidnap me. But that won't happen. We'll be fine."
"You say that and yet you are frightened."
"Yes, I'm frightened! I admit it! Happy? No, wait, Mages are never happy. Just try not to die, all right? I don't want that to be my fault."
Alain thought through her words. "I will attempt not to die. Your plan appears to be sound, as well as potentially very destructive. I see that it is a mistake to offend you. ~ Jack Campbell,
1186:So, who are they really, these hundred thousand white supremacists? They're every white guy who believed that this land was his land, made for you and me. They're every down-on-his-luck guy who just wanted to live a decent life but got stepped on, every character in a Bruce Springsteen or Merle Haggard song, every cop, soldier, auto mechanic, steelworker, and construction worker in America's small towns who can't make ends meet and wonders why everyone else is getting a break except him. But instead of becoming Tom Joad, a left-leaning populist, they take a hard right turn, ultimately supporting the very people who have dispossessed them.

They're America's Everymen, whose pain at downward mobility and whose anger at what they see as an indifferent government have become twisted by a hate that tells them they are better than others, disfigured by a resentment so deep that there are no more bridges to be built, no more ladders of upward mobility to be climbed, a howl of pain mangled into the scream of a warrior. Their rage is as sad as it is frightening, as impotent as it is shrill. ~ Michael S Kimmel,
1187:You want to be a naughty girl?” he whispered. “You came to the right place.”
Rising onto her knees, she turned and sat on his lap, facing the front windshield. Leaning back against his chest, she took his hands and placed them on her breasts before slowly sinking down on him once more, inch by inch. This time, she wasn’t allowed to moan her pleasure, and the restriction only ramped up the powerful ache. She hovered so close to release that it would only take a few upward thrusts of Daniel’s hips to make her come.
His fingertips skimmed over her collarbone and neck. He hesitated for a split second before his big hand covered her mouth, preventing any sound from escaping.
“Is this okay, baby?”
Story caught of glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror, eyes dark and heavy with passion, Daniel’s hand over her lips. The erotic sight made her sex clench tightly around him. Closing her eyes, she nodded vigorously.”

Excerpt From: Bailey, Tessa. “Officer Off Limits.” Entangled Publishing, LLC (Brazen), 2013-05-23T10:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright. ~ Tessa Bailey,
1188:Darius, please. You’re hurting me.” He opened his eyes at once. “Nicole?” She lay draped across his chest, her face angled up to his, her dark braid curling beneath her chin. A ragged breath escaped him. She was the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld. Until she winced, and he realized he was holding her tight enough to crack her ribs. He released her immediately. She wiggled against him as she struggled to sit up, finally bracing a hand upon his chest to lever herself upward. His pulse reacted to her touch, and he had to close his eyes to keep from clutching her to himself again. The haze of sleep was clearing, but his control hadn’t yet been fully restored. A small groan vibrated in his throat. Cool fingers stroked his brow, his face, his hair. “Darius, it’s all right. It was just a dream. I’m here, now. Safe. We’re both safe.” He opened his eyes and turned his face toward her voice. She had slid from atop him but knelt by the side of the sofa near his head. His gaze roamed her face, her shoulders, the area around her ribs. “Did I hurt you?” She shook her head, and he expelled a heavy breath in relief. ~ Karen Witemeyer,
1189:His expression was graven, a mask of urgent desire. "Wrap your legs around me."
She could barely make out the gravelly command; it took an instant to register that his palms had slid beneath her bottom, supporting her weight, then to make her muscles obey her enough to obey him.
Immediately her thighs clamped about him, he lowered her hips, and she realized- felt the broad head of his erection nudge against her entrance, then he pressed in, and drew her down.
As he thrust upward.
Head falling back, she gasped as he impaled her, as the sensation of him riding hard and high into her body engulfed her senses, and dragged them down.
Into a whirlpool of seething desire, of passion so hot it scorched, of a need so fiery it melted her bones. He lifted her, and brought her down again, thrusting upward as he did, and every nerve she possessed shook, shuddered.
With a need he understood; legs braced, he held her in his arms before the fireplace, the heat from the flames dancing over her flushed skin as he gripped her bottom and held her to him, held her body against him and filled her again and again. ~ Stephanie Laurens,
1190:Wyatt’s grip suddenly tightened and she looked up. He was smiling. Only it wasn’t a full smile. It was one of those ghosted little grins that masked a secret. And it gave her a glimpse of what he must have looked like as a little boy. Adorable . . . Her gaze inched upward to his eyes and all traces of boyhood vanished. A wave of desire, powerful and unexpected, swept through her. Her memory traced a path back to the way he held her in his arms earlier that day, and of his kiss. He hadn’t been the least bit shy then, and at the slightest bit of encouragement, had grown undeniably bolder. “McKenna.” Wyatt’s voice was soft. She blinked, and recognized the earnestness in his eyes. “Will you take me as your husband?” he whispered, indicating the judge with a tilt of his head. “He has a stage to catch.” She thought of Emma, and of Janie. And of all she’d done wrong with Robert in her life. Then she thought of what little she knew about this man before her. He already loved Emma, and Emma loved him. He was a man of honor, kind and— “Yes,” she whispered, forcing the words over the tick-tock of the imaginary clock. “I do. ~ Tamera Alexander,
1191:It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time ahead and far on into life, is—; solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent—?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,
1192:...the present terms are there not as an unprofitable recurrence, but in active pregnant gestation of all that is yet to be unfolded by the spirit, no irrational decimal recurrence helplessly repeating for ever its figures, but an expanding series of powers of the Infinite. What is in front of us is the greater potentialities, the steps yet unclimbed, the intended mightier manifestations. Why we are here is to be this means of the spirit's upward self-unfolding. What we have to do with ourselves and our significances is to grow and open them to greater significances of divine being, divine consciousness, divine power, divine delight and multiplied unity, and what we have to do with our environment is to use it consciously for increasing spiritual purposes and make it more and more a mould for the ideal unfolding of the perfect nature and self-conception of the Divine in the cosmos. This is surely the Will in things which moves, great and deliberate, unhasting, unresting, through whatever cycles, towards a greater and greater informing of its own finite figures with its own infinite Reality.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays In Philosophy And Yoga,
1193:His hand slid between their bodies and she felt him stroke her while he pressed forward in slow nudges, his every movement careful and easy. Each plunge of his shaft drew a moan from her throat, and she bit her lip to hold in the sounds. Suddenly he was all the way inside her, gliding full and deep, burying every inch of his sex.
He withdrew almost to the head of his shaft, then submerged the entire length with excruciating slowness, his chest hair teasing her nipples, his flat stomach brushing over hers. She writhed upward, her hips pushing into his long, pleasuring thrusts until she begged frantically, "Please don't be gentle, don't, don't, do it harder, please-"
His mouth covered hers, muffling her cries. Her body shook with violent spasms, gripping the hard organ inside her until Ross let out a groan and seized her hips with both hands, spending his own passion.
As her body continued to twitch and jerk with delight, Ross cradled her in his arms and kissed her again. Filled with his tongue and his sex, she felt another wave of sensation roll over her, and she moaned and shivered with a second climax. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1194:You are staying because of me?" For him, she had worn her hair unplaited, and it spilled across her shoulders and breasts now. Cade ran his fingers through the strands before answering, "You and the child are more important to me than all the land in the world." Lily couldn't believe she was hearing this. She searched his face for lies, but whatever Cade might be, he wasn't a liar. The wall that he had built around him was finally opening, and she could see the shadows of his doubts and fears in the look he returned to her. Lily fell into the wicked trap of her emotions. If she loved him, she had to let him go. Returning to Cade's side, she curled there, fear and desperation and a terrifying wave of love sweeping her downriver and over dangerous shoals. She meant more to him than the land. It wasn't a gallant, romantic declaration of love, but it spoke the truth as Cade knew it. And her hopes swirled, spiraling upward to new and previously unexplored heights. She hadn't thought love was real, but whatever this was she couldn't control it, couldn't rationalize it, couldn't even speak of it, it was so new—and frightening. Lily ~ Patricia Rice,
1195:In Memoriam A. H. H.: 118. Contemplate All This
Work Of Tim
Contemplate all this work of Time,
The giant labouring in his youth;
Nor dream of human love and truth,
As dying Nature's earth and lime;
But trust that those we call the dead
Are breathers of an ampler day
For ever nobler ends. They say,
The solid earth whereon we tread
In tracts of fluent heat began,
And grew to seeming-random forms,
The seeming prey of cyclic storms,
Till at the last arose the man;
Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime,
The herald of a higher race,
And of himself in higher place,
If so he type this work of time
Within himself, from more to more;
Or, crown'd with attributes of woe
Like glories, move his course, and show
That life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And batter'd with the shocks of doom
To shape and use. Arise and fly
The reeling Faun, the sensual feast;
Move upward, working out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,
1196:May I sit down, please?” she asked mildly. “I’m tired of standing.”
“There’s no place to sit.”
“Yes there is.” Breaking away from him, Daisy went to the four-poster bed and tried to climb onto it. Unfortunately the bed was an antique Sheraton, built high to avoid winter drafts and allow for a trundle below. The top of the mattress was level with her breasts. Hoisting herself upward, she tried to lever her hips onto the mattress.
Gravity defeated her.
“Usually,” Daisy said, struggling and squirming with her feet dangling, “there’s a stair-step provided—” She grabbed handfuls of the counterpane. “— for beds this tall.” Straining to hook a knee over the edge of the mattress, she continued, “Good God… if someone fell out of this bed at night… it would be fatal.”
She felt Matthew’s hands clamp around her waist. “The bed’s not that tall,” he said. Picking her up as if she were a child, he deposited her on the mattress. “It’s just that you’re short.”
“I’m not short. I’m… vertically disadvantaged.”
“Fine. Sit up.” His weight depressed the mattress behind her and his hands returned to the back of her dress. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1197:But in fact, some of our leading scholars on the subject say time is infinite and does not travel in a straight line. Like many things in nature, it wanders and branches out in several directions and maybe even double-backs on itself. There’s almost nothing in nature that is perfectly straight. Trees grow upward in every direction to absorb light and rivers flow downhill following the path of least resistance. Quantum physics says time is the same. There are several theories that suggest time either branches out in several directions at once or flows like a river, wandering throughout the universe. If we accept this “river theory” of time, then it’s possible that time can double-back on itself and create an isolated pocket where the present and the past are in close contact, much like a salient point on a river. It’s possible that today and a certain day in 1873 are separated by a thin layer of time and space, so we can find a hotspot where we can see and hear the past playing itself over and over again. This could explain residual hauntings, and it’s why I think paranormal investigators and quantum physicists seek answers to the same questions. ~ Zak Bagans,
1198:Systems Thinking. A cloud masses, the sky darkens, leaves twist upward, and we know that it will rain. We also know that after the storm, the runoff will feed into groundwater miles away, and the sky will grow clear by tomorrow. All these events are distant in time and space, and yet they are all connected within the same pattern. Each has an influence on the rest, an influence that is usually hidden from view. You can only understand the system of a rainstorm by contemplating the whole, not any individual part of the pattern. Business and other human endeavors are also systems. They, too, are bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which often take years to fully play out their effects on each other. Since we are part of that lacework ourselves, it's doubly hard to see the whole pattern of change. Instead, we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system, and wonder why our deepest problems never seem to get solved. Systems thinking is a conceptual framework, a body of knowledge and tools that has been developed over the past fifty years, to make the full patterns clearer, and to help us see how to change them effectively. ~ Anonymous,
1199:Presumption
Whenever I am prone to doubt or wonder I check myself, and say, 'That mighty One
Who made the solar system cannot blunder And for the best all things are being done.'
Who set the stars on their eternal courses
Has fashioned this strange earth by come sure plan.
Bow low, bow low to those majestic forces,
Nor dare to doubt their wisdom - puny man.
You cannot put one little star in motion,
You cannot shape one single forest leaf,
Nor fling a mountain up, nor sink an ocean,
Presumptuous pigmy, large with unbelief.
You cannot bring one dawn of regal splendour
Nor bid the day to shadowy twilight fall,
Nor send the pale moon forth with radiance tender,
And dare you doubt the One who has done all?
'So much is wrong, there is such pain - such sinning.'
Yet look again - behold how much is right!
And He who formed the world from its beginning
Knows how o guide it upward to the light.
Your task, O man, is not to carp and cavil
At God's achievements, but with purpose strong
To cling to good, and turn away from evil That is the way to help the world along.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1200:That’s the river up there. We’ll likely have to spend the night.’’ He slid me a curious glance. ‘‘I never asked whether you liked roughing it. I suppose now would be a good time, eh?’’

‘‘Cyrene wouldn’t be caught dead camping, not for the largest lake in the world, but I have nothing against nature.’’ A large cicada flew in through the window and smacked me on the face. Startled, I instantly shadowed and batted frantically at my face. It buzzed upward, into my hair. I shrieked and tried to cram my upper half out of the window in an attempt to dislodge the beastly thing.

Gabriel drove with one hand while plucking the large bug off the top of my head. He held it in front of me, one eyebrow raised as I deshadowed.

‘‘All right, perhaps I would have never made it as a Girl Scout, but you can’t judge me by my reaction to being assaulted by a large, hairy bug. I like animals. On the whole. And they like me. I just don’t like them flying into my face intent on making me look bad in front of you.’’

The cicada made an odd little chirping sound, just as if it was agreeing with me. Gabriel laughed and tossed it out of the window ~ Katie MacAlister,
1201:I was determined to know beans. When they were growing, I used to hoe from five o'clock in the morning till noon, and commonly spent the rest of the day about other affairs. Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes with various kinds of weeds—it will bear some iteration in the account, for there was no little iteration in the labor—disturbing their delicate organizations so ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions with his hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously cultivating another. That's Roman wormwood—that's pigweed—that's sorrel—that's piper-grass—have at him, chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don't let him have a fibre in the shade, if you do he'll turn himself t' other side up and be as green as a leek in two days. A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty crest—waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust. ~ Henry David Thoreau,
1202:But it happens at least equally often in the history of science that the understanding of the component parts of a composite system is impossible without an understanding of the behavior of the system as a whole. And it often happens that the understanding of the mathematical nature of an equation is impossible without a detailed understanding of its solutions. The black hole is a case in point. One could say without exaggeration that Einstein's equations of general relativity were understood only at a very superficial level before the discover of the black hole. During the fifty years since the black hole was invented, a deep mathematical understanding of the geometrical structure of space-time has slowly emerged, with the black hole solution playing a fundamental role in the structure. The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A reductionist philosophy, arbitrarily proclaiming that the growth of understanding must go only in one direction, makes no scientific sense. Indeed, dogmatic philosophical beliefs of any kind have no place in science. ~ Freeman Dyson,
1203:He was so tall that Lottie had to stand on her toes to reach his mouth, and even then she couldn’t quite manage it. Catching her waist in his hands, he compacted her gently against his body. Suddenly there was a strange, lost look in his eyes, as if he were drowning. Hesitantly Lottie slid her hand around the back of his neck, where the interlaced muscles had gone rigid.
He let her tug his head lower, lower, until their breath mingled and their lips touched in a sweet, supple kiss. His mouth remained warm and still against hers, and then his lips began to move in soft brushes. Disoriented, Lottie swayed in his grasp, and his arm slid around her back to hold her securely. Instinctively she nudged upward, straining on her toes as she sought to deepen the tender pressure. But he was careful to keep his passion under tight rein, refusing to take any more.
Gradually she eased away from him, sinking back to her heels. She dared to touch the side of his face, relishing the warmth of his skin against her palm. “I’ve paid the toll,” she whispered. “May I pass through the gate now?”
He nodded gravely and moved away from the threshold.

-Nick & Lottie ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1204:Levering himself over Evie’s prone body, Sebastian risked a glance upward at the second-floor balcony. Bullard was gone. With a grunt of pain, Sebastian rolled to his side and searched his wife for injuries, terrified that the bullet might have struck her as well. “Evie…sweetheart…are you hurt?”
“Why did you push me like that?” she asked in a muffled voice. “No, I’m not hurt. What was that noise?”
His shaking hand brushed over her face, pushing back a tumble of hair that had fallen across her eyes.
Bemused, Evie wriggled out from beneath him and sat up.
Sebastian remained on his side, panting for breath, while he felt a hot slide of blood over his chest and waist.
People were crowding to flee the building, threatening to trample the couple on the floor. Suddenly a man came to crouch over them, having fought his way through the rushing horde.
He used his body as a bulwark to keep them from being overrun. Blinking, Sebastian realized that it was Westcliff. Dizzily Sebastian reached up to clutch at his coat. “He aimed for Evie,” Sebastian said hoarsely. His lips had gone numb, and he licked at them before continuing. “Keep her safe…keep her… ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1205:As they neared the entrance to the hotel, Win saw a tall, dark form moving through the lobby. It was Merripen, looking moody and distracted as he walked with his gaze focused downward. She couldn't suppress the flutters of pleasure that went through her at the sight of him, the handsome, bad-tempered beast. He approached the stairs, glancing upward, and his expression changed as he saw her. There was a flash of hunger in his eyes before he managed to extinguish it. But that brief, bright flare caused Win's spirits to lift immeasurably.
After the scene that morning, and Merripen's display of jealous rage, Win had apologized to Julian. The doctor had been amused rather than disconcerted. "He is exactly as you described," Julian had said, adding ruefully, "...only more."
"More" was a fitting word to apply to Merripen, she thought. There was nothing understated about him. At the moment he looked rather like the brooding villain of a sensation novel. The kind who was always vanquished by the fair-haired hero.
The discreet glances Merripen was attracting from a group of ladies in the lobby made it evident that Win was not the only one who found him mesmerizing. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1206:She wanted to read things -- could not resist wanting to read things -- and reading was easily done, and relatively inexpensive. On the other hand, that she should receive any praise for such reflexive habits baffled the girl, for she knew herself to be fantastically stupid about many things. Wasn't it possible that what others mistook as intelligence might in fact be only a sort of mutation of the will? She could sit in one place longer than other children be bored for hours without complaint, and was completely devoted to filling in every last corner of the coloring books Augustus Blake sometimes brought home. She could not help her mutated will -- no more than she could help the shape of her feet or the street on which she was born. She was unable to glean real satisfaction from accidents. In the child's mind a breach now appeared: between what she believed she knew of herself, essentially, and her essence as others seemed to understand it. She began to exist for other people, and if ever asked a question to which she did not know the answer she was wont to fold her arms across her body and look upward. As if the question itself were to obvious to truly concern her. ~ Zadie Smith,
1207:It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together—that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated? ~ Robert Louis Stevenson,
1208:I gestured upward, which told Adam to tell my brother to speed up. Adam knew what I planned to do and shook his head at me. What a pain, to stop the boat and argue with him about it. He didn’t consult anyone before he tried a trick and busted ass. If we stopped, Sean would insist my turn was over, and I’d be done for the day. I wasn’t done. So I nodded my head vigorously. Adam shook his finger at me, scolding. Then he turned around and spoke to my brother.
The drone pitched higher as the boat sped up. I relaxed, relaxed, relaxed and let the boat and the wave do the work for me. My muscles remembered what they’d tried to do last summer, and this time they were able to do it. I caught miles of air, a huge thrill, and one glance at the boat: four boys with their mouths open. Then I almost panicked as I lost my balance when my board hit its high point behind me. Almost- but I kept myself together. I rode gravity down the opposite wave.
Immediately I arced out and back to pick up speed, and did a 360 with a grab. Landed it. Then a 540. Landed it.
I thought I might be pushing my luck. I’d probably break my leg climbing back into the boat. ~ Jennifer Echols,
1209:The Healing spells on his chest were certainly earning their keep tonight. Sullivan got to his feet. The lack of noise from the courtyard indicated that his team had gotten all the mechanical men. “Thanks.”

Toru just grunted a noncommittal response as he lifted the feed tray to check the condition of his borrowed machine gun. They didn’t see the final robot inside until it turned on its eye and illuminated the Iron Guard in blue light.

Sullivan’s Spike reversed gravity, and the gigantic machine fell upward to hit the steel beams in the ceiling. Sullivan cut his Power and the robot dropped. It crashed hard into the floor where it lay twitching and kicking. The two of them riddled the mechanical man with bullets until the light died and it lay still in a spreading puddle of oil.

“Normally, this would be the part where you thank me for returning the favor and saving your life.”

“Yes. Normally… If we were court ladies instead of warriors,” Toru answered. “Shall we continue onward or do you wish to stop and discuss your feelings over tea?”

Sullivan looked forward to the day that the two of them would be able to finish their fight. “Let’s go. ~ Larry Correia,
1210:Blessed Lord, You came from the Father to show us His love and all the treasures of blessing that love is waiting to bestow. Lord, You have again flung the gates so wide open and given us such promises as to our liberty in prayer that we blush that our poor hearts have taken so little in. It has been too much for us to believe. Lord, we now look to You to teach us to take and keep and use this precious word of Yours: Everything that ye ask for, praying, believe that ye receive it. Blessed Jesus, our faith must be rooted in You if it is to grow strong. Your work has freed us wholly from the power of sin and has opened the way to the Father. Your love is forever longing to bring us into the full fellowship of Your glory and power. Your Spirit is forever drawing us upward into a life of perfect faith and confidence. We are assured that in Your teaching we shall learn to pray the prayer of faith. You will train us to pray so that we believe that we receive and believe that we really have what we ask. Lord, teach me to know and trust and love You, so I may live and abide in You that all my prayers rise and come before God, and my soul may have the assurance that I am heard. Amen. ~ Andrew Murray,
1211:The Sun Underfoot Among The Sundews
An ingenuity too astonishing
to be quite fortuitous is
this bog full of sundews, sphagnumlines and shaped like a teacup.
A step
down and you're into it; a
wilderness swallows you up:
ankle-, then knee-, then midriffto-shoulder-deep in wetfooted
understory, an overhead
spruce-tamarack horizon hinting
you'll never get out of here.
But the sun
among the sundews, down there,
is so bright, an underfoot
webwork of carnivorous rubies,
a star-swarm thick as the gnats
they're set to catch, delectable
double-faced cockleburs, each
hair-tip a sticky mirror
afire with sunlight, a million
of them and again a million,
each mirror a trap set to
unhand believing,
that either
a First Cause said once, 'Let there
be sundews,' and there were, or they've
made their way here unaided
other than by that backhand, roundabout refusal to assume responsibility
known as Natural Selection.
But the sun
underfoot is so dazzling
down there among the sundews,
there is so much light
in that cup that, looking,
you start to fall upward.
29
~ Amy Clampitt,
1212:Prayer that is born of meditation upon the Word of God is the prayer that soars upward most easily to God's listening ears.
Topics: Prayer, Meditation

I am ready to meet God face to face tonight and look into those eyes of infinite holiness, for all my sins are covered by the atoning blood.
Topics: Salvation, Atonement

When the devil sees a man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to pray, and who really does pray, and, above all, when he sees a whole church on its face before God in prayer, he trembles as much as he ever did, for he knows that his day in that church or community is at an end.
Topics: Satan, Prayer

God's Word is pure and sure, in spite of the devil, in spite of your fear, in spite of everything.
Topics: Scripture

Do not study commentaries, lesson helps or other books about the Bible: study the Bible itself. Do not study about the Bible, study the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God, and only the Bible is the Word of God.
Topics: The Bible

All that God is, and all that God has, is at the disposal of prayer. Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God can do everything, prayer is omnipotent. ~ R A Torrey,
1213:But while these are all important determinants in explaining the tide of anti-Muslim sentiment that has washed over Europe and North America in recent years, there is another, more fundamental factor that must be addressed. It involves a 2010 poll showing that nearly a quarter of Americans continue to believe that President Barack Obama is himself a Muslim, a 10 percent jump from a similar survey taken in 2008. Among registered Republicans, the number is nearly 40 percent; among self-described Tea Party members, it is upward of 60 percent. In fact, polls consistently show that the more one disagrees with President Obama’s policies on, say, healthcare or financial regulation, the more likely one is to consider him a Muslim. Simply put, Islam in the United States has become otherized. It has become a receptacle into which can be tossed all the angst and apprehension people feel about the faltering economy, about the new and unfamiliar political order, about the shifting cultural, racial, and religious landscapes that have fundamentally altered the world. Across Europe and North America, whatever is fearful, whatever is foreign, whatever is alien and unsafe is being tagged with the label ~ Reza Aslan,
1214:The ancient observed, and we also observe, that sometimes things fall to earth, or some things leave the earth, or whatever parts we may be near. Whence, he says, and we may also say if we like, that something has moved either upward or downward, but only with regard to a certain region, or in a certain perspective, something passing from us to the moon would look the opposite to those across from us on the moon; where we would say, something has ascended, those moon people, our anticephali, would say that something has descended. Such motions, therefore, make no distinction between up and down, hither and thither with respect to the infinite universe, but only the finite world in which we are, or within the boundaries of the infinite worlds' horizons, or according to the calculations of the innumerable stars; hence, the same thing, with the same motion, can be regarded differently and called at the same time "rising" and "falling". Determinate bodies, therefore, do not have infinite motion, but finite and determinate calculation within their own limits. But that which is indeterminate and infinite has neither finite nor infinite motion, and knows no differentiation of space or time. ~ Giordano Bruno,
1215:The diet and lifestyle changes for the Tokelauans who immigrated to New Zealand were abrupt and even more dramatic. Bread and potatoes replaced breadfruit in their diets; meat replaced fish; they hardly ate any coconuts. Sugar consumption skyrocketed, as did physical activity: the men went to work as manual laborers in the forest service or on the railway, and the women got jobs in electrical assembly plants or clothing factories, or they cleaned offices during the evening hours, walking miles to and from work. In both populations, a similar pattern of chronic diseases erupted with the Westernization of the diet. Between the late 1960s and early 1980s, diabetes prevalence shot upward, particularly among the immigrants. By 1982, almost 20 percent of the immigrant women and 11 percent of the immigrant men—one in five and one in nine, respectively—were diabetic. Hypertension, heart disease, and gout also increased significantly, particularly in the migrant population (the migrants were nine times as likely to get gout as those remaining behind on the atolls). Obesity, unsurprisingly, also increased: Both men and women gained, on average, between twenty and thirty pounds. Children, too, got fatter. ~ Gary Taubes,
1216:Jenny remembers what it was like, all those years ago. It was never dolls for her, nothing so tangible as that. It was more of a feeling. As if, for the first several years of her life, everything held over her a sort of knowledge and insistence. Fence posts, wallpaper, the lawn at certain hours of the day. These things glowered at her, or smiled. Even something as ordinary as the blue rolling chair in her father's office had some hold on her, some whisper of a new dimension in its puffs of dust sent upward by her fists against its cushions. There was an intensity inherent in everything until, one day, there wasn't. The blue chair rolled on its wheels to the window when she pushed it. The rising dust was rising dust. And when it was gone, there was only a knot of longing somewhere deep inside of her, a vacant ache: adolescence. Boredom.
It's why we fall in love, Jenny will tell June.
We fall in love to get back to that dimension, that wonder.
She goes to the laundry room, where, from a pile of clean clothes, she picks out a few articles of June's, folds them, then goes upstairs to knock on her daughter's door and tell her that this, this lost doll world, is the reason there is love. ~ Emily Ruskovich,
1217:On The Cliff-Top
FACE upward to the sky
Quiet I lie:
Quiet as if the finger of God's will
Had bade this human mechanism 'be still!'
And sent the intangible essence, this strange I,
All wondering forth to His eternity.
Below, the sea's sound, faint
As dying saint
Telling of gone-by sorrows long at rest:
Above, the fearless sea-gull's shimmering breast
Painted a moment on the dark blue skies-A hovering joy, that while I watch it flies.
Alike unheeded now
Old griefs, and thou
Quick-wingèd Joy, that like a bird at play
Pleasest thyself to visit me to-day:
On the cliff-top, earth dim and heaven clear,
My soul lies calmly, above hope--or fear.
But not--(do Thou forbid
Whose stainless lid
Wept tears at Lazarus' grave, and looking down
Afar off, upon Solyma's doomed town.)
Ah, not above love--human yet divine-Which, Thee seen first, in Thee sees all of Thine!
Is't sunset? The keen breeze
Blows from the seas:
And at my side a pleasant vision stands
With her brown eyes and kind extended hands.
Dear, we'll go down together and full fain
From the cliff-top to the busy world again.
~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik,
1218:I have been thinking more and more that I shall always be a lone wanderer of the wilderness. God, how the trail lures me. You cannot comprehend its resistless fascination for me. After all the lone trail is the best. . . . I’ll never stop wandering. And when the time comes to die, I’ll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is. The beauty of this country is becoming part of me. I feel more detached from life and somehow gentler. . . . I have some good friends here, but no one who really understands why I am here or what I do. I don’t know of anyone, though, who would have more than a partial understanding; I have gone too far alone. I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. In my wanderings this year I have taken more chances and had more wild adventures than ever before. And what magnificent country I have seen—wild, tremendous wasteland stretches, lost mesas, blue mountains rearing upward from the vermilion sands of the desert, canyons five feet wide at the bottom and hundreds of feet deep, cloudbursts roaring down unnamed canyons, and hundreds of houses of the cliff dwellers, abandoned a thousand years ago. ~ Jon Krakauer,
1219:You know what they say about air and water when it comes to fire, don’t you?” she asks.
Now, I’m curious. She hasn’t spoken for the last ten minutes of the drive. “What?”
“Too much air blows out the fire. Too much water destroys it.”
I nod trying to determine what she’s really comparing us to. “The idea would be to keep the flame going, right. For years?” She nods. “Like a relationship. Like a marriage.” She cringes at the word marriage. Noted. “So you need the air—to stay constant—to fan the flames of the fire, and you know, grasshopper,” I smile at her and catch sight of the corners of her mouth turning slightly upward in response to the endearment, “a hot enough fire will burn water, so you have to be careful with the water too.”
“That I do know,” she says softly. “So that’s the truth about air and water.” She sighs deep.
“Which is?”
“It’s hard to maintain the balance to keep the fire going. You have to fan the flames without putting it out with too much water. But too little water will burn the fire right up. Too much fire. Too much destruction. We’re out of control.”
“You’re talking in circles,” I say.
“No. That’s us,” she says with certainty. ~ Katherine Owen,
1220:He glided his greased hand up her thigh to her hip, acutely aware of how hot her skin was and how fragile her jutting hipbone felt against the leathery surface of his palm. She tossed her head and moaned, her sooty lashes fluttering on her flushed cheeks. He studied her face for a moment, then lowered his gaze to her breasts. The tips were the delicate pink of cacti blossoms. In all his life, he had never seen such nipples. The anger in his gut tightened into a knot, fiery and churning. Skidding his hand along the ladder of her ribs, he cupped the underside of her breast, then feathered his fingertips over its crest and watched the pebbled surface go taut and eager, thrusting upward for more. She moaned again and tossed her head, her forehead wrinkling in a bewildered frown. Clearly he was the first ever to touch her there. His smile, no longer suppressed, lifted one side of his mouth into a mocking grin. She was not so haughty when asleep, he thought. Her body, the body he had paid so many horses for, betrayed her and responded to him. It gave him a perverse satisfaction.
His smile quickly disappeared when he realized with something of a shock that hers was not the only traitorous body. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1221:She raised her hands from the side of the pen in a gesture hieratic and profound. A visionary light settled in her eyes. She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black niggers in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away. She lowered her hands and gripped the rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed unblinkingly on what lay ahead. In a moment the vision faded but she remained where she was, immobile. ~ Flannery O Connor,
1222:Maybe he can tell us where they took our things.”
Dropping into a squat, the herbalist placed two fingers against the youth’s jugular vein, feeling his pulse. Then she slapped his cheeks and peeled back his eyelids.
The novitiate remained slack and motionless.
His lack of response seemed to annoy the herbalist. “One moment,” she said, closing her eyes. A slight frown creased her brow. For a while, she was still; then she sprang upward with sudden speed. “What a self-absorbed little wretch! No wonder his parents sent him to join the priests. I’m surprised they put up with him as long as they did.”
“Does he know anything of use?” asked Eragon.
“Only the path to the surface.” She pointed toward the door to the left of the altar, the same door through which the priests had entered and departed. “It’s amazing that he tried to free you; I suspect it’s the first time in his life he’s ever done anything of his own accord.”
“We have to bring him with us.” Eragon hated to say it, but duty compelled him. “I promised we would if he helped us.”
“He tried to kill you!”
“I gave my word.”
Angela sighed and rolled her eyes. To Arya, she said, “I don’t suppose you can convince him otherwise? ~ Christopher Paolini,
1223:Once I had finished conducting business with Herr Kassl, I went in search of my sister. Käthe was easy to find, even in this sea of faces in the square. Her smiles were the broadest, her blue eyes the brightest, her pink cheeks the rosiest. Even her hair beneath that ridiculous hat shone like a bird of golden plumage. All I had to do was follow the path traced by the eyes of the onlookers in the village, those admiring, appreciative glances that led me straight to my sister at the center.
For a moment, I watched her bargain and haggle with the sellers. Käthe was like an actress on the stage, all heightened emotion and intense passion, her gestures affected, her smiles calculated. She fluttered and flirted outrageously, carefully oblivious to the stares she drew like moths to the flame. Both men and women traced the lines of her body, the curve of her cheek, the pout of her lip.
Looking at Käthe, it was difficult to forget just how sinful our bodies were, just how prone we were to wickedness. Born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward, or so saith Job. Clothed in clinging fabrics, with every line of her body exposed, every gasp of pleasure unconcealed, everything about Käthe suggested voluptuousness. ~ S Jae Jones,
1224:Asad waited in one of the end stalls, watching alertly as Kathleen approached. His head lifted, his ears perking forward in recognition. He was a compact gelding with powerful hindquarters, an elegant conformation that afforded both speed and endurance. His coloring was a shade of chestnut so light it appeared golden, his mane and tail flaxen. "There's my boy," Kathleen exclaimed gently, reaching out to him with her palm upward. Asad sniffed at her hand and gave her a welcoming nicker. Lowering his finely modeled head, he moved to the front of the stall. She stroked his nose and forehead, and he reacted with pure gladness, blowing softly and nudging closer.
"I shouldn't have waited so long to see you," she said, overcome with remorse. Clumsily she leaned to kiss the space between the horse's eyes. She felt him nibble delicately at the shoulder of her dress, trying to groom her. A crooked grin twisted her lips. Pushing his head away, she scratched his satiny neck in the way she knew he liked. "I shouldn't have left you alone, my poor boy." Her fingers tangled in the white-blond mane.
She felt the weight of his head come to rest on her shoulder. The trusting gesture caused her throat to cinch around a quick breath. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1225:In order to strengthen the higher knowledge-faculty in us we have to effect the same separation between the intuitive and intellectual elements of our thought as we have already effected between the understanding and the sense-mind; and this is no easy task, for not only do our intuitions come to us incrusted in the intellectual action, but there are a great number of mental workings which masquerade and ape the appearances of the higher faculty. The remedy is to train first the intellect to recognise the true intuilion, to distinguish it from the false and then to accustom it, when it arrives at an intellectual perception or conclusion, to attach no final value to it, but rather look upward, refer all to the divine principle and wait in as complete a silence as it can command for the light from above. In this way it is possible to transmute a great part of our intellectual thinking into the luminous truth-conscious vision, -- the ideal would be a complete transition, -- or at least to increase greatly the frequency, purity and conscious force of the ideal knowledge working behind the intellect. The latter must learn to be subject and passive to the ideal faculty.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Purified Understanding, 316,
1226:In Venezuela Chavez has made the co-ops a top political priority, giving them first refusal on government contracts and offering them economic incentives to trade with one another. By 2006, there were roughly 100,000 co-operatives in the country, employing more than 700,000 workers. Many are pieces of state infrastructure – toll booths, highway maintenance, health clinics – handed over to the communities to run. It’s a reverse of the logic of government outsourcing – rather than auctioning off pieces of the state to large corporations and losing democratic control, the people who use the resources are given the power to manage them, creating, at least in theory, both jobs and more responsive public services. Chavez’s many critics have derided these initiatives as handouts and unfair subsidies, of course. Yet in an era when Halliburton treats the U.S. government as its personal ATM for six years, withdraws upward of $20 billion in Iraq contracts alone, refuses to hire local workers either on the Gulf coast or in Iraq, then expresses its gratitude to U.S. taxpayers by moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai (with all the attendant tax and legal benefits), Chavez’s direct subsidies to regular people look significantly less radical. ~ Naomi Klein,
1227:Isaura, city of the thousand wells, is said to rise over a deep, subterranean lake. On all sides, wherever the inhabitants dig long vertical holes in the ground, they succeed in drawing up water, as far as the city extends, and no father. Its green border repeats the dark outline of the buried lake; an invisible landscape conditions the visible one; everything that moves in the sunlight is driven by the lapping wave enclosed beneath the rock's calcareous sky. Consequently, two forms of religion exist in Isaura. The city's gods, according to some people, live in the depths, in the black lake that feeds the underground streams. According to others, the gods live in the buckets that rise, suspended from a cable, as they appear over the edge of the wells, in the revolving pulleys, in the windlasses of the norias, in the pump handles, in the blades of the windmills that draw the water up from the drillings, in the trestles that support the twisting probes, in the reservoirs perched on stilts over the roofs, in the slender arches of the aqueducts, in all the columns of water, the vertical pipes, the plungers, the drains, all the way up to the weathercocks that surmount the airy scaffoldings of Isaura, a city that moves entirely upward. ~ Italo Calvino,
1228:You know I would never put you in harm’s way, right?”
“Of course,” Cass said. But inside she still wasn’t sure.
Falco rolled over onto his back. “You don’t sound very convinced. Can’t you see I just got pummeled trying to save you? Santo cielo, Cassandra. I asked you to marry me! Would I have done that if I was secretly plotting against you?”
Cass had almost forgotten about Falco’s impulsive proposal. “About that,” she started.
He chuckled, and then clutched at his ribs again. “Put it out of your mind. It was wrong of me to pressure you.” He paused. “But my feelings for you are--they always have been--sincere, and I insist that you recognize that.”
Cass sighed. “I’m having a bit of trouble trusting anyone these days,” she said. “I want to believe you, but you always seem to be around whenever the Order is. How do you explain that?”
Falco gingerly palpated his jaw. “Bad luck?” he offered.
“And perhaps it would help if you weren’t always lying to everyone about everything,” she said. “Have you ever thought about telling the truth?”
“I did that some when I was younger. It always seemed to get me in trouble, though.”
Cass felt her lips curve upward, despite the situation. “You’re impossible,” she said. ~ Fiona Paul,
1229:His will be done, as done it surely will be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not. The impulse of creation forwards it; the strength of powers, seen and unseen, has its fulfillment in charge. Proof of a life to come must be given. In fire and in blood, if needful, must that proof be written. In fire and in blood do we trace the record throughout nature. In fire and in blood does it cross our own experience. Sufferer, faint not through terror of this burning evidence. Tired wayfarer, gird up thy loins, look upward, march onward. Pilgrims and brother mourners, join in friendly company. Dark through the wilderness of this world stretches the way for most of us: equal and steady be our tread; be our cross our banner. For staff we have His promis, whose 'word is tried, whose way perfect": for present hope His providence, 'who gives the shield of salvation, whose gentleness makes great'; for final home His bosom, who 'dwells in the height of Heaven'; for crowning prize a glory exceeding and eternal. Let us so run that we may obtain: let us endure hardness as good soldiers; let us finish our course, and keep the faith, reliant in the issue to come off more than conquerors: 'Art though not from everlasting mine Holy One? WE SHALL NOT DIE! ~ Charlotte Bront,
1230:The hunger and heat combined, a poisonous taste resembling defeat; yes, he thought, that’s what it is: I’ve been defeated in some obscure way. By having killed the androids? By Rachael’s murder of my goat? He did not know, but as he plodded along, a vague and almost hallucinatory pall hazed over his mind; he found himself at one point, with no notion of how it could be, a step from an almost certainly fatal cliffside fall—falling humiliatingly and helplessly, he thought; on and on, with no one even to witness it. Here there existed no one to record his or anyone else’s degradation, and any courage or pride which might manifest itself here at the end would go unmarked: the dead stones, the dust-stricken weeds dry and dying, perceived nothing, recollected nothing, about him or themselves.

At that moment the first rock—and it was not rubber or soft foam plastic—struck him in the inguinal region. And the pain, the first knowledge of absolute isolation and suffering, touched him throughout in its undisguised actual form.

He halted. And then, goaded on—the goad invisible but real, not to be challenged—he resumed his climb. Rolling upward, he thought, like the stones; I am doing what stones do, without volition. Without it meaning anything. ~ Philip K Dick,
1231:I am that man, the sum of him, the all of him, the hairless biped who struggled upward from the slime and created love and law out of the anarchy of fecund life that screamed and squalled in the jungle. I am all that that man was and did become. I see myself, through the painful generations, snaring and killing the game and the fish, clearing the first fields from the forest, making rude tools of stone and bone, building houses of wood, thatching the roofs with leaves and straw, domesticating the wild grasses and meadow roots, fathering them to become the progenitors of rice and millet and wheat and barley and all manner of succulent edibles, learning to scratch the soil, to sow, to reap, to store, beating out the fibers of plants to spin into thread and to weave into cloth, devising systems of irrigation, working in metals, making markets and trade routes, building boats, and founding navigation—ay, and organizing village life, welding villages to villages till they became tribes, welding tribes together till they became nations, ever seeking the laws of things, ever making the laws of humans so that humans might live together in amity and by united effort beat down and destroy all manner of creeping, crawling, squalling things that might else destroy them. ~ Jack London,
1232:Making Waves I would do anything for you. Would you be yourself? In the Hans Christian Anderson classic, The Little Mermaid, Ariel gives up her beautiful voice in exchange for legs. This is a seemingly innocent fable that captures our deal with the modern devil. For aren't we taught that mobility is freedom, whether it be moving from state to state, or from marriage to marriage, or from adventure to adventure? Aren't we convinced that upward mobility, moving from job to job, is the definition of success? Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with change or variety or newness or with improving our condition. The catch is when we are asked to give up our voice in order to move freely, when we are asked to silence what makes us unique in order to be successful. When not making waves means giving up our chance to dive into the deep, then we are bartering our access to God for a better driveway. As a story about relationship, the lesson of Ariel is crucial. On the surface, her desire for legs seems touching and sweetly motivated by love and the want to belong. Yet here too is another false bargain that plagues everyone who ever tries it. For no matter how badly we want to love or be loved, we cannot alter our basic nature and survive inside, where it counts. ~ Mark Nepo,
1233:What's your name?" he asked.
She'd turned to him with a deep frown, instantly terrifying him. About to turn to escape back into the bookshop, Walt was stopped by her shrug.
"Cora."
"That's a funny name."
"It isn't, actually." Cora's frown deepened. She pulled herself up to her full height of four foot three inches. 'Officially my name is Cori, but Grandma calls me Cora. I'm named in honor of Gerty Cori, the first woman winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine. I bet you didn't know that."
"No," Walt admitted, embarrassed. "I didn't."
"What's your name?"
"Walt," he offered quietly, expecting her to retort that his was an even sillier name, but she didn't.
"After the scientist?"
Walt frowned, thrown. "What scientist?"
Cora shrugged. "Maybe Luis Walter Alvarez or Walter Reed, but... actually Walter Sutton is the most famous. He invented a theory about chromosomes and the Mendelian laws of inheritance." Cora let slip a little smile of satisfaction at the blank look on the boy's face. "Or maybe Walter Lewis-"
"No," Walt interrupted, "I've never heard of any of them."
"Oh." Cora folded her arms and tilted her nose upward. "Then who are you named after?" she asked, as if this was a given.
"Walt Whitman," he retorted. "The poet. ~ Menna van Praag,
1234:Inside-out” means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self—with your paradigms, your character, and your motives. It says if you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it. If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character. The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves. Inside-out is a process—a continuing process of renewal based on the natural laws that govern human growth and progress. It’s an upward spiral of growth that leads to progressively higher forms of responsible independence and effective interdependence. ~ Stephen R Covey,
1235:Youth's gay springtime scarcely knowing
Went I forth the world to roam
And the dance of youth, the glowing,
Left I in my father's home,
Of my birthright, glad-believing,
Of my world-gear took I none,
Careless as an infant, cleaving
To my pilgrim staff alone.
For I placed my mighty hope in
Dim and holy words of faith,
"Wander forththe way is open,
Ever on the upward path
Till thou gain the golden portal,
Till its gates unclose to thee.
There the earthly and the mortal,
Deathless and divine shall be!"
Night on morning stole, on stealeth,
Never, never stand I still,
And the future yet concealeth,
What I seek, and what I will!
Mount on mount arose before me,
Torrents hemmed me every side,
But I built a bridge that bore me
O'er the roaring tempest-tide.
Towards the east I reached a river,
On its shores I did not rest;
Faith from danger can deliver,
And I trusted to its breast.
Drifted in the whirling motion,
Seas themselves around me roll
Wide and wider spreads the ocean,
Far and farther flies the goal.
While I live is never given
Bridge or wave the goal to near
Earth will never meet the heaven,
Never can the there be here!

~ Friedrich Schiller, The Pilgrim
,
1236:You,” he snarled, closing his fingers around the front of her jacket again, pulling her against his body and up onto her toes, holding her there as he lowered his mouth to hers. But Sid wasn’t ready to kiss and make up, so she bit his lip angrily.

“Look,” she snapped, trying without success to push him away. “I get the whole alpha male, vampire lord-of-all-he-surveys thing, okay? I kind of even like it in the bedroom. But out in the real world, you are not the boss of me. I don’t forfeit my brain just because we have sex. And I’ll do whatever I think necessary to get my story. Besides, it’s not like most of what I do is dangerous. I’m not exactly Woodward and Bernstein material. But I’m not stupid either. I don’t take unnecessary risks, and I’m careful with the risks I do take.”

Aden was eyeing her with very little expression on his face, which made it difficult to tell how he was receiving her liberated woman speech. Whatever his reaction was, however, it didn’t extend to his body which was hard and ready to fuck, and no question about it.

“Kind of like it?” he asked finally, a corner of his mouth curling upward with amusement as he focused on the one part of her speech that she’d thought he’d have no problem with. “I think I can do better than that. ~ D B Reynolds,
1237:Nostalgia
THE WANING MOON looks upward; this grey night
Slopes round the heavens in one smooth curve
Of easy sailing; odd red wicks serve
To show where the ships at sea move out of sight.
The place is palpable me, for here I was born
Of this self-same darkness. Yet the shadowy house below
Is out of bounds, and only the old ghosts know
I have come, I feel them whimper in welcome, and mourn.
My father suddenly died in the harvesting corn
And the place is no longer ours. Watching, I hear
No sound from the strangers, the place is dark, and fear
Opens my eyes till the roots of my vision seems torn.
Can I go no nearer, never towards the door?
The ghosts and I we mourn together, and shrink
In the shadow of the cart-shed. Must we hover on the brink
Forever, and never enter the homestead any more?
Is it irrevocable? Can I really not go
Through the open yard-way? Can I not go past the sheds
And through to the mowie?- Only the dead in their beds
Can know the fearful anguish that this is so.
I kiss the stones, I kiss the moss on the wall,
And wish I could pass impregnate into the place.
I wish I could take it all in a last embrace.
I wish with my breast I here could annihilate it all.
~ David Herbert Lawrence,
1238:Easter
Lent gathers up her cloak of sombre shading
In her reluctant hands.
Her beauty heightens, fairest in its fading,
As pensively she stands
Awaiting Easter's benediction falling,
Like silver stars at night,
Before she can obey the summons calling
Her to her upward flight,
Awaiting Easter's wings that she must borrow
Ere she can hope to fly-Those glorious wings that we shall see to-morrow
Against the far, blue sky.
Has not the purple of her vesture's lining
Brought calm and rest to all?
Has her dark robe had naught of golden shining
Been naught but pleasure's pall?
Who knows? Perhaps when to the world returning
In youth's light joyousness,
We'll wear some rarer jewels we found burning
In Lent's black-bordered dress.
So hand in hand with fitful March she lingers
To beg the crowning grace
Of lifting with her pure and holy fingers
The veil from April's face.
Sweet, rosy April--laughing, sighing, waiting
Until the gateway swings,
And she and Lent can kiss between the grating
Of Easter's tissue wings.
Too brief the bliss--the parting comes with sorrow.
Good-bye dear Lent, good-bye!
We'll watch your fading wings outlined to-morrow
Against the far blue sky.
~ Emily Pauline Johnson,
1239:Another inventor, J. B. McComber, representing the Chicago-Tower Spiral-Spring Ascension and Toboggan Transportation Company, proposed a tower with a height of 8,947 feet, nearly nine times the height of the Eiffel Tower, with a base one thousand feet in diameter sunk two thousand feet into the earth. Elevated rails would lead from the top of the tower all the way to New York, Boston, Baltimore, and other cities. Visitors ready to conclude their visit to the fair and daring enough to ride elevators to the top would then toboggan all the way back home. “As the cost of the tower and its slides is of secondary importance,” McComber noted, “I do not mention it here, but will furnish figures upon application.” A third proposal demanded even more courage from visitors. This inventor, who gave his initials as R. T. E., envisioned a tower four thousand feet tall from which he proposed to hang a two-thousand-foot cable of “best rubber.” Attached at the bottom end of this cable would be a car seating two hundred people. The car and its passengers would be shoved off a platform and fall without restraint to the end of the cable, where the car would snap back upward and continue bouncing until it came to a stop. The engineer urged that as a precaution the ground “be covered with eight feet of feather bedding. ~ Erik Larson,
1240:On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.'

Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever - which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale.

("The Three Strangers") ~ Thomas Hardy,
1241:They both gasped as the head of his shaft pushed against the smoldering wet heat of her. Hunting for the right angle, he bent his knees and drove up to the hilt in a sure, strong thrust. Helen let out a cry, and he hesitated, terrified that he had hurt her. But he felt her body working on his with deep quivers that drew a ragged sound of lust from him. Letting her weight settle more fully onto his shaft, he reached down with his thumb and forefinger to spread her sex open. She whimpered as he pressed against her and rocked upward, lifting her slightly with each thrust.
All he could hear were the rasps of their breathing, and the ceaseless rustling of clothes, and the occasional intimate wet sound as he lunged steadily into her. Deep inside she closed in on him sweetly, demanding more, and he gripped her hips and made her ride him relentlessly, using his body to pleasure her. They struggled together amid the rising sensation, pulling closer, closer, until there was no more friction, only the clamping, writhing, throbbing connection that held them fast to each other. Helen moaned, her arms tightening around his neck, and then she fell silent and began to shudder helplessly. The feel of her ecstasy delivered him, the release so complete that it was like losing consciousness, like dying and being reborn. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1242:Romanians, however, paid a terrible price for Ceauşescu’s privileged status. In 1966, to increase the population—a traditional ‘Romanianist’ obsession—he prohibited abortion for women under forty with fewer than four children (in 1986 the age barrier was raised to forty-five). In 1984 the minimum marriage age for women was reduced to fifteen. Compulsory monthly medical examinations for all women of childbearing age were introduced to prevent abortions, which were permitted, if at all, only in the presence of a Party representative. Doctors in districts with a declining birth rate had their salaries cut. The population did not increase, but the death rate from abortions far exceeded that of any other European country: as the only available form of birth control, illegal abortions were widely performed, often under the most appalling and dangerous conditions. Over the ensuing twenty-three years the 1966 law resulted in the death of at least ten thousand women. The real infant mortality rate was so high that after 1985 births were not officially recorded until a child had survived to its fourth week—the apotheosis of Communist control of knowledge. By the time Ceauşescu was overthrown the death rate of new-born babies was twenty-five per thousand and there were upward of 100,000 institutionalized children. The ~ Tony Judt,
1243:They both gasped as the head of his shaft pushed against the smoldering wet heat of her. Hunting for the right angle,, he bent his knees and drove up to the hilt in a sure, strong thrust. Helen let out a cry, and he hesitated, terrified that he had hurt her. But he felt her body working on his with deep quivers that drew a ragged sound of lust from him. Letting her weight settle more fully onto his shaft, he reached down with his thumb and forefinger to spread her sex open. She whimpered as he pressed against her and rocked upward, lifting her slightly with each thrust.
All he could hear were the rasps of their breathing, and the ceaseless rustling of clothes, and the occasional intimate wet sound as he lunged steadily into her. Deep inside she closed in on him sweetly, demanding more, and he gripped her hips and made her ride him relentlessly, using his body to pleasure her. They struggled together amid the rising sensation, pulling closer, closer, until there was no more friction, only the clamping, writhing, throbbing connection that held them fast to each other. Helen moaned, her arms tightening around his neck, and then she fell silent and began to shudder helplessly. The feel of her ecstasy delivered him, the release so complete that it was like losing consciousness, like dying and being reborn. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1244:THE jester walked in the garden:
The garden had fallen still;
He bade his soul rise upward
And stand on her window-sill.
It rose in a straight blue garment,
When owls began to call:
It had grown wise-tongued by thinking
Of a quiet and light footfall;
But the young queen would not listen;
She rose in her pale night-gown;
She drew in the heavy casement
And pushed the latches down.
He bade his heart go to her,
When the owls called out no more;
In a red and quivering garment
It sang to her through the door.
It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming
Of a flutter of flower-like hair;
But she took up her fan from the table
And waved it off on the air.
"I have cap and bells,' he pondered,
"I will send them to her and die';
And when the morning whitened
He left them where she went by.
She laid them upon her bosom,
Under a cloud of her hair,
And her red lips sang them a love-song
Till stars grew out of the air.
She opened her door and her window,
And the heart and the soul came through,
To her right hand came the red one,
To her left hand came the blue.
They set up a noise like crickets,
A chattering wise and sweet,
And her hair was a folded flower
And the quiet of love in her feet.

~ William Butler Yeats, The Cap And Bells
,
1245:O wavering mind, awaken your upward-flowing awareness. Become the sublime warrior Goddess Kali, who moves with graceful power through the vast landscape of the body. Her divine form, like a black storm cloud illumined by the sun, she stands unveiled, her long hair falling free like monsoon rain. Be lost in awe of her, O mind, for you will never comprehend her. She dwells as the primal lotus of conscious energy and also as the thousand-petal blossom, complete enlightenment. She is none other than primordial bliss, this great swan ever swimming through the lotus jungle of the subtle body. Gaze intently into the blazing heart of joy and you will perceive my blissful Mother, matrix of all phenomena. The vision of Kali kindles the fire of unitive wisdom, burning down conventional barriers, pervading minds and worlds with light, revealing her exalted beauty as universal flower garden and universal cremation ground, where lovers merge with Mother Reality, experiencing the single taste of nonduality. This ardent poet of the Goddess cries: "Every lover longs only to gaze upon the unique Beloved. Why close your eyes? Why disappear into formless trance?" [1898.jpg] -- from Mother of the Universe: Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment, Translated by Lex Hixon

~ Ramprasad, Why disappear into formless trance?
,
1246:The Joy Of Incompleteness
If all our life were one broad glare
Of sunlight, clear, unclouded;
If all our path were smooth and fair,
By no soft gloom enshrouded;
If all life's flowers were fully blown
Without the sweet unfolding,
And happiness were rudely thrown
On hands too weak for holding-Should we not miss the twilight hours,
The gentle haze and sadness?
Should we not long for storms and showers
To break the constant gladness?
If none were sick and none were sad,
What service could we render?
I think if we were always glad,
We scarcely could be tender.
Did our beloved never need
Our patient ministration,
Earth would grow cold and miss indeed
Its sweetest consolation;
If sorrow never claimed our heart,
And every wish were granted,
Patience would die, and hope depart-Life would be disenchanted.
And yet in heaven is no more night,
In heaven is no more sorrow!
Such unimagined new delight
Fresh grace from pain will borrow.
As the poor seed that underground
Seeks its true life above it,
Not knowing what will there be found
When sunbeams kiss and love it,
So we in darkness upward grow,
And look and long for heaven,
But cannot picture it below
Till more of light be given.
333
~ Anonymous Americas,
1247:The Magic Wand
As an April garden
Breathes the scent of rain Rain that calls her treasures
Back to life again So my spirit quickens to the opening strain.
In its sheath of darkness
Fancy's folded wing
Thrills and stirs and quivers
To another spring,
When the bow is drawn across the trembling string.
In their grave of silence,
In their husk and core,
Dreams that winter buried
Feel the sap once more
Running warm and vital, as it ran before.
Into secret chambers
Where old passions sleep,
Through the long-closed shutters,
Lights of morning creep:
Through the opening doorway airs of morning sweep.
Hope resurgent, and Youth,
With their dancing train,
Mingled grief and glory,
Blended bliss and pain,
Ecstasies and agonies, come forth and live again.
Wizard hand that summoned
Each forgotten ghost,
Plays like wind or water
With the spell-bound host,
Sailing seas supernal, for no earthly coast.
Yet no magic music
That an ear can mark
Draws them winging upward
222
Through the mist and dark,
As the sky at sunrise draws the mounting lark.
Through the poet-spirit,
Touched with heavenly fire,
Heavenly voices whisper
In the wood and wire.
God is the musician, and my soul the lyre.
~ Ada Cambridge,
1248:ready: 1. Find a place to sit down comfortably, keeping a straight back. 2. Ensure you’ll be left undisturbed during your meditation (switch off your cell phone). 3. Set the timer for ten minutes. Checking-in: 1. Take 5 deep breaths, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth and then gently close your eyes. 2. Focus on the physical sensation of the body on the chair and the feet on the floor. 3. Scan down through the body and notice which parts feel comfortable and relaxed, and which parts feel uncomfortable and tense. 4. Notice how you’re feeling—i.e. what sort of mood you’re in right now. Focusing the mind: 1. Notice where you feel the rising and falling sensation of the breath most strongly. 2. Notice how each breath feels, the rhythm of it—whether it’s long or short, deep or shallow, rough or smooth. 3. Gently count the breaths as you focus on the rising and falling sensation—1 with the rise and 2 with the fall, upward to a count of 10. 4. Repeat this cycle between 5 and 10 times, or for as long as you have time available. Finishing-off: 1. Let go of any focus at all, allowing the mind to be as busy or as still as it wants to be for about twenty seconds. 2. Bring the mind back to the sensation of the body on the chair and the feet on the floor. 3. Gently open your eyes and stand up when you feel ready. ~ Andy Puddicombe,
1249:Don’t touch her,” Poppy warned. “She’ll roll into a ball and sink her quills into you.” But Harry settled his hands on the ground, palms up, on either side of the inquisitive hedgehog. “Hello, Medusa.” Gently he worked his hands beneath her. “Sorry to interrupt your exercise. But believe me, you don’t want to run into any of my gardeners.” Poppy watched incredulously as Medusa relaxed and settled willingly into the warm masculine hands. Her spines flattened, and she let him lift and turn her so she was tummy upward. Harry stroked the soft white fur of her underbelly while Medusa’s delicate snout lifted and she regarded him with her perpetual smile. “I’ve never seen anyone except Beatrix handle her like that,” Poppy said, standing beside him. “You have experience with hedgehogs?” “No.” He slanted a smile at her. “But I have some experience with prickly females.” “Excuse me,” Beatrix’s voice interrupted them, and she came into the tunnel of roses. She was disheveled, bits of leaves clinging to her dress, her hair straggling over her face. “I seem to have lost track of . . . oh, there you are, Medusa!” She broke into a grin as she saw Harry cradling the hedgehog in his hands. “Always trust a man who can handle a hedgehog, that’s what I always say.” “Do you?” Poppy asked dryly. “I’ve never heard you say that.” “I only say it to Medusa. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1250:What had become of the singular ascending ambition that had driven young Roosevelt from his earliest days? What explains his willingness, against the counsel of his most trusted friends, to accept seemingly low-level jobs that traced neither a clear-cut nor a reliably ascending career path? The answer lies in probing what Roosevelt gleaned from his crucible experience. His expectation of and belief in a smooth, upward trajectory, either in life or in politics, was gone forever. He questioned if leadership success could be obtained by attaching oneself to a series of titled positions. If a person focused too much on a future that could not be controlled, he would become, Roosevelt acknowledged, too “careful, calculating, cautious in word and act.” Thereafter, he would jettison long-term career calculations and focus simply on whatever job opportunity came his way, assuming it might be his last. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are,” he liked to say. In a very real way, Roosevelt had come to see political life as a succession of crucibles—good or bad—able to crush or elevate. He would view each position as a test of character, effort, endurance, and will. He would keep nothing in reserve for some will-o-the-wisp future. Rather, he would regard each job as a pivotal test, a manifestation of his leadership skills. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin,
1251:How could the Revisers choose this last reading, 'an heir through God,' and keep the word adoption? From the passage it is as plain as St. Paul could make it, that, by the word translated adoption, he means the raising of a father's own child from the condition of tutelage and subjection to others, a state which, he says, is no better than that of a slave, to the position and rights of a son. None but a child could become a son; the idea is—a spiritual coming of age; only when the child is a man is he really and fully a son. The thing holds in the earthly relation. How many children of good parents—good children in the main too—never know those parents, never feel towards them as children might, until, grown up, they have left the house—until, perhaps, they are parents themselves, or are parted from them by death! To be a child is not necessarily to be a son or daughter. The childship is the lower condition of the upward process towards the sonship, the soil out of which the true sonship shall grow, the former without which the latter were impossible. God can no more than an earthly parent be content to have only children: he must have sons and daughters—children of his soul, of his spirit, of his love—not merely in the sense that he loves them, or even that they love him, but in the sense that they love like him, love as he loves. ~ George MacDonald,
1252:What do you remember about the Soviets?” “Lots of things.” I said, “Above all they were realistic, especially about human nature, and the quality of their own personnel. They had a very big army, which meant their average grunt was lazy, incompetent, and not blessed with any kind of discernible talent. They understood that, and they knew there wasn’t a whole lot they could do about it. So instead of trying to train their people upward toward the standard of available modern weaponry, they designed their available modern weaponry downward toward the standard of their people. Which was a truly radical approach.” “OK.” “Hence the AK-47. For instance, one example, what does a panicky grunt do under fire? He grabs his rifle and hits the fire selector and pulls the trigger. Our guns go from safe to single shot to full auto, which is nice and linear and logical, but they knew that would mean ninety-nine times in a hundred their guys would panic and ram the selector all the way home, and thereby fire off a whole magazine on the first hasty and unaimed shot. Which would leave them with an empty weapon right at the start of a firefight. Which is not helpful. So the AK selector goes safe, then full auto, then single shot. Not linear, not logical, but certainly practical. Single shot is a kind of default setting, and full auto is a deliberate choice. ~ Lee Child,
1253:Sita closed her eyes and breathed into her cupped hands. Before she left, she had remembered to perfume her wrist with Muguet.
The faint odor of that flower, so pure and close to the earth, was comforting. She had planted real lilies of the valley because she liked them so much as a perfume.
Just last fall, before the hard freeze, when she was feeling back to normal, the pips had arrived in a little white box. Her order from a nursery company. She'd put on her deerskin gloves and, on her knees, using a hand trowel, dug a shallow trench along the border of her blue Dwarf iris. Then one by one she'd planted the pips. They looked like shelled acorns, only tinier. "To be planted points upward," said a leaflet in the directions. They came up early in the spring. The tiny spears of their leaves would be showing soon.
Lying there, sleepless, she imaged their white venous roots, a mass of them fastening together, forming new shoots below the earth, unfurling their stiff leaves. She saw herself touching their tiny bells, waxed white, fluted, and breathing the ravishing fragrance they gave off because Louis had absently walked through her border again, dragging his shovel, crushing them with his big, careless feet.
It seemed as though hours of imaginary gardening passed before Mrs. Waldvogel tiptoed in without turning on the light. ~ Louise Erdrich,
1254:I won't meet his glare. "I guess I didn't care." Telling him I meant to murder his sister probably wouldn't go over very well. It would definitely cancel out the Hallmark vote.
"Unacceptable. Don't ever risk your life like that again, do you understand?"
I snort, sending little air bubbles dancing upward. "Hey, you know what else I don't care about? You giving me orders. I acted stupid, but-"
"Actually, this is a good time to point out that I'm a Royal," he says, pointing to the small tattoo of a fork on his stomach, just above the border where his abs turn into fish. "And since you're obviously Syrena, you do have to obey me."
"I'm what?" I say, trying to figure out how an eating utensil could possibly validate his claim of seniority.
"Syrena. That's what we-including you-are called."
"Syrena? Not mermaids?"
Galen clears his throat. "Uh, mermaid?"
"Really? You're gonna go there now? Fine, merman-wait, I wouldn't be a merman." Really though, what do I know about fish gender? Except that Galen is definitely male, no matter what species he is.
"Just for the record, we hate that word. And by we, I mean you also."
I roll my eyes. "Fine. But I'm not Syrena. Did I mention I don't have a big fin-"
"You're not trying hard enough."
"Trying hard enough? To grow a fin? ~ Anna Banks,
1255:The Narrow Way
Believe not those who say
The upward path is smooth,
Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way
And faint before the truth.
It is the only road
Unto the realms of joy;
But he who seeks that blest abode
Must all his powers employ.
Bright hopes and pure delights
Upon his course may beam,
And there amid the sternest heights,
The sweetest flowerets gleam; -On all her breezes borne
Earth yields no scents like those;
But he, that dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.
Arm, arm thee for the fight!
Cast useless loads away:
Watch through the darkest hours of night;
Toil through the hottest day.
Crush pride into the dust,
Or thou must needs be slack;
And trample down rebellious lust,
Or it will hold thee back.
Seek not thy treasure here;
Waive pleasure and renown;
The World's dread scoff undaunted bear,
And face its deadliest frown.
To labour and to love,
To pardon and endure,
To lift thy heart to God above,
And keep thy conscience pure, --
109
Be this thy constant aim,
Thy hope and thy delight, -What matters who should whisper blame,
Or who should scorn or slight?
What matters -- if thy God approve,
And if within thy breast,
Thou feel the comfort of his love,
The earnest of his rest?
~ Anne Brontë,
1256:Idyl
The swallows made twitter incessant,
The thrushes were wild with their mirth.
The ways and the woods were made pleasant,
And the flowering nooks of the earth.
And the sunshine sufficed to rejoice me,
And the air was as bracing as wine,
And the sky and the shadows and grasses
Were enough to make living divine.
Then I saw on the ground two gray robins,
One with glorious flame-colored vest,
'Neath the shade of some delicate bluebells,
By the breeze of the morning caressed.
They were singing of love in the shadow;
She was bashful, and modest, and coy,
And he sang to her tenderest love-songs,
And madrigals full of his joy.
And his song came forth clearer and clearer,
With each passionate, musical note;
Like the ripple of silvery waters,
It gushed from his beautiful throat.
His whole little bird-soul he offers,—
Ah! she listens to him as he sings:
Then he ceases, awaiting her answer,
With bright eyes and with quivering wings.
And I, too, stood awaiting it, breathless,
For his song was too sweet to disdain,
Till it came, little notes full of gladness,
With a plaintive and tender refrain.
And the songs died away in the distance,
And the forest alone heard the rest,
As the two little lovers flew upward,
To build them together a nest.
~ Emma Lazarus,
1257:Since at least the Great Depression, we’ve been hearing warnings that automation was or was about to be throwing millions out of work—Keynes at the time coined the term “technological unemployment,” and many assumed the mass unemployment of the 1930s was just a sign of things to come—and while this might make it seem such claims have always been somewhat alarmist, what this book suggests is that the opposite was the case. They were entirely accurate. Automation did, in fact, lead to mass unemployment. We have simply stopped the gap by adding dummy jobs that are effectively made up. A combination of political pressure from both right and left, a deeply held popular feeling that paid employment alone can make one a full moral person, and finally, a fear on the part of the upper classes, already noted by George Orwell in 1933, of what the laboring masses might get up to if they had too much leisure on their hands, has ensured that whatever the underlying reality, when it comes to official unemployment figures in wealthy countries, the needle should never jump too far from the range of 3 to 8 percent. But if one eliminates bullshit jobs from the picture, and the real jobs that only exist to support them, one could say that the catastrophe predicted in the 1930s really did happen. Upward of 50 percent to 60 percent of the population has, in fact, been thrown out of work. ~ David Graeber,
1258:Before you leave," he said softly, "I have some advice for you. It's not safe for a young woman to wander alone through the hotel. Don't take such a foolish risk again."
Poppy stiffened. "It's a reputable hotel," she said. "I have nothing to fear."
"Of course you do," he murmured. "You're looking right at it."
And before she could think, or move, or breathe, he bent his head and took her mouth with his.
Stunned, Poppy went motionless beneath the soft, burning kiss, so subtle in its demand that she wasn't aware of the moment her own lips parted. His hands came to her jaw, cradling, angling her face upward.
One arm slid around her, bringing her body fully against his, and the feel of him was hard and richly stimulating. With every breath, she drew in an enticing scent, an incense of amber and musk, starched linen and male skin. She should have struggled in his arms... but his mouth was so tenderly persuasive, erotic, imparting messages of peril and promise. His lips slid to her throat and he hunted for her pulse, working his way downward, layering sensations like silken gauze until she shivered and arched away from him.
"No," she said weakly.
The stranger gripped her chin carefully, forcing her to look at him. They both went still. As Poppy met his searching gaze, she saw a flash of baffled animosity, as if he had just made some unwelcome discovery. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1259:From ‘the Soul’s Travelling’
God, God!
With a child’s voice I cry,
Weak, sad, confidingly—
God, God!
Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up
Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop
As ours, o’er many a tear!
Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad,
Two little tears suffice to cover all:
Thou knowest, Thou, who art so prodigal
Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer
Expiring in the woods—that care for none
Of those delightsome flowers they die upon.
O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breath
We name our souls, self-spoilt!—by that strong passion
Which paled Thee once with sighs,—by that strong death
Which made Thee once unbreathing—from the wrack
Themselves have called around them, call them back,
Back to Thee in continuous aspiration!
For here, O Lord,
For here they travel vainly,—vainly pass
From city-pavement to untrodden sward,
Where the lark finds her deep nest in the grass
Cold with the earth’s last dew. Yea, very vain
The greatest speed of all these souls of men
Unless they travel upward to the throne
Where sittest THOU, the satisfying ONE,
With help for sins and holy perfectings
For all requirements—while the archangel, raising
Unto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing,
Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
1260:He loves you. It’s plain for anyone to see. He came after you, didn’t he? Admitted he was wrong to abandon you?”
I shrugged. “We’ve been friends since I was born, or almost.”
“He doesn’t look at you like he thinks you’re just his friend.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I insisted. The doubts that Melaina had stirred up, that I had had so long to contemplate in her cell, flared inside me again. “What can come of him loving me? He’s still an earl’s son and I’m…a scribe girl. His family would never let him marry me. They were lining up girls at court for him to pick through before we left. Girls with titles and land…noble girls. It doesn’t make any difference if he loves me. We can’t be together.”
Mika pushed herself back as she blew a breath upward to stir the hair on her forehead. “What makes you think he’ll ask their permission?”
I gaped at her. Kiernan, not marry who his family wanted? It wasn’t done, not in the noble families of Thorvaldor. You married to create ties to other nobles, to strengthen your family’s position. Sometimes you got love as well, but that was just luck thrown into the bargain.
“And you. You’re willing to fight an impossible battle to get me on the throne, but you won’t fight for him?”
“I never said that,” I said, stung. “I just--” But I could go no further, because just then I heard the jingle of horse tack, and then Kiernan rode into view. ~ Eilis O Neal,
1261:It was one of those great iron afternoons in London: the yellow sun being teased apart by a thoasand chimneys breathing, fawning upward without shame. This smoke is more than the day’s breath, more than dark strength--it is an imperial presence that lives and moves. People were crossing the streets and squares, going everywhere. Busses were grinding off, hundreds of them, down the long concrete viaducts, smeared with years’ pitiless use and no pleasure, into haze-gray, grease black, red lead and pale aluminum, between scrap heaps that towered high as blocks of flats, down side-shoving curves into roads clogged with Army convoys, other tall busses and canvas lorries, bicycles and cars, hitching now and then, over it all the enormous gas ruin of the sun among the smokestacks, the barrage balloons, power lines and chimneys brown as aging indoor wood, brown growing deeper, approaching black through an instant-- perhaps the true turn of the sunset-- that is wine to you, wine and comfort.
The Moment was 6:43:16 British Double Summer Time: the sky beaten like Death’s drum, still humming, and Slothrop’s cock--say what? yes lookit inside his GI undershorts here’s a sneaky hardon stirring, ready to jump-- well great God where’d that come from?
There is in his history, and likely, God help him, in his dossier, a peculiar sensitivity to what is revealed in the sky. (But a harden?) ~ Thomas Pynchon,
1262:You really believe that?” “Every word.” Her breath caught as he raised his free hand to her face, tipping it upward toward the light. The touch sent a strange feeling through her, something she’d never felt before this moment. When he spoke, she could hear the surprise in his voice. “You make me want to believe it.” He was mere inches from her and their gazes were locked together. And all of a sudden, she knew. He was going to kiss her. And she wanted him to. More than she could have imagined. Her breath caught as his gaze moved from her eyes to her lips and her whole body tensed as she watched him move closer. His lips were so close to her own that she could feel the light touch of his breath on her skin. Her eyes fluttered closed and she waited on tenterhooks…all her senses screaming, He’s going to kiss you! Only, he didn’t. Instead, just as Alex was sure she was feeling the beginnings of her first kiss, she heard his soft curse. Her eyes flew open as he jumped back from her, loosing her hand. She found herself rather dizzy from his quick movement and the instant loss of his warmth. “We cannot do this.” “We cannot?” The words came out soft and bewildered. “No!” He stopped and raked his fingers through his hair, taking a deep breath, looking anywhere but at her. She had no idea what to say or how to act—after all, it’s not every day one of your dearest friends nearly kisses you. ~ Sarah MacLean,
1263:They drifted back to reality slowly, limbs entwined, heartbeats erratic, bodies shimmering with sweat. Hunter drew her head onto his shoulder, unwilling to let her go. A half smile settled on his mouth. He knew this first coupling had fallen far short of what it could have been, what it would be the second time. He had been tense, and so had she, not to mention the pain he had inflicted. His smile broadened. This small woman filled the empty places inside him, made him feel whole again.
Gazing sightlessly across the lodge at the evening shadows, Loretta listened to the rapid tattoo of Hunter’s pulse. She felt boneless and completely exhausted. Her cheeks flamed when she thought of the things he had done to her and the shameless way she had responded. A wave of embarrassment washed over her.
As if he sensed her anguish, he slid his hand over her hip and upward to her ribs. “My heart is filled with great love for you,” he whispered.
Tears sprang to Loretta’s eyes. She couldn’t name the emotion that caused them, didn’t want to. Then, like projectiles from a cannon, the words shot from her mouth. “Oh, Hunter, I love you, too.”
The moment she said it, she knew it was true. She loved him as she had never loved anyone, with an intensity that made her ache. Hunter, the fierce warrior, the culmination of all her nightmares, had become the most important person in her world. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1264:She was close now; he sensed her leaning over him. A length of cool, damp flannel began to stroke over his forehead, cheeks and throat, and it felt so good that a wrenching sigh left him. When the cloth was removed momentarily, he reached for it, gasping, “Don’t stop.” He was inwardly furious that he’d been reduced to begging for small mercies.
“Shhh…” She had freshened the flannel, made it colder and wetter. As the unhurried stroking continued, his fingers encountered the folds of her skirts and closed on them so tightly that nothing could have pried the fabric free. Her gentle hand slid beneath his head and lifted it enough for the cloth to slide underneath to the back of his neck. The pleasure of it drew a mortifying groan of relief from him.
When he had relaxed and was breathing deeply, the cloth was set aside. He felt her maneuver around him, easing his head and shoulders upward, tucking pillows behind him. Perceiving that she intended to give him more water or perhaps some of the foul laudanum tonic from earlier, he protested through gritted teeth.
“No--damn you--”
“Just try.” She was gentle but merciless. Her slight weight depressed the side of the mattress, and a slender arm slid behind him. As he was caught in that half-cradling hold, he considered shoving her off the bed. But her hand touched his cheek with a tenderness that somehow undermined his will to hurt her. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1265:Hold Hard, These Ancient Minutes In The Cuckoo's
Month
Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo's month,
Under the lank, fourth folly on Glamorgan's hill,
As the green blooms ride upward, to the drive of time;
Time, in a folly's rider, like a county man
Over the vault of ridings with his hound at heel,
Drives forth my men, my children, from the hanging south.
Country, your sport is summer, and December's pools
By crane and water-tower by the seedy trees
Lie this fifth month unstaked, and the birds have flown;
Holy hard, my country children in the world if tales,
The greenwood dying as the deer fall in their tracks,
The first and steepled season, to the summer's game.
And now the horns of England, in the sound of shape,
Summon your snowy horsemen, and the four-stringed hill,
Over the sea-gut loudening, sets a rock alive;
Hurdles and guns and railings, as the boulders heave,
Crack like a spring in vice, bone breaking April,
Spill the lank folly's hunter and the hard-held hope.
Down fall four padding weathers on the scarlet lands,
Stalking my children's faces with a tail of blood,
Time, in a rider rising, from the harnessed valley;
Hold hard, my country darlings, for a hawk descends,
Golden Glamorgan straightens, to the falling birds.
Your sport is summer as the spring runs angrily.
~ Dylan Thomas,
1266:Make me a story.”
“Hunter, I don’t have a stitch of clothes on,” she squeaked.
One of his dark eyebrows flicked upward. “You must have clothes to make stories?”
“No. I guess I…well, it might help me think.”
He sighed and rolled onto his back, carrying her along with him in the curve of his arm. Pressing her head onto his shoulder, he made a valiant attempt to ignore the feeling of her silken flesh against his and said, “This Comanche wears breeches. I will make the story.”
And with that, Hunter began talking, smiling to himself every once in a while because he quickly discovered that he had as much trouble concentrating as she did when she didn’t have clothes on. In a husky whisper he recited the prophecy to her. When he finished she stirred in the crook of his arm.
That is your song?”
Huh, yes.”
“But, it’s beautiful!”
With a start, Hunter realized he thought so, too. “Since my boyhood, I had much hate for the words.” He twined a length of her hair around his finger, smiling. “And great hate for the honey-haired woman who would one day steal my heart. I wished to kill you, yes?”
“But I’m not the woman in your song.”
“Ah, yes, you are the woman.”
“The song says the People will call me the Little Wise One. They don’t! And they never will. I’m far from wise.”
“It will come to pass,” he assured her. “It must. All of the words must. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1267:The last instruction to the disciple is, “Observe / the jasmine lightness / of the
moon.” This instruction embodies all the instructions. The word “observe” has two
meanings: “to look at” and “to conform to,” as in a ritual. It is at once an instruc-
tion for looking at the church, an instruction for understanding the true nature of
religion, and, most important, an instruction for practicing that understanding.
“Jasmine” and “moon” recall the image of the flower superimposed on the
moon—metaphorically the essence of the divine which is above the institution of
the church. A color mapping reinforces the superimposition of the flower on the
moon: the “lightness” of the moon is the color of the jasmine flower. “Lightness”
is also buoyancy; it suggests an upward motion like the scent of jasmine rising
from the ground, in opposition to the oppressive weight of the institutional church.
The lightness recalls the upward force of the lines escaping.
The ultimate instruction to the disciple is to transcend, to rise above, the insti-
tution. This is conveyed metaphorically in the central image of the poem in which
the lines rise above the steeple that is ordinarily seen as “containing” them. Tran-
scendence, motion beyond the ordinary limits, is also conveyed in the very struc-
ture of the sentence that describes the image of transcendence. ~ George Lakoff,
1268:You’re beautiful, Evie,” came his soft comment.
Having been raised by relations who had always lamented the garish color of her hair and the proliferation of freckles, Evie gave him a skeptical smile. “Aunt Florence has always given me a bleaching lotion to make my freckles vanish. But there’s no getting rid of them.”
Sebastian smiled lazily as he came to her. Taking her shoulders in his hands, he slid an appraising glance along her half-clad body. “Don’t remove a single freckle, sweet. I found some in the most enchanting places. I already have my favorites… shall I tell you where they are?”
Disarmed and discomfited, Evie shook her head and made a movement to twist away from him. He wouldn’t let her, however. Pulling her closer, he bent his golden head and kissed the side of her neck. “Little spoilsport,” he whispered, smiling. “I’m going to tell you anyway.” His fingers closed around a handful of the chemise and eased the hem slowly upward. Her breath caught as she felt his fingers nuzzling tenderly between her bare legs. “As I discovered earlier,” he said against her sensitive throat, “there’s a trail inside your right thigh that leads to—”
A knock at the door interrupted them, and Sebastian lifted his head with a grumble of annoyance. “Breakfast,” he muttered. “And I wouldn’t care to make you choose between my lovemaking or a hot meal, as the answer would likely be unflattering. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1269:Our present system based on preparing children for individual upward mobility into the system by making “us” like “them” is destroying our communities because those who succeed in the system leave the community while those who don’t take out their frustration and sense of failure in acts of vandalism. It is leaving too many children behind, labeling too many as suffering from attention deficit disorder and therefore requiring Ritalin, and widening the gap between the very rich and the very poor. The main cause of youth violence and addiction to drugs, I believe, is youth powerlessness. We have turned young people into parasites with no socially necessary or productive roles, nothing to do for eighteen years but go to school, play, and watch TV. Rich and poor, in the suburbs and the inner city, they are, as Paul Goodman pointed out years ago, “Growing Up Absurd,”4 deprived of the natural and normal ways of learning the relationship between cause and effect, actions and consequences by which the species has survived and evolved down through the millennia. Then we wonder why teenagers lack a sense of social responsibility. Schoolchildren need to be involved in community-building activities from an early age, both to empower themselves and to transform their communities from demoralizing wastelands into sources of strength and renewal. Their heads work better when their hearts and hands are engaged. ~ Grace Lee Boggs,
1270:Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy. It not only enables them to keep abreast of the times; it qualifies them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive power to the mad pace. They are fortunate beings. They do not need to apprehend the significance of things. They do not grow weary nor miss step, nor do they fall out of rank and sink by the wayside to be left contemplating the moving procession.
Ah! that moving procession that has left me by the road-side! Its fantastic colors are more brilliant and beautiful than the sun on the undulating waters. What matter if souls and bodies are failing beneath the feet of the ever-pressing multitude! It moves with the majestic rhythm of the spheres. Its discordant clashes sweep upward in one harmonious tone that blends with the music of other worlds--to complete God's orchestra.

It is greater than the stars--that moving procession of human energy; greater than the palpitating earth and the things growing thereon. Oh! I could weep at being left by the wayside; left with the grass and the clouds and a few dumb animals. True, I feel at home in the society of these symbols of life's immutability. In the procession I should feel the crushing feet, the clashing discords, the ruthless hands and stifling breath. I could not hear the rhythm of the march.

Salve! ye dumb hearts. Let us be still and wait by the roadside. ~ Kate Chopin,
1271:A Prayer
Spirit and Breath of Life, whate'er Thy name!
Bear with Thy creature, Man,
That makes his dwelling-place a blot of shame
Upon the Ordered Plan.
Not Thy hand, O Divine Designer, hurled
Athwart the starlit skies
One blood-stained, greed-diseased, hate-eaten world,
To shock celestial eyes.
Not Thy default, O Beautiful, this crust
Of fratricidal crime,
These maggot-breeds of hunger and of lust
That Thy fair work begrime.
But ours, who mock Thee from the highest place,
And in the light of day;
Who claim to lead an upward-struggling race,
And will not seek the way.
Guards of the human birthright, at Thy call A city sacked and burned;
Guards of the house that is the home of all,
But whence the weak are spurned.
Brothers, to whom the outcast brothers cry
As with a voice unknown;
Stewards of Nature's bounty, that deny
The lawful heirs their own.
Thou that hast made us men, and earth so fair,
To be so vilely used,
Give space for late repentance and repair
Of sacred trust abused.
Give time, Eternal, that we stanch these tears,
Give time to heal this sore,
That our brief speck amid the shining spheres
Disgrace its birth no more.
15
But sail ethereal seas, an orb of light,
To bear Thy purpose on
Until it fades into the cosmic night
Where the dead worlds have gone.
~ Ada Cambridge,
1272:Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he 'lives and moves' (Acts 17:28). For quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hadly from ourselves; indeed, our very being is nothing but subsistence in the one God. Then, by these benefits shed like dew from heaven upon us, we are led as by rivulets to the spring itself. Indeed, our very poverty better discloses the infinitude of benefits reposing in God. The miserable ruin, into which the rebellion of the first man cast us, especially compels us to look upward. [...] Thus, from the feeling of our own ignorance, vanity, poverty, infirmity, and--what is more--depravity and corruption, we recognize that the true light of wisdom, sound virtue, full abundance of every good, and purity of righteousness rest in the Lord alone. To this extent we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate the good things of God; and we cannot seriously aspire to him before we begin to become displeased with ourselves. [...] Accordingly, the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him. ~ John Calvin,
1273:Nick made himself release his grip on the timber. He swung free for one terrifying moment. He felt Sayer’s grip tighten to a crushing vise and a mighty tug upward as the runner hauled him just far enough to balance his weight on top of the crackling wood.
“Move forward,” Sayer muttered, retaining his hold on Nick’s arm, and together they maneuvered away from the perilous fall. When they had both retreated from the beam and found the safety of some relatively sound planking, they collapsed side by side, gasping violently.
“Damn,” Sayer rasped when he had sufficient breath to speak, “you’re a heavy bastard, Sydney.”
Disoriented, his body racked with pain, Nick tried to make himself comprehend that he was still alive. He drew his sleeve over his sweat-soaked brow and found that his arm was cramping and shaking, the abused muscles going berserk.
Sayer sat up and regarded him with clear anxiety. “It looks like you’ve strained some muscles. And your hand looks like it’s been pushed through a sieve.”
But he was alive. It was too miraculous to believe. Nick had gotten a reprieve he didn’t deserve, and by all that was holy, he was going to take advantage of it. As he thought of Lottie, he was seized with dark longing.
“Sayer,” he managed to say hoarsely, “I’ve just decided something.”
“Oh?”
“From now on, you’ll have to find your own fucking way around Fleet Ditch.”

-Sayer & Nick ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1274:I had a dream, and I needed to go back and find out for sure if something—someone—was there.”
When she glanced up, Violet saw the muscles in his jaw flex. “So?” he asked though clenched teeth. “Did you? Find something, I mean?”
Violet’s cheek was getting sore from where her teeth were ripping it apart. “N-no,” she stammered. “I mean, kind of.”
“Well, shit, Violet, what’s that’s supposed to mean?”
“It means there’s someone locked inside one of those gigantic shipping containers down on the docks. But I couldn’t get inside, so I still don’t know for sure. I mean, not in any way I can prove.”
Jay jumped up from his chair. It was more than he could take. “Are you telling me you went down to the shipyards before it was even light out? In the middle of the night? All by yourself?
Violet smiled then. She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help herself; she felt the corners of her mouth twitching upward before she could stop them. She was never going to get used to this, his worrying about her.
“Yeah,” she challenged, taking a step toward him. “Something like that.” She walked to where he was standing, barely containing his frustration. She didn’t try to hide her grin. She put her palms against his chest and could feel his heart beating wildly. “You think you’re gonna be okay? Do you need to sit down? Do you want me to get you a cup of tea or something?”
“Hell, Violet, it’s not funny. ~ Kimberly Derting,
1275:The helix contains two intertwined strands of DNA. It is "right-handed"-twisting upward as if driven by a right-handed screw. Across the molecule, it measures twenty-three angstroms-one-thousandth of one-thousandth of a millimeter. One million helices stacked side by side would fit in this letter: o. the biologist John Sulston wrote, "We see it as a rather stubby double helix, for they seldom show its other striking feature: it is immensely long and thin. In every cell in your body, you have two meters of the stuff; if we were to draw a scaled-up picture of it with the DNA as thick as sewing thread, that cell's worth would be about 200 kilometers long."

Each strand of DNA, recall, is a long sequence of "bases"-A,T,G,and C. The bases are linked together by the sugar-phosphate backbone. The backbone twists on the outside, forming a spiral. The bases face in, like treads in a circular staircase. The opposite strand contains the opposing bases: A matched with T and G matched with C. Thus, both strands contain the same information-except in a complementary sense: each is a "reflection," or echo, of the other (the more appropriate analogy is a yin-and-yang structure). Molecular forces between the A:T and G:C pairs lock the two strands together, as in a zipper. A double helix of DNA can thus be envisioned as a code written with four alphabets-ATGCCCTACGGGCCCATCG...-forever entwined with its mirror-image code. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee,
1276:Brisbane said nothing for a long moment. Then he spoke, his voice resolved. “I will tell Morgan the Apiary cannot be. I will keep to private enquiry work. It isn’t much safer but it will keep me closer to home, I suspect. And we will need a bigger house than Mrs. Lawson’s in Half Moon. I will tell her we rescind the offer, and we’ll start looking for lodgings tomorrow.”

“No,” I said firmly.

“No?” One handsome black brow quirked upward.

“No. We must begin as we mean to go on. We are neither of us happy without purposeful work, and we shall have it. There will be those to care for him when we are not there, and he will learn the value of a job well done from both of us. We will move into Half Moon Street as we planned, and you will work with Morgan to form the Vespiary,” I said, stressing the correction. He smiled.
“And what will you do? You will never be happy with teething biscuits and silver spoons.”
“No more than you,” I agreed. “But I will do as I have done. I will organise our household because, let us be frank, my love, I am better at it than you. I will work with you on cases that interest me. I will advise on the Vespiary when you think I can be useful. I will have my photography. And we will have...” I hesitated then said it for the first time and with ringing conviction, “our son.”
He looked down at the sleeping boy. “Our son,” he said, and in his voice was a note of wonder. ~ Deanna Raybourn,
1277:waiting for the other shoe to drop. Did you know it originated in cities like Chicago and New York?” “No. I did not” He tilted his head, his mouth hooking upward to one side as though he were trying not to laugh. “Tell me about it.”He was teasing me again. “Well, it did. So…”He lifted his eyebrows, “That’s all? You’re not going to tell me the specific origin of the idiom waiting for the other shoe to drop’?”I shook my head, “I don’t know it.”He mimicked me and shook his head in response, “You’re lying. You do know.”“Nope. I don’t.”“This is just like the mammals.” He sighed and placed his phone on the table. Before he took a bite from his sandwich he said, “You’re stingy with information.”My frowned deepened, “No, I’m not-”His words were somewhat garbled as he spoke between chewing, “You’re an information tease.”“What?!”“Or maybe you don’t really know the origin and you’re just making things up to impress me-” he took another bite. “I am not! It originates from the late industrial revolution, in the late 19th and early 20th century.Apartments were all built with the same floor plan, in similar design so one tenant’s bedroom was
under another’s. Therefore it was normal to hear an upstairs neighbor removing his or her shoes and hearing one shoe hit the floor, then the other, when they undressed at night.”“I wonder what else they heard.” His gaze held mine, seemed to burn with a new intensity.“I suppose anything that was loud enough. ~ Penny Reid,
1278:Feel the beat. It is the wind,” A’isha directed. “Fly with it.”
The soft beat of a drum, paired with the lilting melody of a flute, filled the room as Danica stepped onto the dais at the back of the nest.
Closing her eyes, Danica stretched upward, moving onto the balls of her feet, wrists crossed high above her head, and paused there for a heartbeat. The pose was known as a prayer--a dancer’s call for guidance from the powers that be.
She moved into the dance flawlessly, the sway of her body as fluid as water over stone. This was the magic of the serpent and the snake charmer combined, as pure and intense as a thunderstorm.
The first dance was soft and gentle, a common sakkri’nira. I could feel the drive in the music, however, and knew the moment when the first dance would move into a more complex one.
When the flute stilled, Danica rose once again onto the balls of her feet for an instant. She smiled at me before she began the most complex of the intre’marl: Maeve’s solo from the Namir-da.
What had been praise and beauty became passion. Maeve’s dance was a seduction, and the way Danica held my eyes made me feel it. Seeing my mate perform those steps made me want to join her, as any royal-born serpiente would. The holiday for which the Namir-da had been named was still four months away; she would be able to perform then, and I with her, in a ritual that dated back to the creation of my kind. ~ Amelia Atwater Rhodes,
1279:Tatia…Tatiasha,” he said huskily, taking her hands and kissing them, kissing her wrists and the insides of her forearms. “Yes?” she said, just as huskily. “We’re alone together.” “I know,” she replied, suppressing a moan. “We have privacy.” “Hmm.” “Privacy, Tania!” Alexander said intensely. “For the first time in our life you and I have real privacy. We had it yesterday. And we have it today.” She couldn’t take the emotion in his crème brûlée eyes. She lowered her gaze. “Look at me.” “I can’t,” she whispered. Alexander cupped her small face in his massive hands. “Are you…scared?” “Terrified.” “No. Please, don’t be scared of me.” He kissed her deeply on the lips, so deeply, so fully, so lovingly, that Tatiana felt the aching pit inside her open up and flare upward. She tottered, physically unable to continue sitting upright. “Tatiasha,” he said, “why are you so beautiful? Why?” “I’m a rag,” she said. “Look at you.” He hugged her. “God, what a blessing.” Pulling away, Alexander took her hands. “Tania, you are my miracle, you know that, don’t you? You are the one God sent me to give me faith.” He paused. “He sent you to redeem me, to comfort me, and to heal me—and that’s just so far,” he added with a smile. “I’m barely able to hold myself together right now, I want to make love to you so much…” Here he stopped. “I know you’re afraid. I will never hurt you. Will you come into my tent with me?” “Yes,” Tatiana said, softly but audibly. ~ Paullina Simons,
1280:He gazed upward at the towering mountain, but at that moment some strange movements on the part of Panawe attracted his attention. His face was working convulsively, and he began to stagger about. Then he put his hand to his mouth and took from it what looked like a bright-coloured pebble. He looked at it carefully for some seconds. Joiwind also looked, over his shoulder, with quickly changing colors. After this inspection, Panawe let the object—whatever it was—fall to the ground, and took no more interest in it. "May I look?" asked Maskull; and, without waiting for permission, he picked it up. It was a delicately beautiful egg-shaped crystal of pale green. "Where did this come from?" he asked queerly. Panawe turned away, but Joiwind answered for him. "It came out of my husband." "That's what I thought, but I couldn't believe it. But what is it?" "I don't know that it has either name or use. It is merely an overflowing of beauty." "Beauty?" Joiwind smiled. "If you were to regard nature as the husband, and Panawe as the wife, Maskull, perhaps everything would be explained." Maskull reflected. "On Earth," he said after a minute, "men like Panawe are called artists, poets, and musicians. Beauty overflows into them too, and out of them again. The only distinction is that their productions are more human and intelligible." "Nothing comes from it but vanity," said Panawe, and, taking the crystal out of Maskull's hand, he threw it into the lake. ~ David Lindsay,
1281:Luca picked up the leather-bound volume Cass had been reading. “Shakespeare,” he said, twirling the book in his hand. “Quite a tale. Pity how they both die at the end.”
“Luca!” Cass gasped. Slipper jumped down from her lap and padded over to the fireplace. “I had only just completed the first quarto. I was looking for the second volume when you arrived.”
Luca looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. A classmate was talking about it at university. You can still read it, Cassandra. It’s a fine story, if you like that sort of thing. As I recall, you used to be more into swordfights and sorcerers.”
Cass was about to respond when Agnese glided into the library, dressed in a pearl gray dressing gown cinched at the waist with a wide white belt. “Do I hear arguing already? Save it for your marriage, children.” Her eyes brightened and her mouth curled upward as if Luca were a roasted bear on a platter, smelling of cloves and cinnamon. “Narissa told me you’d arrived,” Agnese continued. “I apologize for my state of disarray, dear. I retired early this evening.”
“Signora Querini. You are every bit as lovely as I remember,” Luca said, his cheeks reddening slightly as he bowed toward Agnese.
The old woman crowed with delight. “I daresay you are three or four times as lovely as I remember. Whatever herbs and potions you’re taking over there in France, can you spare some for an old lady?”
Luca laughed. “No potions, Signora,” he said. “Just growing up. ~ Fiona Paul,
1282:Vetiver”
Ages passed slowly, like a load of hay,
As the flowers recited their lines
And pike stirred at the bottom of the pond.
The pen was cool to the touch.
The staircase swept upward
Through fragmented garlands, keeping the melancholy
Already distilled in letters of the alphabet.

It would be time for winter now, its spun-sugar
Palaces and also lines of care
At the mouth, pink smudges on the forehead and cheeks,
The color once known as "ashes of roses.-"
How many snakes and lizards shed their skins
For time to be passing on like this,
Sinking deeper in the sand as it wound toward
The conclusion. It had all been working so well and now,
Well, it just kind of came apart in the hand
As a change is voiced, sharp
As a fishhook in the throat, and decorative tears flowed
Past us into a basin called infinity.

There was no charge for anything, the gates
Had been left open intentionally.
Don't follow, you can have whatever it is.
And in some room someone examines his youth,
Finds it dry and hollow, porous to the touch...
O keep me with you, unless the outdoors
Embraces both of us, unites us, unless
The birdcatchers put away their twigs,
The fishermen haul in their sleek empty nets
And others become part of the immense crowd
Around this bonfire, a situation
That has come to mean us to us, and the crying
In the leaves is saved, the last silver drops. ~ John Ashbery,
1283:In Rajayoga the chosen instrument is the mind. our ordinary mentality is first disciplined, purified and directed towards the divine Being, then by a summary process of Asana and Pranayama the physical force of our being is stilled and concentrated, the life-force released into a rhythmic movement capable of cessation and concentrated into a higher power of its upward action, the mind, supported and strengthened by this greater action and concentration of the body and life upon which it rests, is itself purified of all its unrest and emotion and its habitual thought-waves, liberated from distraction and dispersion, given its highest force of concentration, gathered up into a trance of absorption. Two objects, the one temporal, the other eternal,are gained by this discipline. Mind-power develops in another concentrated action abnormal capacities of knowledge, effective will, deep light of reception, powerful light of thought-radiation which are altogether beyond the narrow range of our normal mentality; it arrives at the Yogic or occult powers around which there has been woven so much quite dispensable and yet perhaps salutary mystery. But the one final end and the one all-important gain is that the mind, stilled and cast into a concentrated trance, can lose itself in the divine consciousness and the soul be made free to unite with the divine Being.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Self-Perfection, The Principle of the Integral Yoga, 609,
1284:I Fellowed Sleep
I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain,
Let fall the tear of time; the sleeper's eye,
Shifting to light, turned on me like a moon.
So, planning-heeled, I flew along my man
And dropped on dreaming and the upward sky.
I fled the earth and, naked, climbed the weather,
Reaching a second ground far from the stars;
And there we wept I and a ghostly other,
My mothers-eyed, upon the tops of trees;
I fled that ground as lightly as a feather.
'My fathers' globe knocks on its nave and sings.'
'This that we tread was, too, your father's land.'
'But this we tread bears the angelic gangs
Sweet are their fathered faces in their wings.'
'These are but dreaming men. Breathe, and they fade.'
Faded my elbow ghost, the mothers-eyed,
As, blowing on the angels, I was lost
On that cloud coast to each grave-grabbing shade;
I blew the dreaming fellows to their bed
Where still they sleep unknowing of their ghost.
Then all the matter of the living air
Raised up a voice, and, climbing on the words,
I spelt my vision with a hand and hair,
How light the sleeping on this soily star,
How deep the waking in the worlded clouds.
There grows the hours' ladder to the sun,
Each rung a love or losing to the last,
The inches monkeyed by the blood of man.
And old, mad man still climbing in his ghost,
My fathers' ghost is climbing in the rain.
~ Dylan Thomas,
1285:This new level of thinking is what The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is about. It’s a principle-centered, character-based, “inside-out” approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness. “Inside-out” means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self—with your paradigms, your character, and your motives. It says if you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it. If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character. The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves. Inside-out is a process—a continuing process of renewal based on the natural laws that govern human growth and progress. It’s an upward spiral of growth that leads to progressively higher forms of responsible independence and effective interdependence. ~ Stephen R Covey,
1286:Hold still baby girl. Hold still. I need you to do something for me,” he said quietly.

I opened my mouth and said, “What?” but no words came out. I tried again.

Nothing.

He smiled.

He continued to lick my hip bone. He kissed it and looked me in the eyes.

“You listening?” he asked.

As I squeezing the countertop with each hand, my arms beside my body, my hands beside my butt, I nodded.

“Fuck my tongue. I want you to fuck my mouth, do you hear me?”

I opened my mouth and squeaked. My eyes closed. I felt his tongue move from my hip to my clit. His palm slid slowly across my hip, and rested in the depression between my hip and my pussy. His thumb was positioned on the skin above my clit, and pushed upward, exposing my clit totally. As his tongue met my clit, I squirmed.

I felt his lip on top of my clit, and his tongue on the bottom. He started a motion with his tongue and lip, with my clit in between. About three seconds into it, I was done…almost to climax. I felt myself begin to cum. No, not yet, not yet, please…make this last.

He lifted his head, and looked me in the eye. He must have sensed I was going to cum.

“No, don’t stop. Please, Erik, don’t fucking stop.” I begged.

“Fuck my mouth. Grind your pussy on my face baby girl, do you hear me?”

“Yes sir. Do it. Do that again. Exactly what you were doing, exactly,” I said, hoping he could duplicate what he was doing. ~ Scott Hildreth,
1287:George, who are you seeing these days?” “Well, let’s see. I’ve been dating around, you might call it. There’s a visiting professor at the college I see when she’s in town. She travels quite a lot. And a neighbor lady and I like to have dinner in the city. She writes an ‘about town’ column for the paper and we enjoy some of the best restaurants, all on her tab, but that’s not the best part about her. There’s a waitress in Tacoma I like, a music teacher out on Bainbridge Island and a professor of veterinary medicine. She’s the most trouble and I think I like her best.” Noah’s eyes were round. He swallowed. “You’re seeing five women?” “Well, on and off. Each one of them is completely irresistible in her own way.” “Don’t any of them want more of you than an occasional date? Like a serious relationship?” George sighed and looked upward. “I’m not opposed to the idea of marrying again, Noah. But, as of this moment, the only woman I’m seeing I would consider is the vet, Sharon. But she’s forty-four. I think that might be a tad risky, don’t you?” Then he grinned. “Although we do jog together on Sunday mornings. She’s keeping up very well.” Noah burst out laughing. This was what he loved about George and always had—he was so unafraid to live life. He held nothing back. “They used to call men like you rogues,” Noah said. “Not men like me,” he protested. “I care very much for these ladies. They are, each one, wonderful women. I treat them with genuine affection and respect.” Noah ~ Robyn Carr,
1288:Happiness found me alone one day and took me by the hand.
He showed me how the sun gave out its warmth across the land.
Sadness found me content and smiling upward at the sun.
He talked of droughts and blindness and what burning rays had done.

Happiness found me alone again and pointed to the sky.
He showed me how the storms created rainbows way up high.
Sadness found me intrigued and took me to the rainbow’s end.
He showed me how it disappeared to ne’er return again.

Happiness found me alone and taught me how to sing a song.
He sang a dozen melodies as I chirped right along.
Sadness found me singing out and covered up his ears.
He said the noise was deafening, and wished he couldn’t hear.

Happiness found me alone and gave me seven coins of gold.
He showed me many fancy things that merchants often sold.
Sadness found me admiring the pretty things I’d bought.
He pointed out my empty purse and money I had not.

Happiness found me alone and helped me talk to someone new.
He called the boy my friend and said that I was his friend too.
Sadness found me together with my kind, attentive friend.
He whispered of betrayal and how broken hearts don’t mend.

Happiness found me alone and held me tight in his embrace.
He whispered kindness in my ear and kissed me on the face.
Sadness found me with Happiness but before he spoke at all,
I told him he’d have better luck at talking to the wall. ~ Richelle E Goodrich,
1289:Barrons stood inside the front door, dripping cool old-world elegance.
I hadn’t heard him come in over the music. He was leaning, shoulder against the wall, arms folded, watching me.
“ ‘One eye is taken for an eye . . .’ ” I trailed off, deflating. I didn’t need a mirror to know how stupid I looked. I regarded him sourly for a moment, then moved for the sound dock to turn it off. When I heard a choked sound behind me I spun, and shot him a hostile glare.
He wore his usual expression of arrogance and boredom. I resumed my path for the sound dock, and heard it again. This time when I turned back, the corners of his mouth were twitching. I stared at him until they stopped.
I’d reached the sound dock, and just turned it off, when he exploded.
I whirled. “I didn’t look that funny,” I snapped.
His shoulders shook.
“Oh, come on! Stop it!”
He cleared his throat and stopped laughing. Then his gaze took a quick dart upward, fixed on my blazing MacHalo, and he lost it again. I don’t know, maybe it was the brackets sticking out from the sides. Or maybe I should have gotten a black bike helmet,
not a hot pink one.
I unfastened it and yanked it off my head. I stomped over to the door, flipped the interior lights back on, slammed him in the chest with my brilliant invention, and stomped upstairs.
“You’d better have stopped laughing by the time I come back down,” I shouted over my shoulder.
I wasn’t sure he even heard me, he was laughing so hard. ~ Karen Marie Moning,
1290:Swing of the heart. O firmly hung, fastened on what
invisible branch. Who, who gave you the push,
that you swung with me into the leaves?
How near I was to the exquisite fruits. But not-staying
is the essence of this motion. Only the nearness, only
toward the forever-too-high, all at once the possible
nearness. Vicinities, then
from an irresistibly swung-up-to place
already, once again, lostthe new sight, the outlook.
And now: the commanded return
back and across and into equilibrium's arms.
Below, in between, hesitation, the pull of earth, the passage
through the turning-point of the heavy, past it: and the
catapult stretches,
weighted with the heart's curiosity,
to the other side, opposite, upward.
Again how different, how new! How they envy each other
at the ends of the rope, these opposite halves of pleasure.

Or, shall I dare it: these quarters?And include, since it
withholds itself,
that other half-circle, the one whose impetus pushes the
swing?
I'm not just imagining it, as the mirror of my here-and-now
arc. Guess nothing. It will be
newer someday. But from endpoint to endpoint
of the arc that I have most dared, I already fully possess it:
overflowings from me plunge over to it and fill it,
stretch it apart, almost. And my own parting,
when the force that pushes me someday
stops, makes it all the more near.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Dedication To M...
,
1291:Only One Thing One thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. PHILIPPIANS 3:13-14 AMP The start of a new year is filled with anticipation of what is ahead—a sense of getting to start over, make a fresh start—and with relief that some things are best left behind. Some make resolutions, only to break them within a few days or hours. Some set goals, both realistic and unrealistic. Many stay up New Year’s Eve in order to welcome in the New Year; others value their sleep more and really couldn’t care less. Luke records a story in his Gospel illustrating our need to resolve to do only one thing. Jesus and His disciples came to Bethany and were invited to stay with Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. When Martha came to Jesus, complaining that her sister Mary wasn’t helping her, Jesus spoke to her in loving concern: “There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42 NLT). Maintaining a close relationship with the Savior is the only goal Paul would set. He wasn’t perfect at it, but he singlemindedly pursued it. And he encourages us to do so today. Life is much simpler when we choose to pursue only one thing—the race before us. Don’t look back. Heavenly Father, keep our eyes on the goal, forgetting the successes and failures of this past year. ~ Various,
1292:Clair De Lune
Powder and scent and silence. The young dwarf
Shoulders his lute. The moon is Levantine.
It settles its pearl in every glass of wine.
Harlequin is already at the wharf.
The gallant is masked. A pressure of his thumb
Communicates cutaneous interest.
On the smooth upward swelling of a breast
A small black heart is fixed with spirit gum.
The thieving moment is now. Deftly, Pierrot
Exits, bearing a tray of fruits and coins.
A monkey, chained by his tiny loins,
Is taken aboard. They let their moorings go.
Silence. Even the god shall soon be gone.
Shadows, in their cool, tidal enterprise,
Have eaten away his muscular stone thighs.
Moonlight edges across the empty lawn.
Taffeta whispers. Someone is staring through
The white ribs of the pergola. She stares
At a small garnet pulse that disappears
Steadily seaward. Ah, my dear, it is you.
But you are not alone. A gardener goes
Through the bone light about the dark estate.
He bows, and, cheerfully inebriate,
Admires the lunar ashes of a rose,
And sings to his imaginary loves.
Wait. You can hear him. The familiar notes
Drift toward the old moss-bottomed fishing boats:
11
“Happy the heart that thinks of no removes.”
This is your nightmare. Those cold hands are yours.
The pain in the drunken singing is your pain.
Morning will taste of bitterness again.
The heart turns to a stone, but it endures.
~ Anthony Evan Hecht,
1293:Love Forever

If I were the trees ...
I would turn my leaves to gold and scatter them toward the sky so they would circle about your head and fall in piles at your feet...
so you might know wonder.

If I were the mountains ...
I would crumble down and lift you up so you could see all of my secret places, where the rivers flow and the animals run wild ...
so you might know freedom.

If I were the ocean ...
I would raise you onto my gentle waves and carry you across the seas to swim with the whales and the dolphins in the moonlit waters,
so you might know peace.

If I were the stars ...
I would sparkle like never before and fall from the sky as gentle rain,
so that you would always look towards heaven and know that you can reach the stars.

If I were the moon ...
I would scoop you up and sail you through the sky and show you the Earth below in all its wonder and beauty,
so you might know that all the Earth is at your command.

If I were the sun ...
I would warm and glow like never before and light the sky with orange and pink,
so you would gaze upward and always know the glory of heaven.

But I am me ...
and since I am the one who loves you, I will wrap you in my arms and kiss you and love you with all of my heart,
and this I will do until ...
the mountains crumble down ...
and the oceans dry up ...
and the stars fall from the sky ...
and the sun and moon burn out ...

And that is forever. ~ Camron Wright,
1294:He thrust his hand in the air and summoned his sword of pure white flame. The gods and goddesses cowered. Throwing his head back and laughing, Surt grew to his full giant size. “You minor, forgotten, pathetic deities! So easy to bend to my will. Not one of you would dare to defy me!”
I chose that moment to shape-shift into a bee, buzz up Surt’s teeny-tiny nose, and jab him with my stinger.
With a howl of pain, Surt dropped his sword and shrank to his previous size. I changed into my true form.
“I dare.”
I whipped one end of my golden garrote around his neck and yanked it tight. Then I snatched up his flame sword and with one upward flick, sliced off his pubescent nose. “Jack and Magnus send their regards.”
Surt lunged for me. I transformed into a bighorn sheep and head-butted him right where his nose used to be. Then I changed back to human, tightened the garrote until his eyes bulged, and threatened him with his own sword. “Come at me again,” I warned, “and you’ll regret it.”
I surveyed the stunned deities. “If one einherji can do this, imagine what all of us can do. And will do, come Ragnarok. We are not destined to win, but we will fight with honor. We would welcome you on our side of the fight. But, if you must side with him”—I gave the garrote a vicious tug and was rewarded with a gurgle from Surt—“know this: I will personally hunt you down on the Last Battlefield of Vigridr and see that you are sent straight to Ginnungagap. The choice is yours.”
The deities vanished. ~ Rick Riordan,
1295:Since he had last seen it, the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the headmaster’s study had been knocked aside; it stood lopsided, looking a little punch-drunk, and Harry wondered whether it would be able to distinguish passwords anymore.
“Can we go up?” he asked the gargoyle.
“Feel free,” groaned the statue.
They clambered over him and onto the spiral stone staircase that moved slowly upward like an escalator. Harry pushed open the door at the top.
He had one, brief glimpse of the stone Pensieve on the desk where he had left it, and then an earsplitting noise made him cry out, thinking of curses and returning Death Eaters and the rebirth of Voldemort--
But it was applause. All around the walls, the headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts were giving him a standing ovation; they waved their hats and in some cases their wigs, they reached through their frames to grip each other’s hands; they danced up and down on the chairs in which they had been painted; Dilys Derwent sobbed unashamedly; Dexter Fortescue was waving his ear-trumpet; and Phineas Nigellus called, in his high, reedy voice, “And let it be noted that Slytherin House played its part! Let our contribution not be forgotten!”
But Harry had eyes only for the man who stood in the largest portrait directly behind the headmaster’s chair. Tears were sliding down from behind the half-moon spectacles into the long silver beard, and the pride and the gratitude emanating from him filled Harry with the same balm as phoenix song. ~ J K Rowling,
1296:Pity," he said, with a rueful little smile, still gazing at the conflagration.  "But I suppose that part of the house was due for renovation anyhow.  I think I shall have it redone in the new classical style . . . what do you think, Major?" "I think that's the last ball of yours I will ever attend." "Now really, Charles.  You wound me."  He knelt down, and, lifting one of Charles's hands, turned it palm upward, shaking his head as he examined the blistered red flesh through the burned-out glove.  "And you have wounded yourself.  How fortunate that you have someone to take such good care of you."  His black eyes, which gave away nothing, found Amy's as he stood up.  "You will take care of him, won't you, my dear?" "Oh, I'll take care of him, Your Grace," she vowed, tenderly smoothing Charles's singed wet hair from his face.  "After all, I've done it before, haven't I, Charles?" "You certainly have."  He shut his eyes, pulled her head down to his, and found her lips in a deep, searching kiss.  And when he finally broke it and looked up, there was everyone gazing down at him, grinning so fiercely he thought their faces would split.  Lucien, one brow raised, but otherwise as composed as ever.  Gareth and Juliet, standing arm and arm, their eyes shining.  A battered Andrew, Nerissa, Perry, Chilcot, the villagers, and everyone else whom Lucien must have used — either directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly — to prove to Charles that he was not only forgiven, but loved, respected and admired.  ~ Danelle Harmon,
1297:Enquirer," Neverfell said slowly, "do you really think I would have walked into this court if I didn’t have a way of getting out again?"

"What? What way?"

"I don’t know." Neverfell gave Enquirer Treble an enormous smile, as bright and mad as a sun souffé. "Do you like surprises, Enquirer? I do. Just as well, really."

It is fair to say that what happened after that was a surprise to everybody in the courtroom, including Neverfell. Somewhere high above in the shadowy, stalagmite-fanged ceiling, a trapdoor flipped open, revealing a darkened hatch. From this darkness a coil of wire whispered down, unravelling and unravelling as it fell, until the bottom end brushed the dais on which Neverfell stood. Then with a singing, metallic whine, a stocky figure in a gleaming metal suit and goggled mask dropped out of the trap and slid down the wire, to land with a jolt beside Neverfell.

"Seize . . ." began Treble. A metal-scaled arm was thrown round Neverfell’s middle. An armoured hand flicked two belt levers.

". . . that . . ." With a lurch, Neverfell was dragged aloft as the armoured figure whizzed back up the wire, carrying her with it, the whine of the mechanism rising to a screech. The dais dropped away, and she was staring down at a receding sea of frozen, upturned faces.

". . . girl!" finished the Enquirer in a deafening yell as both soaring figures disappeared upward through the hatch. The court vanished from Neverfell’s view as the trapdoor flapped shut. ~ Frances Hardinge,
1298:April In The Hills
To-day the world is wide and fair
With sunny fields of lucid air,
And waters dancing everywhere;
The snow is almost gone;
The noon is builded high with light,
And over heaven's liquid height,
In steady fleets serene and white,
The happy clouds go on.
The channels run, the bare earth steams,
And every hollow rings and gleams
With jetting falls and dashing streams;
The rivers burst and fill;
The fields are full of little lakes,
And when the romping wind awakes
The water ruffles blue and shakes,
And the pines roar on the hill.
The crows go by, a noisy throng;
About the meadows all day long,
The shore-lark drops his brittle song;
And up the leafless tree
The nut-hatch runs, and nods, and clings;
The bluebird dips with flashing wings,
The robin flutes, the sparrow sings,
And the swallows float and flee.
I break the spirit's cloudy bands,
A wanderer in enchanted lands,
I feel the sun upon my hands;
And far from care and strife
The broad earth bids me forth. I rise
With lifted brow and upward eyes.
I bathe my spirit in blue skies,
And taste the springs of life.
I feel the tumult of new birth;
I waken with the wakening earth;
I match the bluebird in her mirth;
55
And wild with wind and sun,
A treasurer of immortal days,
I roam the glorious world with praise,
The hillsides and the woodland ways,
Till earth and I are one.
~ Archibald Lampman,
1299:Drifting Away: A Fragment
(Written for music to be sung at a parish industrial exhibition)
See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices;
Fields and gardens hail the spring;
Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices,
While the wild birds build and sing.
You, to whom your Maker granted
Powers to those sweet birds unknown,
Use the craft by God implanted;
Use the reason not your own.
Here, while heaven and earth rejoices,
Each his Easter tribute bringWork of fingers, chant of voices,
Like the birds who build and sing.
Eversley, 1867.
They drift away. Ah, God! they drift for ever.
I watch the stream sweep onward to the sea,
Like some old battered buoy upon a roaring river,
Round whom the tide-waifs hang-then drift to sea.
I watch them drift-the old familiar faces,
Who fished and rode with me, by stream and wold,
Till ghosts, not men, fill old beloved places,
And, ah! the land is rank with churchyard mold.
I watch them drift-the youthful aspirations,
Shores, landmarks, beacons, drift alike.
.....
I watch them drift-the poets and the statesmen;
The very streams run upward from the sea.
......
Yet overhead the boundless arch of heaven
42
Still fades to night, still blazes into day.
.....
Ah, God! My God! Thou wilt not drift away
November 1867.
~ Charles Kingsley,
1300:Life Is A Privilege
Life is a privilege. Its youthful days
Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays.
To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire,
To feed with dreams the heart’s perpetual fire,
To thrill with virtuous passions, and to glow
With great ambitions – in one hour to know
The depths and heights of feeling – God! in truth,
How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!
Life is a privilege. Like some rare rose
The mysteries of the human mind unclose.
What marvels lie in the earth, and air, and sea!
What stores of knowledge wait our opening key!
What sunny roads of happiness lead out
Beyond the realms of indolence and doubt!
And what large pleasures smile upon and bless
The busy avenues of usefulness!
Life is a privilege. Thought the noontide fades
And shadows fall along the winding glades,
Though joy-blooms wither in the autumn air,
Yet the sweet scent of sympathy is there.
Pale sorrow leads us closer to our kind,
And in the serious hours of life we find
Depths in the souls of men which lend new worth
And majesty to this brief span of earth.
Life is a privilege. If some sad fate
Sends us alone to seek the exit gate,
If men forsake us and as shadows fall,
Still does the supreme privilege of all
Come in that reaching upward of the soul
To find the welcoming Presence at the goal,
And in the Knowledge that our feet have trod
Paths that led from, and must wind back, to God.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1301:Some had hurled spears first. Those spears thumped into our shields, making them unwieldy, but it hardly mattered. The leading Danes tripped on the hidden timbers and the men behind pushed the falling men forward. I kicked one in the face, feeling my iron-reinforced boot crush bone. Danes were sprawling at our feet while others tried to get past their fallen comrades to reach our line, and we were killing. Two men succeeded in reaching us, despite the smoking barricade, and one of those two feel to Wasp-Sting coming up from beneath his shield-rim. He had been swinging an ax that the man behind me caught on his shield and the Dane was still holding the war ax's shaft as I saw his eyes widen, saw the snarl of his mouth turn to agony as I saw his eyes widen, saw the snarl of his mouth turn to agony as I twisted the blade, ripping it upward, and as Cerdic, beside me, chopped his own ax down. The man with the crushed face was holding my ankle and I stabbed at him as the blood spray from Cerdic's ax blinded me. The whimpering man at my feet tried to crawl away, but Finan stabbed his sword into his thigh, then stabbed again. A Dane had hooked up his ax over the top rim of my shield and hauled it down to expose my body to a spear-thrust, but the ax rolled off the circular shield and the spear was deflected upward and I slammed Wasp-Sting forward again, felt her bite, twisted her, and Finan was keening his mad Irish song as he added his own blade to the slaughter. “Keep the shields touching!” I shouted at my men. ~ Bernard Cornwell,
1302:Dr. Weeks said you’re supposed to refrain from movements that put pressure on your ribs. No pulling or lifting anything. You have to rest.”
“I’ll rest as long as you stay with me.”
The feel of him was so clean and warm and inviting that she felt herself weakening. Carefully she eased into the crook of his arm. “Is this hurting you?”
“I’m feeling better by the minute.” He pulled the covers over them both, enclosing her in a cocoon of white sheets and soft wool blankets.
She lay against him front to front, shivering with pleasure as she felt how perfectly the hard, warm contours of his body fit against hers. “Someone will see.”
“The door’s closed.” Devon reached up to toy with the delicate curve of her ear. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
She shook her head, even though her pulse was racing.
Devon nuzzled against her hair. “I worried that I might have hurt or frightened you yesterday, in my…” He paused, searching for a word. “…enthusiasm,” he finished dryly.
“You…you didn’t know what you were doing.”
Self-mockery thickened his voice. “I knew exactly what I was doing. I just wasn’t able to do it well.” His thumb grazed the edge of her lower lip, teasing the full shape. She caught her breath as his fingers slid across her jaw, nudging the angle upward, stroking the soft skin beneath her chin. “I meant to kiss you more like…this.”
His mouth covered hers with tantalizing pressure. So hot and slow, his lips coaxing a helpless response before she could think of withholding it. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1303:Helen Hunt says there is one sin which seems to be everywhere, and by everybody is underestimated and quite too much overlooked in valuations of character. It is the sin of fretting. It is as common as air, as speech; so common that unless it rises above its usual monotone we do not even observe it. Watch any ordinary coming together of people, and we see how many minutes it will be before somebody frets—that is, makes more or less complaint of something or other, which probably every one in the room, or car, or on the street corner knew before, and which most probably nobody can help. Why say anything about it? It is cold, it is hot, it is wet, it is dry, somebody has broken an appointment, ill-cooked a meal; stupidity or bad faith somewhere has resulted in discomfort. There are plenty of things to fret about. It is simply astonishing, how much annoyance and discomfort may be found in the course of every-day living, even of the simplest, if one only keeps a sharp eye out on that side of things. Some people seem to be always hunting for deformities, discords and shadows, instead of beauty, harmony and light. We are born to trouble, as sparks fly upward. But even to the sparks flying upward, in the blackest of smoke, there is a blue sky above, and the less time they waste on the road, the sooner they will reach it. Fretting is all time wasted on the road. About two things we should never fret, that which we cannot help, and that which we can help. Better find one of your own faults than ten of your neighbor's. ~ Orison Swett Marden,
1304:Inter Vias
'Tis a land where no hurricane falls,
But the infinite azure regards
Its waters for ever, its walls
Of granite, its limitless swards;
Where the fens to their innermost pool
With the chorus of May are aring,
And the glades are wind-winnowed and cool
With perpetual spring;
Where folded and half withdrawn
The delicate wind-flowers blow,
And the bloodroot kindles at dawn
Her spiritual taper of snow;
Where the limits are met and spanned
By a waste that no husbandman tills,
And the earth-old pine forests stand
In the hollows of hills.
'Tis the land that our babies behold,
Deep gazing when none are aware;
And the great-hearted seers of old
And the poets have known it, and there
Made halt by the well-heads of truth
On their difficult pilgrimage
From the rose-ruddy gardens of youth
To the summits of age.
Now too, as of old, it is sweet
With a presence remote and serene;
Still its byways are pressed by the feet
Of the mother immortal, its queen:
The huntress whose tresses, flung free,
And her fillets of gold, upon earth,
They only have honour to see
Who are dreamers from birth.
In her calm and her beauty supreme,
They have found her at dawn or at eve,
By the marge of some motionless stream,
112
Or where shadows rebuild or unweave
In a murmurous alley of pine,
Looking upward in silent surprise,
A figure, slow-moving, divine,
With inscrutable eyes.
~ Archibald Lampman,
1305:JULY 12
Making Waves
I would do anything for you. Would you be yourself?
n the Hans Christian Anderson classic, The Little Mermaid, Ariel gives up her beautiful voice in exchange for legs. This is a seemingly innocent fable that captures our deal with the modern devil. For aren't we taught that mobility is freedom, whether it be moving from state to state, or from marriage to marriage, or from adventure to adventure? Aren't we convinced that upward mobility, moving from job to job, is the definition of success?
Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with change or variety or newness or with improving our condition. The catch is when we are asked to give up our voice in order to move freely, when we are asked to silence what makes us unique in order to be successful. When not making waves means giving up our chance to dive into the deep, then we are bartering our access to God for a better driveway.
As a story about relationship, the lesson of Ariel is crucial. On the surface, her desire for legs seems touching and sweetly motivated by love and the want to belong. Yet here too is another false bargain that plagues everyone who ever tries it. For no matter how badly we want to love or be loved, we cannot alter our basic nature and survive inside, where it counts.
o Sit quietly and consider your own history of love.
o As you exhale, consider a time when you gave up some aspect of yourself in order to be loved.
o As you inhale, allow yourself to reconnect with this silenced part of your nature.
JULY ~ Mark Nepo,
1306:What I said in the study earlier was unkind, and untrue, and I’m s-sorry for it. It was very wrong of me. I shall make that very clear to Mr. Totthill and Mr. Fogg. And your brother.”
His expression changed, one corner of his mouth curling upward in the hint of a smile that sent her heartbeat into chaos. “You needn’t bother mentioning it to them. All three will be calling me far worse before all is said and done.”
“Nevertheless, it wasn’t fair of me--”
“It’s forgotten. Come, the rain is worsening.”
“I must fetch my shawl.”
Devon followed her glance to the dark heap in the distance. “Is that it? Good God, leave it there.”
“I can’t--”
“It’s ruined by now. I’ll buy you another.”
“I couldn’t accept something so personal from you. Besides…you can’t afford extra expenses, now that you have Eversby Priory.”
She saw the flash of his grin.
“I’ll replace it,” he said. “From what I gather, people at my level of debt never concern themselves with economizing.” Sliding back against the cantle of the saddle, he extended a hand down. His form was large and lean against the rioting sky, the hard lines of his face cast in shadow.
Kathleen gave him a doubtful glance; it would require considerable strength for him to lift her while he was mounted. “You won’t drop me?” she asked uneasily.
Devon sounded insulted. “I’m hardly some limp-wristed fop, madam.”
“My skirts are heavy and wet--”
“Give me your hand.”
She approached him, and his hand took hers in a strong clasp. A nervous shiver went through her. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1307:It was a Tuesday when I finally threw caution to the wind, when I decided, finally, to articulate the words I knew I so desperately felt but that, for whatever reason, I’d always been too scared to say. It was impromptu, unexpected. But there was something about the night.
He’d greeted me at the car. “Hey, you,” he said as I closed the door behind me and, still out of habit, armed the theft alarm of my car. “Do you think you might ever get to a point where you’ll actually leave your car unlocked out here?” he asked with a chuckle.
I hadn’t even noticed. “Oh,” I said, laughing. “I don’t know why I even do that!” My face turned red. Freakazoid.
Marlboro Man smiled, wrapped his arms around my waist, and lifted me off the ground--my favorite move of his. “Hi,” he said, the right side of his mouth turned upward in a grin.
“Hi,” I replied, smiling back. He looked so beautiful in his worn-out, comfortable jeans and his starched charcoal button-down shirt. God, did he look good in charcoal.
Charcoal, the color, was created with Marlboro Man in mind.
And then came the kiss--the kind usually reserved for couples who spend weeks and weeks apart and store up all their passions for the moment when they say hello again. For us, it had been less than twenty-four hours. At that moment, there was no one in the world but the two of us, and as closely as we were pressed together in our embrace, there weren’t really two of us at all anymore.
My whole body tingled as we walked into the house. I was feeling the love that night. ~ Ree Drummond,
1308:Ah! The Witches are a pragmatic race,” said Mickey in a tone of grandiose modesty. “Toleration is our cardinal virtue, second only to our scientific rationality.”
Menelaus raised an eyebrow. “You guys call yourselves scientific?”
“Of course,” said Mickey. “Enemies of science are cursed by the Crones.”
“The ones who paint fright masks on biplane wings to create lift? Those Crones?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Mickey. “Lift is created by the Bernoulli principle: wing curvature magically creates a partial vacuum which the goddess Nature abhors, and so she lifts the windcraft upward to occlude the void in compensation. The Witch-marks are inscribed not to create lift, but to avert malediction according to the law of sympathy and contagion. It is based on entirely different principle of the occult sciences.”
“And you believe this because you’ll be cursed if you don’t?”
Mickey looked at him with a level-eyed judicious look. “You have told me that you and your enemies can make it fated for nations, tribes, and peoples to rise and fall, meet victory or defeat, expansion or extinction, by means of mathematical hieroglyphs and incantations you found written on a dead moon circling an impossible star in the constellation of the Centaur? And you ask me to doubt something as obvious and elementary as a curse? Everyone utters curses. You utter curses.”
“God damn it, I do not!”
“You are a scoffer, then! Odd for a magical being not to believe in magic. Odd and dangerous! It is bad luck not to believe in curses! Beware! ~ John C Wright,
1309:Perhaps we should wait outside in the hall, Dedalus,” murmured Hestia. She clearly felt that it would be tactless for them to remain in the room while Harry and the Dursleys exchanged loving, possibly tearful farewells.
“There’s no need,” Harry muttered, but Uncle Vernon made any further explanation unnecessary by saying loudly,
“Well, this is good-bye, then, boy.”
He swung his right arm upward to shake Harry’s hand, but at the last moment seemed unable to face it, and merely closed his fist and began swinging it backward and forward like a metronome.
“Ready, Diddy?” asked Aunt Petunia, fussily checking the clasp of her handbag so as to avoid looking at Harry altogether.
Dudley did not answer, but stood there with his mouth slightly ajar, reminding Harry a little of the giant, Grawp.
“Come along, then,” said Uncle Vernon.
He had already reached the living room door when Dudley mumbled, “I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand, popkin?” asked Aunt Petunia, looking up at her son.
Dudley raised a large, hamlike hand to point at Harry.
“Why isn’t he coming with us?”
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia froze where they stood, staring at Dudley as though he had just expressed a desire to become a ballerina.
“What?” said Uncle Vernon loudly.
“Why isn’t he coming too?” asked Dudley.
“Well, he--he doesn’t want to,” said Uncle Vernon, turning to glare at Harry and adding, “You don’t want to, do you?”
“Not in the slightest,” said Harry.
“There you are,” Uncle Vernon told Dudley. “Now come on, we’re off. ~ J K Rowling,
1310:Hunter!” She tried to shove the leather down. “Someone might come!”
“No one comes.”
Fascinated, he touched the rosy tip of her nipple with his dark fingers, watching it harden and thrust upward, begging for attention--attention he was more than willing to give it. Dipping his head, he flicked the tip of his tongue across the peak, then seized it with his teeth.
She gasped and made fists in his hair. “Hunter?”
“Hm?” He moved to the unkissed breast. “What is it you want, little one?”
Her breath caught as his teeth closed on her. “I want to go.”
With skillful determination, Hunter continued the exquisite torment until the tips of her nipples throbbed, swollen and hot, against the end of his tongue.
“Hunter, please…” She moaned and drew him toward her, arching her hips against him. “Hunter…”
He obliged her and at last took her into his mouth. She cried out at the sharp pull, and he gloried in the sound, in the knowledge that he could make her surrender to him. After tending each breast, he started to kiss her lips, but she held tight to his hair, pulling him back to her nipple, arching up to meet his mouth. With a pleased chuckle, Hunter fulfilled the silent request, savoring the sweet taste of her. Then he kissed her parted lips.
Loretta opened her eyes and gazed up at her Comanche husband through a haze of longing. By degrees her pulse slowed, and her senses cleared. A tender smile curved his mouth.
“My heart is heavy to say these words, Blue Eyes, but someone may come. My woman who is without shame must wait, eh? ~ Catherine Anderson,
1311:The official record for the fastest manmade object is the Helios 2 probe, which reached about 70 km/s in a close swing around the Sun. But it’s possible the actual holder of that title is a two-ton metal manhole cover. The cover sat atop a shaft at an underground nuclear test site operated by Los Alamos as part of Operation Plumbbob. When the 1-kiloton nuke went off below, the facility effectively became a nuclear potato cannon, giving the cap a gigantic kick. A high-speed camera trained on the lid caught only one frame of it moving upward before it vanished—which means it was moving at a minimum of 66 km/s. The cap was never found. Now, 66 km/s is about six times escape velocity, but contrary to common speculation, it’s unlikely the cap ever reached space. Newton’s impact depth approximation suggests that it was either destroyed completely by impact with the air or slowed and fell back to Earth. When we turn it back on, our reactivated hair dryer box, bobbing in lake water, undergoes a similar process. The heated steam below it expands outward, and as the box rises into the air, the entire surface of the lake turns to steam. The steam, heated to a plasma by the flood of radiation, accelerates the box faster and faster. Photo courtesy of Commander Hadfield Rather than slam into the atmosphere like the manhole cover, the box flies through a bubble of expanding plasma that offers little resistance. It exits the atmosphere and continues away, slowly fading from second sun to dim star. Much of the Northwest Territories is burning, but the Earth has survived. ~ Randall Munroe,
1312:I learned to live by structure so I know what to expect. I control everything around me to maintain some level of stability. I put up walls to keep people from hurting me. Walls I’ve never taken down, not for anyone.” “If you’re trying to scare me away, it’s not working.” His words started an ache behind her eyes. Was that what she was trying to do? Even now? Scare him away? Self-sabotage? He curled a finger under her chin and turned her toward him. His eyes said so much. That all those things, all her faults didn’t matter. That he loved her enough to walk beside her as she worked through them. That he saw beyond her flaws to the woman she was deep inside. That he wasn’t going to let go so easily. “I don’t know how this is going to turn out,” she whispered. “Life is uncertain.” “I might make things difficult. There’s a part of me that, no matter how much I want your love, I want to run from it at the same time.” “Say that again.” She swallowed around the knot in her throat. “I want to run from it.” “Other part.” She rewound her words. “How much I want your love?” His lips relaxed, curled slightly upward. “That’s the part.” The ache behind her eyes turned into a sharp sting, and he blurred in front of her. “I do want your love, but I’m afraid—” “Stop saying that.” A tear rolled down Meridith’s face, and she brushed it away. “If you guard your emotions, you’ll miss out on the best things of life—joy, excitement . . . love. Fear is just an opportunity to be courageous.” “But what if I’m not courageous?” She bit her quivering lip. “God will give you courage.” Would ~ Denise Hunter,
1313:Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once ...

The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a midden of man's ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells.

He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there? Seems not. ~ James Joyce,
1314:IN SCHOOL.

"I used to go to a bright school
Where Youth and Frolic taught in turn;
But idle scholar that I was,
I liked to play, I would not learn;
So the Great Teacher did ordain
That I should try the School of Pain.

"One of the infant class I am
With little, easy lessons, set
In a great book; the higher class
Have harder ones than I, and yet
I find mine hard, and can't restrain
My tears while studying thus with Pain.

"There are two Teachers in the school,
One has a gentle voice and low,
And smiles upon her scholars, as
She softly passes to and fro.
Her name is Love; 'tis very plain
She shuns the sharper teacher, Pain.

"Or so I sometimes think; and then,
At other times, they meet and kiss,
And look so strangely like, that I
Am puzzled to tell how it is,
Or whence the change which makes it vain
To guess if it be--Love or Pain.

"They tell me if I study well,
And learn my lessons, I shall be
Moved upward to that higher class
Where dear Love teaches constantly;
And I work hard, in hopes to gain
Reward, and get away from Pain.

"Yet Pain is sometimes kind, and helps
Me on when I am very dull;
I thank him often in my heart;
But Love is far more beautiful;
Under her tender, gentle reign
I must learn faster than of Pain.

"So I will do my very best,
Nor chide the clock, nor call it slow;
That when the Teacher calls me up
To see if I am fit to go,
I may to Love's high class attain,
And bid a sweet good-by to Pain. ~ Susan Coolidge,
1315:Unbelieving, I look again, and there it is. There it still is. Four neat rows of pink and brown, tiny wiggling creatures, so small and prunish and useless—and yet it is they who have turned this crowd of healthy, kill-crazy humans into a half-melted splotch of dribbling helplessness. And beyond this mighty feat of magic, even more absurd and dramatic and unbelievable, one of those tiny pink lumps has taken our Dark Dabbler, Dexter the Decidedly Dreadful, and made him, too, into a thing of quiet and contemplative chin spittle. And there it lies, waving its toes at the strip lights, utterly unaware of the miracle it has performed—unaware, indeed, even of the very toes it wiggles, for it is the absolute Avatar of Unaware—and yet, look what it has done in all its unthinking, unknowing wigglehood. Look at it there, the small, wet, sour-smelling marvel that has changed everything. Lily Anne. Three small and very ordinary syllables. Sounds with no real meaning—and yet strung together and attached to the tiny lump of flesh that squirms there on its pedestal, it has performed the mightiest of magical feats. It has turned Dexter Dead for Decades into something with a heart that beats and pumps true life, something that almost feels, that so very nearly resembles a human being— There: It waves one small and mighty hand and that New Thing inside Dexter waves back. Something turns over and surges upward into the chest cavity, bounces off the ribs and attacks the facial muscles, which now spread into a spontaneous and unpracticed smile. Heavens above, was that really an emotion? Have I fallen so far, so fast? Yes, ~ Jeff Lindsay,
1316:Oh I could be out, rollicking in the ripeness of my flesh and others’, could be drinking things and eating things and rubbing mine against theirs, speculating about this person or that, waving, indicating hello with a sudden upward jutting of my chin, sitting in the backseat of someone else’s car, bumping up and down the San Francisco hills, south of Market, seeing people attacking their instruments, afterward stopping at a bodega, parking, carrying the bottles in a paper bag, the glass clinking, all our faces bright, glowing under streetlamps, down the sidewalk to this or that apartment party, hi, hi, putting the bottles in the fridge, removing one for now, hating the apartment, checking the view, sitting on the arm of a couch and being told not to, and then waiting for the bathroom, staring idly at that ubiquitous Ansel Adams print, Yosemite, talking to a short-haired girl while waiting in the hallway, talking about teeth, no reason really, the train of thought unclear, asking to see her fillings, no, really, I’ll show you mine first, ha ha, then no, you go ahead, I’ll go after you, then, after using the bathroom she is still there, still in the hallway, she was waiting not just for the bathroom but for me, and so eventually we’ll go home together, her apartment, where she lives alone, in a wide, immaculate railroad type place, newly painted, decorated with her mother, then sleeping in her oversized, oversoft white bed, eating breakfast in her light-filled nook, then maybe to the beach for a few hours with the Sunday paper, then wandering home whenever, never-
Fuck. We don't even have a baby-sitter. ~ Dave Eggers,
1317:Here’s something to consider: If you have a friend whose friendship you wouldn’t recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why would you have such a friend for yourself? You might say: out of loyalty. Well, loyalty is not identical to stupidity. Loyalty must be negotiated, fairly and honestly. Friendship is a reciprocal arrangement. You are not morally obliged to support someone who is making the world a worse place. Quite the opposite. You should choose people who want things to be better, not worse. It’s a good thing, not a selfish thing, to choose people who are good for you. It’s appropriate and praiseworthy to associate with people whose lives would be improved if they saw your life improve. If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others and punish you carefully when you do not. This will help bolster your resolve to do what you should do, in the most appropriate and careful manner. People who are not aiming up will do the opposite. They will offer a former smoker a cigarette and a former alcoholic a beer. They will become jealous when you succeed, or do something pristine. They will withdraw their presence or support, or actively punish you for it. They will over-ride your accomplishment with a past action, real or imaginary, of their own. Maybe they are trying to test you, to see if your resolve is real, to see if you are genuine. But mostly they are dragging you down because your new improvements cast their faults in an even dimmer light. ~ Jordan Peterson,
1318:What is the object of human life? The enlightened conservative does not believe that the end or aim of life is competition; or success; or enjoyment; or longevity; or power; or possessions. He believes instead, that the object of life is Love. He knows that the just and ordered society is that in which Love governs us, so far as Love ever can reign in this world of sorrows; and he
knows that the anarchical or the tyrannical society is that in which Love lies corrupt. He has learnt that Love is the source of all being, and that Hell itself is ordained by Love. He understands that Death, when we have finished the part that was assigned to us, is the reward of Love. And he
apprehends the truth that the greatest happiness ever granted to a man is the privilege of being happy in the hour of his death.

He has no intention of converting this human society of ours into an efficient machine for efficient machine-operators, dominated by master mechanics. Men are put into this world, he realizes, to
struggle, to suffer, to contend against the evil that is in their neighbors and in themselves, and to aspire toward the triumph of Love. They are put into this world to live like men, and to die like men. He seeks to preserve a society which allows men to attain manhood, rather than keeping them within bonds of perpetual childhood. With Dante, he looks upward from this place of slime, this world of gorgons and chimeras, toward the light which gives Love to this poor earth and all the stars. And, with Burke, he knows that "they will never love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate. ~ Russell Kirk,
1319:Here’s something to consider: If you have a friend whose friendship you wouldn’t recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why would you have such a friend for yourself? You might say: out of loyalty. Well, loyalty is not identical to stupidity. Loyalty must be negotiated, fairly and honestly. Friendship is a reciprocal arrangement. You are not morally obliged to support someone who is making the world a worse place. Quite the opposite. You should choose people who want things to be better, not worse. It’s a good thing, not a selfish thing, to choose people who are good for you. It’s appropriate and praiseworthy to associate with people whose lives would be improved if they saw your life improve. If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others and punish you carefully when you do not. This will help bolster your resolve to do what you should do, in the most appropriate and careful manner. People who are not aiming up will do the opposite. They will offer a former smoker a cigarette and a former alcoholic a beer. They will become jealous when you succeed, or do something pristine. They will withdraw their presence or support, or actively punish you for it. They will over-ride your accomplishment with a past action, real or imaginary, of their own. Maybe they are trying to test you, to see if your resolve is real, to see if you are genuine. But mostly they are dragging you down because your new improvements cast their faults in an even dimmer light. ~ Jordan B Peterson,
1320:In this position, she was able to control his depth. What an amazing feeling it was to have all that sinewy power beneath her, his robust body braced between her thighs.
There was a flicker of challenge in his eyes, and his hips nudged upward in playful invitation.
Helen moved carefully, rising and lowering, catching her breath at the hot slide of him within her. He was patient, letting her experiment, while his heart beat like a trip-hammer beneath her flattened palms. She found a gliding back-and-forth motion that sent spasms of heat through her. Judging from his ardent groan, he seemed to enjoy it as well. His mouth caught at the tips of her breasts whenever she moved high enough, and she began to delight in teasing him, sometimes letting him have what he wanted, sometimes withholding. The ribbon had come loose from her hair, the curtain of silvery locks tickling his face and chest.
"You like to torment me," Rhys said, his eyes heavy-lidded with pleasure.
"Yes." In fact, it was fun, enormously exciting fun of a kind she'd never imagined.
The hint of a grin crossed his lips and vanished quickly as she plunged harder, filling herself with him. He began to answer her rhythm in earnest, fisting his hands in the bedclothes. She loved the sight of him lost to passion, his head tilted back and his strong throat exposed, the muscles of his chest sharply delineated. A storm of sensation swept through her, and her shuddering body locked on him. He continued to thrust, the movements becoming jerky and forceful, finishing in a powerful shove that arched his hips and most of his back completely off the bed. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1321:Then there is the life-force, the Prana, that works in our vital being and nervous system. The Upanishad speaks of it as the first or supreme Breath; elsewhere in the sacred writings it is spoken of as the chief Breath or the Breath of the mouth, mukhya, asanya; it is that which carries in it the Word, the creative expression. In the body of man there are said to be five workings of the life-force called the five Pranas. One specially termed Prana moves in the upper part of the body and is pre-eminently the breath of life, because it brings the universal life-force into the physical system and gives it there to be distributed. A second in the lower part of the trunk, termed Apana, is the breath of death; for it gives away the vital force out of the body. A third, the Samana, regulates the interchange of these two forces at their meeting-place, equalises them and is the most important agent in maintaining the equilibrium of the vital forces and their functions. A fourth, the Vyana, pervasive, distributes the vital energies throughout the body. A fifth, the Udana, moves upward from the body to the crown of the head and is a regular channel of communication between the physical life and the greater life of the spirit. None of these are the first or supreme Breath, although the Prana most nearly represents it; the Breath to which so much importance is given in the Upanishads, is the pure life-force itself, - first, because all the others are secondary to it, born from it and only exist as its special functions. It is imaged in the Veda as the Horse; its various energies are the forces that draw the chariots of the Gods. ~ Sri Aurobindo,
1322:There is in her an overwhelming intensity, a mighty passion of force to achieve, a divine violence rushing to shatter every limit and obstacle. All her divinity leaps out in a splendour of tempestuous action; she is there for swiftness, for the immediately effective process, the rapid and direct stroke, the frontal assault that carries everything before it. Terrible is her face to the Asura, dangerous and ruthless her mood against the haters of the Divine; for she is the Warrior of the Worlds who never shrinks from the battle. Intolerant of imperfection, she deals roughly with all in man that is unwilling and she is severe to all that is obstinately ignorant and obscure; her wrath is immediate and dire against treachery and falsehood and malignity, ill-will is smitten at once by her scourge. Indifference, negligence and sloth in the divine work she cannot bear and she smites awake at once with sharp pain, if need be, the untimely slumberer and the loiterer. The impulses that are swift and straight and frank, the movements that are unreserved and absolute, the aspiration that mounts in flame are the motion of Mahakali. Her spirit is tameless, her vision and will are high and far-reaching like the flight of an eagle, her feet are rapid on the upward way and her hands are outstretched to strike and to succour. For she too is the Mother and her love is as intense as her wrath and she has a deep and passionate kindness. When she is allowed to intervene in her strength, then in one moment are broken like things without consistence the obstacles that immobilise or the enemies that assail the seeker
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [19],
1323:The hard length of his arousal pressed against her stomach, no longer a weapon to be feared but an instrument of pleasure. Lara reached for it cautiously, encircling the shaft with her fingers, sliding them along the hot silken skin. Her touch made him shiver, his body responding eagerly to the caress. She sensed that there were things he wanted to show her, teach her, but for now he let her explore him as she liked. She moved down to the pouch between his legs, testing the pendulous weight, and slid her fingers up the shaft to the smooth, broad tip. He groaned and lowered his mouth to her throat, kissing her, telling her in guttural murmurs how much he wanted her.
Pushing her knees upward and apart, he settled in the lee of her thighs and took her, sheathing himself in a deep slide. Lara gasped and wriggled to accommodate him. There was only an instant of discomfort before her body accepted him in dewy welcome. He began a steady rhythm, driving straight and sure within her, angling himself to press against her sex with each stroke. She lifted herself up to him, cradling him with her hips, her hands gripping the dense muscles of his back. He was hard, delicious, riding her just as she wanted, covering her with his masculine weight, plunging deeper, deeper... The pleasure of it was overwhelming.
She cried out at the height of it, her body filled with a liquid rush of delight, a shudder of satisfaction. It was equally pleasurable to share Hunter's fulfillment, to hold him in her arms and feel him shake with sensations he could no longer control.
He remained inside her for a long time while his mouth covered hers, caressing and tasting. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1324:There’s a time and a place for everything, and this isn’t it.”
“No?” He ran a hand under her blouse. “I say it is a very good time.”
She jerked when his fingers scaled her ribs. “That tickles.”
Without warning he rolled with her, coming out on top. He kissed her lightly on the lips while he moved his hand from her ribs to her breast. The small mound of warm flesh fit perfectly in his hand, the crest springing taut against his palm. Scarlet flamed on her cheeks. Unable to resist, Hunter lifted her blouse and moved off her to look, one thigh slanted across both of hers to keep her still. He had guessed right; when she was shy, she grew pink all over.
“Hunter!” She tried to shove the leather down. “Someone might come!”
“No one comes.”
Fascinated, he touched the rosy tip of her nipple with his dark fingers, watching it harden and thrust upward, begging for attention--attention he was more than willing to give it. Dipping his head, he flicked the tip of his tongue across the peak, then seized it with his teeth.
She gasped and made fists in his hair. “Hunter?”
“Hm?” He moved to the unkissed breast. “What is it you want, little one?”
Her breath caught as his teeth closed on her. “I want to go.”
With skillful determination, Hunter continued the exquisite torment until the tips of her nipples throbbed, swollen and hot, against the end of his tongue.
“Hunter, please…” She moaned and drew him toward her, arching her hips against him. “Hunter…”
He obliged her and at last took her into his mouth. She cried out at the sharp pull, and he gloried in the sound, in the knowledge that he could make her surrender to him. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1325:I suspected this might happen,” she said, struggling to regain some form of composure. “Kn-knowing of your reputation with women, I knew you might someday make an advance to me.” “What just happened between us was not an ‘advance,’” he said thickly. She did not look at him. “If I am to remain as a guest in your household, we must forget this incident.” “Incident,” he repeated scornfully. “This has been building between us for months, since the first time we met.” “It has not,” she countered, while her heart hammered in her throat, nearly choking her into silence. “I won't deny that I find you attractive, I… any woman would. But if you are under the misconception that I would become your mistress—” “No,” he said, his huge hands coming to the sides of her face, fingers curving around the back of her skull. He urged her face upward, and Holly quailed at the look in his dark, passionate eyes. “No, I never thought that,” he said, his voice turning raspy. “I want more from you than that. I want—” “Don't say anything else,” Holly begged, closing her eyes tightly. “We've both gone mad. Let me go this instant. Now, before you make it impossible for me to stay at your estate any longer.” Although she hadn't expected the words to affect him, they seemed to make great impact. There was a long, taut silence. Slowly his hands eased their possessive grip and dropped away. “There's no reason for you to leave my home,” he said. “We'll handle this however you like.” The clutch of panic began to ease from her throat. “I—I want to ignore this as if it never happened.” “All right,” he said at once, although his gaze was frankly skeptical. “You set the rules, my lady. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1326:College students often ask me why anyone should pay for professional journalism when there are plenty of people out there, like themselves, willing to write blogs for free? One answer is that government and corporations are investing millions of dollars into their professional communications campaigns. We deserve at least a few professionals working full-time to evaluate all this messaging and doing so with some level of expertise in ascertaining the truth.

Young people are not alone in their skepticism about the value of professional journalism. A 2010 Gallup Poll showed Americans at an under 25 percent confidence in newspapers and television news—a record low. Pew Research shows faith in traditional news media spiking downward as Internet use spikes upward, and that a full 42 percent believe that news organizations hurt democracy. This is twice the percentage who believed that in the mid-1980s, before the proliferation of the net.

As cultural philosopher Jürgen Habermas offered during his acceptance speech of a humanitarian award in 2006, "The price we pay for the growth in egalitarianism offered by the Internet is the decentralized access to unedited stories. In this medium, contributions by intellectuals lose their power to create a focus." To be sure, the rise of citizen journalism brings us information that the mainstream media lacks either the budget for or fortitude to cover. Initial reports of damage during Hurricane Katrina came from bloggers and amateur videographers. However, these reports also inflated body counts and spread rumors about rape and violence in the Superdome that were later revealed not to have occurred. ~ Douglas Rushkoff,
1327:Last Night
Where were you last night? I watched at the gate;
I went down early, I stayed down late.
Were you snug at home, I should like to know,
Or were you in the coppice wheedling Kate?
She's a fine girl, with a fine clear skin;
Easy to woo, perhaps not hard to win.
Speak up like a man and tell me the truth:
I'm not one to grow downhearted and thin.
If you love her best speak up like a man;
It's not I will stand in the light of your plan:
Some girls might cry and scold you a bit,
And say they couldn't bear it; but I can.
Love was pleasant enough, and the days went fast;
Pleasant while it lasted, but it needn't last;
Awhile on the wax and awhile on the wane,
Now dropped away into the past.
Was it pleasant to you? To me it was;
Now clean gone as an image from glass,
As a goodly rainbow that fades away,
As dew that steams upward from the grass,
As the first spring day, or the last summer day,
As the sunset flush that leaves heaven grey,
As a flame burnt out for lack of oil,
Which no pains relight or ever may.
Good luck to Kate and good luck to you:
I guess she'll be kind when you come to woo.
I wish her a pretty face that will last,
I wish her a husband steady and true.
Hate you? not I, my very good friend;
All things begin and all have an end.
But let broken be broken; I put no faith
In quacks who set up to patch and mend.
239
Just my love and one word to Kate:
Not to let time slip if she means to mate;—
For even such a thing has been known
As to miss the chance while we weigh and wait.
~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,
1328:I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point.
Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens. I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the
thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable;
the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.

It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together—that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated? ~ Robert Louis Stevenson,
1329:The gods were on the cusp of completing their ritual when the archangels hit them. They had swum across the wharf area and slipped up the rocks to assault the gods from behind. All seven burst in through the pillared open-air sanctuary, swords flashing. The gods drew their weapons. Dagon stuck his sword into his lower fishy half and cut it off with a swipe. He would not be hampered in battle. Everyone paused for a moment. The four gods stood facing off against the seven archangels, each waiting for the other to make a move. The mightiest of Yahweh’s heavenly host were here to bind the Watcher gods who would be fighting for their eternities. This was going to be brutal. An earthquake rattled the foundation of the temple. Everyone had to catch their balance. Dust and debris fell from the cracks in the stone above their heads. Asherah and the gods smiled. The archangels realized it had been no earthquake. That was an announcement of the arrival of something. Something very huge. Something from the depths of the sea. The water behind the gods suddenly exploded upward with the form of the seven headed sea dragon of chaos: Leviathan. It burst out of the water and leapt over the manmade jetty that housed the temple. Mikael, now healed, joined his fellow archangels for the fight. He saw the huge four hundred foot long serpentine body fly past them through the air. It landed on the wharf side with a huge splash that drenched everyone in the temple. Its double tail followed, with a swipe at the architecture. It smashed half the structure, wiping it into the water with the force. Gods and angels fell beneath the debris of the other half collapsing on top of them. ~ Brian Godawa,
1330:/Farsi He was a soldier with a soldier's pride, This hawk, whose home was by a king's side. He was haughty as his master, all other birds Thought him a disaster, his beak was feared As much as his talons. With hooded eyes (His place on the royal roster was his prize) He stands sentinel on the king's arm, polite And trained meticulously to do what is right And proper with courtly grace. He has no need To see the Simurgh even in a dream, his deeds Are sufficient for him, and no journey could replace The royal command, royal morsel food no disgrace To his way of thinking, he easily satisfies the king. He flies with cutting grace on sinister wing Through valleys and upward into the sky, He has no other wish but so to live and then to die. The hoopoe says: 'You have no sense with your soldier's pride. Do you think that supping with kings, doing their will Is enough to keep you in favour, always at their side? An earthly king may be just but you must beware still For a king's justice is whim pretending to be good. Once there was a king who prized his slave for his beauty. His body's silver sheen fascinated the prince who would Dress him in fine clothes so his looks alone were his duty. The king amused himself by placing on his favourite's head An apple for a bullseye, the poor silver slave would grow Yellow with fear because he knew too well blood is red. His silver hue would be tarnished if the king's bow Was not true; an injured slave would his silver lose To be discarded because the king would not be amused.' [1490.jpg] -- from The Conference of the Birds: The Selected Sufi Poetry of Farid ud-Din Attar, Translated by Raficq Abdulla

~ Farid ud-Din Attar, The Hawk
,
1331:Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart…The whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. ~ Bertrand Russell,
1332:Andrew followed the direction of her elegant hand and was surprised to see that there was, indeed, a woman in the garden below. “Yes?” He turned toward Vivien and found she was holding out a spyglass for him. “Look a little closer, you could hardly see any detail of her from all the way up here.” He tilted his head in increasing confusion. “Vivien—” “Please,” she insisted, her tone firm.

With a grunt, Andrew took the glass from her hand and peered through the viewer to the young woman below. As he focused on her face, his breath caught. She was utterly lovely. Chestnut locks framed a face with high cheekbones and full lips, not to mention china-blue eyes that lit up with delight as she paused to sniff this flower or that. Her clothing was well-worn, but when she twisted to observe her surroundings, it accentuated soft curves. Andrew shifted as a most unfamiliar feeling began to stir his loins. Desire, hot and powerful, pumped through his veins, and he lowered the spyglass in shock. He hadn’t had such a strong reaction to a woman in years.

“I assume you like what you see,” Vivien said softly. Andrew clenched his teeth. There was no hiding the swelling of his cock through the tight breeches he wore, and Vivien was too aware of such things not to notice. “She is, obviously, very pretty,” he said coolly as he handed the glass back to Vivien and turned away. He tried to think of anything, anyone, that might force the inconvenient blood upward. “She is looking for a protector,” Vivien said from behind him. “I thought you might be the right match for her.” Andrew spun around, no longer caring if his erection was obvious. “I beg your pardon?” he barked. ~ Jess Michaels,
1333:Chiaroscuro: Rose
He
Fill your bowl with roses: the bowl, too, have of crystal.
Sit at the western window. Take the sun
Between your hands like a ball of flaming crystal,
Poise it to let it fall, but hold it still,
And meditate on the beauty of your existence;
The beauty of this, that you exist at all.
She
The sun goes down, -- but without lamentation.
I close my eyes, and the stream of my sensation
In this, at least, grows clear to me:
Beauty is a word that has no meaning.
Beauty is naught to me.
He
The last blurred raindrops fall from the half-clear sky,
Eddying lightly, rose-tinged, in the windless wake of the sun.
The swallow ascending against cold waves of cloud
Seems winging upward over huge bleak stairs of stone.
The raindrop finds its way to the heart of the leaf-bud.
But no word finds its way to the heart of you.
She
This also is clear in the stream of my sensation:
That I am content, for the moment, Let me be.
How light the new grass looks with the rain-dust on it!
But heart is a word that has no meaning,
Heart means nothing to me.
He
To the end of the world I pass and back again
In flights of the mind; yet always find you here,
Remote, pale, unattached . . . O Circe-too-clear-eyed,
23
Watching amused your fawning tiger-thoughts,
Your wolves, your grotesque apes -- relent, relent!
Be less wary for once: it is the evening.
She
But if I close my eyes what howlings greet me!
Do not persuade. Be tranquil. Here is flesh
With all its demons. Take it, sate yourself.
But leave my thoughts to me.
~ Conrad Potter Aiken,
1334:The Child In Our Soul
Toward God in heaven spacious
With artless faith a boy looks free,
As toward his mother gracious,
And top of Christmas-tree.
But early in the storm of youth
There wounds him deep the serpent's tooth;
His childhood's faith is doubted
And flouted.
Soon stands in radiant splendor
With bridal wreath his boyhood's dream;
Her loving eyes and tender
The light of heaven's faith stream.
As by his mother's knee of yore
God's name he stammers yet once more,
The rue of tears now paying
And praying.
When now life's conflict stirring
Leads him along through doubtings wild,
Then upward points unerring
Close by his side his child.
With children he a child is still
And whatsoe'er his heart may chill,
Prayer for his son is warming,
Transforming.
The greatest man in wonder
Must ward the child within his breast,
And list 'mid loudest thunder
Its whisperings unrepressed.
Where oft a hero fell with shame,
The child it was restored his name,
His better self revealing,
And healing.
All great things thought created
In child-like joy sprang forth and grew;
All strength with goodness mated,
152
Obeyed the child's voice true.
When beauty in the soul held sway,
The child gave it in artless play;All wisdom worldly-minded
Is blinded.
Hail him, who forward presses
So far that he a home is worth
For there alone possesses
The child-life peace on earth.
Though worn we grieve and hardened grow,
What solace 't is our home to know
With children's laughter ringing
And singing.
~ Bjornstjerne Bjornson,
1335:Tomes
There is a section in my library for death
and another for Irish history,
a few shelves for the poetry of China and Japan,
and in the center a row of imperturbable reference books,
the ones you can turn to anytime,
when the night is going wrong
or when the day is full of empty promise.
I have nothing against
the thin monograph, the odd query,
a note on the identity of Chekhov's dentist,
but what I prefer on days like these
is to get up from the couch,
pull down The History of the World,
and hold in my hands a book
containing nearly everything
and weighing no more than a sack of potatoes,
eleven pounds, I discovered one day when I placed it
on the black, iron scale
my mother used to keep in her kitchen,
the device on which she would place
a certain amount of flour,
a certain amount of fish.
Open flat on my lap
under a halo of lamplight,
a book like this always has a way
of soothing the nerves,
quieting the riotous surf of information
that foams around my waist
even though it never mentions
the silent labors of the poor,
the daydreams of grocers and tailors,
or the faces of men and women alone in single roomseven though it never mentions my mother,
now that I think of her again,
who only last year rolled off the edge of the earth
in her electric bed,
78
in her smooth pink nightgown
the bones of her fingers interlocked,
her sunken eyes staring upward
beyond all knowledge,
beyond the tiny figures of history,
some in uniform, some not,
marching onto the pages of this incredibly heavy book.
~ Billy Collins,
1336:TO HIS HEART, BIIDING IT HAVE NO FEAR

Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;
Remember the wisdom out of the old days:
Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,
And the winds that blow through the starry ways,
Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
Cover over and hide, for he has no part
With the lonely, majestical multitude.


THE CAP AND THE BELLS

The jester walked in the garden:
The garden had fallen still;
He bade his soul rise upward
And stand on her window-sill.
It rose in a straight blue garment,
When owls began to call:
It had grown wise-tongued by thinking
Of a quiet and light footfall;
But the young queen would not listen;
She rose in her pale night-gown;
She drew in the heavy casement
And pushed the latches down.
He bade his heart go to her,
When the owls called out no more;
In a red and quivering garment
It sang to her through the door.
It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming
Of a flutter of flower-like hair;
But she took up her fan from the table
And waved it off on the air.
'I have cap and bells,' he pondered,
'I will send them to her and die';
And when the morning whitened
He left them where she went by.
She laid them upon her bosom,
Under a cloud of her hair,
And her red lips sang them a love-song
Till stars grew out of the air.
She opened her door and her window,
And the heart and the soul came through,
To her right hand came the red one,
To her left hand came the blue.
They set up a noise like crickets,
A chattering wise and sweet,
And her hair was a folded flower
And the quiet of love in her feet. ~ W B Yeats,
1337:But if somewhere in your being - either in your body or even in your vital or mind, either in several parts or even in a single one - there is an incapacity to receive the descending Force, this acts like a grain of sand in a machine. You know, a fine machine working quite well with everything going all right, and you put into it just a little sand (nothing much, only a grain of sand), suddenly everything is damaged and the machine stops. Well, just a little lack of receptivity somewhere, something that is unable to receive the Force, that is completely shut up (when one looks at it, it becomes as it were a little dark spot somewhere, a tiny thing hard as a stone: the Force cannot enter into it, it refuses to receive it - either it cannot or it will not) and immediately that produces a great imbalance; and this thing that was moving upward, that was blooming so wonderfully, finds itself sick, and sometimes just when you were in the normal equilibrium; you were in good health, everything was going on well, you had nothing to complain about. One day when you grasped a new idea, received a new impulse, when you had a great aspiration and received a great force and had a marvellous experience, a beautiful experience opening to you inner doors, giving you a knowledge you did not have before; then you were sure that everything was going to be all right.... The next day, you are taken ill. So you say: "Still that? It is impossible! That should not happen." But it was quite simply what I have just said: a grain of sand. There was something that could not receive; immediately it brings about a disequilibrium. Even though very small it is enough, and you fall ill.

~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, 175,
1338:We use the effect of centrifugal forces on matter to offer insight into the rotation rate of extreme cosmic objects. Consider pulsars. With some rotating at upward of a thousand revolutions per second, we know that they cannot be made of household ingredients, or they would spin themselves apart. In fact, if a pulsar rotated any faster, say 4,500 revolutions per second, its equator would be moving at the speed of light, which tells you that this material is unlike any other. To picture a pulsar, imagine the mass of the Sun packed into a ball the size of Manhattan. If that’s hard to do, then maybe it’s easier if you imagine stuffing about a hundred million elephants into a Chapstick casing. To reach this density, you must compress all the empty space that atoms enjoy around their nucleus and among their orbiting electrons. Doing so will crush nearly all (negatively charged) electrons into (positively charged) protons, creating a ball of (neutrally charged) neutrons with a crazy-high surface gravity. Under such conditions, a neutron star’s mountain range needn’t be any taller than the thickness of a sheet of paper for you to exert more energy climbing it than a rock climber on Earth would exert ascending a three-thousand-mile-high cliff. In short, where gravity is high, the high places tend to fall, filling in the low places—a phenomenon that sounds almost biblical, in preparing the way for the Lord: “Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain” (Isaiah 40:4). That’s a recipe for a sphere if there ever was one. For all these reasons, we expect pulsars to be the most perfectly shaped spheres in the universe. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson,
1339:Kestrel…do you really want to marry the prince?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about him.”
“Want and need aren’t the same.” His mouth hovered near hers. “Tell me. Is this engagement really your choice? Because I don’t believe it. Not unless I hear you say so.”
The glass against her back was a blaze of cold. She shivered. He was so close. All she had to do was uncurl her fingers from the balustrade and lean forward into him. It felt inevitable, like an overfull cup ready to spill.
The rasp of his unshaved cheek brushed hers. “Do you?” he said. “Do you want him?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it,” Arin murmured into her ear. The heat of him settled against her. His palm squeaked against the glass by her head.
“Arin.” She could barely speak. “Let me pass.”
His lips caught at the base of her neck, slid upward. “Prove that you want him,” he said into her hair. His kiss traveled across her cheek. It brushed her forehead, then rested right on the golden line that marked her engagement.
“I do,” she said, but her voice sounded like she was drowning.
His kiss was there, waiting near her lips. “Liar,” he breathed.
Her hand came between them, and pushed. She was shaken, startled by the way she had shoved him. She felt suddenly, cruelly starved--and angry at herself for this hunger of her own making. “I said, let me go. Or will you hold me here against my will?”
He recoiled. His boots scraped back. She couldn’t see his expression, only the way he snatched his arms to his sides and stood stiff. He covered his face as if it weren’t already hidden by the dark. He muttered something into his palms, then they fell away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He tore open the curtain, and was gone. ~ Marie Rutkoski,
1340:God created the human species by materialising the bodies of man and woman through the force of His will; He endowed the new species with the power to create children in a similar ‘immaculate’ or divine manner. Because His manifestation in the individualised soul had hitherto been limited to animals, instinct-bound and lacking the potentialities of full reason, God made the first human bodies, symbolically called Adam and Eve. To these, for advantageous upward evolution, He transferred the souls or divine essence of two animals. In Adam or man, reason predominated; in Eve or woman, feeling was ascendant. Thus was expressed the duality or polarity which underlies the phenomenal worlds. Reason and feeling remain in a heaven of cooperative joy so long as the human mind is not tricked by the serpentine energy of animal propensities. “The human body was therefore not solely a result of evolution from beasts, but was produced by an act of special creation by God. The animal forms were too crude to express full divinity; the human being was uniquely given a tremendous mental capacity—the ‘thousand-petalled lotus’ of the brain—as well as acutely awakened occult centres in the spine. “God, or the Divine Consciousness present within the first created pair, counselled them to enjoy all human sensibilities, but not to put their concentration on touch sensations. These were banned in order to avoid the development of the sex organs, which would enmesh humanity in the inferior animal method of propagation. The warning not to revive subconsciously present bestial memories was not heeded. Resuming the way of brute procreation, Adam and Eve fell from the state of heavenly joy natural to the original perfect man. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
1341:Look," Steven said, pointing at the sky.
The stars were out in droves. One, far in the distance, was particularly bright. It flickered, then seemed to go out altogether before returning even brighter than before.
"That's them, isn't it?" she said. "The Fall?"
"Yes," Francesca said. "That's it. It looks just like the old texts say it would."
"It was just"-Luce furrowed her brow, squinting-"I can only see it when I-"
"Concentrate," Cam ordered.
"What's happening to it?" Luce asked.
"It is coming into being in this world," Daniel said. "It wasn't the physical transit from Heaven to Earth that took nine days. It was the shift from a Heavenly realm to an Earthly one. When we landed here, our bodies were...different. We became different. That took time."
"Now time is taking us," Roland said, looking at the golden pocket watch that Dee must have given him before she died.
"Then it is time for us to go," Daniel said to Luce.
"Up there?"
"Yes, we must soar up to meet them. We will fly right up to the limits of the Fall, and then you-"
"I have to stop him?"
"Yes."
She closed her eyes thought back to the way Lucifer had looked at her in the Meadow. He looked like he wanted to crush every speck of tenderness there was. "I think I know how."
"I told you she would say that!" Arriane whooped.
Daniel pulled her close. "Are you sure?"
She kissed him, never surer. "I just got my wings back, Daniel. I'm not going to let Lucifer take them away."
So Luce and Daniel said goodbye to their friends, reached for each other's hands, and took off into the night. They flew upward forever, through the thinnest outer skin of the atmosphere, through a film of light at the edge of space. ~ Lauren Kate,
1342:Sinfonia Eroica
(To Sylvia.)
My Love, my Love, it was a day in June,
A mellow, drowsy, golden afternoon;
And all the eager people thronging came
To that great hall, drawn by the magic name
Of one, a high magician, who can raise
The spirits of the past and future days,
And draw the dreams from out the secret breast,
Giving them life and shape.
I, with the rest,
Sat there athirst, atremble for the sound;
And as my aimless glances wandered round,
Far off, across the hush'd, expectant throng,
I saw your face that fac'd mine.
Clear and strong
Rush'd forth the sound, a mighty mountain stream;
Across the clust'ring heads mine eyes did seem
By subtle forces drawn, your eyes to meet.
Then you, the melody, the summer heat,
Mingled in all my blood and made it wine.
Straight I forgot the world's great woe and mine;
My spirit's murky lead grew molten fire;
Despair itself was rapture.
Ever higher,
Stronger and clearer rose the mighty strain;
Then sudden fell; then all was still again,
And I sank back, quivering as one in pain.
Brief was the pause; then, 'mid a hush profound,
Slow on the waiting air swell'd forth a sound
So wondrous sweet that each man held his breath;
A measur'd, mystic melody of death.
Then back you lean'd your head, and I could note
The upward outline of your perfect throat;
And ever, as the music smote the air,
Mine eyes from far held fast your body fair.
And in that wondrous moment seem'd to fade
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My life's great woe, and grow an empty shade
Which had not been, nor was not.
And I knew
Not which was sound, and which, O Love, was you.
~ Amy Levy,
1343:Thanks so much. You really came through.”
“I like protecting you from lecherous mattress salesmen. You don’t need to thank me,” he joked.
“How about a kiss instead?”
Linc was taken aback. He opened his mouth, too surprised for a second to say yes.
No never entered his mind.
Kenzie’s slender arms twined around his neck and she raised herself up on her sneaker toes to make good on her offer. Linc let his hands slide over her body, stopping at the sweet curve of her jeans-clad hips. She flexed, catlike, arching her back to bring herself more tightly against him. Her moves were playful, feminine to the core, instantly arousing him.
He kissed her back, gently at first, then with searching strength. She didn’t seem to want to stop. She nipped at his lower lip, then moved back a little, looking up at him with half-closed eyes as her hands moved into his hair.
Linc stood his ground, enjoying the stroking caress. One hand moved down to his jawline. Soft and tender. He wasn’t used to her being this gentle.
“Nice,” she said softly.
He tried to remember how to talk. Too complicated. He hadn’t let go of her waist, but there was more air between them than he really needed.
“And enough for now,” she added.
He came to his senses. She stepped away from him, not looking at the new mattress that seemed to be the only thing in the room. Linc glanced at the expanse of tufted satin with a flash of regret.
“We should think about it, you know,” she said. “We can’t just tumble into bed.”
“Oh.” He didn’t need to think, he knew. He wanted her. Bad. “Kenzie…you can call the shots. Just tell me when.”
Her mouth curved upward in an indescribable smile Linc would never forget. “Okay,” she said. ~ Janet Dailey,
1344:Ella has a problem we were hoping you could help with,” Haven said from the kitchen, opening the refrigerator.
Jack stared at me steadily, while one corner of his mouth curled upward. “What’s your problem, Ella?”
“You want a beer, Jack?” came Hardy’s voice.
“Yeah,” Jack replied. “Lime wedge if you got it.”
“I’m trying to get a meeting with Mark Gottler,” I told Jack. “To talk with him about my sister.”
His expression softened. “Is she okay?”
“Yes, I think so. But I don’t think she’s doing anything to secure her own interests, or Luke’s. I need to meet with Gottler and pin him down on a few things. He’s not going to pay Tara’s clinic bill and dust his hands and think he’s through with the whole thing. He’s going to have to do right by Tara and Luke.”
Settling Luke back onto the blanket, Jack picked up a little stuffed bunny and dangled it over him, causing Luke to kick his legs in enjoyment. “So you want me to get you in there,” he said.
“Yes. I need to see Gottler privately.”
“I can arrange a meeting, but the only way you’ll get in there is by going embedded.”
I gave him an outraged glance, incredulous that he would have propositioned me within earshot of his sister. “If you think I’m going to sleep with you just so I can see Gottler—”
“I said embedded, Ella. Not ‘in bed.’”
“Oh,” I said, chastened. “You meant like a computer virus?”
Jack nodded, looking sardonic. “I’ll come up with some reason to meet with him and take you along. No sex required. Although if you’re feeling grateful . . .”
“I’m not that grateful.” But I couldn’t help smiling, because I had never met a man who could have exuded such barely leashed sexiness while holding a stuffed bunny. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1345:You will walk backward in your footsteps and go forward a new way?”
“I--”
He slid her hand upward so it rested on his shoulder, forcing her closer. His height was such that she had to tip her head back to see his face. If he had been a white man, she would have been worrying that he planned to kiss her. But he wasn’t a white man. And she doubted gentle persuasion was what he had in mind. He seemed a yard wide at the shoulders, a looming wall of muscle. There was heat in the depths of his eyes as he studied her, a heat that had never been there before.
“I would have you beside me,” he told her huskily.
“But you promised to take me home.”
The stallion nickered and sidestepped, pulling both of them off balance. Hunter released the horse to catch her, his arm encircling her waist. Loretta snapped taut when his hard thighs pressed intimately against hers.
He bent his head and nuzzled her hair, his breath sifting through the strands to her scalp. A shiver ran through her. For a moment she struggled against him, but then she felt as if an invisible web were entwining itself around her, the silken threads binding her so she couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
She closed her eyes, wildly afraid, of him and what he was making her feel. She tried desperately to conjure an image of her mother, anything to break the spell. Perhaps he knew how to be gently persuasive after all. She knew she should pull away, yet an unnameable something held her transfixed. His mouth trailed to the slope of her neck, sending tingles down her spine. A treacherous languor stole into her limbs. Heat spread through her belly. For an instant she wanted to lean against him, to let his wonderfully strong arms mold her to his length. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1346:To A Canadian Aviator Who Died For His Country In
France
Tossed like a falcon from the hunter's wrist,
A sweeping plunge, a sudden shattering noise,
And thou hast dared, with a long spiral twist,
The elastic stairway to the rising sun.
Peril below thee and above, peril
Within thy car; but peril cannot daunt
Thy peerless heart: gathering wing and poise,
Thy plane transfigured, and thy motor-chant
Subduéd to a whisper -- then a silence, -And thou art but a disembodied venture
In the void.
But Death, who has learned to fly,
Still matchless when his work is to be done,
Met thee between the armies and the sun;
Thy speck of shadow faltered in the sky;
Then thy dead engine and thy broken wings
Drooped through the arc and passed in fire,
A wreath of smoke -- a breathless exhalation.
But ere that came a vision sealed thine eyes,
Lulling thy senses with oblivion;
And from its sliding station in the skies
Thy dauntless soul upward in circles soared
To the sublime and purest radiance whence it sprang.
In all their eyries, eagles shall mourn thy fate,
And leaving on the lonely crags and scaurs
Their unprotected young, shall congregate
High in the tenuous heaven and anger the sun
With screams, and with a wild audacity
Dare all the battle danger of thy flight;
Till weary with combat one shall desert the light,
Fall like a bolt of thunder and check his fall
On the high ledge, smoky with mist and cloud,
Where his neglected eaglets shriek aloud,
And drawing the film across his sovereign sight
Shall dream of thy swift soul immortal
140
Mounting in circles, faithful beyond death.
~ Duncan Campbell Scott,
1347:Must we believe those who tell us that a hand foul with the filth of a shameful life is the only one a young girl cares to be caressed by?

That is the teaching that is bawled out day by day from between those yellow covers. Do they ever pause to think, I wonder, those devil's lady-helps, what mischief they are doing crawling about God's garden, and telling childish Eves and silly Adams that sin is sweet, and that decency is ridiculous and vulgar? How many an innocent girl do they not degrade into an evil-minded woman? To how many a weak lad do they not point out the dirty by-path as the shortest cut to a maiden's heart? It is not as if they wrote of life as it really is. Speak truth, and right will take care of itself. But their pictures are coarse daubs painted from the sickly fancies of their own diseased imaginations.

We want to think of women not--as their own sex would show them--as Loreleis luring us to destruction, but as good angels beckoning us upward. They have more power for good or evil than they dream of. It is just at the very age when a man's character is forming that he tumbles into love, and then the lass he loves has the making or marring of him. Unconsciously he molds himself to what she would have him, good or bad. I am sorry to have to be ungallant enough to say that I do not think they always use their influence for the best. . . .

And yet, women, you could make us so much better, if you only would. It rests with you more than with all the preachers, to roll this world a little nearer heaven. Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. It is you who must wake it to noble deeds. You must be worthy of knightly worship. You must be higher than ourselves.
[1886] ~ Jerome K Jerome,
1348:Reality
These things alone endure;
'They are the solid facts,' that we may grasp,
Leading us on and upward if we clasp
And hold them firm and sure.
In a wise fable old,
A hero sought a god who could at will
Assume all figures, and the hero still
Loosed not his steadfast hold,
For
For
For
For
image foul or fair,
soft-eyed nymph, who wept with pain and shame,
threatening fiend or loathsome beast or flame,
menace or for prayer.
Until the god, outbraved,
Took his own shape divine; not wrathfully,
But wondering, to the hero gave reply,
The knowledge that he craved.
We seize the god in youth;
All forms conspire to make us loose our grasp,—
Ambition, folly, gain,— till we unclasp
From the embrace of truth.
We grow more wise, we say,
And work for worldly ends and mock our dream,
Alas! while all life's glory and its gleam,
With that have fled away.
If thereto we had clung
Through change and peril, fire and night and storm,
Till it assumed its proper, godlike form,
We might at last have wrung
An answer to our cries—
A brave response to our most valiant hope.
Unto the light of day this word might ope
A million mysteries.
175
O'er each man's brow I see
The bright star of his genius shining clear;
It seeks to guide him to a nobler sphere,
Above earth's vanity.
Up to pure height of snow,
Its beckoning ray still leads him on and on;
To those who follow, lo, itself comes down
And crowns at length their brow.
The nimbus still doth gleam
On these the heroes, sages of the earth,
The few who found, in life of any worth,
Only their loftiest dream.
~ Emma Lazarus,
1349:Hungrily, Nick pulled her with him into the hot rain of the shower-bath. Turning her face out of the stream of water, Lottie rested her head on his shoulder, standing passively as his hands slid over her body. Her breasts were small but plump in his hands, the nipples turning hard in the clasp of his fingers. He shaped his hands over her unrestricted waist, the swell of her hips, her round backside... caressing her everywhere, moving her against the engorged length of his sex. Moaning, she parted her thighs in compliance with his exploring hand, pushing her delicate flesh against his stroking thumb. As he entered her with his fingers, she gasped and instinctively relaxed at the gentle penetration. He caressed her, stroking in deep, secret places that brought her to the brink of climax. When she was ready to come, he lifted her against the tiled wall, one arm beneath her hips, the other behind her back. She made a sound of surprise and clung to him, her eyes widening as he pushed his cock inside her. Her flesh closed tightly around him, swallowing every inch of his shaft as he let her settle against him.
"I've got you," he murmured, her slippery body locked securely in his arms. "Don't be afraid."
Breathing fast, she rested her head back against his arm. With the hot water falling against his back, and the lush female body impaled on his, every lucid thought promptly evaporated. He filled her in heavy upward surges, again and again, until she cried out and clamped around him in luxurious contractions. Nick held still, feeling her quiver around him, the depths of her body becoming almost unbearably snug. Her spasms seemed to pull him deeper, drawing waves of pleasure from his groin, and he shuddered as he spent inside her. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1350:A word of advice. Don't take up that sentimental attitude over the poor. See that she doesn't, Margaret. The poor are poor, and one's sorry for them, but there it is. As civilisation moves forward, the shoe is bound to pinch in places, and it's absurd to pretend that any one is responsible personally. Neither you, nor I, nor my informant, nor the man who informed him, nor the directors of the Porphyrion, are to blame for this clerk's loss of salary. It's just the shoe pinching—no one can help it; and it might easily have been worse."

Helen quivered with indignation.

"By all means subscribe to charities—subscribe to them largely—but don't get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform. I see a good deal behind the scenes, and you can take it from me that there is no Social Question—except for a few journalists who try to get a living out of the phrase. There are just rich and poor, as there always have been and always will be. Point me out a time when men have been equal—"

"I didn't say—"

"Point me out a time when desire for equality has made them happier. No, no. You can't. There always have been rich and poor. I'm no fatalist. Heaven forbid! But our civilisation is moulded by great impersonal forces" (his voice grew complacent; it always did when he eliminated the personal), "and there always will be rich and poor. You can't deny it" (and now it was a respectful voice)—"and you can't deny that, in spite of all, the tendency of civilisation has on the whole been upward."

"Owing to God, I suppose," flashed Helen.

He stared at her.

"You grab the dollars. God does the rest."

It was no good instructing the girl if she was going to talk about God in that neurotic modern way. ~ E M Forster,
1351:The Furnace Door
My father is a peaceful man;
He tries in every way he can
To live a life of gentleness
And patience all the while.
He says that needless fretting's vain,
That it's absurd to be profane,
That nearly every wrong can be
Adjusted with a smile.
Yet try no matter how he will,
There's one thing that annoys him still,
One thing that robs him of his calm
And leaves him very sore;
He cannot keep his self-control
When with a shovel full of coal
He misses where it's headed for,
And hits the furnace door.
He measures with a careful eye
The space for which he's soon to try,
Then grabs his trusty shovel up
And loads it in the bin,
Then turns and with a healthy lunge,
That's two parts swing and two parts plunge,
He lets go at the furnace fire,
Convinced it will go in!
And then we hear a sudden smack,
The cellar air turns blue and black;
Above the rattle of the coal
We hear his awful roar.
From dreadful language upward hissed
We know that father's aim has missed,
And that his shovel full of coal
Went up against the door.
The minister was here one day
For supper, and Pa went away
To fix the furnace fire, and soon
We heard that awful roar.
And through the furnace pipes there came
782
Hot words that made Ma blush for shame.
'It strikes me,' said the minister,
'He hit the furnace door.'
Ma turned away and hung her head;
'I'm so ashamed,' was all she said.
And then the minister replied:
'Don't worry. I admit
That when I hit the furnace door,
And spill the coal upon the floor,
I quite forget the cloth I wear
And- er- swear a little bit.'
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1352:The Sympathetic Minister
MY father is a peaceful man,
He tries in every way he can
To live a life of gentleness
And patience all the while;
He says that needless fretting's vain,
That it's absurd to be profane,
That nearly every wrong can be
Adjusted with a smile.
Yet try no matter how he will,
There's one thing that annoys him still,
One thing that robs him of his calm
And makes him very sore;
He cannot keep his self-control
When with a shovel full of coal
He misses where it's headed for,
And hits the furnace door.
He measures with a careful eye,
The space for which he's soon to try,
Then grabs his trusty shovel up
And loads it in the bin,
Then turns and with a healthy lunge,
That's two parts swing and two parts plunge
He lets go at the furnace fire,
Convinced it will go in!
And then we hear a sudden smack,
The cellar air turns blue and black;
Above the rattle of the coal
We hear his awful roar.
From dreadful language upward hissed
We know that father's aim has missed
And that his shovel full of coal
Went up against the door.
The minister was here one day
For supper, and Pa went away
To fix the furnace fire, and soon
We heard that awful roar.
And through the furnace pipes there came
972
Hot words that made Ma blush for shame,
'It strikes me,' said the minister,
'He hit the furnace door.'
Ma turned away and hung her head,
'I'm so ashamed,' was all she said;
And then the minister replied:
'Don't worry. I admit
That when I hit the furnace door
And spill the coal upon the floor,
I quite forget the cloth I wear
And—er—swear a little bit.'
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
1353:De Profundis
Come let us curse our Master ere we die,
For all our hopes in endless ruin lie.
The good is dead. Let us curse God most High.
Four thousand years of toil and hope and thought
Wherein man laboured upward and still wrought
New worlds and better, Thou hast made as naught.
We built us joyful cities, strong and fair,
Knowledge we sought and gathered wisdom rare.
And all this time you laughed upon our care,
And suddenly the earth grew black with wrong,
Our hope was crushed and silenced was our song,
The heaven grew loud with weeping. Thou art strong.
Come then and curse the Lord. Over the earth
Gross darkness falls, and evil was our birth
And our few happy days of little worth.
Even if it be not all a dream in vain
—The ancient hope that still will rise again—
Of a just God that cares for earthly pain,
Yet far away beyond our labouring night,
He wanders in the depths of endless light,
Singing alone his musics of delight;
Only the far, spent echo of his song
Our dungeons and deep cells can smite along,
And Thou art nearer. Thou art very strong.
O universal strength, I know it well,
It is but froth of folly to rebel;
For thou art Lord and hast the keys of Hell.
Yet I will not bow down to thee nor love thee,
For looking in my own heart I can prove thee,
And know this frail, bruised being is above thee.
26
Our love, our hope, our thirsting for the right,
Our mercy and long seeking of the light,
Shall we change these for thy relentless might?
Laugh then and slay. Shatter all things of worth,
Heap torment still on torment for thy mirth—
Thou art not Lord while there are Men on earth.
~ Clive Staples Lewis,
1354:Narian and I left the parlor shortly thereafter in high spirits. The former Queen had been very accepting of him, and he had been remarkably forthcoming with her. Somehow, through common experience and maternal instinct, she had reached out to forge a connection with her future son-in-law.
We went to my quarters and Narian stayed in the parlor while I changed for dinner, although he would not accompany me to the meal--we may have had luck with my mother, but my father would not be so receptive to the news of our betrothal.
When I reemerged in simpler garb, he was in an armchair, contemplatively rubbing his once-broken wrist, his face growing progressively more trouble. I glanced around the room, wondering what could possibly have happened to change his temperament in the short time we had been apart.
“Narian? What is it?”
He shook his head, then ran a hand through his thick blond hair. “Your mother would make an excellent interrogator.”
I couldn’t help it--I laughed, harder than I had in a long time. “I hardly think she’s the type!”
“Find it as funny as you like,” he said with a smile. “But I don’t know what I was telling her!”
“Well, do you regret it?” I asked, and he flashed through a myriad of emotions: confusion, deliberation, discomfort at having been so open with her, then, at last, acceptance.
“No,” he said, with a touch of wonder. “I…I understand it now, I suppose--why you talk to her. Why you trust her. I wanted to trust her.”
I walked over to him and sat in his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, but it’s time I did. I’m in love with you, Narian.”
“I love you, too,” he said, the corners of his mouth flicking upward. The words weren’t so difficult, after all. ~ Cayla Kluver,
1355:Evolution endowed us with intuition only for those aspects of physics that had survival value for our distant ancestors, such as the parabolic orbits of flying rocks (explaining our penchant for baseball). A cavewoman thinking too hard about what matter is ultimately made of might fail to notice the tiger sneaking up behind and get cleaned right out of the gene pool. Darwin’s theory thus makes the testable prediction that whenever we use technology to glimpse reality beyond the human scale, our evolved intuition should break down. We’ve repeatedly tested this prediction, and the results overwhelmingly support Darwin. At high speeds, Einstein realized that time slows down, and curmudgeons on the Swedish Nobel committee found this so weird that they refused to give him the Nobel Prize for his relativity theory. At low temperatures, liquid helium can flow upward. At high temperatures, colliding particles change identity; to me, an electron colliding with a positron and turning into a Z-boson feels about as intuitive as two colliding cars turning into a cruise ship. On microscopic scales, particles schizophrenically appear in two places at once, leading to the quantum conundrums mentioned above. On astronomically large scales… weirdness strikes again: if you intuitively understand all aspects of black holes [then you] should immediately put down this book and publish your findings before someone scoops you on the Nobel Prize for quantum gravity… [also,] the leading theory for what happened [in the early universe] suggests that space isn’t merely really really big, but actually infinite, containing infinitely many exact copies of you, and even more near-copies living out every possible variant of your life in two different types of parallel universes. ~ Max Tegmark,
1356:I’ve imagined you like this…many times…naked, sharing my bed,” he rasped, the fervent words warming her, making her relax. “You have no idea.”
“I have some idea,” she managed. “I imagined you, too.”
He looked skeptical. “Like this?”
“Well, not exactly…I didn’t know…what to expect.” Or how shockingly intimate it would feel.
A lock of his dark hair fell over one eye, making him look more like a dangerous character and less like the formal Jackson she knew.
“And now that you do?” he asked.
“I like it.” The motion had started to warm her below, to spark the same tingling she’d felt when he rubbed her. “It’s like a very naughty waltz.”
He choked out a laugh. “Yes. I lead. You follow.”
You move between my legs.
Oh, so that’s why people thought the waltz so scandalous! “I’ll never be able to waltz again….without thinking of this,” she breathed.
He bent to whisper. “Then I’ll have to claim you for the next waltz.”
She liked that word, claim.
“And the next…and the next…” He thrust more quickly into her and her tingling heightened, twisting into something hot and exciting and infinitely more thrilling than any waltz.
“Jackson…ohhh, Jackson…”
“Every waltz…from now…until eternity.”
“Yes…” She felt as if she were spiraling upward, like sparks dancing up from the fire into the chimney and out, and now she was soaring, rising with him into the cloudless climes and starry skies where all the beauty walked…
“Yes!” she cried as she reached that pinnacle. “Oh, yes, Jackson, yes…I’m yours…I’m yours…yours…”
And with a fierce groan, he drove in deep and spent himself inside her. “As am I…” he whispered against her ear while he shuddered and shook over her. “Yours. Always. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,
1357:She fell asleep rapidly, swimming through a haze of pleasant images... walking through the forest in Hampshire... dangling her feet in a cool pond on a hot day... pausing in the kissing gate, while the smell of sun-warmed meadowsweet rose thickly to her nostrils. She closed her eyes and tilted her chin upward, relishing the sultry rays, while a butterfly's wings brushed lightly against her cheek. Entranced by the delicate tickle, she held very still. The silken strokes moved over the tip of her nose, the sensitive periphery of her upper lip, the tender corners of her mouth.
Searching blindly, she lifted her face to the brushes of warmth and was rewarded by a gentle pressure that opened her lips and drew a moan from the upper part of her lungs. Lord Sydney was standing with her in the kissing gate, his arms trapping her against the painted ribs of latticework. His mouth searched hers so gently, his body firm against hers, and she writhed in a mute plea for him to hold her more tightly. Seeming to know exactly what she wanted, he pushed his knee into her skirts, right against the place that felt swollen and yearning. Gasping, she curled her fingers in his glossy hair, and he whispered for her to relax, that he would take care of her, satisfy her-
"Oh." Blinking hard, she stirred from the sensuous dream as she realized that she was not alone. The bed curtains had been drawn aside, and Nick Gentry's long body was entangled with hers. One large hand was cupped beneath her hips, while his leg wedged more intimately between hers. His breath surged against her ear, filling the shell with moist heat, and then his lips wandered back to hers in a searing path. He absorbed her protest as he kissed her, his tongue searching her mouth, his body levering over hers. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1358:Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
   I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.
   With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
   Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
   This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. ~ Bertrand Russell,
1359:To Juan at the Winter Solstice

There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling,
Whether as learned bard or gifted child;
To it all lines or lesser gauds belong
That startle with their shining
Such common stories as they stray into.

Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues,
Or strange beasts that beset you,
Of birds that croak at you the Triple will?
Or of the Zodiac and how slow it turns
Below the Boreal Crown,
Prison to all true kings that ever reigned?

Water to water, ark again to ark,
From woman back to woman:
So each new victim treads unfalteringly
The never altered circuit of his fate,
Bringing twelve peers as witness
Both to his starry rise and starry fall.

Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty,
All fish below the thighs?
She in her left hand bears a leafy quince;
When, with her right hand she crooks a finger, smiling,
How many the King hold back?
Royally then he barters life for love.

Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched,
Whose coils contain the ocean,
Into whose chops with naked sword he springs,
Then in black water, tangled by the reeds,
Battles three days and nights,
To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore?

Much snow if falling, winds roar hollowly,
The owl hoots from the elder,
Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:
Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.
The log groans and confesses:
There is one story and one story only.

Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,
Do not forget what flowers
The great boar trampled down in ivy time.
Her brow was creamy as the crested wave,
Her sea-blue eyes were wild
But nothing promised that is not performed. ~ Robert Graves,
1360:Sappho
She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
Above her glared the noon; beneath, the sea.
Upon the white horizon Atho's peak
Weltered in burning haze; all airs were dead;
The cicale slept among the tamarisk's hair;
The birds sat dumb and drooping. Far below
The lazy sea-weed glistened in the sun;
The lazy sea-fowl dried their steaming wings;
The lazy swell crept whispering up the ledge,
And sank again. Great Pan was laid to rest;
And Mother Earth watched by him as he slept,
And hushed her myriad children for a while.
She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
And sighed for sleep, for sleep that would not hear,
But left her tossing still; for night and day
A mighty hunger yearned within her heart,
Till all her veins ran fever; and her cheek,
Her long thin hands, and ivory-channelled feet,
Were wasted with the wasting of her soul.
Then peevishly she flung her on her face,
And hid her eyeballs from the blinding glare,
And fingered at the grass, and tried to cool
Her crisp hot lips against the crisp hot sward:
And then she raised her head, and upward cast
Wild looks from homeless eyes, whose liquid light
Gleamed out between deep folds of blue-black hair,
As gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks
Of deep Parnassus, at the mournful moon.
Beside her lay her lyre. She snatched the shell,
And waked wild music from its silver strings;
Then tossed it sadly by.-'Ah, hush!' she cries;
'Dead offspring of the tortoise and the mine!
Why mock my discords with thine harmonies?
Although a thrice-Olympian lot be thine,
Only to echo back in every tone
The moods of nobler natures than thine own.'
Eversley, 1847
83
From Yeast.
~ Charles Kingsley,
1361:Twilights, V
Now the great wheel of darkness and low clouds
Whirs and whirls in the heavens with dipping rim;
Against the ice-white wall of light in the west
Skeleton trees bow down in a stream of air.
Leaves, black leaves and smoke, are blown on the wind;
Mount upward past my window; swoop again;
In a sharp silence, loudly, loudly falls
The first cold drop, striking a shriveled leaf . . .
Doom and dusk for the earth! Upward I reach
To draw chill curtains and shut out the dark,
Pausing an instant, with uplifted hand,
To watch, between black ruined portals of cloud,
One star,—the tottering portals fall and crush it.
Here are a thousand books! here is the wisdom
Alembicked out of dust, or out of nothing;
Choose now the weightiest word, most golden page,
Most somberly musicked line; hold up these lanterns,—
These paltry lanterns, wisdoms, philosophies,—
Above your eyes, against this wall of darkness;
And you'll see—what? One hanging strand of cobweb,
A window-sill a half-inch deep in dust . . .
Speak out, old wise-men! Now, if ever, we need you.
Cry loudly, lift shrill voices like magicians
Against this baleful dusk, this wail of rain . . .
But you are nothing! Your pages turn to water
Under my fingers: cold, cold and gleaming,
Arrowy in the darkness, rippling, dripping—
All things are rain . . . Myself, this lighted room,
What are we but a murmurous pool of rain? . . .
The slow arpeggios of it, liquid, sibilant,
Thrill and thrill in the dark. World-deep I lie
Under a sky of rain. Thus lies the sea-shell
Under the rustling twilight of the sea;
No gods remember it, no understanding
Cleaves the long darkness with a sword of light.
~ Conrad Potter Aiken,
1362:Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. ~ Bertrand Russell,
1363:Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. ~ Bertrand Russell,
1364:Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. ~ Bertrand Russell,
1365:During the last three years and a half, hundreds of American men, women, and children have been murdered on the high seas and in Mexico. Mr. Wilson has not dared to stand up for them...He wrote Germany that he would hold her to "strict accountability" if an American lost his life on an American or neutral ship by her submarine warfare. Forthwith the Arabic and the Gulflight were sunk. But Mr. Wilson dared not take any action...Germany despised him; and the Lusitania was sunk in consequence. Thirteen hundred and ninety-four people were drowned, one hundred and three of them babies under two years of age. Two days later, when the dead mothers with their dead babies in their arms lay by the scores in the Queenstown morgue, Mr. Wilson selected the moment as opportune to utter his famous sentence about being "too proud to fight."

Roosevelt threw his speech script to the floor and continued in near absolute silence.

Mr Wilson now dwells at Shadow Lawn. There should be shadows enough at Shadow Lawn: the shadows of men, women, and children who have risen from the ooze of the ocean bottom and from graves in foreign lands; the shadows of the helpless who Mr. Wilson did not dare protect lest he might have to face danger; the shadows of babies gasping pitifully as they sank under the waves; the shadows of women outraged and slain by bandits; the shadows of troopers who lay in the Mexican desert, the black blood crusted round their mouths, and their dim eyes looking upward, because President Wilson had sent them to do a task, and then shamefully abandoned them to the mercy of foes who knew no mercy.
Those are the shadows proper for Shadow Lawn: the shadows of deeds that were never done; the shadows of lofty words that were followed by no action; the shadows of the tortured dead. ~ Edmund Morris,
1366:Heat
From plains that reel to southward, dim,
The road runs by me white and bare;
Up the steep hill it seems to swim
Beyond, and melt into the glare.
Upward half-way, or it may be
Nearer the summit, slowly steals
A hay-cart, moving dustily
With idly clacking wheels.
By his cart's side the wagoner
Is slouching slowly at his ease,
Half-hidden in the windless blur
Of white dust puffiing to his knees.
This wagon on the height above,
From sky to sky on either hand,
Is the sole thing that seems to move
In all the heat-held land.
Beyond me in the fields the sun
Soaks in the grass and hath his will;
I count the marguerites one by one;
Even the buttercups are still.
On the brook yonder not a breath
Disturbs the spider or the midge.
The water-bugs draw close beneath
The cool gloom of the bridge.
Where the far elm-tree shadows flood
Dark patches in the burning grass,
The cows, each with her peaceful cud,
Lie waiting for the heat to pass.
From somewhere on the slope near by
Into the pale depth of the noon
A wandering thrush slides leisurely
His thin revolving tune.
In intervals of dreams I hear
The cricket from the droughty ground;
The grasshoppers spin into mine ear
A small innumerable sound.
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I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze:
The burning sky-line blinds my sight:
The woods far off are blue with haze:
The hills are drenched in light.
And yet to me not this or that
Is always sharp or always sweet;
In the sloped shadow of my hat
I lean at rest, and drain the heat;
Nay more, I think some blessèd power
Hath brought me wandering idly here:
In the full furnace of this hour
My thoughts grow keen and clear.
~ Archibald Lampman,
1367:What I Have Lived For

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. ~ Bertrand Russell,
1368:Since the basic cause of man’s anxiety is the possibility of being either a saint or a sinner, it follows that there are only two alternatives for him. Man can either mount upward to the peak of eternity or else slip backwards to the chasms of despair and frustration. Yet there are many who think there is yet another alternative, namely, that of indifference. They think that, just as bears hibernate for a season in a state of suspended animation, so they, too, can sleep through life without choosing to live for God or against Him. But hibernation is no escape; winter ends, and one is then forced to make a decision—indeed, the very choice of indifference is itself a decision. White fences do not remain white fences by having nothing done to them; they soon become black fences. Since there is a tendency in us that pulls us back to the animal, the mere fact that we do not resist it operates to our own destruction. Just as life is the sum of forces that resist death, so, too, man’s will must be the sum of the forces that resist frustration. A man who has taken poison into his system can ignore the antidote, or he can throw it out the window; it makes no difference which he does, for death is already on the march. St. Paul warns us, “How shall we escape it we neglect so great a salvation” (Heb 2:3). By the mere fact that we do not go forward, we go backward. There are no plains in the spiritual life, we are either going uphill or coming down. Furthermore the pose of indifference is only intellectual. The will must choose. And even though an “indifferent” soul does not positively reject the infinite, the infinite rejects it. The talents that are unused are taken away, and the Scriptures tell us that, “But because though art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:16). ~ Fulton J Sheen,
1369:It’s Alex. He stands at the entry and looks straight at me. He’s not wearing a jacket or cravat, just a snowy-white shirt left loosened at the collar. It’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him. For a long time, we just stare at one another. There’s an invisible barrier between us, and I don’t think he’ll break it.
But then he does. “Might I join you?”
“By all means.” I gesture to the lawn as if I’m Vanna White, and he walks over and takes a seat beside me. For a second, I think he’s going to say something about my clothes. He stares for a long moment, his lips slightly parted, but then he just closes them and doesn’t say a word. He’s finally figured out I’m always doing the unexpected.
I lie back down and stare into the sky. “It’s a beautiful view, if you lie back. If, you know, that’s proper or whatever.” I silently curse myself for reminding him of etiquette, because we both know this doesn’t fall under Things A Duke Can Do With A Girl He’s Not Married To.
He smirks, those perfectly full lips curling up on one side, but does as I say and lies down beside me. As soon as his arm brushes mine, my heart beats triple time. His fingers find mine and he interlaces them, until we’re holding and staring upward. I fight the urge to glance at our hands to see if the moment is real. I close my eyes and lose myself in the feeling of his bare skin on mine for the first time. He brushes my finger with the pad of his thumb, little circles that make my skin tingle and jump. I can’t believe all those times and all those pairs of gloves, and finally, it’s just him.
“Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”
I open my eyes. “Yes,” I say, barely above a whisper. I’m afraid to break the moment. It’s too perfect.
“You looked beautiful,” he says.
I smile. “You did too,” I say, and then cringe. “I mean, handsome. ~ Mandy Hubbard,
1370:It’s Alex. He stands at the entry and looks straight at me. He’s not wearing a jacket or cravat, just a snowy-white shirt left loosened at the collar. It’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him. For a long time, we just stare at one another. There’s an invisible barrier between us, and I don’t think he’ll break it.
But then he does. “Might I join you?”
“By all means.” I gesture to the lawn as if I’m Vanna White, and he walks over and takes a seat beside me. For a second, I think he’s going to say something about my clothes. He stares for a long moment, his lips slightly parted, but then he just closes them and doesn’t say a word. He’s finally figured out I’m always doing the unexpected.
I lie back down and stare into the sky. “It’s a beautiful view, if you lie back. If, you know, that’s proper or whatever.” I silently curse myself for reminding him of etiquette, because we both know this doesn’t fall under Things A Duke Can Do With A Girl He’s Not Married To.
He smirks, those perfectly full lips curling up on one side, but does as I say and lies down beside me. As soon as his arm brushes mine, my heart beats triple time. His fingers find mine and he interlaces them, until we’re holding and staring upward. I fight the urge to glance at our hands to see if the moment is real. I close my eyes and lose myself in the feeling of his bare skin on mine for the first time. He brushes my finger with the pad of his thumb, little circles that make my skin tingle and jump. I can’t believe all those times and all those pairs of gloves, and finally, it’s just him.
���Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”
I open my eyes. “Yes,” I say, barely above a whisper. I’m afraid to break the moment. It’s too perfect.
“You looked beautiful,” he says.
I smile. “You did too,” I say, and then cringe. “I mean, handsome. ~ Mandy Hubbard,
1371:The Gift Of God
Blessed with a joy that only she
Of all alive shall ever know,
She wears a proud humility
For what it was that willed it so That her degree should be so great
Among the favoured of the Lord
That she may scarcely bear the weight
Of her bewildering reward.
As one apart, immune, alone,
Or featured for the shining ones,
And like to none that she has known
Of other women's other sons The firm fruition of her need,
He shines anointed; and he blurs
Her vision, till it seems indeed
A sacrilege to call him hers.
She fears a little for so much
Of what is best, and hardly dares
To think of him as one to touch
With aches, indignities, and cares;
She sees him rather at the goal,
Still shining; and her dream foretells
The proper shining of a soul
Where nothing ordinary dwells.
Perchance a canvass of the town
Would find him far from flags and shouts,
And leave him only the renown
Of many smiles and many doubts;
Perchance the crude and common tongue
Would havoc strangely with his worth;
But she, with innocence unwrung,
Would read his name around the earth.
And others, knowing how this youth
Would shine, if love could make him great,
When caught and tortured for the truth
310
Would only writhe and hesitate;
While she, arranging for his days
What centuries could not fulfil,
Transmutes him with her faith and praise,
And has him shining where she will.
She crowns him with her gratefulness,
And says again that life is good;
And should the gift of God be less
In him than in her motherhood,
His fame, though vague, will not be small
As upward through her dream he fares,
Half clouded with a crimson fall
Of roses thrown on marble stairs.
~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,
1372:A Rare Guest
Love, that all men think they know,
Is a rare guest here below;
But with mortals when it stays,
These are its unerring ways.
Love builds secret, half afraid,
In the covert, in the shade,
Fostering, where none know it is,
Solitary gladnesses.
Pry not on its brooding breast,
Lest it should desert its nest.
Then, all seen, you naught can save;
'Twas a cradle;-'tis a grave.
II
Love loves tumult closed with rest,
Spreads its wings and bares its breast
To the unrelenting strain
Of the passionate hurricane.
Though its plumes are frayed like foam,
On it presses still for home,
Upward, slowly-onward, fastTill, when it descries at last
Tall tops swaying to and fro,
Down it drops to nest below.
Then the wind that rocks the tree
Is to it a lullaby.
III
Fancy talks itself away,
Love hath ever naught to say,
Save again the hushed caress,
And the sweet long silences,
Glistening gaze of trustful eyes,
Where none questions, none replies
Like, enraptured with its lot,
Star that shines but speaketh not.
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IV
Men wax rich by thrifty living;
Love is opulent from giving,
Keeps its store from growing less
By unceasing lavishness;
Richest when it squanders all,
Never ruined prodigal.
Lastly, Love, if it could choose,
Would not, as gross worldlings use,
Summon smiles and state to be
Sponsors to felicity.
These it fain would keep apart
From the nuptials of the heart,
Or, if they perforce attend,
Find them rather foe than friend.
For, without the world's disfavour,
Sweet love loses half its savour.
Love, that all men think they know,
Is a rare guest here below;
But with mortals when it stays,
These are its unerring ways.
~ Alfred Austin,
1373:You are driving me mad!” she exclaimed. “I want you to stop this, Kev! Do you have any idea how ridiculous you’re being? How badly you’ve behaved tonight?” “I’ve behaved badly?” he thundered. “You were about to let yourself be compromised.” “Perhaps I want to be compromised.” “That’s too bad,” he said, reaching out to grip her upper arm, preparing to haul her from the conservatory. “Because I’m going to make certain you stay safe.” “Don’t touch me!” Win wrenched free of him, incensed. “I’ve been safe for years. Tucked safely in bed, watching everyone around me enjoying their lives. I’ve had enough safety to last a lifetime, Kev. And if that’s what you want, for me to continue to be alone and unloved, then you can go to the devil.” “You were never alone,” he said harshly. “You’ve never been unloved.” “I want to be loved as a woman. Not as a child, or a sister, or an invalid—” “That’s not how I—” “Perhaps you’re not even capable of such love.” In her blazing frustration, Win experienced something she had never felt before. The desire to hurt someone. “You don’t have it in you.” Merripen moved through a shaft of moonlight that had slipped through the conservatory glass, and Win felt a little shock as she saw his murderous expression. In just a few words she had managed to cut him deeply, enough to open a vein of dark and furious feeling. She fell back a step, alarmed as he seized her in a brutal grip. He jerked her upward. “All the fires of hell could burn for a thousand years and it wouldn’t equal what I feel for you in one minute of the day. I love you so much there is no pleasure in it. Nothing but torment. Because if I could dilute what I feel for you to the millionth part, it would still be enough to kill you. And even if it drives me mad, I would rather see you live in the arms of that cold, soulless bastard than die in mine. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1374:Andrea lifted a black firearm, holding it as if it were covered with slime. “This is a Witness 45. It has a molding flaw on the grip right here, see? If you fire it, it will blister your hand.”
She picked up another gun. “This is a Raven 25. They haven’t made them since the early nineties. I didn’t even know they were still around. It’s a cheap junk gun. They used to call them Saturday Night Specials. You can’t put twenty rounds through it without it jamming, and the way this one looks, I wouldn’t even risk loading it. It might blow up in my hand. And this? This is a Hi-Point, otherwise known as Beemiller.”
“Is that supposed to tell me something?”
She stared at me. “It’s like the crappiest gun out there. Normal guns cost upward of half a grand. This costs like a hundred bucks. The slide is made out of zinc with aluminum.”
I looked at her.
“Look, I can bend it with my hand.”
I’d also seen her bend a steel rod with her hand, but now didn’t seem the best time to mention it.
Andrea put the Hi-Point on the desk. “Where did you get these again?”
“They’re surplus guns from the Pack. Confiscated, from what I understand.”
“Confiscated during violent altercations?”
“Yes.”
Andrea sagged into her chair. Her blue-tipped hair drooped in defeat. “Kate, if someone used a gun against the shapeshifters and now the shapeshifters have said gun, it wasn’t a very good gun, was it?”
“I’m not arguing with you. I didn’t have a choice. That’s what was here when I moved in.”
Andrea extracted a fierce-looking silver handgun from the box. Her eyes widened. She looked at it for a moment and tapped it on the corner of her desk. The gun responded with a dry pop.
She looked at me with an expression of abject despair. “It’s plastic.”
I spread my arms at her.
Andrea tossed the plastic gun to Grendel. “Here, chew on this. ~ Ilona Andrews,
1375:In general, repression had been good to Luka. As he’d discovered through talking with the copy of Ellie he’d brought with him from the San Francisco, repression had enabled him to function in circumstances where others might have given up. But repression was only one tool, and Luka now knew that the structures one built were often defined—or at least profoundly influenced—by the tools one used to build them. Repression was like constantly building upward in order to avoid the work of building out a more stable foundation, but eventually the instability compounded to the point where your life had no choice but to topple. Another problem with the past was that every year, it came back around. The cycle of the Gregorian calendar was like the constant rotation of a cylinder with 365 chambers, and the longer you lived, the more rounds filled those holes. Except these bullets were never fully spent, and rather than proving lethal, the wounds they left were a gradual accumulation of debilitating injury. A much better calendrical system would have been one where days never repeated; where lives were marked with infinitely incrementing integers, constantly leaving the things everyone wanted to forget further and further behind; where every second of every day was a chance to completely reinvent oneself out of newly created time that had no inherent knowledge whatsoever of the past. In the one year since Luka and Ayla had been alone together aboard the Hawk, they had each experienced a lot of anniversaries: the days they’d left their home pod systems as children; the times each had lost people they loved; the moments they’d been forced right up to the very edge of death—in fact, well past the point of peace and acceptance—only to be unexpectedly pulled back into the worlds they thought they were finally leaving behind. And the day that was ~ Christian Cantrell,
1376:What are you talking about? You don’t know anything about me.”
Her back came up against the door. Bracing his hands above her head, he leaned down and spoke harshly against her ear. “Don’t I, gorgeous? I know you like a lot of tongue when you kiss. I know you hold your breath just before you come. I know your beautiful ass fits into my hands perfectly. I can still feel it there.” Story shivered, her legs weakening underneath her. Yearning, hot and desperate, pulsed between her legs as memories of the previous afternoon broke free to run wild in her mind. Knowing he could so easily determine and satisfy her needs with devastating efficiency only heightened her desire for him. Nurse-chaser or not, nothing could stop her from wanting him now, at this moment in the dark stairwell. Daniel hadn’t yet finished his verbal torture. “I should have left yesterday before I found out how hot you run. But I didn’t. And now I’m fucked.” One hand dropped from the wall to grip the side of her hip, squeezing and releasing. “That exquisite body of yours needs a lot of care and attention. I didn’t even get a chance to use my tongue on you. I hate not knowing how you taste.” Her head dropped back against the door. When his hand slipped under her dress to run up the outside of her thigh, a moan escaped her lips. Unconsciously, she thrust her breasts upward, in the direction of his mouth. “Yes, I see them, baby. I’d taste you there, too.” Slowly, his hand slid around toward the juncture between her thighs. “You came so quickly for me yesterday, like something out of a fantasy. Were you neglected here?” He ran a knuckle along the seam of her panties. “I know how to make it better.”

Excerpt From: Bailey, Tessa. “Officer Off Limits.” Entangled Publishing, LLC (Brazen), 2013-05-23T10:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright. ~ Tessa Bailey,
1377:In the way of judgment this may be the case, and, if so, be it mine to consider the reason of such a visitation, and bear the rod and him that hath appointed it. I am not the only one who is chastened in the night season; let me cheerfully submit to the affliction, and carefully endeavour to be profited thereby. But the hand of the Lord may also be felt in another manner, strengthening the soul and lifting the spirit upward towards eternal things. O that I may in this sense feel the Lord dealing with me! A sense of the divine presence and indwelling bears the soul towards heaven as upon the wings of eagles. At such times we are full to the brim with spiritual joy, and forget the cares and sorrows of earth; the invisible is near, and the visible loses its power over us; servant-body waits at the foot of the hill, and the master-spirit worships upon the summit in the presence of the Lord. O that a hallowed season of divine communion may be vouchsafed to me this evening! The Lord knows that I need it very greatly. My graces languish, my corruptions rage, my faith is weak, my devotion is cold; all these are reasons why his healing hand should be laid upon me. His hand can cool the heat of my burning brow, and stay the tumult of my palpitating heart. That glorious right hand which moulded the world can new-create my mind; the unwearied hand which bears the earth's huge pillars up can sustain my spirit; the loving hand which incloses all the saints can cherish me; and the mighty hand which breaketh in pieces the enemy can subdue my sins. Why should I not feel that hand touching me this evening? Come, my soul, address thy God with the potent plea, that Jesus' hands were pierced for thy redemption, and thou shalt surely feel that same hand upon thee which once touched Daniel and set him upon his knees that he might see visions of God. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
1378:Boswell, like Lecky (to get back to the point of this footnote), and Gibbon before him, loved footnotes. They knew that the outer surface of truth is not smooth, welling and gathering from paragraph to shapely paragraph, but is encrusted with a rough protective bark of citations, quotations marks, italics, and foreign languages, a whole variorum crust of "ibid.'s" and "compare's" and "see's" that are the shield for the pure flow of argument as it lives for a moment in one mind. They knew the anticipatory pleasure of sensing with peripheral vision, as they turned the page, gray silt of further example and qualification waiting in tiny type at the bottom. (They were aware, more generally, of the usefulness of tiny type in enhancing the glee of reading works of obscure scholarship: typographical density forces you to crouch like Robert Hooke or Henry Gray over the busyness and intricacy of recorded truth.) They liked deciding as they read whether they would bother to consult a certain footnote or not, and whether they would read it in context, or read it before the text it hung from, as an hors d'oeuvre. The muscles of the eye, they knew, want vertical itineraries; the rectus externus and internus grow dazed waggling back and forth in the Zs taught in grade school: the footnote functions as a switch, offering the model-railroader's satisfaction of catching the march of thought with a superscripted "1" and routing it, sometimes at length, through abandoned stations and submerged, leaching tunnels. Digression—a movement away from the gradus, or upward escalation, of the argument—is sometimes the only way to be thorough, and footnotes are the only form of graphic digression sanctioned by centuries of typesetters. And yet the MLA Style Sheet I owned in college warned against lengthy, "essay-like" footnotes. Were they nuts? Where is scholarship going? ~ Nicholson Baker,
1379:The touch of her hand underneath the head of Mrs. Copperfield was very light—in fact, so light that Mrs. Copperfield feared that she would be left alone from one minute to the next. She looked up. The sky was packed with gray clouds. She wanted to say something to Pacifica, but she did not dare to turn her head.
Pacifica swam a little farther inland. Suddenly she stood up and placed both her hand firmly in the small of Mrs. Copperfield’s back. Mrs. Copperfield felt happy and sick at once. She turned her face and in so doing she brushed Pacifica’s heavy stomach with her cheek. She held on hard to Pacifica’s thigh with the strength of years of sorrow and frustration in her hand.
‘Don’t leave me,’ she called out.
At this moment Mrs. Copperfield was strongly reminded of a dream that had recurred often during her life. She was being chased up a short hill by a dog. At the top of the hill here stood a few pine trees and a mannequin about eight feet high. She approached the mannequin and discovered her to be fashioned out of flesh, but without life. Her dress was of black velvet, and tapered to a very narrow width at the hem. Mrs. Copperfield wrapped one of the mannequin’s arms tightly around her own waist. She was startled by the thickness of the arm and very pleased. The mannequin’s other arm she ben upward from the elbow with her free hand. Then the mannequin began to sway backwards and forwards. Mrs. Copperfield clung all the more tightly to the mannequin and together they fell off the top of the hill and continued rolling for quite a distance until they landed on a little walk, where they remained locked in each other’s arms. Mrs. Copperfield loved this part of the dream best; and the fact that all way down the hill the mannequin acted as a buffer between herself and the broken bottles and little stones over which they fell gave her particular satisfaction. ~ Jane Bowles,
1380:Many a time when I sat in the balcony, or hanging garden, on which my window opened, I have watched her rising in the air on her radiant wings, and in a few moments groups of infants below, catching sight of her, would soar upward with joyous sounds of greeting; clustering and sporting around her, so that she seemed a very centre of innocent delight. When I have walked with her amidst the rocks and valleys without the city, the elk-deer would scent or see her from afar, come bounding up, eager for the caress of her hand, or follow her footsteps, till dismissed by some musical whisper that the creature had learned to comprehend. It is the fashion among the virgin Gy-ei to wear on their foreheads a circlet, or coronet, with gems resembling opals, arranged in four points or rays like stars. These are lustreless in ordinary use, but if touched by the vril wand they take a clear lambent flame, which illuminates, yet not burns. This serves as an ornament in their festivities, and as a lamp, if, in their wanderings beyond their artificial lights, they have to traverse the dark. There are times, when I have seen Zee’s thoughtful majesty of face lighted up by this crowning halo, that I could scarcely believe her to be a creature of mortal birth, and bent my head before her as the vision of a being among the celestial orders. But never once did my heart feel for this lofty type of the noblest womanhood a sentiment of human love. Is it that, among the race I belong to, man’s pride so far influences his passions that woman loses to him her special charm of woman if he feels her to be in all things eminently superior to himself? But by what strange infatuation could this peerless daughter of a race which, in the supremacy of its powers and the felicity of its conditions, ranked all other races in the category of barbarians, have deigned to honour me with her preference? ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton,
1381:Everywhere he looked he saw families reunited, and finally, he saw the two whose company he craved most.
“It’s me,” he muttered, crouching down between them. “Will you come with me?”
They stood up at once, and together he, Ron, and Hermione left the Great Hall. Great chunks were missing from the marble staircase, part of the balustrade gone, and rubble and bloodstains occurred every few steps as they climbed.
Somewhere in the distance they could hear Peeves zooming through the corridors singing a victory song of his own composition:

We did it, we bashed them, wee Potter’s the one,
And Voldy’s gone moldy, so now let’s have fun!


“Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn’t it?” said Ron, pushing open a door to let Harry and Hermione through.”
Happiness would come, Harry thought, but at the moment it was muffled by exhaustion, and the pain of losing Fred and Lupin and Tonks pierced him like a physical wound every few steps. Most of all he felt the most stupendous relief, and a longing to sleep. But first he owed an explanation to Ron and Hermione, who had stuck with him for so long, and who deserved the truth. Painstakingly he recounted what he had seen in the Pensieve and what had happened in the forest, and they had not even begun to express all their shock and amazement what at last they arrived at the place to which they had been walking, though none of them had mentioned their destination.
Since he had last seen it, the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the headmaster’s study had been knocked aside; it stood lopsided, looking a little punch-drunk, and Harry wondered whether it would be able to distinguish passwords anymore.
“Can we go up?” he asked the gargoyle.
“Feel free,” groaned the statue.
They clambered over him and onto the spiral stone staircase that moved slowly upward like an escalator. ~ J K Rowling,
1382:Hope you got your things together.’” I sang, stabbing a pillow with my spear. Feathers exploded into the air. “‘Hope you are quite prepared to die!’” I spun in a dazzling whirl of lights, landed a killer back-kick on a phantom Shade, and simultaneously punched the magazine rack. “‘Looks like we’re in for nasty weather!’” I took a swan dive at a short, imaginary Shade, lunged up at a taller one—
—and froze.
Barrons stood inside the front door, dripping cool-world elegance.
I hadn’t heard him come in over the music. He was leaning, shoulder against the wall, arms folded, watching me.
“‘One eye is taken for an eye . . .’” I trailed off, deflating. I didn’t need a mirror to know how stupid I looked. I regarded him sourly for a moment, then moved for the sound dock to turn it off. When I heard a choked sound behind me I spun, and shot him a hostile glare. He wore his usual expression of arrogance and boredom. I resumed my path for the sound dock, and heard it again. This time when I turned back, the corners of his mouth were twitching. I stared at him until they stopped.
I’d reached the sound dock, and just turned it off, when he exploded.
I whirled. “I didn’t look that funny,” I snapped.
His shoulders shook.
“Oh, come on! Stop it!”
He cleared his throat and stopped laughing. Then his gaze took a quick dart upward, fixed on my blazing MacHalo, and he lost it again. I don’t know, maybe it was the brackets sticking out from the sides. Or maybe I should have gotten a black bike helmet, not a hot pink one.
I unfastened it and yanked it off my head. I stomped over to the door, flipped the interior lights back on, slammed him in the chest with my brilliant invention, and stomped upstairs.
“You’d better have stopped laughing by the time I come back down,” I shouted over my shoulder.
I wasn’t sure he even heard me, he was laughing so hard. ~ Karen Marie Moning,
1383:How many times, she reflected ruefully, she had sought to understand a wounded wild creature. But it was another matter entirely to penetrate the mystery of a human being.
Reaching Christopher’s door, she knocked softly. When there came no response, she let herself inside.
To her surprise, the room brimmed with daylight, the late August sun illuminating tiny floating dust motes by the window. The air smelled like liquor and smoke and bath soap. A portable bath occupied one corner of the room, sodden footprints tracking across the carpet.
Christopher reclined on the unmade bed, half propped on a haphazard stack of pillows, a bottle of brandy clasped negligently in his fingers. His incurious gaze moved to Beatri and held, his eyes becoming alert.
He was clad in a pair of fawn-colored trousers, only partially fastened, and…nothing more. His body was a long golden arc on the bed, lean and complexly muscled. Scars marred the sun-browned skin in places…there was a ragged triangular shape where a bayonet had pierced his shoulder, a liberal scattering of marks from shrapnel, a small circular depression on his side that must have been caused by a bullet.
Slowly Christopher levered himself upward and placed the bottle on the bedside table. Half leaning on the edge of the mattress, his bare feet braced on the floor, he regarded Beatrix without expression. The locks of his hair were still damp, darkened to antique gold. How broad his shoulders were, their sturdy slopes flowing into the powerful lines of his arms.
“Why are you here?” His voice sounded rusty from disuse.
Somehow Beatrix managed to drag her mesmerized gaze away from the glinting fleece on his chest.
“I came to return Albert,” she said. “He appeared at Ramsay House today. He says you’ve been neglecting him. And that you haven’t taken him on any walks lately.”
“Has he? I had no idea he was so loose-tongued. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1384:C’mon, I won’t tell anyone your secrets . . . even if they’re really, really bad,” she promised, raising an eyebrow.
“Mocking me will get you nowhere.” But he leaned down, his breath tickling the side of her neck, and a rush of warmth flooded Violet’s stomach. “There are other ways to break me, though.”
Violet reached for his hand, drawing him out of the flow of traffic, away from the pushing and shoving of students, until they were tucked into a private pocket of space, just the two of them. “What do I have to do to make you talk?” She pressed against him, standing on her toes so her lips could reach his.
She didn’t have to reach far; he was already meeting her halfway, his arm snaking around her waist. They didn’t speak for several long seconds as Violet savored the feel of his lips against hers, soft and familiar and achingly tender. She shivered inwardly, both loving and hating the way her body reacted—almost instantaneously—to his. She had very little control over herself when he touched her. She felt like a puppet, at his command.
But they couldn’t stand there for long, pretending that no one could see them, when everyone could. She kissed him one last time . . . lightly, softly, sweetly. “So, now are you gonna tell me?” she teased, slipping her hand beneath his T-shirt so she could feel the warmth of his bare stomach.
One side of his lip twitched upward. “There’s really nothing to tell, Vi. I don’t have any deep dark secrets or anything. What you see is what you get.”
“How can you be so sure? What did she say exactly?” Violet’s fingers danced along his waistline, tracing a path to his back.
Jay grinned down at her, reaching for her hand and leading her toward the lunchroom. “Nothing, really. She just kept saying ‘interesting,’ over and over again. If you ask me, she just noticed what everyone else already knows, that I’m incredibly interesting. ~ Kimberly Derting,
1385:Barack and I took Malia’s and Sasha’s hands and made our way across the still-dewy grass of the South Lawn. The animals were larger than I expected, languid and sinewy, their tails flicking as they monitored our approach. I’d never seen anything like it, four cats in a companionable line. The lion stirred slightly as we drew close. I saw the panther’s eyes tracking us, the tiger’s ears flattening just a little. Then, without warning, the cheetah shot out from the shade with blinding speed, rocketing right at us.
I panicked, grabbing Sasha by the arm, sprinting with her back up the lawn toward the house, trusting that Barack and Malia were doing the same. Judging from the noise, I could tell that all the animals had leaped to their feet and were now coming after us.
Lloyd stood in the doorway, looking unfazed.
“I thought you said they were sedated!” I yelled.
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” he called back. “We’ve got a contingency plan for exactly this scenario!” He stepped to one side as Secret Service agents swarmed past him through the door, carrying what looked to be guns loaded with tranquilizer darts. Just then, I felt Sasha slip out of my grasp.
I turned back toward the lawn, horrified to see my family being chased by wild animals and the wild animals being chased by agents, who were firing their guns.
“This is your plan?” I screamed. “Are you kidding me?
Just then, the cheetah let out a snarl and launched itself at Sasha, its claws extended, its body seeming to fly. An agent took a shot, missing the animal though scaring it enough that it veered off course and retreated back down the hill. I was relieved for a split second, but then I saw it—a white-and-orange tranquilizer dart lodged in Sasha’s right arm.
I lurched upward in bed, heart hammering, my body soaked in sweat, only to find my husband curled in comfortable sleep beside me. I’d had a very bad dream. ~ Michelle Obama,
1386:The Motto
Tentanda via est, etc.
What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?
I shall like beasts or common people die,
Unless you write my elegy;
Whilst others great by being born are grown,
Their mothers' labor, not their own.
In this scale gold, in th'other fame does lie,
The weight of that mounts this so high.
These men are fortune's jewels, molded bright,
Brought forth with their own fire and light;
If I her vulgar stone, for either look,
Out of myself it must be strook.
Yet I must on : what sound is't strikes mine ear?
Sure I Fame's trumpet hear;
It sounds like the last trumpet, for it can
Raise up the buried man.
Unpassed Alps stop me, but I'll cut through all,
And march, the Muses' Hannibal.
Hence, all the flattering vanities that lay
Nets of roses in the way;
Hence, the desire of honors or estate
And all that is not above fate;
Hence, Love himself, the tyrant of my days,
Which intercepts my coming praise.
Come, my best friends, my books, and lead me on:
'Tis time that I were gone.
Welcome, great Stagirite, and teach me now
All I was born to know;
Thy scholar's vict'ries thou dost far outdo,
He conquered th'earth, the whole world you.
Welcome, learn'd Cicero, whose blest tongue and wit
Preserve Rome's greatness yet:
Thou art the first of orators; only he
Who best can praise thee, next must be.
Welcome the Mantuan swan, Vergil the wise,
Whose verse walks highest, but not flies;
Who brought green poesy to her perfect age,
And made that art which was a rage.
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Tell me, ye mighty three, what shall I do
To be like one of you?
But you have climbed the mountain's top, there sit
On the calm flour'shing head of it,
And whilst with wearied steps we upward go,
See us and clouds below.
~ Abraham Cowley,
1387:Suppose I told you that I knew for a fact that the following statements were true: If you paint yourself a certain exact color between blue and green, it will reverse the force of gravity on you and cause you to fall upward. In the future, the sky will be filled by billions of floating black spheres. Each sphere will be larger than all the zeppelins that have ever existed put together. If you offer a sphere money, it will lower a male prostitute out of the sky on a bungee cord. Your grandchildren will think it is not just foolish, but evil, to put thieves in jail instead of spanking them. You’d think I was crazy, right? Now suppose it were the year 1901, and you had to choose between believing those statements I have just offered, and believing statements like the following: There is an absolute speed limit on how fast two objects can seem to be traveling relative to each other, which is exactly 670,616,629.2 miles per hour. If you hop on board a train going almost this fast and fire a gun out the window, the fundamental units of length change around, so it looks to you like the bullet is speeding ahead of you, but other people see something different. Oh, and time changes around too. In the future, there will be a superconnected global network of billions of adding machines, each one of which has more power than all pre-1901 adding machines put together. One of the primary uses of this network will be to transport moving pictures of lesbian sex by pretending they are made out of numbers. Your grandchildren will think it is not just foolish, but evil, to say that someone should not be President of the United States because she is black. Based on a comment of Robin Hanson’s: “I wonder if one could describe in enough detail a fictional story of an alternative reality, a reality that our ancestors could not distinguish from the truth, in order to make it very clear how surprising the truth turned out to be. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky,
1388:May 3 MORNING “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” — John 16:33 ART thou asking the reason of this, believer? Look upward to thy heavenly Father, and behold Him pure and holy. Dost thou know that thou art one day to be like Him? Wilt thou easily be conformed to His image? Wilt thou not require much refining in the furnace of affliction to purify thee? Will it be an easy thing to get rid of thy corruptions, and make thee perfect even as thy Father which is in heaven is perfect? Next, Christian, turn thine eye downward. Dost thou know what foes thou hast beneath thy feet? Thou wast once a servant of Satan, and no king will willingly lose his subjects. Dost thou think that Satan will let thee alone? No, he will be always at thee, for he “goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Expect trouble, therefore, Christian, when thou lookest beneath thee. Then look around thee. Where art thou? Thou art in an enemy’s country, a stranger and a sojourner. The world is not thy friend. If it be, then thou art not God’s friend, for he who is the friend of the world is the enemy of God. Be assured that thou shalt find foemen everywhere. When thou sleepest, think that thou art resting on the battlefield; when thou walkest, suspect an ambush in every hedge. As mosquitoes are said to bite strangers more than natives, so will the trials of earth be sharpest to you. Lastly, look within thee, into thine own heart and observe what is there. Sin and self are still within. Ah! if thou hadst no devil to tempt thee, no enemies to fight thee, and no world to ensnare thee, thou wouldst still find in thyself evil enough to be a sore trouble to thee, for “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Expect trouble then, but despond not on account of it, for God is with thee to help and to strengthen thee. He hath said, “I will be with thee in trouble; I will deliver thee and honour thee. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
1389:Answers
What is the end of each man's toil,
Brother, O Brother?
A handful of dust in a bit of soilHis name forgotten as centuries roll,
Though blazoned to-day on Glory's scroll;
For the lordliest work of brain or hand
Is only an imprint made on sand;
When the tidal wave sweeps over the shore
It is there no more,
Brother, my Brother.
Then what is the use of striving at all,
Brother, O Brother?
Because each effort or great or small
Is a step on the long, long road that leads
To the Kingdom of Growth on the River of Deeds:
And that is the kingdom no man can gain
Till he uses his hand and his mind and brain,
And when he has used them and learned control
He finds his soul,
Brother, my Brother.
And after he finds it, what is the end,
Brother, O Brother?
Upward ever its course and trend;
For this is the purpose and aim and plan
To seek in the soul for the Super-manThe man who is conscious that Heaven is nearA bulletin bearer from There to Here,
Finding God dwells in the spirit within
Where He ever has been,
Brother, my Brother.
And what will the God-man do when He comes,
Brother, O Brother?
He will better the world or in courts or slums,
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He will do in gladness his nearest duty:
He will teach the religion of love and beauty
In field or factory, mine or mart,
While He tells the world of the larger part
And the wider life that is yet to be
When spirit is free,
Brother, my Brother.
When spirit is free, then where will it go,
Brother, O Brother?
Its uttermost summit no man may know,
For it goes up to God in His holy Tower
To gather more knowledge and force and power;
Like a ray of the sun it shall shine again
To brighten new planets and races of men.
Life had no beginning, life has no end,
Brother and friendBrother, my Brother.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1390:three simple meditations that can set you on the path of healing: Meditation on the breath. Sit quietly with your eyes closed. Gently put your attention on the tip of your nose. Breathe in and out normally, and as you do, feel the air flowing through your nostrils. Envision your breath as a faint cloud of pale golden light going in and out of your nose. Feel the soft energy being carried by your breath. Let it relax you and still your mind, but easily, without forcing anything to happen. The process will take care of itself. To help keep your attention from wandering, you can add the sound “hoo” as you exhale. Meditation on the heart. Sitting quietly with your eyes closed, rest your attention on your heart. You don’t need to be anatomically precise. Simply find a place in the center of your chest where your attention can rest easily. As you breathe in and out naturally, keep your attention there. Allow any feelings and sensations to arise and pass. If your attention wanders, gently bring it back to rest on your heart. Meditation on the light. Sitting quietly with your eyes closed, envision a soft mixture of white light tinged with gold flowing through your body. See the light come up from your feet and fill your torso. Watch it continue up through your chest and head until it comes out through the crown of your head and goes straight up until it disappears from view. Now envision the same sparkling light descending back down, first entering through the crown of your head. It reverses the upward path from head to chest to torso, exiting the body through the soles of your feet. Once you have mastered this visualization, time it with your breathing. On the inhale, slowly draw the light up from your feet and out the top of your head. On the exhale, draw the light in through the top of your head and out through your feet. Don’t force the rhythm. Breathe slowly and naturally in a relaxed state as you perform the visualization. ~ Deepak Chopra,
1391:Thoughts In A Wheat-Field
IN his wide fields walks the Master,
In his fair fields, ripe for harvest,
Where the evening sun shines slant-wise
On the rich ears heavy bending;
Saith the Master: 'It is time.'
Though no leaf shows brown decadence,
And September's nightly frost-bite
Only reddens the horizon,
'It is full time,' saith the Master,
The wise Master, 'It is time.'
Lo, he looks. That look compelling
Brings his laborers to the harvest;
Quick they gather, as in autumn
Passage-birds in cloudy eddies
Drop upon the seaside fields;
White wings have they, and white raiment,
White feet shod with swift obedience,
Each lays down his golden palm branch,
And uprears his sickle shining,
'Speak, O Master,--is it time?'
O'er the field the servants hasten,
Where the full-stored ears droop downwards,
Humble with their weight of harvest:
Where the empty ears wave upward,
And the gay tares flaunt in rows:
But the sickles, the sharp sickles,
Flash new dawn at their appearing,
Songs are heard in earth and heaven,
For the reapers are the angels,
And it is the harvest time.
O Great Master, are thy footsteps
Even now upon the mountains?
Are thou walking in thy wheat-field?
Are the snowy-wingèd reapers
Gathering in the silent air?
Are thy signs abroad, the glowing
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Of the distant sky, blood-reddened,-And the near fields trodden, blighted,
Choked by gaudy tares triumphant,-Sure, it must be harvest time?
Who shall know the Master's coming?
Whether it be at dawn or sunset,
When night dews weigh down the wheat-ears,
Or while noon rides high in heaven,
Sleeping lies the yellow field?
Only, may thy voice, Good Master,
Peal above the reapers' chorus,
And dull sound of sheaves slow falling,-'Gather all into My garner,
For it is My harvest time.'
~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik,
1392:In a voice that rasped with frustration as well as tender amusement, Hunter said, “You have such a great want for me that we must hurry, yes?”
Her spine snapped taut, and she leaned her head back to look at him. He met her gaze with a lazy smile, trying not to think about how her nipples grazed his skin, how torturous it was to feel her hips pressing forward against him. Working one hand loose, he carefully brushed the tears from her cheeks.
Giving a low chuckle, which he punctuated with a defeated sigh, he said, “Blue Eyes, we have many nights to lie with one another. Forever, yes? Until we die and rot.”
“Until death do we part,” she amended.
“Ah, yes, until death do we part.” He shrugged one shoulder. “A very long time, yes? If I strike such fear into your heart that we must be quick, it is wisdom to wait. It is enough that you will lie beside me. That I can put my hand upon you.”
Her expression went from wary distrust to incredulity. “And do nothing?”
Hunter shared her sentiments. It was the most boisa idea he had ever come up with. Never had he ached quite so sharply with wanting a woman. “You would like to do something? You say it and we will do it.” Hoping to make her feel less self-conscious about her nakedness, he tugged a fur over them and loosened his arm around her, allowing her some room to get comfortable. “Make a story for me, yes? About my Loh-rhett-ah when she was small like Blackbird.”
She stared at him, clearly unable to believe he meant it. He forced a yawn, and from the look that crossed her small face, he knew he hadn’t been very convincing.
“You’re not sleepy,” she accused.
Ka, no,” he admitted. “I make a lie, yes? To make you easy? My heart is laid upon the ground when you are afraid. Let us be glad, eh? Make me a story.”
“Hunter, I don’t have a stitch of clothes on,” she squeaked.
One of his dark eyebrows flicked upward. “You must have clothes to make stories? ~ Catherine Anderson,
1393:Turn. I want to look at you," he ordered.
"Why?"
"Because you are beautiful and I want you."
Dear God. He spoke like he moved: quick, purposeful. His delivery made everything sound true and right and... 'sensible.' Which was dangerous indeed, as the last thing this was meant to be was sensible. He'd undressed with startling alacrity while she was facing her door, and she hardly knew where to look first. She knew he meant it, because she could see in his fierce eyes and the swift rise and fall of his shoulders, and his hard cock, thick and large and curving up toward his belly, how much he wanted her.
And he stared, drinking her in, and dear God, her knees went weaker still at the look in his eyes.
She wanted to tell him, too, that he was beautiful, but it wasn't quite the right word. It seemed inadequate and perhaps not exactly true. He was overwhelmingly new to her, alien, and astoundingly... 'male'... his skin very fair, his body spare, all hard, lean muscle, his chest furred with dark hair, a trail of it following the seam of his ribs where his cock curved upward against his belly up from its nest of curling hair. His small, hard buttocks were almost comically white and muscular. She saw a few scars scattered over him.
He saved her from the onslaught of sensations and impressions and from having to make a statement when he pulled her against his bare body.
The feeling of his skin against hers, her hard nipples brushing his, was extraordinary; his skin was hot; he smelled wonderful and strange, of smoke and musk and something she was sure was uniquely his.
He didn't want coy. She'd claimed she wasn't. And yet it was counter to her nature to let momentum take her, to surrender. She struggled with it, and he felt the tension in her body.
"It's all right," he murmured into her ear, his breath, his voice, erotic, so persuasive, the voice of ultimate safety and ultimate danger. "I have you. 'Shhh,' now, Genevieve. ~ Julie Anne Long,
1394:You are angry?”
Her reply was frigid silence.
“Blue Eyes, what wrong words have I said?”
“What have you said?”
Hunter frowned. “It would not please you to marry with me? Better a wife than a slave, yes?”
“I will never play second fiddle, never!”
Hunter studied her, trying to figure out why she had switched the topic of conversation from marriage to making music.
“How dare you!” she cried. “Of all the-- You arrogant, simple-- Oh, never mind! Just you understand this! Amongst my people, a man has one wife, only one, and he looks at no other, thinks of no other, touches no other, until death do they part. I wouldn’t marry you if you got on your knees and begged me!”
Hunter sat up slowly, feeling a little dazed by her fury and wondering what had sparked it. Would he never understand her?
She leaned toward him, her blue eyes flashing. “Even if I would marry you, an announcement by a central fire would not constitute a marriage in my books.” She thumped her chest. “I must make my vows before a priest! And furthermore, when I take a husband, he won’t be a Comanche. You couldn’t be chief husband, second husband, any husband, to me. You’re a barbarian who treats women like chattel!”
Very calmly Hunter inserted, “You are my woman. You will sure enough marry no other.”
“Well, if you think I’m going to marry you, you have another think coming! Never, do you hear me?”
With that, she wrapped her arms around herself and glared at him. Hunter sighed and flopped onto his back, staring upward sightlessly. Minutes passed. When at last he felt her curl up at the foot of the bed, as far away from him as possible, a knowing smile touched his lips. No woman could possibly get that angry over another woman unless she was jealous. And a woman didn’t get jealous unless she was in love. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one with another think coming. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1395:As Rohan pulled the man upward, he glanced toward the threshold of a door that led into the club, where a club employee waited. “Dawson, escort Lord Latimer to his carriage out front. I’ll take Lord Selway.”
“No need,” said the aristocrat who had just struggled to his feet, sounding winded. “I can walk to my own bloody carriage.” Tugging his clothes back into place over his bulky form, he threw the dark-haired man an anxious glance. “Rohan, I will have your word on something.”
“Yes, my lord?”
“If word of this gets out—if Lady Selway should discover that I was fighting over the favors of a fallen woman—my life won’t be worth a farthing.”
Rohan replied with reassuring calm. “She’ll never know, my lord.”
“She knows everything,” Selway said. “She’s in league with the devil. If you are ever questioned about this minor altercation…”
“It was caused by a particularly vicious game of whist,” came the bland reply.
“Yes. Yes. Good man.” Selway patted the younger man on the shoulder. “And to put a seal on your silence—” He reached a beefy hand inside his waistcoat and extracted a small bag.
“No, my lord.” Rohan stepped back with a firm shake of his head, his shiny black hair flying with the movement and settling back into place. “There’s no price for my silence.”
“Take it,” the aristocrat insisted.
“I can’t, my lord.”
“It’s yours.” The bag of coins was tossed to the ground, landing at Rohan’s feet with a metallic thud. “There. Whether you choose to leave it lying on the street or not is entirely your choice.”
As the gentleman left, Rohan stared at the bag as if it were a dead rodent. “I don’t want it,” he muttered to no one in particular.
“I’ll take it,” the prostitute said, sauntering over to him. She scooped up the bag and tested its heft in her palm. A taunting grin split her face. “Gor’, I’ve never seen a Gypsy what’s afraid o’ blunt.”
“I’m not afraid of it,” Rohan said sourly. “I just don’t need it. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1396:Dance with me,” Merripen surprised her by murmuring. Win shook her head with a little laugh, watching the couples twirl and move sinuously around each other. Women used their hands in shimmering motions around their bodies, while men stomped with their heels and clapped their hands, and all the while they circled each other while holding each other’s gaze as long as possible. “I don’t know how,” Win said. Merripen stood behind her and crossed his arm around her front, drawing her back against him. Another surprise. She had never known him to touch her so openly. But amid the goings-on, it seemed no one noticed or cared. His voice was hot and soft in her ear. “Watch for a moment. You see how little space is needed? How they circle each other? When Roma dance they lift their hands to the sky, but they stomp their feet to express connection to the earth. And to earthly passions.” He smiled against her cheek and gently turned her to face him. “Come,” he murmured, and hooked his hand around her waist to urge her forward. Win followed him shyly, fascinated by a side of him she hadn’t seen before. She wouldn’t have expected him to be this self-assured, drawing her into the dance with animal grace, watching her with a wicked gleam in his eyes. He coaxed her to raise her arms upward, to snap her fingers, even to swish her skirts at him as he moved around her. She couldn’t seem to stop giggling. They were dancing, and he was so good at it, turning it into a cat-and-mouse game. She twirled in a circle, and he caught her around the waist, pulling her close for one scalding moment. The scent of his skin, the movement of his chest against hers, filled her with intense desire. Leaning his forehead against hers, Merripen stared at her until she was drowning in the depths of his eyes, as dark and bright as hellfire. “Kiss me,” she whispered unevenly, not caring where they were or who might see them. A smile touched his lips. “If I start now, I won’t be able to stop. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1397:You have never seen the sun set at this height. Come, look.’ The puller went to the edge and sat down, his legs hanging over the side. He saw that they hesitated. ‘Come. You can lie down and peer over the edge, if you like.’ Hillalum did not wish to seem like a fearful child, but he could not bring himself to sit at a cliff face that stretched for thousands of cubits below his feet. He lay down on his belly, with only his head at the edge. Nanni joined him. ‘When the sun is about to set, look down the side of the tower.’ Hillalum glanced downward, and then quickly looked to the horizon. ‘What is different about the way the sun sets here?’ ‘Consider, when the sun sinks behind the peaks of the mountains to the west, it grows dark down on the plain of Shinar. Yet here, we are higher than the mountaintops, so we can still see the sun. The sun must descend further for us to see night.’ Hillalum’s jaw dropped as he understood. ‘The shadows of the mountains mark the beginning of night. Night falls on the earth before it does here.’ Kudda nodded. ‘You can watch night travel up the tower, from the ground up to the sky. It moves quickly, but you should be able to see it.’ He watched the red globe of the sun for a minute, and then looked down and pointed. ‘Now!’ Hillalum and Nanni looked down. At the base of the immense pillar, tiny Babylon was in shadow. Then the darkness climbed the tower, like a canopy unfurling upward. It moved slowly enough that Hillalum felt he could count the moments passing, but then it grew faster as it approached, until it raced past them faster than he could blink, and they were in twilight. Hillalum rolled over and looked up, in time to see darkness rapidly ascend the rest of the tower. Gradually, the sky grew dimmer as the sun sank beneath the edge of the world, far away. ‘Quite a sight, is it not?’ said Kudda. Hillalum said nothing. For the first time, he knew night for what it was: the shadow of the earth itself, cast against the sky. ~ Ted Chiang,
1398:The 'Bulletin' Stairs
The Mecca of Bohemian men
Was Archibald's untidy den.
Firm-footed near the portals there
Uprose, as now, a spacious stair
That carried nearer to the sky
Their inky hopes in days forebye.
This ladder to Parnassus, they
Expectant climbed - as still one may.
Oft-times upon its steps appeared
The wiry brush of Daley's beard,
Of Henry Lawson's drooped moustache
Would upward glide and downward dash.
Betimes - a gem his pocket in Meandered upward Ronald Quinn,
Or Bayldon bore a sonnet new,
Or Broomfield occupied the view
Insistent, in a manner vain,
On making passes with his cane.
These might encounter on the way
The 'Banjo' glum, or Hugh McCrae
Or Souter with a leering cat
Or Bedford in a Queensland hat;
And other penmen debonair
Familiar with that famous stair.
The Red Tressed Maiden, all aglow,
And Clancy of the Overflow
And Dad and Dave, in company
With Ginger Mick and Jock MacFee,
From time to time, in singles, pairs,
By hand or post went up those stairs!
Awaiting by McMahon's door
For silver, little, less, or more,
Met jesting genius to abuse
The landlords and the lending Jews.
Anon with cash in hand such drear
Considerations - drowned in beer Would pass as pass the clouds of morn;
And from their ready wits, reborn
As from a fount in Arcady,
Would flow fair dreams of Days-to-Be,
When, in this Southland, shore to shore,
Art was enthroned for evermore.
That noble vision yet I hold
More precious is than all the gold
That men have dug from southern earth.
In loyal hearts it had its birth;
In loyal minds it will become
A trumpet-note, a calling drum
To lead this nation onward, and
To glorify and grace the land.
And through that fellowship may ne'er,
As then it was, re-climb the Stair
Its voices echo down the years The voices of the pioneers!
~ Edwin James Brady,
1399:A Fable
Some cawing Crows, a hooting Owl,
A Hawk, a Canary, an old Marsh-Fowl,
One day all meet together
To hold a caucus and settle the fate
Of a certain bird (without a mate),
A bird of another feather.
'My friends,' said the Owl, with a look most wise,
'The Eagle is soaring too near the skies,
In a way that is quite improper;
Yet the world is praising her, so I'm told,
And I think her actions have grown so bold
That some of us ought to stop her.'
'I have heard it said,' quoth Hawk, with a sigh,
'That young lambs died at the glance of her eye,
And I wholly scorn and despise her.
This, and more, I am told they say,
And I think that the only proper way
Is never to recognize her.'
'I am quite convinced,' said Crow, with a caw,
'That the Eagle minds no moral law,
She's a most unruly creature.'
'She's an ugly thing,' piped Canary Bird;
'Some call her handsome—it's so absurd—
She hasn't a decent feature.'
Then the old Marsh-Hen went hopping about,
She said she was sure—she hadn't a doubt—
Of the truth of each bird's story:
And she thought it a duty to stop her flight,
To pull her down from her lofty height,
And take the gilt from her glory.
But, lo! from a peak on the mountain grand
That looks out over the smiling land
And over the mighty ocean,
The Eagle is spreading her splendid wings—
She rises, rises, and upward swings,
With a slow, majestic motion.
Up in the blue of God's own skies,
With a cry of rapture, away she flies,
Close to the Great Eternal:
She sweeps the world with her piercing sight;
Her soul is filled with the infinite
And the joy of things supernal.
Thus rise forever the chosen of God,
The genius-crowned or the power-shod,
Over the dust-world sailing;
And back, like splinters blown by the winds,
Must fall the missiles of silly minds,
Useless and unavailing.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1400:mastering the lower self and leverage for the march towards the Divine :::
   In proportion as he can thus master and enlighten his lower self, he is man and no longer an animal. When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a still greater enlightened thought and sight and will in touch with the Infinite, consciously subject to a diviner will than his own, linked to a more universal and transcendent knowledge, he has commenced the ascent towards tile superman; he is on his upward march towards the Divine.
   It is, then, in the highest mind of thought and light and will or it is in the inner heart of deepest feeling and emotion that we must first centre our consciousness, -- in either of them or, if we are capable, in both together, -- and use that as our leverage to lift the nature wholly towards the Divine. The concentration of an enlightened thought, will and heart turned in unison towards one vast goal of our knowledge, one luminous and infinite source of our action, one imperishable object of our emotion is the starting-point of the Yoga. And the object of our seeking must be the very fount of the Light which is growing in us, the very origin of the Force which we are calling to move our members. Our one objective must be the Divine himself to whom, knowingly or unknowingly, something always aspires in our secret nature. There must be a large, many-sided yet single concentration of the thought on the idea, the perception, the vision, the awakening touch, the soul's realisation of the one Divine. There must be a flaming concentration of the heart on the All and Eternal and, when once we have found him, a deep plunging and immersion in the possession and ecstasy of the All-Beautiful. There must be a strong and immovable concentration of the will on the attainment and fulfilment of all that the Divine is and a free and plastic opening of it to all that he intends to manifest in us. This is the triple way of the Yoga.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 80-81,
1401:Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, there’s Injuns in the yard!”
Loretta catapulted upward and landed on all fours in the middle of the bed. Peeking out over the windowsill, she looked at the yard and saw--just that: the yard. Not an Indian in sight. Amy reared back, her eyes the size of cow pies. Loretta skewered her with a murderous glare.
“Well, it might’ve worked.”
Relief made Loretta giddy. She flopped down on the mattress and hugged her pillow. Her heart felt as though it might pound its way up her throat. Hunter. When Amy had said Indians were outside, Loretta had pictured him as he had looked yesterday, high atop his horse with a hundred warriors behind him, his broad chest and corded arms rippling in the sunlight. She had never seen such fierce, burning eyes.
“I--Loretta, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you that bad a turn, honest. I was just funnin’ you.”
Loretta clenched her teeth and burrowed her face deeper into the pillow. She wanted to throttle Amy for her foolishness.
“Loretta, please, don’t be mad. I never thought you’d believe me. Where’s your sense of humor? You don’t really think that ol’ Injun will come back? What would an Injun want with a skinny runt like you? They like fat, brown girls who smear bear grease all over themselves. You’re probably downright ugly to his way of thinkin’, the drabbest-lookin’ female he ever saw. No gee-gaws. Stinky, too, with that lavender smell on you. And no creepy-crawlies in your hair.”
Loretta kept her face buried, determined not to laugh.
“And sayin’ he liked you? There ain’t no such thing as a polite Comanche. He wouldn’t buy you! He’d just steal you. He came to look at you, that’s all. Maybe he thought he had a hankerin’ for ya and decided different once he got here.”
Turning her head, Loretta cracked an eye, smothering a grin.
“Come to think of it, you do look sort of pitiful,” Amy teased. “That’s probably why he rode off. He took one look and got such a fright, he still ain’t stopped runnin’. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1402:As Loretta drew near the door, Tom cried, “No! You miserable coward, Henry. You send that girl out there, and you’ll never sleep a whole night through the rest of your life.”
Loretta touched the door planks and froze. Through the cracks she heard bells tinkling, a merry sound, as out of place as cheerful music at a funeral. She made the sign of the cross and squeezed her eyes closed, trying to remember how to make an act of contrition, but the words jumbled in her head.
“Henry, no,” Rachel pleaded. “Loretta, don’t open that door. If they want a woman, I’ll go.”
“It’s not you they’re wantin’,” Henry snapped. “One of ’em spotted Loretta down by the river the other day, and he’s come back for her. They’ll shoot ya down where ya stand.”
Rachel whirled on her husband. “That girl’s my sister’s daughter. I’ll never forgive you if you let her go out there!”
“Ya don’t have to do it, Loretta,” Tom argued. “There’s some things worse than dyin’, and this is one of ’em.”
Loretta hesitated. Then the door squeaked on its leather hinges, swinging open a crack. A shaft of light fell across her face. She stepped across the threshold. Better just me than everyone. Another step. Better the Comanches take me than Amy. It wasn’t so hard, now that she was doing it. She took a deep breath and walked out onto the porch. The door slammed shut behind her, and the bar thudded home with an echo of finality.
Staring at her with impenetrable blue-black eyes, the warrior on the black nudged the animal a pace forward. With that relentless eye-to-eye contact, he held her pinioned where she stood. For what seemed a lifetime, he studied her, not moving, not speaking, his lance still held aloft.
Loretta’s courage disintegrated, and a violent tremor swept the length of her. He noted the shudder, and his observant gaze trailed up her body in its wake. His attention fell to her hips, lingered there with an insulting contempt, then traveled upward to her breasts. Humiliation scorched her cheeks. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1403:the omnipresent Trinity :::
   In practice three conceptions are necessary before there can be any possibility of Yoga; there must be, as it were, three consenting parties to the effort,-God, Nature and the human soul or, in more abstract language, the Transcendental, the Universal and the Individual. If the individual and Nature are left to themselves, the one is bound to the other and unable to exceed appreciably her lingering march. Something transcendent is needed, free from her and greater, which will act upon us and her, attracting us upward to Itself and securing from her by good grace or by force her consent to the individual ascension. It is this truth which makes necessary to every philosophy of Yoga the conception of the Ishwara, Lord, supreme Soul or supreme Self, towards whom the effort is directed and who gives the illuminating touch and the strength to attain. Equally true is the complementary idea so often enforced by the Yoga of devotion that as the Transcendent is necessary to the individual and sought after by him, so also the individual is necessary in a sense to the Transcendent and sought after by It. If the Bhakta seeks and yearns after Bhagavan, Bhagavan also seeks and yearns after the Bhakta. There can be no Yoga of knowledge without a human seeker of the knowledge, the supreme subject of knowledge and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of knowledge; no Yoga of devotion without the human God-lover, the supreme object of love and delight and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of spiritual, emotional and aesthetic enjoyment; no Yoga of works without the human worker, the supreme Will, Master of all works and sacrifices, and the divine use by the individual of the universal faculties of power and action. However Monistic maybe our intellectual conception of the highest truth of things, in practice we are compelled to accept this omnipresent Trinity.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Introduction - The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga,
1404:The pink?" she suggested, holding the shimmering rose-colored satin in front of Sara's half-clad figure. Sara held her breath in awe. She had never worn such a sumptuous creation. Silk roses adorned the sleeves and hem of the gown. The short-waisted bodice was finished with a stomacher of silver filigree and a row of satin bows.
Lily shook her head thoughtfully. "Charming, but too innocent."
Sara suppressed a disappointed sigh. She couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than the pink satin. Busily Monique discarded the gown and sorted through the others. "The peach. No man will be able to keep his eyes from her in that. Here, let us try it, chérie."
Raising her arms, Sara let the dressmaker and her assistant Cora pull the gauzy peach-hued gown over her head. "I think it will have to be altered a great deal," Sara commented, her voice muffled beneath the delicate layers of fabric. The gowns had been fitted for Lily's lithe, compact lines. Sara was more amply endowed, with a generous bosom and curving hips, and a tiny, scoped-in waist... a figure style that had been fashionable thirty years ago. The current high-waisted Grecian mode was not particularly flattering to her.
Monique settled the gown around Sara's feet and then began to yank the back of it together. "Oui, Lady Raiford has the form that fashion loves." Energetically, she hooked the tight bodice together. "But you, chérie, have the kind that men love. Draw in your breath, s'il vous plaît."
Sara winced as her breasts were pushed upward until they nearly overflowed from the low-cut bodice. The hem of the unusually full skirt was bordered with three rows of graduated tulip-leaves. Sara could hardly believe the woman in the mirror was herself. The peach gown, with its transparent layers of silk and shockingly low neckline, had been designed to attract a man's attention. It was too loose at the waist, but her breasts rose from the shallow bodice in creamy splendor pushed together to form an enticing cleavage. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1405:Hauling in a quick breath, she held it, stretched upward, shut her eyes, and fleetingly touched her lips to his. They were as hard as she'd imagined, very like sculpted marble. Sensation flared at the brief contact; her lips tingled, then throbbed.
Patience blinked her eyes wide as she lowered her heels to earth. And refocused on his lips. She saw the ends curve upward, heard his low, wickedly teasing laugh.
"Still not right. Here- let me show you."
His hands came up to frame her face, her jaw, tilting her lips up as his descended. Of their own volition, her lids fell, then his lips touched hers. Patience couldn't have quelled the shudder that passed through her had her life depended on it.
Stunned, poised to resist, she mentally paused. Strong, sure, his lips covered hers, moving slowly, languorously, as if savoring her taste, her texture. There was nothing threatening in the unhurried caress. Indeed, it was beguiling, luring her senses, focusing them on the practiced slide and glide of cool lips which seemed to instinctively know how to soothe the heat rising in hers. Hers throbbed; his pressed, caressed, as if drinking in her heat, stealing it from her.
Patience felt her lips soften; his firmed in response.
'No, no, noo....' Some small part of her mind tried to warn her, but she was long past listening. This was new, novel- she'd never felt such sensations before. Never known such simple delight existed.
Her head was whirling, but not unpleasantly. His lips still seemed hard, cool- Patience couldn't resist the temptation to return the pressure, to see if his lips would soften to hers.
They didn't, they only became harder. The next instant, she felt a searing heat sweep over her lips. She stilled; the questing heat returned- with the tip of his tongue, he traced her lower lip. The contact lingered, an unspoken question.
Patience wanted more. She parted her lips.
His tongue slid between, slowly, with his customary assured arrogance, quite certain of his welcome, confident in his expertise. ~ Stephanie Laurens,
1406:She slipped into the shadows and waited, like a she-wolf, for her quarry.
Bay caught her breath when Owen Blackthorne stepped into the cool night air. He was close enough to touch. His shaggy black hair looked rumpled, as though he’d shoved both hands through it in agitation. When he started to move off the porch, Bay reached out and grasped his sleeve.
A second later she was slammed back against the wall, a powerful male hand at her throat choking her. She could feel the heat of him, the solid maleness of him. And panicked. She clawed at Owen’s flesh with her nails and drove her knee upward toward his genitals. Her thrust her upraised knee aside, and the full weight of his over-six-foot frame shoved hard against her from shoulders to thighs.
Bay froze, staring up at him in mute horror. Her body trembled in shock. She tried to speak, but there was no air to be had beneath the crushing pressure of his grip on her throat.
“What the hell . . .?” He released her throat and grabbed her arms to yank her into the narrow stream of light from the kitchen doorway.
She gasped a breath of air, coughed, then gasped another, pressing a shaky hand to her injured throat. She wrenched to free herself, but he let her go without a struggle and took a wary step back. She rubbed her arms where he’d held her, wishing she’d approached him more directly.
“What are you doing out here, Mizz Creed?” His voice was clipped but controlled. The violence she’d felt in his touch was still there in his eyes, which glittered with hostility.
“It’s Dr. Creed,” she rasped, glaring back at him.
He lifted a black brow. “Well, Dr. Creed.”
She opened her mouth to say I need your help. But the words wouldn’t come. There was nothing wrong with her voice. She just hated the thought of asking a Blackthorne for anything.
“I haven’t got all night,” he said. “There’s an emergency at the barn—”
“Ruby’s foal has already been delivered safely,” she said. “I made up that story because I wanted to speak privately with you. ~ Joan Johnston,
1407:Comus.

The Star that bids the Shepherd fold,
Now the top of Heav'n doth hold,
And the gilded Car of Day, [ 95 ]
His glowing Axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantick stream,
And the slope Sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky Pole,
Pacing toward the other gole [ 100 ]
Of his Chamber in the East.
Mean while welcom Joy, and Feast,
Midnight shout, and revelry,
Tipsie dance and Jollity.
Braid your Locks with rosie Twine [ 105 ]
Dropping odours, dropping Wine.
Rigor now is gone to bed,
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sowre Severity,
With their grave Saws in slumber ly. [ 110 ]
We that are of purer fire
Imitate the Starry Quire,
Who in their nightly watchfull Sphears,
Lead in swift round the Months and Years.
The Sounds, and Seas with all their finny drove [ 115 ]
Now to the Moon in wavering Morrice move,
And on the Tawny Sands and Shelves,
Trip the pert Fairies and the dapper Elves;
By dimpled Brook, and Fountain brim,
The Wood-Nymphs deckt with Daisies trim, [ 120 ]
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove,
Venus now wakes, and wak'ns Love.
Com let us our rights begin, [ 125 ]
Tis onely day-light that makes Sin,
Which these dun shades will ne're report.
Hail Goddesse of Nocturnal sport
Dark vaild Cotytto, t' whom the secret flame
Of mid-night Torches burns; mysterious Dame [ 130 ]
That ne're art call'd, but when the Dragon woom
Of Stygian darknes spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the ayr,
Stay thy cloudy Ebon chair,
Wherin thou rid'st with Hecat', and befriend [ 135 ]
Us thy vow'd Priests, till utmost end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
Ere the blabbing Eastern scout,
The nice Morn on th' Indian steep
From her cabin'd loop hole peep, [ 140 ]
And to the tel-tale Sun discry
Our conceal'd Solemnity.
Com, knit hands, and beat the ground,
In a light fantastick round. ~ John Milton,
1408:I have brought you a Black Robe,” he said tersely, and nodded toward the waiting priest. “He will pray your God words over us, yes?”
With that, Hunter grasped her firmly by the arm and drew her toward the central fire, never breaking stride despite Loretta’s attempts to slow him down.
“I won’t marry you!” she cried frantically.
He threw her a look charged with martial arrogance. “You will be my wife, little one. My way or yours, in the end, it will be so.”
Hunter drew to a stop before the priest. Loretta focused on the poor man, who was trembling so badly that he was about to drop his Bible. At the moment she was too preoccupied with her own plight to concern herself with his.
“Father,” she cried in the most reasonable, calm tone she could muster, “would you please explain to this heathen that a marriage cannot take place without a woman’s consent?”
The priest’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He slid horrified eyes to Hunter, and his face blanched. “M-my good young woman, perhaps it would be best to proceed. This man seems uncommonly determined, and I, for one, do not relish the thought of angering him.”
Hunter turned to regard her, one dark eyebrow tipped upward in a measuring look. Eyes narrowed in defiance, Loretta jutted her chin and leaned toward him. “What have you done to this poor man? He’s terrified! Have you no shame?”
Hunter could have reminded her that there had been a time when she had been equally terrified, but he chose to stay on course. Marriage was his goal, not a contest of tongues. He cast a compelling glare at the Black Robe.
“Pray your words, old man.”
The priest licked his lips and glanced fearfully at the crowd of savages around them. Perhaps it was the stark contrast of black robes against pallid flesh, but Loretta thought he was losing color at an alarming rate. Indeed, he looked as if he might faint.
“Say the God words, old man!” Hunter snarled again.
“Don’t you dare bully him,” Loretta hissed. “He’s a man of God, Hunter! You don’t roar at a man of God. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1409:The Law
The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun
Will sweep on its course till the cycle is run.
And when onto chaos the systems are hurled,
Again shall the Builder reshape a new world.
Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal;
Move on, for the orbit is fixed for your soul.
And though it may lead into darkness of night,
The torch of the Builder shall give you new light.
You were, and you will be: know this while you are,
Your spirit has travelled both long and afar.
It came from the Source, to the Source it returns;
The spark that was lighted, eternally burns.
It slept in the jewel, it leaped in the wave,
It roamed in the forest, it rose in the grave,
It took on strange garbs for long eons of years,
And now in the soul of yourself it appears.
From body to body your spirit speeds on;
It seeks a new form when the old one is gone;
And the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought
On the loom of the mind, with the fibre of thought.
As dew is drawn upward, in rain to descend,
Your thoughts drift away and in destiny blend.
You cannot escape them; or petty, or great,
Or evil, or noble, they fashion your fate.
Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow,
Your life will reflect all the thoughts of your now.
The law is unerring; no blood can atone;
The structure you rear you must live it alone.
From cycle to cycle, through time and through space,
Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace.
And all that you ask for, and all you desire,
Must come at your bidding, as flames out of fire.
619
Once list to that voice and all tumult is done,
Your life is the life of the Infinite One’
In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause,
With love for the purpose and love for the cause.
You are your own devil, you are your own God,
You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod;
And no one can save you from error or sin,
Until you shall hark to the spirit within.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1410:You have stolen my heart.”
“No,” she whispered rawly. “Don’t say that, don’t even think it. Can’t you understand? I’ll never love you back, Hunter.” Her pulse started to slam. “I’m terrified of--”
He crossed her lips with a gentle finger, his eyes clouding with warmth. “Of lying with me? I am not blind, Blue Eyes. Your heart is laid upon the ground with memories. That will pass. You will come to me. You will want my hand upon you. It will be so. The Great Ones have spoken it.”
She wrenched her face aside. “I’ll lie with you because I promised and because I vowed to before God and a priest. But I’ll never want to, never.” A sob caught in her throat. “Oh, God, what am I doing here? I don’t want to hurt you, Hunter, truly I don’t.”
He lay down beside her and pulled her back into the crook of his arm, pressing her fair head to his shoulder. “Ka taikay. Sh-hh, Blue Eyes. Do not weep. It will be well.”
“How can it be? I’m trapped here. I can never leave. I’ve made promises I’m not sure I can keep. I’m frightened, Hunter, of you and your people--even of myself. How can all be well?”
“It will be well. My people will accept. You are one with them now, the wife of a warrior. In time, you will want to be beside me. Your fear will leave. You will see. Until then, this Comanche will wait, eh?”
“Wait?” she whispered. “You mean you won’t--” She broke off and looked up at him. “You won’t--force me?”
Hunter’s throat tightened. “I make no promise for you. I wait now, yes? We will see where our moccasins fall.”
To soothe her, he began telling her stories about his childhood, about his first bow, leaving out the part about shooting his father, about his first fight, about his first hunting trip. He had come to the tale of his vision quest when he felt her slender body relax against him and heard her breathing change. His voice trailed off. He stared upward into the darkness, filled with a yearning that couldn’t be slaked. It would be a very long while before he followed his blue-eyes into the black depths of slumber. A very long while. ~ Catherine Anderson,
1411:When You Are Not Surprised
When you are not surprised, not surprised,
nor leap in imagination from sunlight into shadow
or from shadow into sunlight
suiting the color of fright or delight
to the bewildering circumstance
when you are no longer surprised
by the quiet or fury of daybreak
the stormy uprush of the sun’s rage
over the edges of torn trees
torrents of living and dying flung
upward and outward inward and downward to space
or else
peace peace peace peace
the wood-thrush speaking his holy holy
far hidden in the forest of the mind
while slowly
the limbs of light unwind
and the world’s surface dreams again of night
as the center dreams of light
when you are not surprised
by breath and breath and breath
the first unconscious morning breath
the tap of the bird’s beak on the pane
and do not cry out come again
blest blest that you are come again
o light o sound o voice of bird o light
and memory too o memory blest
and curst with the debts of yesterday
that would not stay, or stay
when you are not surprised
by death and death and death
death of the bee in the daffodil
death of color in the child’s cheek
on the young mother’s breast
death of sense of touch of sight
death of delight
and the inward death the inward turning night
332
when the heart hardens itself with hate and indifference
for hated self and beloved not-self
when you are not surprised
by wheel’s turn or turn of season
the winged and orbed chariot tilt of time
the halcyon pause, the blue caesura of spring
and solar rhyme
woven into the divinely remembered nest
by the dark-eyed love in the oriole’s breast
and the tides of space that ring the heart
while still, while still, the wave of the invisible world
breaks into consciousness in the mind of god
then welcome death and be by death benignly welcomed
and join again in the ceaseless know-nothing
from which you awoke to the first surprise.
~ Conrad Potter Aiken,
1412:Why are you single? There isn't exactly a surplus of eligible men in town. The single women must be throwing themselves at you."

I realized that comment was a mistake pretty much the second after it was out of my mouth. Because his smile went wicked; his eyes danced. I knew exactly what was going to follow.

"Think I'm hot shit, huh?" he asked, leaning back in his chair, looking way too self-satisfied.

"I mean... by small town standards," I shrugged, hoping I was coming off as casual and collected plates to bring to the kitchen.

I had scraped the plate and was standing at the sink running water over it when I suddenly felt his entire body press up behind mine, making my hips push against the cabinet as my breath whooshed out of me.

I hadn't even heard him follow me in.

But there he was, touching me from feet to shoulder.

One of his hands moved out and settled on my hip, fingers pressing into the hipbone hollow as his other hand slid gently up my arm and brushed my hair from one side of my neck to the other.

Before I could guess his intention, I felt his lips press in to the column of my neck, making my entire body do a shiver at the unexpected contact that shot from the touch to directly between my legs.

My head tipped to the side, giving him more access as his mouth moved slowly upward, the hint of his tongue tracing over the skin he kissed as I shamelessly leaned back into him. His arm on my hip slid across my lower belly, anchoring me to him as his lips went around my earlobe, his tongue tracing the outer edge and ripping an almost pained moan from between my lips.

My skin felt electric, buzzy, humming, begging for more of the sensation.

But he wasn't in the mind to give it to me.

Instead, his lips left my skin entirely and I felt the side of his face press into my hair. When he spoke, his voice low and rumbling, causing another rush of desire so strong it was borderline painful; his breath was warm on my ear. "By small town standards, how wet are your panties right now? ~ Jessica Gadziala,
1413:Weep Not Too Much
Weep not too much, my darling;
Sigh not too oft for me;
Say not the face of Nature
Has lost its charm for thee.
I have enough of anguish
In my own breast alone;
Thou canst not ease the burden, Love,
By adding still thine own.
I know the faith and fervour
Of that true heart of thine;
But I would have it hopeful
As thou wouldst render mine.
At night, when I lie waking,
More soothing it will be
To say 'She slumbers calmly now,'
Than say 'She weeps for me.'
When through the prison grating
The holy moonbeams shine,
And I am wildly longing
To see the orb divine
Not crossed, deformed, and sullied
By those relentless bars
That will not show the crescent moon,
And scarce the twinkling stars,
It is my only comfort
To think, that unto thee
The sight is not forbidden -The face of heaven is free.
If I could think Zerona
Is gazing upward now -Is gazing with a tearless eye
A calm unruffled brow;
That moon upon her spirit
Sheds sweet, celestial balm, -The thought, like Angel's whisper,
My misery would calm.
149
And when, at early morning,
A faint flush comes to me,
Reflected from those glowing skies
I almost weep to see;
Or when I catch the murmur
Of gently swaying trees,
Or hear the louder swelling
Of the soul-inspiring breeze,
And pant to feel its freshness
Upon my burning brow,
Or sigh to see the twinkling leaf,
And watch the waving bough;
If, from these fruitless yearnings
Thou wouldst deliver me,
Say that the charms of Nature
Are lovely still to thee;
While I am thus repining,
O! let me but believe,
'These pleasures are not lost to her,'
And I will cease to grieve.
O, scorn not Nature's bounties!
My soul partakes with thee.
Drink bliss from all her fountains,
Drink for thyself and me!
Say not, 'My soul is buried
In dungeon gloom with thine;'
But say, 'His heart is here with me;
His spirit drinks with mine.'
A.E.
~ Anne Brontë,
1414:Meditation Twenty
Philippians II: 9: Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him.
View, all ye eyes above, this sight which flings
Seraphick Phancies in Chill Raptures high:
A Turffe of Clay, and yet bright Glories King:
From dust to Glory Angell-like to fly.
A Mortall Clod immortaliz’d behold,
Flyes through the skies swifter than Angells could.
Upon the Wings he of the Winde rode in
His Bright Sedan, through all the Silver Skies,
And made the Azure Cloud, his Charriot, bring
Him to the Mountain of Celestiall joyes.
The Prince o’ th’ Aire durst not an Arrow spend,
While through his Realm his Charriot did ascend.
He did not in a Fiery Charriot’s shine,
And Whirlewinde, like Elias upward goe.
But th’golden Ladders Jasper rounds did climbe
Unto the Heavens high from Earth below.
Each step had on a Golden Stepping Stone
Of Deity unto his very Throne.
Methinks I see Heavens sparklingl Courtiers fly,
In flakes of Glory down him to attend;
And heare Heart Cramping notes of Melody
Surround his Charriot as it did ascend:
Mixing their Musick, making e’vry strong
More to inravish, as they this tune sing.
God is Gone up with a triumphant shout:
The Lord with sounding Trumpets melodies:
Sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praises out,
Unto our King sing praise seraphick-wise!
Lift up your Heads, ye lasting Doore, they sing,
And let the King of Glory Enter in.
Art thou ascended up on high, my Lord,
And must I be without thee here below?
11
Art thou the sweetest joy the Heavens afford?
Oh! that I with thee was! What shall I do?
Should I pluck Feathers from an Angells Wing,
They could not waft me up to thee my King.
Lend mee thy Wings, my Lord, I’st fly apace,
My Soules Arms stud with thy strong Quills, true Faith;
My Quills then Feather with thy Saving Grace,
My Wings will take the Winde thy Word displai’th.
Then I shall fly up to thy glorious Throne
With my strong Wings whose Feathers are thine own.
~ Edward Taylor,
1415:I know how strong you are, Cassandra, but I hate the thought of leaving your side even for an instant. Perhaps we’re crazy to fight the Order by ourselves. Perhaps you should remain here and I should take the pages we have to the Senate and ask them to hear my testimony.”
Cass’s mother had stolen pages from the Book of the Eternal Rose and left them in the Caravello tomb for Cass to find, but they weren’t enough to implicate Dubois or Belladonna. Cass shook her head vehemently. “Don’t be ridiculous. Dubois owns the Senate. They wouldn’t hear your testimony. They’d probably execute you immediately.” Leaning close to Luca, she ran her fingers through his hair and then pressed her lips to his cheek. “I risked the world to get you back.” She thought of Siena and Agnese. “I have lost everything else that matters. I will not lose you too.”
Luca turned toward her. Cradling her face with one hand, he closed the gap between them until his forehead rested against hers. “I never imagined you…”
“What?” Cass whispered, the soft word melding with Luca’s breath. The sharp smell of the theriac balm tickled her nose. She could see the beginnings of a beard already growing out on his cheeks. “Wouldn’t want you to die?”
He leaned away so that he could look into her eyes. “That you would look at me as you are, and speak in this manner. Not as if you’d feel responsible if something happened to me, but as if you’d feel…lost.”
Cass felt her heart opening. It was like Luca had put into words something she hadn’t been able to herself. “Without you, I would be lost,” she admitted.
He tilted her chin upward. Softly, he pressed his lips to hers. Reaching up into her bonnet, he buried one of his hands in her hair. Without breaking the embrace, she yanked the hat from her head. Luca’s grasp tightened on her hair, and pleasure raced through her body.
He tried to pull her into his lap using only his good arm, but ended up half dragging her across the wooden crate. The medicinal ointments went flying onto the floor, the containers rolling across the wet stones with a clatter. ~ Fiona Paul,
1416:He paused and eyed her as if she were an agate discovered in gravel. "But what a very sharp tongue you have for a housekeeper."
Bridget's heart sank- she knew better than to speak so frankly. It was never good for a servant to be noticed by a master- particularly this master.
"Come." He beckoned her closer with his forefinger and she saw the flash of a jeweled gold ring on his left thumb.
She swallowed and opened her right hand, silently dropping the miniature to the lush carpet. As she walked toward him she nudged the little painting under the enormous bed with the side of her foot.
She stopped a pace away from him.
His lips curved, sly and sensual. "Closer."
She stepped nearer until her plain, practical black linsey-woolsey skirts were crushed against his purple velvet knees. Her heart beat hard and swift, but she was confident her expression didn't show her fear.
Still smiling, he held out his hands, palms upward. His hands were long-fingered and elegant. The hands of a musician- or a swordsman.
She stared down at them a moment, confused.
He quirked an eyebrow and nodded.
Bridget placed her hands on top of his. Palm to palm. She expected searing heat or deathly cold and was a little surprised to instead feel human warmth.
She'd been hired little more than a fortnight before the duke had supposedly been banished. In that time he had never struck her as human- or humane.
"Ah," His Grace murmured, cocking his head with interest. "What feminine hands you have, despite your station in life."
His blue eyes flashed at her from under dark eyelashes, a secretive smile playing about his mouth.
She met his gaze stonily.
His lips quirked and he looked down again. "Small, plump, with neat, round nails." He turned her hands over so that they now rested palms-up in his. "I once knew a Greek girl who swore she could read a man's life story from the lines on his hands." He dropped her left hand to trace the lines on her right palm with a forefinger.
His touch sent a frisson along her nerves and Bridget couldn't hold back a shudder. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt,
1417:It occurred to her that she had never thanked Arin for bringing her piano here. She found him in the library and meant to say what she had come to say, yet when she saw him studying a map near the fire, lit by an upward shower of sparks as one log fell on another, she remembered her promise precisely because of how she longed to forget it.
She blurted something that had nothing to do with anything. “Do you know how to make honeyed half-moons?”
“Do I…?” He lowered the map. “Kestrel, I hate to disappoint you, but I was never a cook.”
“You know how to make tea.”
He laughed. “You do realize that boiling water is within the capabilities of anybody?”
“Oh.” Kestrel moved to leave, feeling foolish. What had possessed her to ask such a ridiculous question anyway?
“I mean, yes,” Arin said. “Yes, I know how to make half-moons.”
“Really?”
“Ah…no. But we can try.”
They went into the kitchens. A glance from Arin cleared the room, and then it was only the two of them, dumping flour onto the wooden worktable, Arin palming a jar of honey out of a cabinet.
Kestrel cracked an egg into a bowl and knew why she had asked for this.
So that she could pretend that there had been no war, there were no sides, and that this was her life.
The half-moons came out as hard as rocks.
“Hmm.” Arin inspected one. “I could use these as weapons.”
She laughed before she could tell herself it wasn’t funny.
“Actually, they’re about the size of your weapon of choice,” he said. “Which reminds me that you’ve never said how you dueled at Needles against the city’s finest fighter and won.”
It would be a mistake to tell him. It would defy the simplest rule of warfare: to hide one’s strengths and weaknesses for as long as possible. Yet Kestrel told Arin the story of how she had beaten Irex.
Arin covered his face with one floured hand and peeked at her between his fingers. “You are terrifying. Gods help me if I cross you, Kestrel.”
“You already have,” she pointed out.
“But am I your enemy?” Arin crossed the space between them. Softly, he repeated, “Am I? ~ Marie Rutkoski,
1418:But as soon as we touched, I felt magic crackle over and through me, so strong that I tried to jerk my hand back. But he held tight until, finally, the crackling sensation stopped. My hand slid out of his, and I leaped up from the fountain."What the hell was-"
Then I looked down and realized I was completely dry. Not only that, but my demure black dress had been replaced with...well, another black dress, but this one was a lot shorter, sparklier, and also rocking a very low neckline. Even my hair was different, transformed from a soggy braid to silky brown waves.
Nick winked at me. "That's better. Now you look more like the Demon Who Would be Queen." He heaved himself out of the water and grabbed Jenna's hand. Within seconds, she went from drowned rat to hottie, her soaked clothes replaced with-what else?-a pink sundress. Of course it showed a lot more skin than anything Jenna would have picked out for herself.
"Oh,lovely,Nick," Daisy said, rolling her eyes as he wrapped an arm around her waist.
"What?" he asked once he laid a smacking kiss on her cheek. "They look better like that."
Without thinking,I reached out and grabbed Nick's free arm. His wet white T-shirt and jeans rippled, and suddenly he was wearing a Day-Glo yellow tank top and acid-washed jeans. "And you look better like this."
I wasn't sure if it was the ridiculous sight of Nick in those clothes, or the fact that I'd done a spell so easily-with absolutely no explosions-but I could feel my lips curving upward in a smile. As Daisy hooted with laughter, Nick narrowed his eyes at me. "Okay, now you're in for it." He waved his hand, and suddenly I was sweltering. When I glanced down, I saw that it was because I was now dressed like the Easter Bunny.But with the flick of one fuzzy paw,I'd transformed Nick's jeans and tank top into a snowsuit.
Then I was in a bikini.
So Nick was wearing a particularly poofy purple prom dress.
By the time he'd turned my clothes into a showgirl's costume, complete with a feathery headdress, and I'd put him in a scuba suit, we were both completely magic drunk and giggling. ~ Rachel Hawkins,
1419:He knew exactly what he wanted, he had been working over it in his mind for some seven years now... he had yet to see how much ground he had to use, but neither beauty nor splendor have need of great size. What he wanted was light, light and space, and the upward surge of stone like a growing tree from foundations to vault. No oppression, no darkness, no burden of thick, groaning columns and lowering roofs like the stony weight of guilt. He saw the shape clearly. No chevet of chapels, but a square east end, so that he could have a whole wall of invading light pouring in upon the high altar. Short, strong transepts, lofty aisles, and the clerestory tall and fully glazed above a shallow triforium. The west front with a great, deeply-cut doorway and a vast window above, set back in course on course of moulding, where the light could harp all day long on strings of stone, making even that greyer northern air shine lucid and sharp as the dazzling south. Over the west front two minor turrets, tapering to slender fingers of stone. Over the crossing the great tower, as in Normandy, binding all together, rooting all impregnably into the earth, drawing all erect with it towards heaven. In that tension was the significance of life, and next to light, this he wanted above all, the duality of flesh and spirit, manhood and godhead, the tension of man on his way to God. A noble tower, tall and tapered, its long surfaces so subtly fluted and molded that light and shadow might stroke it into a hundred changing shapes of majesty and beauty as the hours of the daylight passed. Permanence and change, diversity and oneness, in that grey-gold stone that glowed in his memory like - what was Adam's phrase?- a mine of sunshine. There is no growth nor fruitfulness but rises from these paired opposites of darkness and light, earth and heaven. My feet as roots in the earth, my forehead straining into the sun. The tower at once anchoring my church fast to the rock, and translating it into a balanced arrow of light aimed at the sky.

There is no beauty where there is doubt or insecurity. A sense of unbalance is the death of art. ~ Edith Pargeter,
1420:Haunted
What are these nameless mysteries,
These subtleties of life and death,
That bring before our spirit eyes
The loved and lost; or, like a breath
Of lightest air, will touch the cheek,
And yet a wordless language speak?
In every breeze that blows, to-day,
One voice seems speaking unto me;
And north or south, whichever way
I turn my gaze, one face I see,
And closely, closely at my side
A mystic shadow seems to glide.
A motley crowd we move among,
We surge on with the mighty mass,
And yet no one in all the throng
Looks strangely on us as we pass.
No eye but mine own seems to see
The nameless thing that walks by me.
I cannot touch a proffered hand
But this strange shadow glides between.
Why came he from the spirit land?
What brought him from the world unseen?
Why am I troubled and oppressed
By the vague presence of my guest?
He was my friend! I should rejoice!
I loved him once! Why do I fear?
And yet I shudder as his voice
Speaks in the wind. I feel him near,
This restless spirit of the dead,
And shiver with a nameless dread.
282
I loved him once; he was my friend;
He held the first place in my heart,
And might have held it to the end.
But our two ways spread wide apart:
I kept the path upon the hill,
And he went down and down, until
He reached the depths of sin and shame,
And died as sots and drunkards die.
I ceased to even speak his name.
God knows I never thought that I,
Who blamed his lack of moral strength,
Might answer for his fall, at length!
O restless dead, lost friend of mine!
I might have saved you, had I tried.
I saw you lift the glass of wine,
And, seeing, had I warned you, cried,
'Touch not, taste not the drink accursed!'
I might have saved you from the thirst
That swallowed up your brain and soul.
But nay! I scorned you when you fell,
And, looking upward to my goal,
Left you to stagger down to hell.
Accusing spirit of the dead,
Your presence fills my heart with dread!
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1421:Oh god. Screwtape, I hate you.” I cry and laugh in the same breath as I trudge toward them. My clothes are covered in dirt as I trudge toward them. My clothes are covered in dirt and my hair is matted, but I don’t care. I peer through the basket bars at Screwtape, who looks at me as though I’ve betrayed his trust. I rise and meet Silas’s gaze. “Thank you, Silas,” I say, though the words are quieter than I mean. Something buzzes within me, stirs around in my chest enticingly.
“Of course,” he murmurs. His eyes are heavy on mine, his gaze pulling me in. He licks his lips nervously and runs a hand through his hair. Screwtape howls out as the rain increases, droplets clinging to Silas’s lashes and running over his lips. Why am I noticing his lips? I brush my hair behind my ears as the heavy rain drowns out the sounds of the city on the other side of the fence.
“Rosie,” he says, or maybe he just mouths the word. He takes hold of my fingertips, and this time I move my hand and interlace my fingers with his. Silas inhales, as if he’s going to say something else, like he wants to say something else, but instead he pulls me to him, closing the distance between us until his chest brushes mine with every breath. His body is warm, and the feeling of being against him and feeling heat from his skin makes me light-headed.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, but doesn’t break away from me.
“Why?”
“Because there’s something I have to do,” he says, voice velvety soft. Silas unwinds his fingers from mine and reaches up, wiping the raindrops off my face with the palm of his hand as the stirring in my chest spreads through my whole body, pounds in my veins, begs to be released. I put my hands against his chest as if I know what I’m doing, and he finally leans forward and tilts my chin upward gently.
His lips meet mine, tentatively at first, then hungrily, and I clutch at his shirt as if holding on to him will keep me from floating away into the thunderhead above. His hands run down my back, and one rests on my hip while the other tugs me closer, until I think I could melt into him because nothing has ever, ever felt so right. ~ Jackson Pearce,
1422:Your only other option is to marry one of us.” He paused. “Me.” Travis suddenly felt the need to clear his throat. “This alternative would repair your reputation, give you a place to live, and provide the protection of four able-bodied men. Unless you have something else to suggest . . . ?” “Actually, there is something else.” Her quiet statement startled him. “There is?” He glanced over at Crockett. His brother shrugged. Meredith slowly lowered herself into the straight-back chair, the fight draining from her. “I could leave Anderson County. I could go farther west to where the railroad is opening new towns, or head to a larger city where no one knows me.” Her chin jutted upward. “I could find work. Make a clean start.” Leave Anderson County? Travis frowned. He hadn’t considered that option. Didn’t really want to, either. It was reckless. Dangerous. And for some odd reason . . . disappointing. Besides, he’d already settled his mind on this marrying business. No sense muddying the waters. “You’re a good man, Travis. An honorable man.” Meredith plucked at her sleeve. “You drew the short straw, and you’re willing to stand before a preacher because you feel responsible for me. But you’re not. I made the decision to come here, and I’ll deal with the consequences. You deserve to have a wife of your own choosing, not one forced on you through circumstances outside your control.” “It’s not like that, Meredith. It’s . . .” Travis sighed and rubbed his jaw. Why did she say nothing about what she deserved? He didn’t know much about the workings of the female mind, but he knew one thing—she deserved a choice. “I’m not going to force you, Meredith. If you believe leaving is the best option, I’ll not stop you. But if you think you might be able to make a home for yourself here, with a bunch of unrefined men, we’d like you to stay. I’d like you to stay.” Stretching his hand across the space that separated them, he caressed her cheek with his knuckles, then let his arm fall away. “You’re a fine woman, Meredith Hayes. You’re strong and brave and kind. And should you decide to take a chance on me, I’d be honored to make you my bride. ~ Karen Witemeyer,
1423:The S curve is not just important as a model in its own right; it’s also the jack-of-all-trades of mathematics. If you zoom in on its midsection, it approximates a straight line. Many phenomena we think of as linear are in fact S curves, because nothing can grow without limit. Because of relativity, and contra Newton, acceleration does not increase linearly with force, but follows an S curve centered at zero. So does electric current as a function of voltage in the resistors found in electronic circuits, or in a light bulb (until the filament melts, which is itself another phase transition). If you zoom out from an S curve, it approximates a step function, with the output suddenly changing from zero to one at the threshold. So depending on the input voltages, the same curve represents the workings of a transistor in both digital computers and analog devices like amplifiers and radio tuners. The early part of an S curve is effectively an exponential, and near the saturation point it approximates exponential decay. When someone talks about exponential growth, ask yourself: How soon will it turn into an S curve? When will the population bomb peter out, Moore’s law lose steam, or the singularity fail to happen? Differentiate an S curve and you get a bell curve: slow, fast, slow becomes low, high, low. Add a succession of staggered upward and downward S curves, and you get something close to a sine wave. In fact, every function can be closely approximated by a sum of S curves: when the function goes up, you add an S curve; when it goes down, you subtract one. Children’s learning is not a steady improvement but an accumulation of S curves. So is technological change. Squint at the New York City skyline and you can see a sum of S curves unfolding across the horizon, each as sharp as a skyscraper’s corner. Most importantly for us, S curves lead to a new solution to the credit-assignment problem. If the universe is a symphony of phase transitions, let’s model it with one. That’s what the brain does: it tunes the system of phase transitions inside to the one outside. So let’s replace the perceptron’s step function with an S curve and see what happens. ~ Pedro Domingos,
1424:You know, I still feel in my wrists certain echoes of the pram-pusher’s knack, such as, for example, the glib downward pressure one applied to the handle in order to have the carriage tip up and climb the curb. First came an elaborate mouse-gray vehicle of Belgian make, with fat autoid tires and luxurious springs, so large that it could not enter our puny elevator. It rolled on sidewalks in a slow stately mystery, with the trapped baby inside lying supine, well covered with down, silk and fur; only his eyes moved, warily, and sometimes they turned upward with one swift sweep of their showy lashes to follow the receding of branch-patterned blueness that flowed away from the edge of the half-cocked hood of the carriage, and presently he would dart a suspicious glance at my face to see if the teasing trees and sky did not belong, perhaps to the same order of things as did rattles and parental humor. There followed a lighter carriage, and in this, as he spun along, he would tend to rise, straining at his straps; clutching at the edges; standing there less like the groggy passenger of a pleasure boat than like an entranced scientist in a spaceship; surveying the speckled skeins of a live, warm world; eyeing with philosophic interest the pillow he had managed to throw overboard; falling out himself when a strap burst one day. Still later he rode in one of those small contraptions called strollers; from initial springy and secure heights the child came lower and lower, until, when he was about one and a half, he touched ground in front of the moving stroller by slipping forward out of his seat and beating the sidewalk with his heels in anticipation of being set loose in some public garden. A new wave of evolution started to swell, gradually lifting him again from the ground, when, for his second birthday, he received a four-foot-long, silver-painted Mercedes racing car operated by inside pedals, like an organ, and in this he used to drive with a pumping, clanking noise up and down the sidewalk of the Kurfurstendamm while from open windows came the multiplied roar of a dictator still pounding his chest in the Neander valley we had left far behind. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
1425:Sleep claimed her eventually. She slept heavily, welcoming the escape. But some time later, while it was still very dark, she found herself struggling upward through layers of dreams. Someone or something was in the room. Her first thought was that it might be Beatrix's ferret, who sometimes slipped past the door to collect objects that intrigued him.
Rubbing her eyes, Win began to sit up, when there was a movement beside the bed. A large shadow crossed over her. Before bewilderment could give way to fear, she heard a familiar murmur, and felt a man's warm fingers press across her lips.
"It's me."
Her lips moved soundlessly against his hand.
"Kev."
Win's stomach constricted with an ache of pleasure, and her heartbeat hammered in her throat. But she was still angry with him, she was done with him, and if he had come here for a midnight talk, he was sadly mistaken. She started to tell him so, but to her astonishment, she felt a thick piece of cloth descend over her mouth, and then he was tying it deftly behind her head. In a few more seconds, he had bound her wrists in front of her.
Win was rigid with shock. Merripen would never do something like this. And yet it was him; she would know him if only by the touch of his hands. What did he want? What was going through his mind? His breath was faster than usual as it brushed against her hair. Now that her vision had adjusted to the darkness, she saw that his face was hard and austere.
Merripen drew the ruby ring off her finger and set it off the bedside table. Taking her head in his hands, he stared into her wide eyes. He said only two words. But they explained everything he was doing, and everything he intended to do.
"You're mine."
He picked her up easily, draping her over one powerful shoulder, and he carried her from the room.
Win closed her eyes, yielding, trembling. She pressed a few sobs against the gag covering her mouth, not of unhappiness or fear, but of wild relief. This was not an impulsive act. This was ritual. This was an ancient Romany courtship rite, and there would be nothing half-hearted about it. She was going to be kidnapped and ravished.
Finally. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1426:But why bother? Why exert all this effort to focus totally on the boring prattlings of a six-year-old?
First, your willingness to do so is the best possible concrete evidence of your esteem you can give your child. If you give your child the same esteem you would give a great lecturer, then the child will know him- or herself to be valued and therefore will feel valuable. There is no better and ultimately no other way to teach your children that they are valuable people than by valuing them.
Second, the more children feel valuable, the more they will begin to say things of value. They will rise to your expectation of them.
Third, the more you listen to your child, the more you will realize that in amongst the pauses, the stutterings, the seemingly innocent chatter, your child does indeed have valuable things to say. The dictum that great wisdom comes from "the mouths of babes" is recognized as an absolute fact by anyone who truly listens to children. Listen to your child enough and you will come to realize that he or she is quite an extraordinary individual. And the more extraordinary you realize your child to be, the more you will be willing to listen. And the more you will learn.
Fourth, the more you know about your child, the more you will be able to teach. Know little about your children, and usually you will be teaching things that either they are not ready to learn or they already know and perhaps understand better than you.
Finally, the more children know that you value them, that you consider them extraordinary people, the more willing they will be to listen to you and afford you the same esteem. And the more appropriate your teaching, based on your knowledge of them, the more eager your children will be to learn from you. And the more they learn, the more extraordinary they will become. If the reader senses the cyclical character of this process, he or she is quite correct and is appreciating the truth of the reciprocity of love. Instead of a vicious downward cycle, it is a creative upward cycle of evolution and growth. Value creates value. Love begets love. Parents and child together spin forward faster and faster in the pas de deux of love. ~ M Scott Peck,
1427:Sciences can only be validly constituted as ‘sacred sciences’ by those who, before all else, are in full possession of principia! Knowledge and are thereby qualified to carry out, in conformity with the strictest traditional orthodoxy, all the adaptations required by circumstances of time and place. However, when these sciences have been so established, their teaching may follow an inverse order: they then serve as it were as 'illustrations’ of pure doctrine, which they render more easily accessible to certain minds, and the fact that they are concerned with the world of multiplicity gives them an almost indefinite variety of points of view, adapted to the no less great variety of the individual aptitudes of those whose minds are still limited to that same world of multiplicity. The ways leading to knowledge may be extremely different at the lowest degree, but they draw closer and closer together as higher levels are reached. This is not to say that any of these preparatory degrees are absolutely necessary, since they are mere contingent methods having nothing in common with the end to be attained; it is even possible for some persons, in whom the tendency to contemplation is predominant, to attain directly to true intellectual intuition without the aid of such means; but this is a more or less exceptional case, and in general it is accepted as being necessary to proceed upward gradually. The whole question may also be illustrated by means of the traditional image of the 'cosmic wheel’: the circumference in reality exists only in virtue of the center, but the beings that stand upon the circumference must necessarily start from there or, more precisely, from the point thereon at which they actually find themselves, and follow the radius that leads to the center. Moreover, because of the correspondence that exists between all the orders of reality, the truths of a lower order can be taken as symbols of those of higher orders, and can therefore serve as 'supports’ by which one may arrive at an understanding of these; and this fact makes it possible for any science to become a sacred science, giving it a higher or 'anagogical’ meaning deeper than that which it possesses in itself. ~ Ren Gu non,
1428:Every time he moved, with every breath he took, it seemed the man was carried along by iridescent orange and black wings.

She tried to convey how it was like travelling through the inside of a living body at times, the joints and folds of the earth, the liver-smooth flowstone, the helictites threading upward like synapses in search of a connection. She found it beautiful. Surely God would not have invented such a place as His spiritual gulag.

It took Ali’s breath away. Sometimes, once men found out she was a nun, they would dare her in some way. What made Ike different was his abandon. He had a carelessness in his manner that was not reckless, but was full of risk. Winged. He was pursuing her, but not faster than she was pursuing him, and it made them like two ghosts circling.

She ran her fingers along his back, and the bone and the muscle and hadal ink and scar tissue and the callouses from his pack straps astonished her. This was the body of a slave.

Down from the Egypt, eye of the sun, in front of the Sinai, away from their skies like a sea inside out, their stars and planets spearing your soul, their cities like insects, all shell and mechanism, their blindness with eyes, their vertiginous plains and mind-crushing mountains. Down from the billions who had made the world in their own image. Their signature could be a thing of beauty. But it was a thing of death.

Ali got one good look, then closed her eyes to the heat. In her mind, she imagined Ike sitting in the raft across from her wearing a vast grin while the pyre reflected off the lenses of his glacier glasses. That put a smile on her face. In death, he had become the light.

There comes a time on every big mountain when you descend the snows and cross a border back to life. It is a first patch of green grass by the trail, or a waft of the forests far below, or the trickle of snowmelt braiding into a stream. Always before, whether he had been gone an hour or a week or much longer – and no matter how many mountains he had left behind – it was, for Ike, an instant that registered in his whole being. Ike was swept with a sense not of departure, but of advent. Not of survival. But of grace. ~ Jeff Long,
1429:GOAT HOUR GOSPEL (SUCH SALVAGE) BY MARK WAGENAAR   Just as the evening’s about to move on, they appear, not as the apparitional deer— here, & gone in the next moment, without a sound—but one by one, bumbling through briar, chewing through poison ivy, sniffing at trees. A slow procession walking beneath elms & birches that hold up the last light. And you’re alone with the traces of things, the news in front of you: the crooked skeleton of Richard III was dug up from a parking lot, humpbacked, once buried in his boots & battlefield wounds. Nearby a lost river has been uncovered, & coughed up its mouthful of Roman skulls. No relic is safe, it seems, from an invisible tide that presses them upward. Sometimes it’s not the loss that hurts but the indignities of the discovery. And yet beside the diggers & builders of new things is this mangy congregation, pushing through the scrub without a trail or blueprint or direction. Their dirty white fur shines a little in this late, lost hour. They bleat as they shamble & piss on each other without warning, or maybe as a warning, or in greeting. They’ll eat anything—tin can, T-shirt, canvas sack, bones of animals & kings, & carry them awhile. And so do we: each night, across the country, people turn up at hospitals unable to speak, for the needle or nail lodged in their throats. They’re unable to explain why, but we know— that desperate mix of need & panic that can drive us to keep something safe for good. These dearest items take your words & leave them luminous, radiolucent, shining on the X-ray, like this swallowed ring: a ghostly eclipse. Small comfort to share an appetite with these goats, this dishevelled lot. But a comfort, too, to know that some things will be saved from the soil, rescued from time’s indignities, if only for a little while, & by these scruffy reliquaries, on the other side of the valley now, flickering slightly as they near the vanishing point of the timberline. And we might call such salvage mercy . And it must be even for the undeserving, for those of us who didn’t live right, or live best. Whatever that means. Mercy will find us, even when we fail to recognize it, when we least expect it. ~ Anonymous,
1430:Stop doing this,” she cried fiercely. “You’ll drive me mad. You want to behave as if I belong to you, but I don’t, and I never will. Your worst nightmare is becoming a husband and father, and so you seem determined to form some kind of lesser attachment that I do not want. Even if I were pregnant and you felt duty-bound to propose, I would still refuse you, because I know it would make you as unhappy as it would make me.”
Devon’s intensity didn’t lessen, but it changed from anger into something else. He held her with a gaze of hot blue infinity.
“What if I said I loved you?” he asked softly.
The question drove a spike of pain through her chest. “Don’t.” Her eyes smarted with tears. “You’re not the kind of man who could ever say that and mean it.”
“It’s not who I was.” His voice was steady. “But it’s who I am now. You’ve shown me.”
For at least a half minute, the only sound was the crackling, shivering fire on the hearth.
She didn’t understand what he truly thought or felt. But she would be a fool to believe him.
“Devon,” she eventually said, “when it comes to love…neither you nor I can trust your promises.”
She couldn’t see through the glittering film of misery, but she was aware of him moving, bending to pick up the coat he had tossed aside, rummaging for something.
He came to her, catching her arm lightly in his hand, drawing her to the bed. The mattress was so high that he had to fit his hands around her waist and hoist her upward to sit on it. He set something on her lap.
“What is this?” She looked down at a small wooden box.
His expression was unfathomable. “A gift for you.”
Her sharp tongue got the better of her. “A parting gift?”
Devon scowled. “Open it.”
Obeying, she lifted the lid. The box was lined with red velvet. Pulling aside a protective layer of cloth, she uncovered a tiny gold pocket watch on a long chain, the casing delicately engraved with flowers and leaves. A glass window on the hinged front cover revealed a white enamel dial and black hour and minute markers.
“It belonged to my mother,” she heard Devon say. “It’s the only possession of hers that I have. She never carried it.” Irony edged his voice. “Time was never important to her. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1431:The building was a sniper’s heaven; it was long with dozens of windows and many points of view. Three floors. Someone had put cardboard in each of the panes, dozens of cardboard boxes, making it almost impossible to see inside. The marines kept firing, thousands and thousands of rounds. The barrels of their machine guns glowed and sagged. “Get me another barrel,” one of the kids said. More firing commenced. “I don’t know who he is, but he is very well trained,” said Lieutenant Steven Berch, another one of the platoon leaders. Omohundro was downstairs. He listened to the commotion and called in an airstrike. “Just blow the building to shit,” he said. First a 2,000 -pound bomb, then a 500 -pounder flew into the building and burst. A cloud unfolded upward and revealed a gigantic fire. It rose through the ruined ceiling. Part of a wall collapsed. Crack! Crack! Crack! The marines ducked, cursed loudly and returned fire. No one spotted the sniper this time. The sniper fired back. The marines responded with another blast of gunfire, many thousands of rounds. I stood with some guys at the back of the roof, behind a shed. A blue and green parakeet fluttered out of the sky and hovered in tight circles. Bullets flew past. The parakeet landed on a slumping power line. The marines stared in amazement. “Someone’s pet?” a marine said. I ran across the top of the roof and the sniper took a shot. Crack! The bullet whizzed by. An artillery barrage began. First came the 155 mm shells, each filled with fifty pounds of high explosives. One after the other the shells sailed into the building. Fire swept through the three floors. What was left of the ceiling collapsed in the smoke. Cardboard sailed out of shattered windows. Twenty shells, then thirty, each one large enough to end the world. The shelling ceased and the shooting stopped. The building burned. Remarkably it still had a frame, and parts of its three floors still stood. Suddenly a sound rustled from a storefront on the first floor. The marines tensed. A cat sauntered out, dirty yellow, tail in the air. It walked like a runway model in front of a construction site. “Can I shoot it, sir?” a marine asked his squad leader. “Absolutely not,” came the reply. Crack! ~ Dexter Filkins,
1432:He tilted her chin upward. Softly, he pressed his lips to hers. Reaching up into her bonnet, he buried one of his hands in her hair. Without breaking the embrace, she yanked the hat from her head. Luca’s grasp tightened on her hair, and pleasure raced through her body.
He tried to pull her into his lap using only his good arm, but ended up half dragging her across the wooden crate. The medicinal ointments went flying onto the floor, the containers rolling across the wet stones with a clatter.
Cass pulled back. She wanted to kiss him harder, to melt into his arms. “We need to go,” she said instead, raising one hand to her face to blot the sweat from her cheeks. “Once we have taken down the Order, there will be time for…everything else.”
Luca started to protest, but then they heard the sound of the key in the lock and Narissa slipped into the room with a tray of food. Cass blushed furiously as she finger-combed her hair. She and Luca laughed nervously.
“Breakfast. We were just commenting on how hungry we were,” Cass said brightly.
Narissa surveyed the salves and ointments strewn about on the floor and Cass’s hair hanging free. Her brown eyes narrowed knowingly. “Were you now?” she asked, her voice a bit shrill. “I’ll just leave this food for you and retrieve the tray later.” She hurriedly shuffled across the room and back to the door.
Cass blushed again. “Thank you, Narissa,” she said.
When the handmaid closed the door, Cass and Luca both burst into giggles. Luca struggled to hold a straight face. He imitated Narissa’s nasal voice. “Signorina Cassandra,” he said. “You are a wicked and depraved woman, and I should appreciate it if you do not further sully my dusty storage room.”
Cass laughed aloud. She poked Luca in his chest. “Me, wicked? You tried to attack me. I’m just your victim.”
“Willing victim?” Luca looked hopefully at her.
“Well,” Cass said, trying to look extra thoughtful as she positioned the food tray between the two of them. “I suppose there are a few worse ways to spend my time.”
Luca’s eyes softened. “I love you, Cassandra,” he said, stroking her face gently.
“And I love you,” she replied, almost without thinking. For once there was no hesitation. ~ Fiona Paul,
1433:Angel Or Demon
You call me an angel of love and of light,
A being of goodness and heavenly fire,
Sent out from God’s kingdom to guide you aright,
In paths where your spirits may mount and aspire.
You say that I glow like a star on its course,
Like a ray from the alter, a spark from the source.
Now list to my answer; let all the world hear it;
I speak unafraid what I know to be true:
A pure, faithful love is the creative spirit
Which makes women angels! I live in but you.
We are bound soul to soul by life’s holiest laws;
If I am an angel – why, you are the cause.
As my ship skims the sea, I look up from the deck.
Fair, firm at the wheel shines Love’s beautiful form,
And shall I curse the barque that last night went to wreck,
By the Pilot abandoned to darkness and storm?
My craft is no stauncher, she too had been lost –
Had the wheelman deserted, or slept at his post.
I laid down the wealth of my soul at your feet
(Some woman does this for some man every day) .
No desperate creature who walks in the street,
Has a wickeder heart that I might have, I say,
Had you wantonly misused the treasures you woon,
-As so many men with heart riches have done.
This flame from God’s altar, this holy love flame,
That burns like sweet incense for ever for you,
Might now be a wild conflagration of shame,
Had you tortured my heart, or been base or untrue.
For angels and devils are cast in one mould,
Till love guides them upward, or downward, I hold.
I tell you the women who make fervent wives
And sweet tender mothers, had Fate been less fair,
Are the women who might have abandoned their lives
To the madness that springs from and ends in despair.
75
As the fire on the hearth which sheds brightness around,
Neglected, may level the walls to the ground.
The world makes grave errors in judging these things,
Great good and great evil are born in one breast.
Love horns us and hoofs us – or gives us our wings,
And the best could be worst, as the worst could be best.
You must thank your own worth for what I grew to be,
For the demon lurked under the angel in me.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1434:Most people are afflicted with an inability to say what they see or think. They say there’s nothing more difficult than to define a spiral in words; they claim it is necessary to use the unliterary hand, twirling it in a steadily upward direction, so that human eyes will perceive the abstract figure immanent in wire spring and a certain type of staircase. But if we remember that to say is to renew, we will have no trouble defining a spiral; it’s a circle that rises without ever closing. I realize that most people would never dare to define it this way, for they suppose that defining is to say what others want us to say rather than what’s required for the definition. I’ll say it more accurately: a spiral is a potential circle that winds round as it rises, without ever completing itself. But no, the definition is still abstract. I’ll resort to the concrete, and all will become clear: a spiral is a snake without a snake, vertically wound around nothing.

All literature is an attempt to make life real. All of us know, even when we act on what we don’t know, life is absolutely unreal in its directly real form; the country, the city and our ideas are absolutely fictitious things, the offspring of our complex sensation of our own selves. Impressions are incommunicable unless we make them literary. Children are particularly literary, for they say what they feel not what someone has taught them to feel. Once I heard a child, who wished to say that he was on the verge of tears, say not ‘I feel like crying’, which is what an adult, i.e., an idiot, would say but rather, ’ I feel like tears.’ And this phrase -so literary it would seem affected in a well-known poet, if he could ever invent it - decisively refers to the warm presence of tears about to burst from eyelids that feel the liquid bitterness. ‘I feel like tears’! The small child aptly defined his spiral.

To say! To know how to say! To know how to exist via the written voice and the intellectual image! This is all that matters in life; the rest is men and women, imagined loves and factitious vanities, the wiles of our digestion and forgetfulness, people squirming- like worms when a rock is lifted - under the huge abstract boulder of the meaningless blue sky. ~ Fernando Pessoa,
1435:Snake,” Wyatt announced. “A big black one.”

“There’s dozens of them,” Royce explained.

“Where?” Alric asked.

“Mostly behind you on the walls.”

“What?” the king said, aghast. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“Knowing would only make traveling slower.”

“Are they poisonous?” Mauvin asked.

They could all see the silhouetted shoulders of Royce’s shadow on the far wall shrug.

“I demand you inform me of such things in future!” Alric declared.

“Do you want to know about the giant millipedes, then too?”

“Are you joking?”

“Royce doesn’t make jokes,” Arista told him as she looked around, anxiously hugging herself. Immediately her robe brightened and she spotted two snakes on the walls, but they were a safe distance away.

“He must be joking,” Alric muttered quietly. “I don’t see any.”

“You aren’t looking up,” the thief said.

Arista did not want to. Some instinct, a tiny voice, warned her to fight the impulse, but in the end she just could not help herself. On the low ceiling, illuminated brightly by the robe, slithered a mass of wormlike bugs with an uncountable number of hairlike feet. Each was nearly five inches in length and close to the width of a man’s finger. There were so many that they swarmed over each other until it was hard to tell if the ceiling was rock at all. Arista felt a chill run down her back. She clenched her teeth, forced her eyes to the floor, and focused on walking forward as quickly as possible.

She promptly passed Alric and Mauvin, both moving quicker than normal. She reached Royce, who stood outside the corridor on a boulder at the entrance to a larger passage.

“I guess I was wrong. Looks like I should have told you earlier,” Royce said, watching them race forward.

“Are there…?” she asked, pointing upward without looking.

Royce glanced up and shook his head.

“Good,” she replied. “And please, if Alric wants to know these things, fine, but don’t tell me. I could have gone the rest of my life not knowing they were there.” She shivered.

Everyone scurried out of the corridor except Myron, who lingered, staring up at the ceiling and smiling in fascination. “There are millions. ~ Michael J Sullivan,
1436:Now Morning from her orient chamber came,
And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill;
Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,
Silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill;
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill,
And after parting beds of simple flowers,
By many streams a little lake did fill,
Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,
And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.

There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright
Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below;
Whose silken fins, and golden scales' light
Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow:
There saw the swan his neck of arched snow,
And oar'd himself along with majesty;
Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show
Beneath the waves like Afric's ebony,
And on his back a fay reclined voluptuously.

Ah! could I tell the wonders of an isle
That in that fairest lake had placed been,
I could e'en Dido of her grief beguile;
Or rob from aged Lear his bitter teen:
For sure so fair a place was never seen,
Of all that ever charm'd romantic eye:
It seem'd an emerald in the silver sheen
Of the bright waters; or as when on high,
Through clouds of fleecy white, laughs the crulean sky.

And all around it dipp'd luxuriously
Slopings of verdure through the glossy tide,
Which, as it were in gentle amity,
Rippled delighted up the flowery side;
As if to glean the ruddy tears, it tried,
Which fell profusely from the rose-tree stem!
Haply it was the workings of its pride,
In strife to throw upon the shore a gem
Outviewing all the buds in Flora's diadem.
'The copy of these stanzas in Tom Keats's copy-book has a reading in line 12 which ought perhas to supersede the printed text of 1817, namely, 'golden scals light.' It seems highly likely that Keats really meant to carry his archaism to the extent of making scales a dissyllable, especially as the metre is thus corrected. Lord Houghton states on the authority of the notes of Charles Armitage Brown, given to his lordship in 1832, that this is the earliest known composition of Keats, and was written while he was living at Edmonton.' ~ John Keats, Imitation Of Spenser
,
1437:When West returned, he was completely naked. Phoebe began to turn over, but he straddled her hips and pressed her back lightly to keep her facedown. She lay quietly, aware of the textures of him, the muscles and coarse hair of his thighs, and the silky weight of an erection that felt as long and hard as a raffling pole. There was the sound of a glass stopper in a flask. His warm, strong hands descended to her back, rubbing and massaging, while the scent of almond oil drifted to her nostrils.
He squeezed the muscles of her shoulders and worked his way down on either side of her spine, releasing tension and sending ripples of pleasure through her. Phoebe moaned softly. No one had ever done this to her before; she would never have guessed it would feel so lovely. As his palms glided up to her shoulders, the length of his aroused flesh slid along the cleft of her bottom and partly up her back. Clearly he also took pleasure in the massage, making no effort to hide it. He kneaded her lower back and the full curves of her buttocks with increasing pressure until the clenched muscles relaxed.
One hand reached down between her thighs to cup the soft pleats of flesh, his fingertips riding tenderly on either side of her swollen, half-hidden nub. A few exquisitely light and indirect strokes, back and forth, caused her breath to catch. He touched the opening of her body, circling into the wetness before one of his fingers- no, two- entered in a gradual but insistent thrust.
Her body tried to close against the intrusion, but he was so gentle, his fingers undulating like the sway of water reeds in a slow current. Her legs spread a little, and soon she felt the need to push upward, to take more of him in. As she raised her hips, something inside her loosened and stretched to enclose him. He breathed her name raggedly, seeming to luxuriate in the feel of her, his fingers twisting and curling protean grace. Keeping her crimson face pressed against the cool linen sheets, she squirmed and gasped and arched tightly.
As his fingers slid from her body, the opening felt oddly liquid, muscles clenching on emptiness. His weight lowered over her back, the hair of his chest tickling pleasantly as he bent to kiss and lick her shoulders and the nape of her neck. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1438:For many years, a family of ospreys lived in a large nest near my summer home in Maine. Each season, I carefully observed their rituals and habits. In mid-April, the parents would arrive, having spent the winter in South America, and lay eggs. In early June, the eggs hatched. The babies slowly grew, as the father brought fish back to the nest, and in early to mid August were large enough to make their first flight. My wife and I recorded all of these comings and goings with cameras and in a notebook. We wrote down the number of chicks each year, usually one or two but sometimes three. We noted when the chicks first began flapping their wings, usually a couple of weeks before flying from the nest. We memorized the different chirps the parents made for danger, for hunger, for the arrival of food. After several years of cataloguing such data, we felt that we knew these ospreys. We could predict the sounds the birds would make in different situations, their flight patterns, their behavior when a storm was brewing. Reading our “osprey journals” on a winter’s night, we felt a sense of pride and satisfaction. We had carefully studied and documented a small part of the universe. Then, one August afternoon, the two baby ospreys of that season took flight for the first time as I stood on the circular deck of my house watching the nest. All summer long, they had watched me on that deck as I watched them. To them, it must have looked like I was in my nest just as they were in theirs. On this particular afternoon, their maiden flight, they did a loop of my house and then headed straight at me with tremendous speed. My immediate impulse was to run for cover, since they could have ripped me apart with their powerful talons. But something held me to my ground. When they were within twenty feet of me, they suddenly veered upward and away. But before that dazzling and frightening vertical climb, for about half a second we made eye contact. Words cannot convey what was exchanged between us in that instant. It was a look of connectedness, of mutual respect, of recognition that we shared the same land. After they were gone, I found that I was shaking, and in tears. To this day, I do not understand what happened in that half second. But it was one of the most profound moments of my life. ~ Alan Lightman,
1439:Human Life’s Mystery
We sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly,
We look up to the great wide sky,
Inquiring wherefore we were born…
For earnest or for jest?
The senses folding thick and dark
About the stifled soul within,
We guess diviner things beyond,
And yearn to them with yearning fond;
We strike out blindly to a mark
Believed in, but not seen.
We vibrate to the pant and thrill
Wherewith Eternity has curled
In serpent-twine about God’s seat;
While, freshening upward to His feet,
In gradual growth His full-leaved will
Expands from world to world.
And, in the tumult and excess
Of act and passion under sun,
We sometimes hear—oh, soft and far,
As silver star did touch with star,
The kiss of Peace and Righteousness
Through all things that are done.
God keeps His holy mysteries
Just on the outside of man’s dream;
In diapason slow, we think
To hear their pinions rise and sink,
While they float pure beneath His eyes,
Like swans adown a stream.
Abstractions, are they, from the forms
Of His great beauty?—exaltations
From His great glory?—strong previsions
Of what we shall be?—intuitions
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Of what we are—in calms and storms,
Beyond our peace and passions?
Things nameless! which, in passing so,
Do stroke us with a subtle grace.
We say, ‘Who passes?’—they are dumb.
We cannot see them go or come:
Their touches fall soft, cold, as snow
Upon a blind man’s face.
Yet, touching so, they draw above
Our common thoughts to Heaven’s unknown,
Our daily joy and pain advance
To a divine significance,
Our human love—O mortal love,
That light is not its own!
And sometimes horror chills our blood
To be so near such mystic Things,
And we wrap round us for defence
Our purple manners, moods of sense—
As angels from the face of God
Stand hidden in their wings.
And sometimes through life’s heavy swound
We grope for them!—with strangled breath
We stretch our hands abroad and try
To reach them in our agony,—
And widen, so, the broad life-wound
Which soon is large enough for death.
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
1440:Do you think he’ll tell anyone?” “No,” he said immediately, reassuring her. “Westcliff isn’t given to gossip. He won’t say a word to anyone, except…” “Except?” “Lady Westcliff. He’ll probably tell her.” Amelia considered that, thinking perhaps it wasn’t so terrible. Lady Westcliff didn’t seem like the kind of person who would condemn her for this. The countess seemed quite tolerant of scandalous behavior. “Of course,” Rohan continued, “if Lady Westcliff knows, there’s a high probability she’ll tell Lady St. Vincent, who’s due to arrive with Lord St. Vincent by the end of the week. And since Lady St. Vincent tells her husband everything, he’ll know about it, too. Other than that, no one will find out. Unless…” Her head jerked upward like a string puppet’s. “Unless what?” “Unless Lord St. Vincent mentions it to Mr. Hunt, who would undoubtedly tell Mrs. Hunt, and then … everyone would find out.” “Oh, no. I can’t bear it.” He gave her an alert glance. “Why? Because you were caught kissing a Gypsy?” “No, because I’m not the kind of woman who is caught kissing anyone. I don’t have rendezvous! When everyone finds out, I’ll have no dignity left. No reputation. No—What are you smiling at?” “You. I wouldn’t have expected such melodrama.” That annoyed Amelia, who was not the kind of woman who indulged in theatrics. She wedged her arms more firmly between them. “My reaction is perfectly reasonable considering—” “You’re not bad at it.” She blinked in confusion. “Melodrama?” “No, kissing. With a little practice, you’d be exceptional. But you need to relax.” “I don’t want to relax. I don’t want to … oh, dear Lord.” He had bent his head to her throat, searching for the visible thrum of her pulse. A light, hot shock went through her. “Don’t do that,” she said weakly, but he was insistent, his mouth wickedly soft, and her breath hitched as she felt the brush of his tongue. Her hands shot to his muscle-banked shoulders. “Mr. Rohan, you mustn’t—” “This is how to kiss, Amelia.” He cradled her head in his palms, deftly tilting it to the side. “Noses go here.” Another disorienting brush of his mouth, a wash of sensual heat. “You taste like sugar and tea.” “I already know how to kiss!” “Do you?” His thumb passed over her kiss-heated lips, urging them to part. “Then show me,” he whispered. “Let me in, Amelia. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1441:All these thoughts flashed through Amelia’s mind in one searing mass. But as she stiffened and waited for the ax to fall, Rohan came to her in two long strides. And before Amelia could move, or think, or even breathe, he had jerked her full length against him, and pulled her head to his.
Rohan kissed her with an indecent frankness that sent her reeling. His arms were firm around her, keeping her steady while his mouth caught hers at just the right angle.
Her hands moved in tentative objection, her palms encountering the tough muscles of his chest, the catch of his shirt buttons. He was the only solid thing in a kaleidoscopic world. She stopped pushing as her body absorbed the arousing details of him, the hard masculine contours, the fresh outdoors scent, the sensuous probing of his mouth. She had relived his kiss a thousand times in her dreams. She just hadn’t realized it until now.
Graceful fingers cupped around her neck and jaw, turning her face upward. The tips of his fingers found the fine skin behind her ears, where it met the silken edge of her hairline. And all the while he continued to fill her with concentrated fire, until the inside of her mouth prickled sweetly and her legs shook beneath her. He used his tongue delicately, exploring without haste, entering her repeatedly while she clung to him in bewildered pleasure.
His mouth lifted, his breath a hot caress against her lips. He turned his head as he spoke to whoever had entered the room. “I beg your pardon, my lord. We wanted a moment of privacy.”
Amelia turned crimson as she followed his gaze to the doorway, where Lord Westcliff stood with an unfathomable expression.
An electric moment passed while Westcliff appeared to marshal his thoughts. His gaze moved to Amelia’s face, then back to Rohan’s. A smile flickered in his dark eyes. “I intend to return in approximately a half hour. It would probably be best if my study were vacated by then.” Giving a courteous nod, he took his leave.
As soon as the door closed behind him, Amelia dropped her forehead to Rohan’s shoulder with a groan. She would have pulled away, but she didn’t trust her knees to hold.
“Why did you do that?”
He didn’t look at all repentant. “I had to come up with a reason for both of us to be in here. It seemed the best option. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1442:After a moment to regain his composure, he propped himself up on his elbow to look down at me, desire still lurking in his mesmerizing eyes.
“Alera? Are you…all right?”
“Narian, we can’t do this.” I was more than a little shocked at the both of us.
His brow furrowed, and he ran a hand through his disheveled hair. He took a breath and opened his mouth, then stopped, apparently unable to decide exactly what he wanted to say.
“Why not?”
Because,” I said, pushing myself upright. “We’re not married!”
He sat up as well and lit the lantern on my bedside table. I pulled my chemise back onto my shoulders and wrapped my arms around my legs while I waited for his reaction.
“And marriage, that’s…important to you…for this,” he surmised, trying to work out the basis for my objection.
“Yes,” I told him fervently. “Isn’t it to you?”
He glanced at the bedclothes, as though he anticipated an unpleasant reaction to what he would say.
“Well, no. We don’t have marriage in Cokyri.”
My eyebrows shot upward. “You don’t have…marriage? Well then, how do you…I mean, where…where do your children come from?”
“We just choose a partner,” he said, ignoring the absurdity of my question. “A woman chooses a man, and if he accepts, he is marked with a tattoo around his forearm. The tattoo is a great honor--men in Cokyri are proud to bear it.”
“What about the church?”
He shrugged, no longer worrying about how I might react. “Cokyri has no official religion. Some people seek the High Priestess’s approval to be bound, but they come to her of their own accord. Again, it is a choice.”
“So…in order to be with me, all you would need is a tattoo?” I spoke tentatively, trying to absorb and understand his words.
“Only to signify that I am yours and no one else’s. If that is what we both want.”
His closing statement, though subtle, sough confirmation, his steel-blue eyes filled with love and longing.
“I choose you,” I said, leaning toward him, and his mouth met mine with such ardor that my senses reeled all over again. He lay down with me on top of him, and it took all my strength of will to pull away.
“But we have to be married.”
He studied me, concluding that I truly believed in what I said.
“Then let’s go get married.”
“Now?” I blurted, eyes wide.
“Is now a problem? ~ Cayla Kluver,
1443:The Man With The Hoe (Written After Seeing Millet's
World-Famous Painting)
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this -More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed -More filled with signs and portents for the soul -More fraught with menace to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
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How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings -With those who shaped him to the thing he is -When this dumb Terror shall reply to God,
After the silence of the centuries?
~ Edwin Markham,
1444:I see the good in you.”
“Don’t harbor illusions about me. In marrying me, you’re going to have to make the best of a bad bargain. You don’t understand the situation you’re in.”
“You’re right.” Beatrix arched in bliss as he massaged the muscles on either side of her spine. “Any woman would pity me, being in this situation.”
“It’s one thing to spend an afternoon in bed with me,” Christopher said darkly. “It’s another to experience day-to-day life with a lunatic.”
“I know all about living with lunatics. I’m a Hathaway.” Beatrix sighed in pleasure as his hands worked the tender places low on her back. Her body felt relaxed and tingly all over, her bruises and aches forgotten. Twisting to glance at him over her shoulder, she saw the austere lines of his face. She had an overwhelming urge to tease him, to make him play. “You missed a place,” she told him.
“Where?”
Levering herself upward, Beatrix turned and crawled to where Christopher knelt on the mattress. He had donned a velvet dressing robe, the front parting to reveal a tantalizing hint of sun-browned flesh. Linking her arms around his neck, she kissed him. “Inside,” she whispered. “That’s where I need soothing.”
A reluctant smile lurked at the corners of his lips. “This balm is too strong for that.”
“No it’s not. It feels lovely. Here, I’ll show you--” She pounced for the tin of balm and coated her fingertips with the stuff. The rich scent of clove oil spiced the air. “Just hold still--”
“The devil I will.” His voice had thickened with amusement, and he reached for her wrist.
Fleet as a ferret, Beatrix twisted to evade him. Rolling once, twice, she dove for the belt of his robe. “You put it all over me,” she accused, giggling. “Coward. Now it’s your turn.”
“Not a chance.” He grabbed her, grappled with her, and she thrilled to the sound of his husky laugh.
Somehow managing to clamber over him, she gasped at the feel of his aroused flesh. She wrestled with him until he flipped her over with ease, pinning her wrists. The robe had become loosened during their tussle, their naked flesh rubbing together.
Sparkling silver eyes stared into blue. Already breathless with laughter, Beatrix became positively lightheaded as she saw the way he was looking at her. Lowering his head, he kissed and licked at her smile as if he could taste it. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1445:Thoreau and the Snapping Turtle
As his boat glided across a flooded meadow,
He saw beneath him under lily pads,
Brown as dead leaves in mud, a yard-long
Snapping turtle staring up through the water
At him, its shell as jagged as old bark.
He plunged his arm in after it to the shoulder,
Stretching and missing, but groping till he caught it
By the last ridge of its tail. Then he held on,
Hauled it over the gunwale, and flopped it writhing
Into the boat. It began gasping for air
Through a huge gray mouth, then suddenly
Heaved its hunchback upward, slammed the thwart
As quick as a spring trap and, thrusting its neck
Forward a foot at a lunge, snapped its beaked jaws
So violently, he only petted it once,
Then flinched away. And all the way to the landing
It hissed and struck, thumping the seat
Under him hard and loud as a stake-driver.
It was so heavy, he had to drag it home,
All thirty pounds of it, wrong side up by the tail.
His neighbors agreed it walked like an elephant,
lilting this way and that, its head held high,
A scarf of ragged skin at its throat. It would sag
Slowly to rest then, out of its element,
Unable to bear its weight in this new world.
Each time he turned it over, it tried to recover
By catching at the floor with its claws, by straining
The arch of its neck, by springing convulsively,
Tail coiling snakelike. But finally it slumped
On its spiky back like an exhausted dragon.
He said he'd seen a cutoff snapper's head
That would still bite at anything held near it
As if the whole of its life were mechanical,
That a heart cut out of one had gone on beating
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By itself like clockwork till the following morning.
And the next week he wrote: It is worth the while
To ask ourselves... Is our life innocent
Enough? Do we live inhumanely, toward man
Or beast, in thought or act? To be successful
And serene we must be at one with the universe.
The least conscious and needless injury
Inflicted on any creature is
To its extent a suicide. What peaceOr life-can a murderer have?... White maple keys
Have begun to fall and float downstream like wings.
There are myriads of shad-flies fluttering
Over the dark still water under the hill.
~ David Wagoner,
1446:That accounts for his crying so. Poor creature!”

”Well--you must do the sticking--there's no help for it. I'll showyou how. Or I'll do it myself--I think I could. Though as it issuch a big pig I had rather Challow had done it. However, his basketo' knives and things have been already sent on here, and we can use'em.”

”Of course you shan't do it,” said Jude. ”I'll do it, since it mustbe done.”

He went out to the sty, shovelled away the snow for the space of acouple of yards or more, and placed the stool in front, with theknives and ropes at hand. A robin peered down at the preparationsfrom the nearest tree, and, not liking the sinister look of thescene, flew away, though hungry. By this time Arabella had joinedher husband, and Jude, rope in hand, got into the sty, and noosed theaffrighted animal, who, beginning with a squeak of surprise, rose torepeated cries of rage. Arabella opened the sty-door, and togetherthey hoisted the victim on to the stool, legs upward, and while Judeheld him Arabella bound him down, looping the cord over his legs tokeep him from struggling.

The animal's note changed its quality. It was not now rage, but thecry of despair; long-drawn, slow and hopeless.

”Upon my soul I would sooner have gone without the pig than have hadthis to do!” said Jude. ”A creature I have fed with my own hands.”

”Don't be such a tender-hearted fool! There's the sticking-knife--the one with the point. Now whatever you do, don't stick un toodeep.”

”I'll stick him effectually, so as to make short work of it. That'sthe chief thing.”

”You must not!” she cried. ”The meat must be well bled, and to dothat he must die slow. We shall lose a shilling a score if the meatis red and bloody! Just touch the vein, that's all. I was broughtup to it, and I know. Every good butcher keeps un bleeding long.He ought to be eight or ten minutes dying, at least.”

”He shall not be half a minute if I can help it, however the meat maylook,” said Jude determinedly. Scraping the bristles from the pig'supturned throat, as he had seen the butchers do, he slit the fat;then plunged in the knife with all his might.

”'Od damn it all!” she cried, ”that ever I should say it! You'veover-stuck un! And I telling you all the time--”

”Do be quiet, Arabella, and have a little pity on the creature! ~ Thomas Hardy,
1447:Action Step: Nourished by “Light” You can prove to yourself how nourishing a new word can be once it begins to be your personal theme. Let’s use the word light. Since it’s the opposite of heavy, this word is one of the best for our purposes. The more you bring light into your life, the easier it will be to lose weight. Why? Because light covers so many positive experiences. Look at the following usages: Lighthearted Light-handed Enlightened Feeling light and bright The light of inspiration Lightness of being The light of the soul The light of God If you had these things in your life, it would be much easier for your body to be light. Your mind would be sending messages that are the opposite of heavy, dull, inert, tired, bored, dark, unenlightened. Start to rid yourself of those messages and let your body conform to lightness and all of its positive connotations. With this background, you can proceed to use light in various ways, beginning with the physical sensation of being light. Exercise: Filling with Light Sit in a quiet room by yourself. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths until you feel centered and ready. (It’s best to sit upright if you can rather than lounging back in your chair.) Breathing normally, visualize light filling your chest each time you inhale. The light is soft, warm, and white. Watch it suffuse your chest. Now exhale normally, but leave the light inside. On your next breath, take in more light. See the light filling your chest now begin to suffuse the rest of your body, moving down into your abdomen. Don’t force the visualization, and don’t worry if you have trouble seeing the light—even a faint sense of white light is good enough. With each breath, let the light suffuse your arms, then your hands all the way to the fingertips. Let it suffuse your legs down to your toes. Finally, send the light into your head and out the top in a beam that reaches high. Sit with the light for a few moments, then lift your arms, letting them float upward as if the light is causing them to rise. You are like a balloon filled completely with light. Enjoy the sensation, then open your eyes. This is a good exercise to counteract feelings of dullness, heaviness, fatigue, and sadness. The sensation of being physically light, paired with the visualization of inner light, creates a big change in how you relate to your body. ~ Deepak Chopra,
1448:IN ADDITION TO having become a distinctly Christian party, the GOP is more than ever America’s self-consciously white party. The nationalization of its Southern Strategy from the 1960s worked partly because it rode demographic change. In 1960, 90 percent of Americans were white and non-Hispanic. Only a few states had white populations of less than 70 percent—specifically Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Alabama. Today the white majority in the whole country is down nearly to 60 percent; in other words, America’s racial makeup is now more “Southern” than the Deep South’s was in the 1960s. For a while, the party’s leaders were careful to clear their deck of explicit racism. It was reasonable, wasn’t it, to be concerned about violent crime spiraling upward from the 1960s through the ’80s? We don’t want social welfare programs to encourage cultures of poverty and dependency, do we? Although the dog-whistled resentment of new policies disfavoring or seeming to disfavor white people became more audible, Republican leaders publicly stuck to not-entirely-unreasonable arguments: affirmative action is an imperfect solution; too much multiculturalism might Balkanize America; we shouldn’t let immigrants pour into the U.S. helter-skelter. But in this century, more Republican leaders started cozying up to the ugliest fantasists, unapologetic racists. When Congressman Ron Paul ran for the 2008 GOP nomination, he appeared repeatedly with the neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, who was just coining the term “alt-right” for his movement. Senator Rand Paul employed as an aide and wrote a book with a former leader of the League of the South, an organization devoted to a twenty-first-century do-over of Confederate secession. After we elected a black president, more regular whistles joined the kind only dogs can hear. Even thoughtful Ross Douthat, one of the Times’s conservative columnists, admitted to a weakness for the Old South fantasy. During the debate about governments displaying Confederate symbols after nine black people were shot dead by a white supremacist in Charleston, he discussed “the temptation…to regard the Confederate States of America as the political and historical champion of all…attractive Southern distinctives….Even a secession-hating Yankee like myself has felt, at certain moments the pull of that idea, the lure of that fantasy. ~ Kurt Andersen,
1449:Hymn: Ye Are The Salt Of The Earth
Salt of the earth, ye virtuous few,
Who season human-kind;
Light of the world, whose cheering ray
Illumes the realms of mind:
Where Misery spreads her deepest shade,
Your strong compassion glows;
From your blest lips the balm distils,
That softens mortal woes.
By dying beds, in prison glooms,
Your frequent steps are found;
Angels of love! you hover near,
To bind the stranger's wound.
You wash with tears the bloody page
Which human crimes deform;
When vengeance threats, your prayers ascend,
And break the gathering storm.
As down the summer stream of vice
The thoughtless many glide;
Upward you steer your steady bark,
And stem the rushing tide.
Where guilt her foul contagion breathes,
And golden spoils allure;
Unspotted still your garments shine—
Your hands are ever pure.
Whene'er you touch the poet's lyre,
A loftier strain is heard;
Each ardent thought is yours alone,
And every burning word.
Yours is the large expansive thought,
The high heroic deed;
Exile and chains to you are dear—
To you 'tis sweet to bleed.
You lift on high the warning voice,
When public ills prevail;
Yours is the writing on the wall
That turns the tyrant pale.
The dogs of hell your steps pursue,
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With scoff, and shame, and loss;
The hemlock bowl 'tis yours to drain,
To taste the bitter cross.
E'en yet the steaming scaffolds smoke,
By Seine's polluted stream;
With your rich blood the fields are drenched,
Where Polish sabres gleam.
E'en now, through those accursed bars,
In vain we send our sighs;
Where, deep in Olmutz' dungeon glooms,
The patriot martyr lies.
Yet yours is all through History's rolls
The kindling bosom feels;
And at your tomb, with throbbing heart,
The fond enthusiast kneels.
In every faith, through every clime,
Your pilgrim steps we trace;
And shrines are dressed, and temples rise,
Each hallowed spot to grace;
And pæans loud, in every tongue,
And choral hymns resound;
And lengthening honours hand your name
To time's remotest bound.
Proceed! your race of glory run,
Your virtuous toils endure!
You come, commissioned from on high,
And your reward is sure.
~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,
1450:In The Moonlight
The moon is bright, and the winds are laid, and the river is roaring by;
Orion swings, with his belted lights low down in the western sky;
North and south from the mountain gorge to the heart of the silver plain
There’s many an eye will see no sleep till the east grows bright again;
There’s many a hand will toil to-night, from the centre down to the sea;
And I’m far from the men I used to know—and my love is far from me.
Where the broad flood eddies the dredge is moored to the beach of shingle white,
And the straining cable whips the stream in a spray of silver light;
The groaning buckets bear their load, and the engine throbs away,
And the wash pours red on the turning screen that knows not night or day;
For there’s many an ounce of gold to save, from the gorge to the shining sea—
And there’s many a league of the bare brown hills between my love and me.
Where the lines of gorse are parched and dry, and the sheaves are small and
thin,
The engine beats and the combine sings to the drays that are leading in,
For they’re thrashing out of the stook to-night, and the plain is as bright as day,
And the fork-tines flash as the sheaves are turned on the frame of the one-horse
dray;
For many a hand will toil to-night, from the mountains down to the sea;—
But I’m far from the lips of the girl I love, and the heart that beats for me.
The trappers are out on the hills to-night, and the sickly lantern-shine
Is mocking the gleam of the silver moon in the scrub on the long trap-line;
The tallies are big on the rock-strewn spur, and the rattling clink of the chain
Comes weirdly mixed from the moon-bright hill with the whistling shriek of pain;
For many a hand will toil to-night where the tussocks are waving free;—
But it’s over the hills and over the plain to the heart that beats for me.
The stars are bright, and the night is still, and the river is singing by,
And many a face is upward turned to gaze at the moon’s bright eye.
North and south, from the forest deeps to the heart of the silver plain,
There’s many an eye will see no sleep till the east grows bright again;
There’s many a hand will toil to-night by shining land and sea.
O moonlight, bear my message of love to the heart that beats for me.
18
~ David McKee Wright,
1451:But this is not always the manner of the commencement. The sadhaka is often led gradually and there is a long space between the first turning of the mind and the full assent of the nature to the thing towards which it turns. There may at first be only a vivid intellectual interest, a forcible attraction towards the idea and some imperfect form of practice. Or perhaps there is an effort not favoured by the whole nature, a decision or a turn imposed by an intellectual influence or dictated by personal affection and admiration for someone who is himself consecrated and devoted to the Highest. In such cases, a long period of preparation may be necessary before there comes the irrevocable consecration; and in some instances it may not come. There may be some advance, there may be a strong effort, even much purification and many experiences other than those that are central or supreme; but the life will either be spent in preparation or, a certain stage having been reached, the mind pushed by an insufficient driving-force may rest content at the limit of the effort possible to it. Or there may even be a recoil to the lower life, - what is called in the ordinary parlance of Yoga a fall from the path. This lapse happens because there is a defect at the very centre. The intellect has been interested, the heart attracted, the will has strung itself to the effort, but the whole nature has not been taken captive by the Divine. It has only acquiesced in the interest, the attraction or the endeavour. There has been an experiment, perhaps even an eager experiment, but not a total self-giving to an imperative need of the soul or to an unforsakable ideal. Even such imperfect Yoga has not been wasted; for no upward effort is made in vain. Even if it fails in the present or arrives only at some preparatory stage or preliminary realisation, it has yet determined the soul's future.

But if we desire to make the most of the opportunity that this life gives us, if we wish to respond adequately to the call we have received and to attain to the goal we have glimpsed, not merely advance a little towards it, it is essential that there should be an entire self-giving. The secret of success in Yoga is to regard it not as one of the aims to be pursued in life, but as the one and only aim, not as an important part of life, but as the whole of life. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration,
1452:There’s a dead girl in there who’s not supposed to be, and another girl murdered, and you don’t care. You don’t care about them, or me.” She turned and walked away from him, blinking back tears. “I refuse to be lied to any longer.” What an idiot she was.
“Cassandra, wait.” Falco ran after her, grabbing her arm just before she reached the edge of Agnese’s garden. “I do care. Give me two days. That’s all I need. And then I will tell you everything you want to know.” He stared at her. “Please. I’m asking you to trust me.”
“Why should I?” Cass asked, her voice barely above a whisper. The breeze rustled through the ivy. Cass watched one leaf whip back and forth. “Last night you told me not to trust you, and tonight you tell me I should. What’s changed?”
“What’s changed is that I…” Falco reached for her face, his fingertips caressing her cheekbones. “I’m falling in love with you,” he said, brushing a strand of hair back from her eyes. “For the longest time I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it. So impossible. But I can’t deny my feelings any longer. You’re more than a muse, Cass. I want you to be more. I want you to be mine.”
“But you know--” Cass could barely stutter out a sentence; Falco’s words were so unexpected, she could hardly breathe. “But I’m engaged…”
“Forget the engagement. Forget what you’re supposed to do. What do you want to do, Cass? What do you need?”
Cass felt her resolve melting away. His fingertips were ten individual spots of heat on her cool skin. She was tired of being cold. All she had to do was lean in and let the warmth engulf her. She thought of their bodies pressed together in the old batèla, her hands caressing his bare skin as their mouths met over and over.
She realized she was crying. Falco kissed away her tears one at a time. Each time his lips touched her skin, she felt a brightness, like he was making flowers bloom inside of her. “I want to believe you, but it’s not that simple. I--”
“It is that simple.” Falco tilted her face upward and pressed his mouth to hers, gently, then harder. Cass didn’t even try to resist. The wind whipped his hair around, and hers, tickling her skin as Falco pressed her against the framework of the trellis that lined the back of her aunt’s garden. Falco leaned into her and Cass could feel their hearts beating against each other. This was what a kiss should feel like. This was real. ~ Fiona Paul,
1453:What would you have me do?
Seek for the patronage of some great man,
And like a creeping vine on a tall tree
Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone?
No thank you! Dedicate, as others do,
Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon
In the vile hope of teasing out a smile
On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad
For breakfast every morning? Make my knees
Callous, and cultivate a supple spine,-
Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust?
No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine
That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns
Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right
Too proud to know his partner's business,
Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire
God gave me to burn incense all day long
Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you!
Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps
And licking fingers?-or-to change the form-
Navigating with madrigals for oars,
My sails full of the sighs of dowagers?
No thank you! Publish verses at my own
Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint
Of a small group of literary souls
Who dine together every Tuesday? No
I thank you! Shall I labor night and day
To build a reputation on one song,
And never write another? Shall I find
True genius only among Geniuses,
Palpitate over little paragraphs,
And struggle to insinuate my name
In the columns of the Mercury?
No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be afraid,
Love more to make a visit than a poem,
Seek introductions, favors, influences?-
No thank you! No, I thank you! And again
I thank you!-But...
To sing, to laugh, to dream
To walk in my own way and be alone,
Free, with a voice that means manhood-to cock my hat
Where I choose-At a word, a Yes, a No,
To fight-or write.To travel any road
Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt
If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne-
Never to make a line I have not heard
In my own heart; yet, with all modesty
To say:"My soul, be satisfied with flowers,
With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them
In the one garden you may call your own."
So, when I win some triumph, by some chance,
Render no share to Caesar-in a word,
I am too proud to be a parasite,
And if my nature wants the germ that grows
Towering to heaven like the mountain pine,
Or like the oak, sheltering multitudes-
I stand, not high it may be-but alone! ~ Edmond Rostand,
1454:Wormtail was speaking. His voice shook; he seemed frightened beyond his wits. He raised his wand, closed his eyes, and spoke to the night. “Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!” The surface of the grave at Harry’s feet cracked. Horrified, Harry watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Wormtail’s command and fell softly into the cauldron. The diamond surface of the water broke and hissed; it sent sparks in all directions and turned a vivid, poisonous-looking blue. And now Wormtail was whimpering. He pulled a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside his cloak. His voice broke into petrified sobs. “Flesh — of the servant — w-willingly given — you will — revive — your master.” He stretched his right hand out in front of him — the hand with the missing finger. He gripped the dagger very tightly in his left hand and swung it upward. Harry realized what Wormtail was about to do a second before it happened — he closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but he could not block the scream that pierced the night, that went through Harry as though he had been stabbed with the dagger too. He heard something fall to the ground, heard Wormtail’s anguished panting, then a sickening splash, as something was dropped into the cauldron. Harry couldn’t stand to look . . . but the potion had turned a burning red; the light of it shone through Harry’s closed eyelids. . . . Wormtail was gasping and moaning with agony. Not until Harry felt Wormtail’s anguished breath on his face did he realize that Wormtail was right in front of him. “B-blood of the enemy . . . forcibly taken . . . you will . . . resurrect your foe.” Harry could do nothing to prevent it, he was tied too tightly. . . . Squinting down, struggling hopelessly at the ropes binding him, he saw the shining silver dagger shaking in Wormtail’s remaining hand. He felt its point penetrate the crook of his right arm and blood seeping down the sleeve of his torn robes. Wormtail, still panting with pain, fumbled in his pocket for a glass vial and held it to Harry’s cut, so that a dribble of blood fell into it. He staggered back to the cauldron with Harry’s blood. He poured it inside. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Wormtail, his job done, dropped to his knees beside the cauldron, then slumped sideways and lay on the ground, cradling the bleeding stump of his arm, gasping and sobbing. ~ J K Rowling,
1455:Behind her, Annabelle heard Daisy say to Lillian accusingly, “I thought you said that no one ever comes to this meadow!”
“That’s what I was told,” Lillian replied, her voice muffled as she stepped into the circle of her gown and bent to jerk it upward.
The earl, who had been mute until that point, spoke with his gaze trained studiously on the distant scenery. “Your information was correct, Miss Bowman,” he said in a controlled manner. “This field is usually unfrequented.”
“Well, then, why are you here?” Lillian demanded accusingly, as if she, and not Westcliff, was the owner of the estate.
The question caused the earl’s head to whip around. He gave the American girl an incredulous glance before he dragged his gaze away once more. “Our presence here is purely coincidental,” he said coldly. “I wished to have a look at the northwest section of my estate today.” He gave the word my a subtle but distinct emphasis. “While Mr. Hunt and I were traveling along the lane, we heard your screaming. We thought it best to investigate, and came with the intention of rendering aid, if necessary. Little did I realize that you would be using this field for…for…”
“Rounders-in-knickers,” Lillian supplied helpfully, sliding her arms into her sleeves.
The earl seemed incapable of repeating the ridiculous phrase. He turned his horse away and spoke curtly over his shoulder. “I plan to develop a case of amnesia within the next five minutes. Before I do so, I would suggest that you refrain from any future activities involving nudity outdoors, as the next passersby who discover you may not prove to be as indifferent as Mr. Hunt and I.”
Despite Annabelle’s mortification, she had to repress a skeptical snort at the earl’s claim of indifference on Hunt’s behalf, not to mention his own. Hunt had certainly managed to get quite an eyeful of her. And though Westcliff’s scrutiny had been far more subtle, it had not escaped her that he had stolen a quick but thorough glance at Lillian before he had veered his horse away. However, in light of her current state of undress, it was hardly the time to deflate Westcliff’s holier-than-thou demeanor.
“Thank you, my lord,” Annabelle said with a calmness that pleased her immensely. “And now, having dispensed such excellent advice, I would ask that you allow us some privacy to restore ourselves.”
“With pleasure,” Westcliff growled. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1456:1
One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked.
A voice asked: “Who is there?” He answered: “It is I.”
The voice said: “There is no room here for me and thee.”
The door was shut.
After a year of solitude and deprivation
this man returned to the door of the Beloved.
He knocked.
A voice from within asked: “Who is there?”
The man said: “It is Thou.”
The door was opened for him.
2
The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere,
they’re in each other all along.
3
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.
4
When your chest is free of your limiting ego,
Then you will see the ageless Beloved.
You can not see yourself without a mirror;
Look at the Beloved, He is the brightest mirror.
5
Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky
And you lift me up out of the two worlds.
I want your sun to reach my raindrops,
So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.
6
There is a candle in the heart of man, waiting to be kindled.
In separation from the Friend, there is a cut waiting to be
stitched.
O, you who are ignorant of endurance and the burning
fire of love–
Love comes of its own free will, it can’t be learned
in any school.
7
There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from outside to inside
through conduits of plumbing-learning.
This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out. ~ Rumi,
1457:Two Sunsets
In the fair morning of his life,
When his pure heart lay in his breast,
Panting, with all that wild unrest
To plunge into the great world's strife
That fills young hearts with mad desire,
He saw a sunset. Red and gold
The burning billows surged and rolled,
And upward tossed their caps of fire.
He looked. And as he looked the sight
Sent from his soul through breast and brain
Such intense joy, it hurt like pain.
His heart seemed bursting with delight.
So near the Unknown seemed, so close
He might have grasped it with his hand.
He felt his inmost soul expand,
As sunlight will expand a rose.
One day he heard a singing strain-A human voice, in bird-like trills.
He paused, and little rapture-rills
Went trickling downward through each vein.
And in his heart the whole day long,
As in a temple veiled and dim,
He kept and bore about with him
The beauty of that singer's song.
And then? But why relate what then?
His smoldering heart flamed into fire-He had his one supreme desire,
And plunged into the world of men.
For years queen Folly held her sway.
With pleasures of the grosser kind
She fed his flesh and drugged his mind,
Till, shamed, he sated turned away.
864
He sought his boyhood's home. That hour
Triumphant should have been, in sooth,
Since he went forth an unknown youth,
And came back crowned with wealth and power.
The clouds made day a gorgeous bed;
He saw the splendor of the sky
With unmoved heart and stolid eye;
He knew only West was red.
Then suddenly a fresh young voice
Rose, bird-like, from some hidden place,
He did not even turn his face;
It struck him simply as a noise.
He trod the old paths up and down.
Their ruch-hued leaves by Fall winds whirled-How dull they were--how dull the world-Dull even in the pulsing town.
O! worst of punishments, that brings
A blunting of all finer sense,
A loss of feelings keen, intense,
And dulls us to the higher things.
O! penalty most dire, most sure,
Swift following after gross delights,
That we no more see beauteous sights,
Or hear as hear the good and pure.
O! shape more hideous and more dread
Than Vengeance takes in creed-taught minds,
This certain doom that blunts and blinds,
And strikes the holiest feelings dead.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
1458:This isn’t some libertarian mistrust of government policy, which is healthy in any democracy. This is deep skepticism of the very institutions of our society. And it’s becoming more and more mainstream. We can’t trust the evening news. We can’t trust our politicians. Our universities, the gateway to a better life, are rigged against us. We can’t get jobs. You can’t believe these things and participate meaningfully in society. Social psychologists have shown that group belief is a powerful motivator in performance. When groups perceive that it’s in their interest to work hard and achieve things, members of that group outperform other similarly situated individuals. It’s obvious why: If you believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it’s hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all? Similarly, when people do fail, this mind-set allows them to look outward. I once ran into an old acquaintance at a Middletown bar who told me that he had recently quit his job because he was sick of waking up early. I later saw him complaining on Facebook about the “Obama economy” and how it had affected his life. I don’t doubt that the Obama economy has affected many, but this man is assuredly not among them. His status in life is directly attributable to the choices he’s made, and his life will improve only through better decisions. But for him to make better choices, he needs to live in an environment that forces him to ask tough questions about himself. There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day. Here is where the rhetoric of modern conservatives (and I say this as one of them) fails to meet the real challenges of their biggest constituents. Instead of encouraging engagement, conservatives increasingly foment the kind of detachment that has sapped the ambition of so many of my peers. I have watched some friends blossom into successful adults and others fall victim to the worst of Middletown’s temptations—premature parenthood, drugs, incarceration. What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault. My dad, for example, has never disparaged hard work, but he mistrusts some of the most obvious paths to upward mobility. When ~ J D Vance,
1459:Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics How many lies could Pinocchio tell before it became lethal? Steffan Llewellyn The Centre for Interdisciplinary science, University of Leicester 25/03/2014 Abstract: This paper investigates how many lies Pinocchio could continuously tell before it would become fatal, treating the head and neck forces as a basic lever system with the exponential growth of the nose. This paper concludes that Pinocchio could only sustain 13 lies in a row before the maximum upward force his neck could exert cannot sustain his head and nose. The head’s overall centre of mass shifts over 85 metres after 13 lies, and the overall length of the nose is 208 metres. Pinocchio’s Nose Pinocchio is the fable of a wooden puppet, carved by Geppetto, who dreams of becoming a real boy [1]. Pinocchio was portrayed as a character prone to lying, which is manifested physically through the ability to grow his nose when he tells a lie. One issue of growing his nose would be the shift of Pinocchio’s centre of mass within his head, causing strain on his neck, which helps stabilise his head’s position with upwards force. If this continued, then his neck could not support his head, potentially decapitating the puppet. Outlined here is the minimum lie count Pinocchio could continuously expel. Where Pinocchio manages to form new is not addressed in this paper. Maximum Force Pinocchio’s Neck Can Exert The assumption is simplified by allowing the force exerted upwards through the neck to be positioned at the back of the head. The head is treated as a sphere, and the nose as a cylinder, as shown in The type of wood Pinocchio is carved from is disputed, but for this paper, it is concluded that Pinocchio is made from Oak, with a density of . Pinocchio’s neck will brake if its compression strength threshold is overcome by the weight of his head. The compression strength of oak is 1150Psi [2], and the circumference of the average human neck is 0.4m [3]. The maximum force Pinocchio’s neck can sustain is: ( ) ( ) Centre of Mass, and Force Exerted Figure 1. Figure 1: Illustrates the lever system of Pinocchio’s head and neck, with opposite forcesNeck muscles are required to balance the weight exerted by the skull.Usually, the weight of the nose can be considered negligible. In Pinocchio’s case, as the nose increases, it will have a significant impact on the centre of mass and weight of his head. The mass of the head is unchanged: ( ) ~ Anonymous,
1460:A throbbing ache started to grow in her womb. She wanted more, wanted something...
"Rothbury, please," she begged. "Please."
And then his fingers were there, delving inside, spreading her moisture up and down and around her opening. Her hips circled and dipped along with his movements. She moaned, saying his name. He groaned, panting along with her. Expertly, he handled her. Rhythmically, sweetly, he tortured her.
"Open my trousers," he breathed.
She complied.
Soon he was freed, his hardness jutting upward, seeking her heat.
"Look at me," he bit out through his teeth.
As if through a haze, she met his heated, intense gaze.
"This is the only time in my life I will ever hurt you."
Her brow scrunched and it was on the tip of her tongue to ask him just what exactly he meant, when the tip of his manhood pulsed at the opening of her center.
"Hold on," he said, his voice strained.
Charlotte gripped his shoulders. Rothbury gripped her hips. Lifting her, he hesitated for a moment.
"Do you want it?"
She nodded and made some sort of noise, half whimper and half the word "yes."
He bent his head to suckle one of her breasts again. For long moments, he held her poised above him as he toyed with her nipples, flicking, lapping, and gently running the bottom row of his teeth against them.
When she started to wriggle, he impaled her in one smooth, swift motion.
She cried out, nearly surging off of him.
"Shh. Shh." He kissed her eyelids, the apples of her cheeks. "Only this time, my angel. Only this time it hurts."
He kept very still, waiting for some sort of response from her, she imagined.
Where there was once only pleasure, she now felt a stabbing pain. It seemed to radiate around his arousal. Her breathing slowed. This couldn't be it. There had to be more...
And then she felt a sort of tickling. She looked down at their joined bodies to find Rothbury using his thumb to flick quickly against a tiny nubbin of flesh hidden in her folds. It felt... wonderful.
Like magic, her hips began to move of their own accord. Her breathing increased and the throbbing, damp pleasure returned. She rocked against him.
"There you are, Charlotte," he murmured against her throat. "Better?"
She nodded shakily, tiny shivers shimmering down her upper body as he nipped at her earlobe.
His large hands held her backside tightly against him, controlling, rolling her with him in a primal rhythm. ~ Olivia Parker,
1461:Ildiko shuddered.  Her hope to never again see or eat the Kai’s most beloved and revolting delicacy had been in vain.  When Brishen informed her that the dish was one of Serovek’s favorites, she resigned herself to another culinary battle with her food and put the scarpatine on the menu.  She ordered roasted potatoes as well, much to the head cook’s disgust.

When servants brought out the food and set it on the table, Brishen leaned close and whispered in her ear.  “Revenge, wife?”

“Hardly,” she replied, keeping a wary eye on the pie closest to her.  The golden top crust, with its sprinkle of sparkling salt, pitched in a lazy undulation.  “But I’m starving, and I have no intention of filling up on that abomination.”

Their guest of honor didn’t share their dislike of either food.  As deft as any Kai, Serovek made short work of the scarpatine and its whipping tail, cleaved open the shell with his knife and took a generous bite of the steaming gray meat.

Ildiko’s stomach heaved.  She forgot her nausea when Serovek complimented her.  “An excellent choice to pair the scarpatine with the potato, Your Highness.  They are better together than apart.”

Beside her, Brishen choked into his goblet.  He wiped his mouth with his sanap.  “What a waste of good scarpatine,” he muttered under his breath.

What a waste of a nice potato, she thought.  However, the more she thought on Serovek’s remark, the more her amusement grew.

“And what has you smiling so brightly?”  Brishen stared at her, his lambent eyes glowing nearly white in the hall’s torchlight.

She glanced at Serovek, happily cleaning his plate and shooting the occasional glance at Anhuset nearby.  Brishen’s cousin refused to meet his gaze, but Ildiko had caught the woman watching the Beladine lord more than a few times during dinner.

“That’s us, you know,” she said.

“What is us?”

“The scarpatine and the potato.  Better together than alone.  At least I think so.”

One of Brishen’s eyebrows slid upward.  “I thought we were hag and dead eel.  I think I like those comparisons more.”  He shoved his barely-touched potato to the edge of his plate with his knife tip, upper lip curled in revulsion to reveal a gleaming white fang.

Ildiko laughed and stabbed a piece of the potato off his plate.  She popped it into her mouth and chewed with gusto, eager to blunt the taste of scarpatine still lingering on her tongue. ~ Grace Draven,
1462:The Garden Of Adonis
(The Garden of Life in Spenser's 'Faerie Queene.')
IT is no fabled garden in the skies,
But bloometh here— this is no world of death;
And nothing that once liveth, ever dies,
And naught that breathes can ever cease to breathe,
And naught that bloometh ever withereth.
The gods can ne'er take back their gifts from men,
They gave us life,— they cannot take again.
Who hath known Death, and who hath seen his face?
On what high mountain have ye met with him?
Within what lowest valley is there trace
Of his feared footsteps? in what forest dim,
In what great city, in what lonely ways?
Nay, there is no such god, but one called Change,
And all he does is beautiful and strange.
It is but Change that lays our darlings low,
And, though we doubt and fear, forsakes them not.
Where red lips smiled do sweetest roses blow,
And star-flowers bloom above the lovely spot
Where gleamed the eyes, with blue forget-me-not.
And through the grasses runs the same wave there
We knew of old within the golden hair.
Dig in the earth— ye shall not surely find
Death or death's semblance; only roots of flowers,
And all fair, goodly things there live enshrined,
With the foundations of the glad green bowers,
Through which the sunshine comes in golden showers.
And all the blossoms that this earth enwreathe,
Are for assurance that there is no death.
O mother, raise thy tear-bathed lids again:
Thy child died not, he only liveth more—
His soul is in the sunshine and the rain,
His life is in the waters and the shore,
He is around thee all the wide world o'er;
The daisy thou hast plucked smiles back at thee,
253
Because it doth again its mother see.
What noble deed that ever lived, is dead,
Or yet hath lost its power to inspire
Courage in hearts that sicken, and to shed
New faith and hope when hands and footsteps tire,
And make sad, downcast eyes look upward higher?
Yea, all men see and know it, whence it came;
It purifies them like a burning flame.
And dreams? What dreams were ever lost and gone,
But wandering in strange lands we found again?
When least we think of these dear birdlings flown,
We find that bright and fresh they still remain.
The garden of all life is round us then;
And he is blind who doth not know and see,
And praise the gods for immortality.
~ Emma Lazarus,
1463:A Vision Of Resurrection
I had a dream. The habitable earth
Its continents and islands, all were bare
Of cities and of forests. Naught remained
Of its old aspect, and I only knew
(As men know things in dreams, unknowing how)
That this was earth and that all men were dead.
On every side I saw the barren land,
Even to the distant sky's inclosing blue,
Thick-pitted all with graves; and all the graves
Save one were open-not as newly dug,
But rather as by some internal force
Riven for egress. Tombs of stone were split
And wide agape, and in their iron decay
The massive mausoleums stood in halves.
With mildewed linen all the ground was white.
Discarded shrouds upon memorial stones
Hung without motion in the soulless air.
While greatly marveling how this should be
I heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice,
Low like an angel's, delicately strong,
And sweet as music.
-'Spirit,' it said, 'behold
The burial place of universal Man!
A million years have rolled away since here
His sheeted multitudes (save only some
Whose dark misdeeds required a separate
And individual arraignment) rose
To judgment at the trumpet's summoning
And passed into the sky for their award,
Leaving behind these perishable things
Which yet, preserved by miracle, endure
Till all are up. Then they and all of earth,
Rock-hearted mountain and storm-breasted sea,
River and wilderness and sites of dead
And vanished capitals of men, shall spring
To flame, and naught shall be for evermore!
When all are risen that wonder will occur.
'Twas but ten centuries ago the last
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But one came forth-a soul so black with sin,
Against whose name so many crimes were set
That only now his trial is at end.
But one remains.'
Straight, as the voice was stilled
That single rounded mound cracked lengthliwise
And one came forth in grave-clothes. For a space
He stood and gazed about him with a smile
Superior; then laying off his shroud
Disclosed his two attenuated legs
Which, like parentheses, bent outwardly
As by the weight of saintliness above,
And so sprang upward and was lost to view
Noting his headstone overthrown, I read:
'Sacred to memory of George K. Fitch,
Deacon and Editor-a holy man
Who fell asleep in Jesus, full of years
And blessedness. The dead in Christ rise first.'
~ Ambrose Bierce,
1464:The Bench-Legged Fyce
Speakin' of dorgs, my bench-legged fyce
Hed most o' the virtues, an' nary a vice.
Some folks called him Sooner, a name that arose
From his predisposition to chronic repose;
But, rouse his ambition, he couldn't be beat Yer bet yer he got thar on all his four feet!
Mos' dorgs hez some forte - like huntin' an' such,
But the sports o' the field didn't bother him much;
Wuz just a plain dorg, an' contented to be
On peaceable terms with the neighbors an' me;
Used to fiddle an' squirm, and grunt "Oh, how nice!"
When I tickled the back of that bench-legged fyce!
He wuz long in the bar'l, like a fyce oughter be;
His color wuz yaller as ever you see;
His tail, curlin' upward, wuz long, loose, an' slim When he didn't wag it, why, the tail it wagged him!
His legs wuz so crooked, my bench-legged pup
Wuz as tall settin' down as he wuz standin' up!
He'd lie by the stove of a night an' regret
The various vittles an' things he had et;
When a stranger, most likely a tramp, come along,
He'd lift up his voice in significant song You wondered, by gum! how there ever wuz space
In that bosom o' his'n to hold so much bass!
Of daytimes he'd sneak to the road an' lie down,
An' tackle the country dorgs comin' to town;
By common consent he wuz boss in St. Joe,
For what he took hold of he never let go!
An' a dude that come courtin' our girl left a slice
Of his white flannel suit with our bench-legged fyce!
He wuz good to us kids - when we pulled at his fur
Or twisted his tail he would never demur;
He seemed to enjoy all our play an' our chaff,
For his tongue 'u'd hang out an' he'd laff an' he'd laff;
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An' once, when the Hobart boy fell through the ice,
He wuz drug clean ashore by that bench-legged fyce!
We all hev our choice, an' you, like the rest,
Allow that the dorg which you've got is the best;
I wouldn't give much for the boy 'at grows up
With no friendship subsistin' 'tween him an' a pup!
When a fellow gits old - I tell you it's nice
To think of his youth and his bench-legged fyce!
To think of the springtime 'way back in St. Joe Of the peach-trees abloom an' the daisies ablow;
To think of the play in the medder an' grove,
When little legs wrassled an' little han's strove;
To think of the loyalty, valor, an' truth
Of the friendships that hallow the season of youth!
~ Eugene Field,
1465:Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20). I'm learning what it means to descend, which is so revolutionary it often leaves me gasping. I have been trying to ascend my entire life. Up, up, next level, a notch higher, the top is better, top of the food chain, all for God's work and glory, of course. The pursuit of ascension is crippling and has stunted my faith more than any other evil I've battled. It has saddled me with so much to defend, and it doesn't deliver. I need more and more of what doesn't work. I'm insatiable, and ironically, the more I accumulate, the less I enjoy any of it. Instead of satisfaction, it produces toxic fear in me; I'm always one slip away from losing it all. Consequently, my love for others is tainted because they unwittingly become articles for consumption. How is this person making me feel better? How is she making me stronger? How is he contributing to my agenda? What can this group do for me? I am an addict, addicted to the ascent and thus positioning myself above people who can propel my upward momentum and below those who are also longing for a higher rank and might pull me up with them. It feels desperate and frantic, and I'm so done being enslaved to the elusive top rung. When Jesus told us to 'take the lowest place' (Luke 14:10), it was more than just a strategy for social justice. It was even more than wooing us to the bottom for communion, since that is where He is always found. The path of descent becomes our own liberation. We are freed from the exhausting stance of defense. We are no longer compelled to be right and are thus relieved from the burden of maintaining some reputation. We are released from the idols of greed, control, and status. The pressure to protect the house of cards is alleviated when we take the lowest place. The ascent is so ingrained in my thought patterns that it has been physically painful to experience reformation at the bottom. The compulsion to defend myself against misrepresentation nearly put me in the grave recently. I was tormented with chaotic inner dialogues, and there were days I was so plagued with protecting my rung that I couldn't get out of bed. With every step lower, the stripping-away process was more excruciating. I had no idea how tightly I clung to reputation and approval or how selfishly I behaved to maintain it. Getting to the top requires someone else to be on the bottom; being right means someone else must be wrong. It is the nature of the beast. ~ Jen Hatmaker,
1466:I.

I wonder do you feel to-day
As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?

II.

For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

III.

Help me to hold it! First it left
The yellowing fennel, run to seed
There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,
Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed
Took up the floating wet,

IV.

Where one small orange cup amassed
Five beetles,-blind and green they grope
Among the honey-meal: and last,
Everywhere on the grassy slope
I traced it. Hold it fast!

V.

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air-
Rome's ghost since her decease.

VI.

Such life here, through such lengths of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,
Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting nature have her way
While heaven looks from its towers!

VII.

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control
To love or not to love?

VIII.

I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
O' the wound, since wound must be?

IX.

I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill
At your soul's springs,-your part my part
In life, for good and ill.

X.

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,
Catch your soul's warmth,-I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak-
Then the good minute goes.

XI.

Already how am I so far
Out of that minute? Must I go
Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,
Onward, whenever light winds blow,
Fixed by no friendly star?

XII.

Just when I seemed about to learn!
Where is the thread now? Off again!
The old trick! Only I discern-
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.
Herb with yellow flowers and seeds supposed
to be medicinal.


~ Robert Browning, Two In The Campagna
,
1467:requirements for the psychic :::
   At a certain stage in the Yoga when the mind is sufficiently quieted and no longer supports itself at every step on the sufficiency of its mental certitudes, when the vital has been steadied and subdued and is no longer constantly insistent on its own rash will, demand and desire, when the physical has been sufficiently altered not to bury altogether the inner flame under the mass of its outwardness, obscurity or inertia, an inmost being hidden within and felt only in its rare influences is able to come forward and illumine the rest and take up the lead of the sadhana. Its character is a one-pointed orientation towards the Divine or the Highest, one-pointed and yet plastic in action and movement; it does not create a rigidity of direction like the one-pointed intellect or a bigotry of the regnant idea or impulse like the one-pointed vital force; it is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the Truth, automatically distinguishes the right step from the false, extricates the divine or Godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine. Its action is like a searchlight showing up all that has to be changed in the nature; it has in it a flame of will insistent on perfection, on an alchemic transmutation of all the inner and outer existence. It sees the divine essence everywhere but rejects the mere mask and the disguising figure. It insists on Truth, on will and strength and mastery, on Joy and Love and Beauty, but on a Truth of abiding Knowledge that surpasses the mere practical momentary truth of the Ignorance, on an inward joy and not on mere vital pleasure, -- for it prefers rather a purifying suffering and sorrow to degrading satisfactions, -- on love winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feet sunk in the mire, on beauty restored to its priesthood of interpretation of the Eternal, on strength and will and mastery as instruments not of the ego but of the Spirit. Its will is for the divinisation of life, the expression through it of a higher Truth, its dedication to the Divine and the Eternal.
   But the most intimate character of the psychic is its pressure towards the Divine through a sacred love, joy and oneness. It is the divine Love that it seeks most, it is the love of the Divine that is its spur, its goal, its star of Truth shining over the luminous cave of the nascent or the still obscure cradle of the new-born godhead within us.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 1,
1468:The first mile was torture. I passed beneath the massive stone arch at the entrance to the school, pulled off the road and threw up. I felt better and ran down the long palm-lined drive to the Old Quad. Lost somewhere in the thicket to my left was the mausoleum containing the remains of the family by whom the university had been founded. Directly ahead of me loomed a cluster of stone buildings, the Old Quad. I stumbled up the steps and beneath an archway into a dusty courtyard which, with its clumps of spindly bushes and cacti, resembled the garden of a desert monastery. All around me the turrets and dingy stone walls radiated an ominous silence, as if behind each window there stood a soldier with a musket waiting to repel any invader. I looked up at the glittering facade of the chapel across which there was a mosaic depicting a blond Jesus and four angels representing Hope, Faith, Charity, and, for architectural rather than scriptural symmetry, Love. In its gloomy magnificence, the Old Quad never failed to remind me of the presidential palace of a banana republic. Passing out of the quad I cut in front of the engineering school and headed for a back road that led up to the foothills. There was a radar installation at the summit of one of the hills called by the students the Dish. It sat among herds of cattle and the ruins of stables. It, too, was a ruin, shut down for many years, but when the wind whistled through it, the radar produced a strange trilling that could well be music from another planet. The radar was silent as I slowed to a stop at the top of the Dish and caught my breath from the upward climb. I was soaked with sweat, and my headache was gone, replaced by giddy disorientation. It was a clear, hot morning. Looking north and west I saw the white buildings, bridges and spires of the city of San Francisco beneath a crayoned blue sky. The city from this aspect appeared guileless and serene. Yet, when I walked in its streets what I noticed most was how the light seldom fell directly, but from angles, darkening the corners of things. You would look up at the eaves of a house expecting to see a gargoyle rather than the intricate but innocent woodwork. The city had this shadowy presence as if it was a living thing with secrets and memories. Its temperament was too much like my own for me to feel safe or comfortable there. I looked briefly to the south where San Jose sprawled beneath a polluted sky, ugly and raw but without secrets or deceit. Then I stretched and began the slow descent back into town. ~ Michael Nava,
1469:As I watched, two equerries in Renselaeus livery strode along the path, overtook the man, and addressed him. I watched with my heart thumping like a drum as the man spoke at some length, brushed his fingers against his face--the scratches from the trees!--and then gestured in the direction I had gone.
Expecting the two equerries to immediately take off after me, I braced for a run. Why had I babbled so much? I thought, annoyed with myself. Why didn’t I just say “No” and leave?
But the equerries both turned and walked swiftly back in the direction they’d come, and the old man continued on his way.
What does that mean?
And the answer was not long in coming: They were going back to report.
Which meant a whole lot of them searching. And soon.
Yes, I’d really widened my perimeter, I thought furiously, cursing the Baron, music, inns, resorts, food, and the Baron again, throwing in Galdran Merindar and the Marquis of Shevraeth for good measure. I slipped back through the garden to the street. Spotting an alley behind a row of houses, I ducked into that.
And when I heard the thunder of approaching horses’ hooves, I dove toward the first door, which was miraculously open. Slipping inside, a sickly smile on my face, I concocted a wild story about deliveries and the wrong address as I looked about for inhabitants angered at my intrusion.
But my luck had turned a little: The hallway was empty. Behind me was a stairway leading upward, and next to it one leading to a basement. For a moment I wanted to fling myself down that, to hide in the dark, but I restrained myself: There was generally only one way out of a basement.
At my right a plain door-tapestry opened onto a storeroom of some sort. I peeked inside. There were two windows with clouded glass, and a jumble of dishes, small pieces of furniture, trays, and a row of hooks with aprons and caps on them. That outer door was the servants’ entrance, I realized, and this room was their storeroom.
Colors flickering in the clouded glass brought my attention around. Moving right up next to the window, I listened, and heard the slow clopping of hooves. The rhythm broke, then stopped; from another direction came more hooves, which swiftly got closer.
The house I was in was a corner house, the first in a row. Two search parties met right outside my window, where the alley conjoined with the street.
“Nothing this way, my lord,” someone said.
A horse sidled; another whickered.
Then a familiar voice said, not ten paces from me: “Search the houses. ~ Sherwood Smith,
1470:He looked over the counter to see Christopher standing at the bottom of the stairs, stark naked, book under one arm, Bear under the other. Preacher lifted one bushy brow. “Forget something there, pardner?” he asked. Chris picked at his left butt cheek while hanging on to the bear. “You read to me now?” “Um... Have you had your bath?” Preacher asked. The boy shook his head. “You look like you’re ready for your bath.” He listened upward to the running water. Chris nodded, then said again, “You read it?” “C’mere,” Preacher said. Chris ran around the counter, happy, raising his arms to be lifted up. “Wait a second,” Preacher said. “I don’t want little boy butt on my clean counter. Just a sec.” He pulled a clean dish towel out of the drawer, spread it on the counter, then lifted him up, sitting him on it. He looked down at the little boy, frowned slightly, then pulled another dish towel out of the drawer. He shook it out and draped it across Chris’s naked lap. “There. Better. Now, what you got here?” “Horton,” he said, presenting the book. “There’s a good chance your mother isn’t going to go for this idea,” he said. But he opened the book and began to read. They hadn’t gotten far when he heard the water stop, heard heavy footfalls racing around the upstairs bedroom, heard Paige yell, “Christopher!” “We better get our story straight,” Preacher said to him. “Our story,” Chris said, pointing at the page in front of him. Momentarily there were feet coming down the stairs, fast. When she got to the bottom, she stopped suddenly. “He got away from me while I was running the tub,” she said. “Yeah. In fact, he’s dressed like he barely escaped.” “I’m sorry, John. Christopher, get over here. We’ll read after your bath.” He started to whine and wiggle. “I want John!” Paige came impatiently around the counter and plucked him, squirming, into her arms. “I want John,” he complained. “John’s busy, Chris. Now, you behave.” “Uh—Paige? I’m not all that busy. If you’ll tell Jack I’m not in the kitchen for a bit, I could do the bath. Tell Jack, so he knows to lock up if everyone leaves.” She turned around at the foot of the stairs. “You know how to give a child a bath?” she asked. “Well, no. But is it hard? Harder than scrubbing up a broiler?” She chuckled in spite of herself. She put Chris down on his feet. “You might want to go a little easier than that. No Brillo pads, no scraping. No soap in the eyes, if you can help it.” “I can do that,” Preacher said, coming around the counter. “How many times you dunk him?” She gasped and Preacher showed her a smile. “Kidding. I know you only dunk him twice.” She smirked. ~ Robyn Carr,
1471:A Poet’s Eightieth Birthday
``He dieth young whom the Gods love,'' was said
By Greek Menander; nor alone by One
Who gave to Greece his English song and sword
Re-echoed is the saying, but likewise he
``Who uttered nothing base,'' and from whose brow,
By right divine, the laurel lapsed to yours,Great sire, great successor,-in verse confirmed
The avowal of ``the Morning-Star of Song,''
Happiest is he that dieth in his flower.
Yet can it be that it is gain, not loss,
To quit the pageant of this life before
The heart hath learnt its meaning; leave half-seen,
Half-seen, half-felt, and not yet understood,
The beauty and the bounty of the world;
The fertile waywardness of wanton Spring,
Summer's deep calm, the modulated joy
Of Autumn conscious of a task fulfilled,
And home-abiding Winter's pregnant sleep,
The secret of the seasons? Gain, to leave
The depths of love unfathomed, its heights unscaled,
Rapture and woe unreconciled, and pain
Unprized, unapprehended? This is loss,
Loss and not gain, sheer forfeiture of good,
Is banishment from Eden, though its fruit
Remains untasted.
Interpret then the oracle, ``He dies young
Whom the Gods love,'' for Song infallible
Hath so pronounced! . . . Thus I interpret it:
The favourites of the Gods die young, for they,
They grow not old with grief and deadening time,
But still keep April moisture in their heart
May's music in their ears. Their voice revives,
Revives, rejuvenates, the wintry world,
Flushes the veins of gnarled and knotted age,
And crowns the majesty of life with leaves
As green as are the sapling's.
Thrice happy Poet! to have thus renewed
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Your youth with wisdom,-who, though life still seems
To your fresh gaze as frolic and as fair
As in the callow season when your heart
Was but the haunt and pairing-place and nest
Of nightingale and cuckoo, have enriched
Joy's inexperienced warblings with the note
Of mellow music, and whose mind mature,
Laden with life's sustaining lessons, still
Gleams bright with hope; even as I saw, to-day,
An April rainbow span the August corn.
Long may your green maturity maintain
Its universal season; and your voice,
A household sound, be heard about our hearths,
Now as a Christmas carol, now as the glee
Of vernal Maypole, now as harvest song.
And when, like light withdrawn from earth to heaven,
Your glorious gloaming fades into the sky,
We, looking upward, shall behold you there,
Shining amid the young unageing stars.
~ Alfred Austin,
1472:Levering himself upward, Swift reached for her hair, which had begun to fall from its pins. His fingers were gentle as he pulled feathers from the glinting black strands.
For a silent minute or two they worked on each other. Daisy was so intent on the task that the impropriety of her position didn’t occur to her at first. For the first time she was close enough to notice the variegated blue of his eyes, ringed with cobalt at the outer edge of the irises. And the texture of his skin, satiny and sun-hued, with the shadow of close-shaven stubble on his jaw.
She realized that Swift was deliberately avoiding her gaze, concentrating on finding every tiny piece of down in her hair. Suddenly she became aware of a simmering communication between their bodies, the solid strength of him beneath her, the incendiary drift of his breath against her cheek. His clothes were damp, the heat of his skin burning through wherever it pressed against hers.
They both went still at the same moment, caught together in a half-embrace while every cell of Daisy’s skin seemed to fill with liquid fire. Fascinated, disoriented, she let herself relax into it, feeling the throb of her pulse in every extremity. There were no more feathers, but Daisy found herself gently lacing her fingers through the dark waves of his hair.
It would be so easy for him to roll her beneath him, his weight pressing her into the damp earth. The hardness of their knees pressed together through layers of fabric, triggering a primitive instinct for her to open to him, to let him move her limbs as he would.
She heard Swift’s breath catch. He clamped his hands around her upper arms and unceremoniously removed her from his lap.
Landing on the grass beside him with a decisive thump, Daisy tried to gather her wits. Silently she found the pen-knife on the ground and handed it back to him.
After slipping the knife back into his pocket, he made a project of brushing feathers and dirt from his calves.
Wondering why he was sitting in such an oddly cramped posture, Daisy struggled to her feet. “Well,” she said uncertainly, “I suppose I’ll have to sneak back into the manor through the servants’ entrance. If Mother sees me, she’ll have conniptions.”
“I’m going back to the river,” Swift said, his voice hoarse. “To find out how Westcliff is faring with the reel. And maybe I’ll fish some more.”
Daisy frowned as she realized he was deliberately avoiding her. “I should think you’d had enough of standing up to your waist in cold water today,” she said.
“Apparently not,” Swift muttered, keeping his back to her as he reached for his vest and coat. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1473:If I talk about the Loud family now, will all of you know who I mean? I mean a family of prosperous human beings in California, whose last name is Loud. I suggest to you that the Louds were healthy Earthlings who had everything but a religion in which they could believe. There was nothing to tell them what they should want, what they should shun, what they should do next. Socrates told us that the unexamined life wasn’t worth living. The Louds demonstrated that the morally unstructured life is a clunker, too.
Christianity could not nourish the Louds. Neither could Buddhism or the profit motive of participation in the arts, or any other nostrum on America’s spiritual smorgasbord. So the Louds were dying before our eyes.
Now is as good a time as any to mention White House Prayer Breakfasts, I guess. I think we all know now that religion of that sort is about as nourishing to the human spirit as potassium cyanide. We have been experimenting with it. Every guinea pig died. We are up to our necks in dead guinea pigs.
The lethal ingredient in those breakfasts wasn’t prayer. And it wasn’t the eggs or the orange juice or the hominy grits. It was a virulent new strain of hypocrisy which did everyone in.
If I have offended anyone here by talking of the need of a new religion, I apologize. I am willing to drop the word religion, and substitute three other words for it. Three other words are heartfelt moral code. We sure need such a thing, and it should be simple enough and reasonable enough for anyone to understand. The trouble with so many of the moral codes we have inherited is that they are subject to so many interpretations. We require specialists, historians and archaeologists and linguists and so on, to tell us where this or that idea may have come from, to suggest what this or that statement might actually mean. This is good news for hypocrites, who enjoy feeling pious, no matter what they do.
It may be that moral simplicity is not possible in modern times. It may be that simplicity and clarity can come only from a new Messiah, who may never come. We can talk about portents, if you like. I like a good portent as much as anyone. What might be the meaning of the Comet Kahoutek, which was to make us look upward, to impress us with the paltriness of our troubles, to cleanse our souls with cosmic awe. Kahoutek was a fizzle, and what might this fizzle mean?
I take it to mean that we can expect no spectacular miracles from the heavens, that the problems of ordinary human beings will have to be solved by ordinary human beings. The message of Kahoutek is: “Help is not on the way. Repeat: help is not on the way. ~ Kurt Vonnegut,
1474:The House Of Dust: Part 03: 08: Coffins: Interlude
Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.
We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .
We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.
One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,
Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;
One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.
One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .
Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.
One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.
Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.
A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.
He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:
A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.
Death, from street to alley, from door to window,
Cries out his news,—of unplumbed worlds approaching,
Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.
But why comes death,—he asks,—in a world so perfect?
Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?
Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,
A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passes
Down jangled streets, and dies.
The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,
Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.
Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;
Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;
From freezing rooms as bare as rock.
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The curtains are closed across deserted windows.
Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.
Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;
Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;
Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;
Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;
Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;
Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,
And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;
Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,—
They are blown away like windflung chords of music,
They drift away; the sudden music has died.
And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly
And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.
~ Conrad Potter Aiken,
1475:Christopher Phelan was talking with Prudence Mercer. The scheme of formal black and white was becoming to any man. On someone like Christopher, it was literally breathtaking. He wore the clothes with natural ease, his posture relaxed but straight, his shoulders broad. The crisp white of his starched cravat provided a striking contrast to his tawny skin, while the light of chandeliers glittered over his golden-bronze hair.
Following her gaze, Amelia lifted her brows. “What an attractive man,” she said. Her attention returned to Beatrix. “You like him, don’t you?”
Before Beatrix could help herself, she sent her sister a pained glance. Letting her gaze drop to the floor, she said, “There have been a dozen times in the past when I should have liked a particular gentleman. When it would have been convenient, and appropriate, and easy. But no, I had to wait for someone special. Someone who would make my heart feel as if it’s been trampled by elephants, thrown into the Amazon, and eaten by piranhas.”
Amelia smiled at her compassionately. Her gloved hand slipped over Beatrix’s. “Darling Bea. Would it console you to hear that such feelings of infatuation are perfectly ordinary?”
Beatrix turned her palm upward, returning the clasp of her sister’s hand. Since their mother had died when Bea was twelve, Amelia had been a source of endless love and patience. “Is it infatuation?” she heard herself asking softly. “Because it feels much worse than that. Like a fatal disease.”
“I don’t know, dear. It’s difficult to tell the difference between love and infatuation. Time will reveal it, eventually.” Amelia paused. “He is attracted to you,” she said. “We all noticed the other night. Why don’t you encourage him, dear?”
Beatrix felt her throat tighten. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t explain,” Beatrix said miserably, “except to say that I’ve deceived him.”
Amelia glanced at her in surprise. “That doesn’t sound like you. You’re the least deceptive person I’ve ever known.”
“I didn’t mean to do it. And he doesn’t know that it was me. But I think he suspects.”
“Oh.” Amelia frowned as she absorbed the perplexing statement. “Well. This does seem to be a muddle. Perhaps you should confide in him. His reaction may surprise you. What is it that Mother used to say whenever we pushed her to the limits of her patience?...’Love forgives all things.’ Do you remember?”
“Of course,” Beatrix said. She had written that exact phrase to Christopher in one of her letters. Her throat went very tight. “Amelia, I can’t discuss this now. Or I’ll start weeping and throw myself to the floor.”
“Heavens, don’t do that. Someone might trip over you. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1476:Banjo Dog Variations
Tramps on the road: floating clouds. OLD CHINESE POEM
Agriculture and Industry
Embraced in public on a wall—
Heroes in shirt-sleeves! Next to them
The average man felt small.
I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
By Vassar girls surrounded.
They harmonized expertly; oh,
Their little true hearts pounded.
Joe went on smiling.
I thought I saw what Trotsky saw,
A friendly cossack wink;
And then his friends brought down their clubs.
Christ, what would Trotsky think!
Train had just slowed for the crossing when
Out from the bushes jumped a hundred men.
With baseball bats and iron bars
They persuaded us back onto the cars.
11
And out of dirty fists sometimes
Would bloom the melancholy harp.
Then low-low-low on the gon-doh-lah
We swayed beneath our tarp.
And far lights moving in and out of rain.
What you do with the Sunday news
Oh, citizens of the great riffraff,
Is you put the funny papers in your shoes.
It gives the feet a laugh.
We read our brothers’ shirts for lice
And moved around with the fruit,
Went north to Billings for the beets
And had three good days in the jail at Butte.
We chalked our names on red cliffsides,
High up, where only eagles dwelled.
Each time a big truck went by below,
The earth trembled like a woman held.
And we passed fields of smoking stumps
Where goats sometimes or ponies grazed.
Abandoned tractors stood against the sky
Like giant fists upraised.
10
12
But if we bent our knees it was
To drink from a creek’s rust-colored slime,
And splash our chests with it, and rub our eyes,
And wake into another world and time.
11
Let us go then, you and me,
While the neon bubbles upward ceaselessly
To lure us down back streets and alleyways,
Where we may wander and be lost for days.
Many days and many hours.
12
I miss the smell of the ratty furs
And saturday night cologne and beer,
And I miss the juke and the sign that read:
NO POLICE SERVED HERE.
13
Off Mission, wasn’t it? The old
White Angel Breadline, where we met?
You had just come west from Arkansas,
But the rest of it I forget.
A cup of coffee; afterwards a hymn.
14
Once we stood on a high bluff,
Lights fanning out across the bay.
A little ragged band of Christs we were,
13
And tempted—but we turned away.
15
And didn’t I see you Saturday night,
After the paycheck from the mill,
Bearing a pot of store-bought lilies home,
One budding still?
Ah, oh, my banjo dog!
~ Donald Justice,
1477:How Is It That I Am Now So Softly Awakened
How is it that I am now so softly awakened,
My leaves shaken down with music?—
Darling, I love you.
It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths before,—
Though your mouth is more alive than roses,
Roses singing softly
To green leaves after rain.
It is not your eyes, for I have dived often in eyes,—
Though your eyes, even in the yellow glare of footlights,
Are windows into eternal dusk.
Nor is it the live white flashing of your feet,
Nor your gay hands, catching at motes in the spotlight;
Nor the abrupt thick music of your laughter,
When, against the hideous backdrop,
With all its crudities brilliantly lighted,
Suddenly you catch sight of your alarming shadow,
Whirling and contracting.
How is it, then, that I am so keenly aware,
So sensitive to the surges of the wind, or the light,
Heaving silently under blue seas of air?—
Darling, I love you, I am immersed in you.
It is not the unraveled night-time of your hair,—
Though I grow drunk when you press it upon my face:
And though when you gloss its length with a golden brush
I am strings that tremble under a bow.
It was that night I saw you dancing,
The whirl and impalpable float of your garment,
Your throat lifted, your face aglow
(Like waterlilies in moonlight were your knees).
It was that night I heard you singing
In the green-room after your dance was over,
Faint and uneven through the thickness of walls.
(How shall I come to you through the dullness of walls,
Thrusting aside the hands of bitter opinion?)
It was that afternoon, early in June,
When, tired with a sleepless night, and my act performed,
Feeling as stale as streets,
We met under dropping boughs, and you smiled to me:
And we sat by a watery surface of clouds and sky.
52
I hear only the susurration of intimate leaves;
The stealthy gliding of branches upon slow air.
I see only the point of your chin in sunlight;
And the sinister blue of sunlight on your hair.
The sunlight settles downward upon us in silence.
Now we thrust up through grass blades and encounter,
Pushing white hands amid the green.
Your face flowers whitely among cold leaves.
Soil clings to you, bark falls from you,
You rouse and stretch upward, exhaling earth, inhaling sky,
I touch you, and we drift off together like moons.
Earth dips from under.
We are alone in an immensity of sunlight,
Specks in an infinite golden radiance,
Whirled and tossed upon silent cataracts and torrents.
Give me your hand darling! We float downward.
~ Conrad Potter Aiken,
1478:With these uneasy thoughts urging me onward, I hurried toward home, praying I would make it in time for dinner and thereby avoid having to answer to my mother. That was the only way my day could get worse. I was forced to adjust that conclusion, however, when I spotted Saadi loitering nearby. The moment he laid eyes on me, I knew he’d been waiting for me, and I groaned. Why couldn’t he leave me alone?
“Shaselle!” he called, coming toward me.
I gritted my teeth, knowing I could not escape. The traffic on the thoroughfare had thinned, as was generally the case at this time of day, no longer providing the cover I needed to dart past him. He came abreast of me, but I didn’t slow or acknowledge him.
“I’m glad I caught you,” he said, and in my peripheral vision, I could see him smoothing that damn bronze hair forward, an impossible task, for as always it kinked upward at the midpoint of his hairline.
“Can’t say the same.”
“I didn’t take you to my sister.” He sounded like this small mercy should be eliciting gratitude from me.
“I realize that.”
Saadi exhaled, baffled and exasperated. “How can you be angry with me?”
I halted and stared at him in disbelief. “I’m not! You’re the Cokyrian soldier who arrested me when I broke the law. Our relationship ends there. It would be a waste of my time to be angry with you.”
“That’s it?” he said, eyebrows rising, and I was sure I detected disappointment. “I thought…I don’t know. I thought you were angry with me before, for not having mentioned I’m Rava’s brother. Weren’t you?”
“No,” I lied.
I still didn’t understand why it upset me to know that this annoying tag-along was related to the woman I hated with such intensity that my insides burned. But there was no reason to complicate things by letting him know the truth.
“Well, I saved you today, didn’t I? Just like I saved you before. You walked out of the Bastion free, without a scratch, and if any Cokyrian but me had caught you with that dagger, you might be drawn and quartered by now.”
“You didn’t save me from that butcher,” I said irritably. “But you’re right. About today, I mean.” I could sense his satisfaction, which irritated me all the more. “So accept my thanks, but stay away from me. We’re not friends, you know.”
I was nearing my neighborhood and didn’t want anyone to see me with him. He stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop.
“We’re not friends yet. But you’ve thought about it. And you just thanked me.”
“Are you delusional?”
“No. You just said thank you to the faceless Cokyrian soldier who arrested you.”
“Don’t you ever stop?” I demanded, trying in vain to move around him.
“I haven’t even started.”
“What does that mean? ~ Cayla Kluver,
1479:Another general would have let them go and been glad of it. But he saw that if they secured that high ground they might regroup and come at us again, this time with their archers positioned to advantage. So he called us to ranks with a curdling cry. I glimpsed his face through the crowd of men. It was bloodied, dirt-streaked, avid. Then he turned, fist to the sky, and sprinted. He set the pace for the fleetest of his runners, youths who could give him a decade. Even uphill, he seemed to fly over the loose stones that slid out from underfoot and left me skidding and swearing. I fell behind, and lost sight of him. Others—younger men, better fighters—overtook me, swarming to him, compelled by his courage. When I finally glimpsed him again, he was above me on a long, slender ridge, in the thick of fierce fighting. Trying to narrow the distance between us, I lost my footing entirely on the uncertain ground. I slipped. Metal, leather and flesh scraped against rough limestone that bit like snaggleteeth. I could not control my fall until I planted my foot into something that gave softly under my weight. The man had been attempting to crawl away, dragging himself with his remaining hand while a slime of blood pulsed from the stump of his sword arm. My boot, mashing his neck flat into stone, had put an end to that. When I lifted my foot, the man gave a wet gargle, and was still. I scraped the mess off my boot onto the nearest rock and went on. When I reached the ridge, the king was making an end of another fighter. He was up close, eye to eye. His sword had entered just above the man’s groin. He drew it upward, in a long, slow, arcing slash. As he pulled the blade back—slick, dripping—long tubes of bowel came tumbling after. I could see the dying man’s eyes, wide with horror, his hands gripping for his guts, trying to push them back into the gaping hole in his belly. The king’s own eyes were blank—all the warmth swallowed by the black stain of widening pupils. David reached out an arm and pushed the man hard in the chest. He fell backward off the narrow ledge and rolled down the slope, his entrails unfurling after him like a glossy ribband. I was engaged myself then, by a bullnecked spearman who required all my flagging strength. He was bigger than me, but clumsy, and I used his size against him, so that as I feinted one way, he lunged with his spear, overbalanced and fell right onto the dagger that I held close and short at my side. I felt the metal grating against the bone of his rib, and then I mustered enough force to thrust the tip sharply upward, the blade’s full length inside him, in the direction of his heart. I felt the warm wetness of his insides closing about my fist. It was intimate as a rape. ~ Geraldine Brooks,
1480:It is a common belief that we breathe with our lungs alone, but in point of fact, the work of breathing is done by the whole body. The lungs play a passive role in the respiratory process. Their expansion is produced by an enlargement, mostly downward, of the thoracic cavity and they collapse when that cavity is reduced. Proper breathing involves the muscles of the head, neck, thorax, and abdomen. It can be shown that chronic tension in any part of the body's musculature interferes with the natural respiratory movements.
Breathing is a rhythmic activity. Normally a person at rest makes approximately 16 to 17 respiratory incursions a minute. The rate is higher in infants and in states of excitation. It is lower in sleep and in depressed persons. The depth of the respiratory wave is another factor which varies with emotional states. Breathing becomes shallow when we are frightened or anxious. It deepens with relaxation, pleasure and sleep. But above all, it is the quality of the respiratory movements that determines whether breathing is pleasurable or not. With each breath a wave can be seen to ascend and descend through the body. The inspiratory wave begins deep in the abdomen with a backward movement of the pelvis. This allows the belly to expand outward. The wave then moves upward as the rest of the body expands. The head moves very slightly forward to suck in the air while the nostrils dilate or the mouth opens. The expiratory wave begins in the upper part of the body and moves downward: the head drops back, the chest and abdomen collapse, and the pelvis rocks forward.
Breathing easily and fully is one of the basic pleasures of being alive. The pleasure is clearly experienced at the end of expiration when the descending wave fills the pelvis with a delicious sensation. In adults this sensation has a sexual quality, though it does not induce any genital feeling. The slight backward and forward movements of the pelvis, similar to the sexual movements, add to the pleasure. Though the rhythm of breathing is pronounced in the pelvic area, it is at the same time experienced by the total body as a feeling of fluidity, softness, lightness and excitement.
The importance of breathing need hardly be stressed. It provides the oxygen for the metabolic processes; literally it supports the fires of life. But breath as "pneuma" is also the spirit or soul. We live in an ocean of air like fish in a body of water. By our breathing we are attuned to our atmosphere. If we inhibit our breathing we isolate ourselves from the medium in which we exist. In all Oriental and mystic philosophies, the breath holds the secret to the highest bliss. That is why breathing is the dominant factor in the practice of Yoga. ~ Alexander Lowen,
1481:Matthew knew it was wrong the instant their lips met. Because nothing would ever equal the perfection of Daisy in his arms. He was ruined for life. God help him, he didn’t care.
Her mouth was soft and hot, like sunshine, like the white blaze of a heartwood fire. She gasped as he touched her lower lip with the tip of his tongue. Slowly her hands came to his shoulders, and then he felt her fingers at the back of his head, sliding into his hair to keep him from pulling away. There wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening. Nothing could have made him stop.
A tremor shook his fingers as he bracketed the exquisite line of her jaw in the open framework of his hand, gently angling her face upward. The flavor of her mouth, sweet and elusive, fueled a hunger that threatened to rage out of control… he searched the damp silk beyond her lips, deeper, harder, until she began to breathe in long sighs, her body molding against his.
He let her feel how much stronger he was, how much heavier, one muscular arm clamped along her back, his feet spread to hold her between the powerful length of his thighs. Her upper half was bound in a laced and padded corset. He was almost overcome by a savage desire to tear away the stays and quilting and find the tender flesh beneath.
Instead he sank his fingers into her pinned-up hair and tugged it backward until the weight of her head was cradled in his hand, and her pale throat was exposed. He searched for the pulse he had seen earlier, his lips dragging softly along the secret pathway of nerves beneath her skin. When he reached a senstive spot, he felt the vibration of her suppressed moan against his mouth.
This was what it would be like to make love to her, he thought dazedly… the sweet shivering of her flesh as he entered her, the delicate chaos of her breath, the helpless sounds that rustled in her throat. Her skin, warm and female, scented like tea and talcum and a trace of salt. He found her mouth again, opened it, delving into wet silk, heat, and an intimate flavor that drove him mad.
She should have struggled, but there was only yielding and more softness, driving him past all limits. He began to ravish her mouth with deep, twisting kisses, bringing her body rhythmically against his. He felt her legs part beneath her gown, his thigh fitting neatly between them. She squirmed with innocent desire, her face blooming with the color of late summer poppies. Had she understood exactly what he wanted from her, she would have done more than blush. She would have fainted on the spot.
Lifting his mouth from hers, Matthew pressed his jaw against the side of her head. “I think,” he said raggedly, “this puts to rest any question of whether I find you desirable or not. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1482:What’s wrong?” Jake’s voice, deep as thunder, unsettled her. Why did he have to be so handsome? She wanted to fall right inside those brown eyes. “I saw you in the living room with Ben . . . earlier.” His lips pulled upward, no doubt remembering Ben’s belly laughs. “He’s a fun kid.” She hated to wipe the smile from his face. “I know you mean well, Jake, but I think it’s best if you avoid spending time with the children.” The smile slid south. “We were just playing around.” “The children are getting attached to you. I don’t think it’s healthy.” His jaw flexed, his shoulders squared. “They need relationships now more than ever.” “Not from someone who’ll soon exit their lives.” He flinched. She hated to hurt his feelings, had a physical ache from wounding him. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said finally. “I don’t want to exit their lives. I don’t want to exit your life.” Maybe he thought they could be some happy family or something. It was time to tell him everything. “I’m selling Summer Place. We’ll be leaving the island soon. The Goldmans—our guests over the daffodil weekend—made an offer, and I accepted. I haven’t told the children yet, so I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t mention it. We’ll stay through closing in late June.” Jake’s lips parted. A second later they pressed together. He walked to the end of the porch and back. He reminded her of a caged tiger, constricted by the boundary of the porch. She hadn’t expected him to be so upset. When he passed, she set her hand on his bare arm, stopping him. The muscles flexed beneath her palm. He was so strong. She had the sudden image of him hitting Sean, using those muscles to protect her. She pulled her hand away as if his skin burned her. “They’ve had enough loss. They’ve already become attached to you, and that’s only going to hurt them more when we leave.” His face softened as he stared, his lips slackening, his eyes growing tender. His face had already darkened under the sun. Faint lines fanned the corner of his eyes. He reached toward her and ran his finger down the side of her face. “Don’t leave.” His touch left a trail of fire. She pressed her spine to the column. How could she want to dive into his arms and run away at the same time? Inside a riot kicked up. She was back in the apartment on Warren Street, coming home from school, slipping in the door, unsure if she’d find her mom racing around the kitchen, slumped on the bathroom tile, or just gone. The same uncertainty roiled in her now. “I have to.” “This is their home. Your engagement is over,” he said gently. “Is what you’re going back to as important as what you’re leaving?” He didn’t have to say he meant them. Us. She shook her head, dislodging his hand. How had he turned this all around? She ~ Denise Hunter,
1483:So what's going on with you and your boyfriend?" Eli asked me right before he shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth during breakfast the next morning.

I made a face in the direction of my plate before shooting a glance upward to find Gordo’s eyes on me, a smirk on his face.

"Mason?" I asked, going back to my food.

Eli made a gagging noise, elbowing me hard in the ribs. "I'm not gonna go into details on how disturbing it is that I say ‘your boyfriend’ and you automatically think of fucking Mase."

"He's always calling me his wife, or telling people I don't know that we're getting married," I replied, elbowing him back as hard as he got me. It was partially the truth… but mostly, I didn’t want to talk about the man who had been kissing my shoulder hours ago.

"I love Mase, but it'll be a sunny day in my asshole before you and him get together," he mumbled.

I snorted, biting into my biscuit. "Who the heck else would you be talking about?" I asked, but I knew. Oh, I knew damn well he was referring to Sacha.

Freaking Gordo snickered from across the table before putting his hands up in surrender when I glared at him. "I didn’t say anything."

"Sacha, Flabby. Sacha. Your boyfriend. Your snuggle bug." Eliza finally answered.

Suddenly the half-eaten biscuit on my plate needed to be eaten immediately. I shoved the entire piece into my mouth to avoid the conversation my brother was trying to edge into. I'd had talks about boys with Eli in the past, and they never ended—or started—well. "There's nothing going on between us. We're just friends."

Because we were.

Eli made a noise that sounded like “hmmph” deep in his throat. It was incredulous and disbelieving. Then he asked the question to prove it, his attention back on his band mate. "Gordo, do you think I'm blind?"

Gordo shook his head.

"Gaby, do you think I'm blind?" he asked.

"Not blind, just dumb.” I smiled.

He shot me a frown. A moment later, he threw his arm over my shoulders and started shoving his plate away with his free hand. "Flabby Gaby, that kid is in love with you."

In love.

With me?

I leaned forward and tried to sniff his breath. “Are you still drunk?”

But my brother kept talking before I could keep going. "Anyone with eyes and ears knows that guy thinks you shit out Lucky Charms."

Gordo and I burst out laughing.

"Is that a good thing?" I asked him.

Eliza shoved my face away with his palm, ignoring my commentary again. "And I think that you love him, too."

The noise that came out of my mouth sounded like a hybrid “moo” and squawk at the same time. "I—,” I slammed my mouth shut before opening it again with a sputter. “What? ~ Mariana Zapata,
1484:Cape Breton
Out on the high "bird islands," Ciboux and Hertford,
the razorbill auks and the silly-looking puffins all stand
with their backs to the mainland
in solemn, uneven lines along the cliff's brown grass-frayed edge,
while the few sheep pastured there go "Baaa, baaa."
(Sometimes, frightened by aeroplanes, they stampede
and fall over into the sea or onto the rocks.)
The silken water is weaving and weaving,
disappearing under the mist equally in all directions,
lifted and penetrated now and then
by one shag's dripping serpent-neck,
and somewhere the mist incorporates the pulse,
rapid but unurgent, of a motor boat.
The same mist hangs in thin layers
among the valleys and gorges of the mainland
like rotting snow-ice sucked away
almost to spirit; the ghosts of glaciers drift
among those folds and folds of fir: spruce and hackmatack-dull, dead, deep pea-cock colors,
each riser distinguished from the next
by an irregular nervous saw-tooth edge,
alike, but certain as a stereoscopic view.
The wild road clambers along the brink of the coast.
On it stand occasional small yellow bulldozers,
but without their drivers, because today is Sunday.
The little white churches have been dropped into the matted hills
like lost quartz arrowheads.
The road appears to have been abandoned.
Whatever the landscape had of meaning appears to have been abandoned,
unless the road is holding it back, in the interior,
where we cannot see,
where deep lakes are reputed to be,
and disused trails and mountains of rock
and miles of burnt forests, standing in gray scratches
like the admirable scriptures made on stones by stones-and these regions now have little to say for themselves
except in thousands of light song-sparrow songs floating upward
18
freely, dispassionately, through the mist, and meshing
in brown-wet, fine torn fish-nets.
A small bus comes along, in up-and-down rushes,
packed with people, even to its step.
(On weekdays with groceries, spare automobile parts, and pump parts,
but today only two preachers extra, one carrying his frock coat on a
hanger.)
It passes the closed roadside stand, the closed schoolhouse,
where today no flag is flying
from the rough-adzed pole topped with a white china doorknob.
It stops, and a man carrying a bay gets off,
climbs over a stile, and goes down through a small steep meadow,
which establishes its poverty in a snowfall of daisies,
to his invisible house beside the water.
The birds keep on singing, a calf bawls, the bus starts.
The thin mist follows
the white mutations of its dream;
an ancient chill is rippling the dark brooks.
~ Elizabeth Bishop,
1485:His life coiled back into the brown murk of the past like a twined filament of electric wire; he gave life, a pattern, and movement to these million sensations that Chance, the loss or gain of a moment, the turn of the head, the enormous and aimless impulsion of accident, had thrust into the blazing heat of him. His mind picked out in white living brightness these pinpoints of experience and the ghostliness of all things else became more awful because of them. So many of the sensations that returned to open haunting vistas of fantasy and imagining had been caught from a whirling landscape through the windows of the train.

And it was this that awed him — the weird combination of fixity and change, the terrible moment of immobility stamped with eternity in which, passing life at great speed, both the observer and the observed seem frozen in time. There was one moment of timeless suspension when the land did not move, the train did not move, the slattern in the doorway did not move, he did not move. It was as if God had lifted his baton sharply above the endless orchestration of the seas, and the eternal movement had stopped, suspended in the timeless architecture of the absolute. Or like those motion-pictures that describe the movements of a swimmer making a dive, or a horse taking a hedge — movement is petrified suddenly in mid-air, the inexorable completion of an act is arrested. Then, completing its parabola, the suspended body plops down into the pool. Only, these images that burnt in him existed without beginning or ending, without the essential structure of time. Fixed in no-time, the slattern vanished, fixed, without a moment of transition.

His sense of unreality came from time and movement, from imagining the woman, when the train had passed, as walking back into the house, lifting a kettle from the hearth embers. Thus life turned shadow, the living lights went ghost again. The boy among the calves. Where later? Where now?

I am, he thought, a part of all that I have touched and that has touched me, which, having for me no existence save that which I gave to it, became other than itself by being mixed with what I then was, and is now still otherwise, having fused with what I now am, which is itself a cumulation of what I have been becoming. Why here? Why there? Why now? Why then?

The fusion of the two strong egotisms, Eliza’s inbrooding and Gant’s expanding outward, made of him a fanatical zealot in the religion of Chance. Beyond all misuse, waste, pain, tragedy, death, confusion, unswerving necessity was on the rails; not a sparrow fell through the air but that its repercussion acted on his life, and the lonely light that fell upon the viscous and interminable seas at dawn awoke sea-changes washing life to him. The fish swam upward from the depth. ~ Thomas Wolfe,
1486:The Old Gentleman With The Amber Snuff-Box
_The old gentleman, tapping his amber snuff-box
(A heart-shaped snuff-box with a golden clasp)
Stared at the dying fire. 'I'd like them all
To understand, when I am gone,' he muttered.
'But how to do it delicately! I can't
Apologize. I'll hint at it ... in verse;
And, to be sure that Rosalind reads it through,
I'll make it an appendix to my will!'
--Still cynical, you see. He couldn't help it.
He had seen much, felt much. He snapped the snuff box,
Shook his white periwig, trimmed a long quill pen,
And then began to write, most carefully,
These couplets, in the old heroic style:--_
O, had I known in boyhood, only known
The few sad truths that time has made my own,
I had not lost the best that youth can give,
Nay, life itself, in learning how to live.
This laboring heart would not be tired so soon,
This jaded blood would jog to a livelier tune:
And some few friends, could I begin again,
Should know more happiness, and much less pain.
I should not wound in ignorance, nor turn
In foolish pride from those for whom I yearn.
I should have kept nigh half the friends I've lost,
And held for dearest those I wronged the most.
Yet, when I see more cunning men evade
With colder tact, the blunders that I made;
Sometimes I wonder if the better part
Is not still mine, who lacked their subtle art.
For I have conned my book in harsher schools,
And learned from struggling what they worked by rules;
Learned--with some pain--more quickly to forgive
My fellow-blunderers, while they learn to live;
Learned--with some tears--to keep a steadfast mind,
And think more kindly of my own poor kind.
_He read the verses through, shaking his wig.
142
'Perhaps ... perhaps'--he whispered to himself,
'I'd better leave it to the will of God.
They might upset my own. I do not think
They'd understand. Jocelyn might, perhaps;
And Dick, if only they were left alone.
But Rosalind never; nor that nephew of mine,
The witty politician. No. No. No.
They'd say my mind was wandering, I'm afraid.'
So, with a frozen face, reluctantly,
He tossed his verses into the dying fire,
And watched the sparks fly upward.
There, at dawn,
They found him, cold and stiff by the cold hearth,
His amber snuff-box in his ivory hand.
'You see,' they said, 'he never needed friends.
He had that curious antique frozen way.
He had no heart--only an amber snuff-box.
He died quite happily, taking a pinch of snuff.'
His nephew, that engaging politician,
Inherited the snuff-box, and remarked
His epitaph should be 'Snuffed Out.' The clubs
Laughed, and the statesman's reputation grew._
~ Alfred Noyes,
1487:Ivar Ingemundson's Lay
Wherefore have I longings,
When to live them strength is lacking?
And wherefore see I,
If I see but sorrow?
Flight of my eye to the great and distant
Dooms it to gales of darkening doubt;
But fleeing backward to the present,
It's prisoned in pain and pity.
For I see a land with no leader,
I see a leader with no land.
The land how heavy-laden
The leader how high his longing!
Might the men but know it,
That he is here among them!
But they see a man in fetters,
And leave him to lie there.
Round the ship a storm is raging,
At the rudder stands a fool. Who can save it?
He, who below the deck is longing,
Half-dead and in fetters.
(Looking upward)
Hear how they call Thee
And come with arms uplifted!
They have their savior at hand,
And Thou sayest it never?
Shall they, then, all thus perish,
Because the one seems absent?
Wilt Thou not let the fool die,
That life may endure in many?
What means that solemn saying:
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One
shall suffer for many?
But many suffer for one.
Oh, what means it?
The wisdom Thou gavest
Wearies me with guesswork.
The light Thou hast dealt me
Leads me to darkness.
Not me alone, moreover,
But millions and millions!
Space unending spans not all the questions
From earth here and up toward heaven.
Weakness cowers in walls of cloisters,
But wills of power press onward,
And thronging, with longing,
They thrust one another out of the lands.Whither? Before their eyes is night,
'In Nazareth a light is set!' one says aloud,
A hundred thousand say it;
All see it now: To Nazareth!
But the half-part perish from hunger by the wayside,
The other half by the sword of the heathen,
The pest awaits the pilgrim in Nazareth,Wast Thou there, or wast Thou not there?
Oh, where art Thou?
The whole world now awakens,
And on the way is searching
And seeking after Thee!
Or wast Thou in the hunger?
Wast Thou in the pest?
Wast Thou in the sword of the heathen?
Saltest Thou with the salt of wrath?
Refinest Thou with suffering's fire?
Hast Thou millions of millions hidden in Thy future,
63
Whom Thou thus wilt save to freedom?
Oh, to them are the thousands that now suffer
But
one
And that one I would beseech Thee forNothing!
I follow a little brook
And find it leads to an ocean,
I see here a little drop,
And swelling in mist it mounts a mighty cloud.
See, how I'm tossed so will-less
By troublous waves of doubt,
The wind overturned my little boat,
The wreck is all my refuge.
Lead me, lead me,
I see nowhere land!
Lift me, lift me,
I nowhere footing find!
~ Bjornstjerne Bjornson,
1488:Friend!the Great Ruler, easily content,
Needs not the laws it has laborious been
The task of small professors to invent;
A single wheel impels the whole machine
Matter and spirit;yea, that simple law,
Pervading nature, which our Newton saw.

This taught the spheres, slaves to one golden rein,
Their radiant labyrinths to weave around
Creation's mighty hearts: this made the chain,
Which into interwoven systems bound
All spirits streaming to the spiritual sun
As brooks that ever into ocean run!

Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide
Our hearts to meet in love's eternal bond?
Linked to thine arm, O Raphael, by thy side
Might I aspire to reach to souls beyond
Our earth, and bid the bright ambition go
To that perfection which the angels know!

Happy, O happyI have found theeI
Have out of millions found thee, and embraced;
Thou, out of millions, mine!Let earth and sky
Return to darkness, and the antique waste
To chaos shocked, let warring atoms be,
Still shall each heart unto the other flee!

Do I not find within thy radiant eyes
Fairer reflections of all joys most fair?
In thee I marvel at myselfthe dyes
Of lovely earth seem lovelier painted there,
And in the bright looks of the friend is given
A heavenlier mirror even of the heaven!

Sadness casts off its load, and gayly goes
From the intolerant storm to rest awhile,
In love's true heart, sure haven of repose;
Does not pain's veriest transports learn to smile
From that bright eloquence affection gave
To friendly looks?there, finds not pain a grave?

In all creation did I stand alone,
Still to the rocks my dreams a soul should find,
Mine arms should wreathe themselves around the stone,
My griefs should feel a listener in the wind;
My joyits echo in the caves should be!
Fool, if ye willFool, for sweet sympathy!

We are dead groups of matter when we hate;
But when we love we are as gods!Unto
The gentle fetters yearning, through each state
And shade of being multiform, and through
All countless spirits (save of all the sire)
Moves, breathes, and blends, the one divine desire.

Lo! arm in arm, through every upward grade,
From the rude mongrel to the starry Greek,
Who the fine link between the mortal made,
And heaven's last serapheverywhere we seek
Union and bondtill in one sea sublime
Of love be merged all measure and all time!

Friendless ruled God His solitary sky;
He felt the want, and therefore souls were made,
The blessed mirrors of his bliss!His eye
No equal in His loftiest works surveyed;
And from the source whence souls are quickened, He
Called His companion forthETERNITY!

[From \
~ Friedrich Schiller, Friendship
,
1489:Nick..." She started as his mouth descended to the nest of blond curls. "Nick..."
But he did not listen, completely absorbed in her salt-scented female flesh. His breath filled the moist cleft with steamy heat. A moan rose from her throat, and her wrists twisted in his grasp. His tongue searched through the springy curls until he reached the rosy lips hidden beneath. He licked one side of her sex, then the other, the tip of his tongue teasing delicately.
His mouth ravished her so gently, his tongue slipping over her melting flesh to find the secret entrance to her body, filling her with silky heat... withdrawing... filling. Lottie went weak all over, her sex pulsing urgently. As he nuzzled and played with her, she tried to angle her body so that he would touch the peak that throbbed so desperately. He seemed not to understand what she wanted, licking all around the sensitive spot but never quite reaching it.
"Nick," she whispered, unable to find words for what she wanted. "Please. Please."
But he continued to deny her, until she realized he was doing it deliberately. Frustrated beyond bearing, she reached down to his head, and she felt the puff of his brief laugh against her. Immediately his mouth slid away and traveled downward, tasting the damp creases of her knees, moving to the hollows of her ankles. By the time he made his way back to her loins, her entire body was sweltering. His head hovered over the place between her legs again. Lottie held her breath, aware of a hot trickle of moisture from her body.
His tongue brushed the peak of her sex in a tentative lap. Lottie could not hold back a wild cry as she arched into his mouth.
"No," he murmured against her damp flesh. "Not yet, Lottie. Wait just a little longer."
"I can't, can't, oh, don't stop..." She pulled at his dark head frantically, groaning as he feathered his tongue over her once more.
Catching her wrists, Nick pulled them over her head and settled his body between her thighs, taking care not to crush her. His shaft was cradled in the hot valley between her legs. His dark blue eyes stared directly into hers as he released her hands. "Leave them there," he said, and she obeyed with a sob.
He kissed her breasts, moving from one to the other. With each incendiary swirl of his tongue, she nearly rose off the sheet. His sex slid against her in disciplined thrusts that teased and rubbed and tormented, while his mouth drew hungrily on her nipples. She arched upward with supplicating moans. Stunning pleasure built inside her, gaining intensity... she hovered on the brink, waiting, waiting... oh, please... until the culmination was finally upon her. She cried out in bashful amazement as rich spasms spread from the center of her body.
"Yes," he whispered against her taut throat, his hips working gently over hers. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1490:Even with the questions and worries that flooded her, Lillian was overcome with sudden exhaustion. The waking nightmare had come to a precipitate end, and it seemed that for now there was nothing more she could do. She waited docilely, her cheek resting against the steady support of Marcus’s shoulder, only half hearing the conversation that ensued.
“… have to find St. Vincent…” Marcus was saying.
“No,” Simon Hunt said emphatically, “I’ll find St. Vincent. You take care of Miss Bowman.”
“We need privacy.”
“I believe there is a small room nearby— more of a vestibule, actually…”
But Hunt’s voice trailed away, and Lillian became aware of a new, ferocious tension in Marcus’s body. With a lethal shift of his muscles, he turned to glance in the direction of the staircase.
St. Vincent was descending, having entered the rented room from the other side of the inn and found it empty. Stopping midway down the stairs, St. Vincent took in the curious tableau before him… the clusters of bewildered onlookers, the affronted innkeeper… and the Earl of Westcliff, who stared at him with avid bloodlust.
The entire inn fell silent during that chilling moment, so that Westcliff’s quiet snarl was clearly audible. “By God, I’m going to butcher you.”
Dazedly Lillian murmured, “Marcus, wait—”
She was shoved unceremoniously at Simon Hunt, who caught her reflexively as Marcus ran full-bore toward the stairs. Instead of skirting around the banister, Marcus vaulted the railings and landed on the steps like a cat. There was a blur of movement as St. Vincent attempted a strategic retreat, but Marcus flung himself upward, catching his legs and dragging him down. They grappled, cursed, and exchanged punishing blows, until St. Vincent aimed a kick at Marcus’s head. Rolling to avoid the blow of his heavy boot, Marcus was forced to release him temporarily. The viscount lurched up the stairs, and Marcus sprang after him. Soon they were both out of sight. A crowd of enthusiastic men followed, shouting advice, exchanging odds, and exclaiming in excitement over the spectacle of a pair of noblemen fighting like spurred roosters.
White-faced, Lillian glanced at Simon Hunt, who wore a faint smile. “Aren’t you going to help him?” she demanded.
“Oh no. Westcliff would never forgive me for interrupting. It’s his first tavern brawl.” Hunt’s gaze flickered over Lillian in friendly assessment. She swayed a little, and he placed a large hand on the center of her back and guided her to the nearby grouping of chairs. A cacophony of noise drifted from upstairs. There were heavy thudding sounds that caused the entire building to shake, followed by the noises of furniture breaking and glass shattering.
“Now,” Hunt said, ignoring the tumult, “if I may have a look at that remaining handcuff, I may be able to do something about it. ~ Lisa Kleypas,
1491:There is a change underway, however. Our society used to be a ladder on which people generally climbed upward. More and more now we are going to a planetary structure, in which the great dominant lower middle class, the class that determines our prevailing values and organizational structures in education, government, and most of society, are providing recruits for the other groups — sideways, up, and even down, although the movement downward is relatively small. As the workers become increasingly petty bourgeois and as middle-class bureaucratic and organizational structures increasingly govern all aspects of our society, our society is increasingly taking on the characteristics of the lower middle class, although the poverty culture is also growing. The working class is not growing. Increasingly we are doing things with engineers sitting at consoles, rather than with workers screwing nuts on wheels. The workers are a diminishing, segment of society, contrary to Marx’s prediction that the proletariat would grow and grow. I have argued elsewhere that many people today are frustrated because we are surrounded by organizational structures and artifacts. Only the petty bourgeoisie can find security and emotional satisfaction in an organizational structure, and only a middle-class person can find them in artifacts, things that men have made, such as houses, yachts, and swimming pools. But human beings who are growing up crave sensation and experience. They want contact with other people, moment-to-moment, intimate contact. I’ve discovered, however, that the intimacy really isn’t there. Young people touch each other, often in an almost ritual way; they sleep together, eat together, have sex together. But I don’t see the intimacy. There is a lot of action, of course, but not so much more than in the old days, I believe, because now there is a great deal more talk than action. This group, the lower middle class, it seems to me, holds the key to the future. I think probably they will win out. If they do, they will resolutely defend our organizational structures and artifacts. They will cling to the automobile, for instance; they will not permit us to adopt more efficient methods of moving people around. They will defend the system very much as it is and, if necessary, they will use all the force they can command. Eventually they will stop dissent altogether, whether from the intellectuals, the religious, the poor, the people who run the foundations, the Ivy League colleges, all the rest. The colleges are already becoming bureaucratized, anyway. I can’t see the big universities or the foundations as a strong progressive force. The people who run Harvard and the Ford Foundation look more and more like lower-middle-class bureaucrats who pose no threat to the established order because they are prepared to do anything to defend the system. ~ Carroll Quigley,
1492:He was almost at his door when Vik’s earsplitting shriek resounded down the corridor. Tom was glad for the excuse to sprint back toward him. “Vik?”
He reached Vik’s doorway as Vik was backing out of it. “Tom,” he breathed, “it’s an abomination.”
Confused, Tom stepped past him into the bunk. Then he gawked, too.
Instead of a standard trainee bunk of two small beds with drawers underneath them and totally bare walls, Vik’s bunk was virtually covered with images of their friend Wyatt Enslow. There were posters all over the wall with Wyatt’s solemn, oval face on them. She wore her customary scowl, her dark eyes tracking their every move through the bunk. There was a giant marble statue of a sad-looking Vik with a boot on top of its head. The Vik statue clutched two very, very tiny hands together in a gesture of supplication, its eyes trained upward on the unseen stomper, an inscription at its base, WHY, OH WHY, DID I CROSS WYATT ENSLOW?
Tom began to laugh.
“She didn’t do it to the bunk,” Vik insisted. “She must’ve done something to our processors.”
That much was obvious. If Wyatt was good at anything, it was pulling off tricks with the neural processors, which could pretty much be manipulated to show them anything. This was some sort of illusion she was making them see, and Tom heartily approved.
He stepped closer to the walls to admire some of the photos pinned there, freeze-frames of some of Vik’s more embarrassing moments at the Spire: that time Vik got a computer virus that convinced him he was a sheep, and he’d crawled around on his hands and knees chewing on plants in the arboretum. Another was Vik gaping in dismay as Wyatt won the war games.
“My hands do not look like that.” Vik jabbed a finger at the statue and its abnormally tiny hands. Wyatt had relentlessly mocked Vik for having small, delicate hands ever since Tom had informed her it was the proper way to counter one of Vik’s nicknames for her, “Man Hands.” Vik had mostly abandoned that nickname for “Evil Wench,” and Tom suspected it was due to the delicate-hands gibe.
Just then, Vik’s new roommate bustled into the bunk.
He was a tall, slim guy with curly black hair and a pointy look to his face. Tom had seen him around, and he called up his profile from memory:
NAME: Giuseppe Nichols
RANK: USIF, Grade IV Middle, Alexander Division
ORIGIN: New York, NY
ACHIEVEMENTS: Runner-up, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition
IP: 2053:db7:lj71::291:ll3:6e8
SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-4
Giuseppe must’ve been able to see the bunk template, too, because he stuttered to a stop, staring up at the statue. “Did you really program a giant statue of yourself into your bunk template? That’s so narcissistic.”
Tom smothered his laughter. “Wow. He already has your number, man.”
Vik shot him a look of death as Tom backed out of the bunk. ~ S J Kincaid,
1493:Season late, day late, sun just down, and the sky
Cold gunmetal but with a wash of live rose, and she,
From water the color of sky except where
Her motion has fractured it to shivering splinters of silver,
Rises. Stands on the raw grass. Against
The new-curdling night of spruces, nakedness
Glimmers and, at bosom and flank, drips
With fluent silver. The man,

Some ten strokes out, but now hanging
Motionless in the gunmetal water, feet
Cold with the coldness of depth, all
History dissolving from him, is
Nothing but an eye. Is an eye only. Sees

The body that is marked by his use, and Time's,
Rise, and in the abrupt and unsustaining element of air,
Sway, lean, grapple the pond-bank. Sees
How, with that posture of female awkwardness that is,
And is the stab of, suddenly perceived grace, breasts bulge down in
The pure curve of their weight and buttocks
Moon up and, in swelling unity,
Are silver and glimmer. Then

The body is erect, she is herself, whatever
Self she may be, and with an end of the towel grasped in each hand,
Slowly draws it back and forth across back and buttocks, but
With face lifted toward the high sky, where
The over-wash of rose color now fails. Fails, though no star
Yet throbs there. The towel, forgotten,
Does not move now. The gaze
Remains fixed on the sky. The body,

Profiled against the darkness of spruces, seems
To draw to itself, and condense in its whiteness, what light
In the sky yet lingers or, from
The metallic and abstract severity of water, lifts. The body,
With the towel now trailing loose from one hand, is
A white stalk from which the face flowers gravely toward the high sky.
This moment is non-sequential and absolute, and admits
Of no definition, for it
Subsumes all other, and sequential, moments, by which
Definition might be possible. The woman,

Face yet raised, wraps,
With a motion as though standing in sleep,
The towel about her body, under her breasts, and,
Holding it there hieratic as lost Egypt and erect,
Moves up the path that, stair-steep, winds
Into the clamber and tangle of growth. Beyond
The lattice of dusk-dripping leaves, whiteness
Dimly glimmers, goes. Glimmers and is gone, and the man,

Suspended in his darkling medium, stares
Upward where, though not visible, he knows
She moves, and in his heart he cries out that, if only
He had such strength, he would put his hand forth
And maintain it over her to guard, in all
Her out-goings and in-comings, from whatever
Inclemency of sky or slur of the world's weather
Might ever be. In his heart he cries out. Above

Height of the spruce-night and heave of the far mountain, he sees
The first star pulse into being. It gleams there.

I do not know what promise it makes him. ~ Robert Penn Warren,
1494:So,” Will begins, “do you play ball as well as you run?”
I laugh a little. I can’t help it. He’s sweet and disarming and my nerves are racing. “Not even close.”
The conversation goes no further as we move up in our lines. Catherine looks over her shoulder at me, her wide sea eyes assessing. Like she can’t quite figure me out. My smile fades and I look away. She can never figure me out. I can never let her. Never let anyone here.
She faces me with her arms crossed. “You make friends fast. Since freshman year, I’ve spoken to like . . .” She paused and looks upward as though mentally counting. “Three, no—four people. And you’re number four.”
I shrug. “He’s just a guy.”
Catherine squares up at the free-throw line, dribbles a few times, and shoots. The ball swished cleanly through the net. She catches it and tosses it back to me.
I try copying her moves, but my ball flies low, glides beneath the backboard. I head to the end of the line again.
Will’s already waiting it half-court, letting others go before him. My face warms at his obvious stall.
“You weren’t kidding,” he teases over the thunder of basketballs.
“Did you make it?” I ask, wishing I had looked while he shot.
“Yeah.”
“Of course,” I mock.
He lets another kid go before him. I do the same. Catherine is several ahead of me now.
His gaze scans me, sweeping over my face and hair with deep intensity, like he’s memorizing my features. “Yeah, well. I can’t run like you.”
I move up in line, but when I sneak a look behind me, he’s looking back, too.
“Wow,” Catherine murmurs in her smoky low voice as she falls into line beside me. “I never knew it happened like that.”
I snap my gaze to her. “What?”
“You know. Romeo and Juliet stuff. Love at first sight and all that.”
“It’s not like that,” I say quickly.
“You could have fooled me.” We’re up again. Catherine takes her shot. It swishes cleanly through the hoop.
When I shoot, the ball bounces hard off the backboard and flies wildly through the air, knocking the coach in the head. I slap a hand over my mouth. The coach barely catches herself from falling. Several students laugh. She glares at me and readjusts her cap.
With a small wave of apology, I head back to the end of the line.
Will’s there, fighting laughter. “Nice,” he says. “Glad I’m downcourt of you.”
I cross my arms and resist smiling, resist letting myself feel good around him. But he makes it hard. I want to smile. I want to like him, to be around him, to know him. “Happy to amuse you.”
His smile slips then, and he’s looking at me with that strange intensity again. Only I understand. I know why. He must remember . . . must recognize me on some level even though he can’t understand it.
“You want to go out?” he asks suddenly.
I blink. “As in a date?”
“Yes. That’s what a guy usually means when he asks that question. ~ Sophie Jordan,
1495:Ode For New Year's Day
Woe unto you, ye sons of pain that are this day in earth,
Now cry for all your torment: now curse your hour of birth
And the fathers who begat you to a portion nothing worth.
And Thou, my own beloved, for as brave as ere thou art,
Bow down thine head, Despoina, clasp thy pale arms over it,
Lie low with fast-closed eyelids, clenched teeth, enduring heart,
For sorrow on sorrow is coming wherein all flesh has part.
The sky above is sickening, the clouds of God’s hate cover it,
Body and soul shall suffer beyond all word or thought,
Till the pain and noisy terror that these first years have wrought
Seem but the soft arising and prelude of the storm
That fiercer still and heavier with sharper lightnings fraught
Shall pour red wrath upon us over a world deform.
Thrice happy, O Despoina, were the men who were alive
In the great age and the golden age when still the cycle ran
On upward curve and easily, for them both maid and man
And beast and tree and spirit in the green earth could thrive.
But now one age is ending, and God calls home the stars
And looses the wheel of the ages and sends it spinning back
Amid the death of nations, and points a downward track,
And madness is come over us and great and little wars.
He has not left one valley, one isle of fresh and green
Where old friends could forgather amid the howling wreck.
It’s vainly we are praying. We cannot, cannot check
The Power who slays and puts aside the beauty that has been.
It’s truth they tell, Despoina, none hears the heart’s complaining
For Nature will not pity, nor the red God lend an ear,
Yet I too have been mad in the hour of bitter paining
And lifted up my voice to God, thinking that he could hear
The curse wherewith I cursed Him because the Good was dead.
But lo! I am grown wiser, knowing that our own hearts
Have made a phantom called the Good, while a few years have sped
Over a little planet. And what should the great Lord know of it
Who tosses the dust of chaos and gives the suns their parts?
Hither and thither he moves them; for an hour we see the show of it:
Only a little hour, and the life of the race is done.
And here he builds a nebula, and there he slays a sun
54
And works his own fierce pleasure. All things he shall fulfill,
And O, my poor Despoina, do you think he ever hears
The wail of hearts he has broken, the sound of human ill?
He cares not for our virtues, our little hopes and fears,
And how could it all go on, love, if he knew of laughter and tears?
Ah, sweet, if a man could cheat him! If you could flee away
Into some other country beyond the rosy West,
To hide in the deep forests and be for ever at rest
From the rankling hate of God and the outworn world’s decay!
~ Clive Staples Lewis,
1496:The modern distinction is that the poet appeals to the imagination and not to the intellect. But there are many kinds of imagination; the objective imagination which visualises strongly the outward aspects of life and things; the subjective imagination which visualises strongly the mental and emotional impressions they have the power to start in the mind; the imagination which deals in the play of mental fictions and to which we give the name of poetic fancy; the aesthetic imagination which delights in the beauty of words and images for their own sake and sees no farther. All these have their place in poetry, but they only give the poet his materials, they are only the first instruments in the creation of poetic style. The essential poetic imagination does not stop short with even the most subtle reproductions of things external or internal, with the richest or delicatest play of fancy or with the most beautiful colouring of word or image. It is creative, not of either the actual or the fictitious, but of the more and the most real; it sees the spiritual truth of things, - of this truth too there are many gradations, - which may take either the actual or the ideal for its starting-point. The aim of poetry, as of all true art, is neither a photographic or otherwise realistic imitation of Nature, nor a romantic furbishing and painting or idealistic improvement of her image, but an interpretation by the images she herself affords us, not on one but on many planes of her creation, of that which she conceals from us, but is ready, when rightly approached, to reveal.

   This is the true, because the highest and essential aim of poetry; but the human mind arrives at it only by a succession of steps, the first of which seems far enough from its object. It begins by stringing its most obvious and external ideas, feelings and sensations of things on a thread of verse in a sufficient language of no very high quality. But even when it gets to a greater adequacy and effectiveness, it is often no more than a vital, an emotional or an intellectual adequacy and effectiveness. There is a strong vital poetry which powerfully appeals to our sensations and our sense of life, like much of Byron or the less inspired mass of the Elizabethan drama; a strong emotional poetry which stirs our feelings and gives us the sense and active image of the passions; a strong intellectual poetry which satisfies our curiosity about life and its mechanism, or deals with its psychological and other "problems", or shapes for us our thoughts in an effective, striking and often quite resistlessly quotable fashion. All this has its pleasures for the mind and the surface soul in us, and it is certainly quite legitimate to enjoy them and to enjoy them strongly and vividly on our way upward; but if we rest content with these only, we shall never get very high up the hill of the Muses.

   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry,
1497:Concentration is a gathering together of the consciousness and either centralising at one point or turning on a single object, e.g., the Divine; there can be also be a gathered condition throughout the whole being, not at a point. In meditation it is not indispensable to gather like this, one can simply remain with a quiet mind thinking of one subject or observing what comes in the consciousness and dealing with it. ... Of this true consciousness other than the superficial there are two main centres, one in the heart (not the physical heart, but the cardiac centre in the middle of the chest), one in the head. The concentration in the heart opens within and by following this inward opening and going deep one becomes aware of the soul or psychic being, the divine element in the individual. This being unveiled begins to come forward, to govern the nature, to turn it and all its movements towards the Truth, towards the Divine, and to call down into it all that is above. It brings the consciousness of the Presence, the dedication of the being to the Highest and invites the descent into our nature of a greater Force and Consciousness which is waiting above us. To concentrate in the heart centre with the offering of oneself to the Divine and the aspiration for this inward opening and for the Presence in the heart is the first way and, if it can be done, the natural beginning; for its result once obtained makes the spiritual path far more easy and safe than if one begins the other ways.
   That other way is the concentration in the head, in the mental centre. This, if it brings about the silence of the surface mind, opens up an inner, larger, deeper mind within which is more capable of receiving spiritual experience and spiritual knowledge. But once concentrated here one must open the silent mental consciousness upward and in the end it rises beyond the lid which has so long kept it tied in the body and finds a centre above the head where it is liberated into the Infinite. There it begins to come into contact with the universal Self, the Divine Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Bliss, to enter into that and become that, to feel the descent of these things into the nature. To concentrate in the head with the aspiration for quietude in the mind and the realisation of the Self and Divine above is the second way of concentration. It is important, however, to remember that the concentration of the consciousness in the head in only a preparation for its rising to the centre above; otherwise, one may get shut up in one's own mind and its experiences or at best attain only to a reflection of the Truth above instead of rising into the spiritual transcendence to live there. For some the mental concentration is easier, for some the concentration in the heart centre; some are capable of doing both alternatively - but to begin with the heart centre, if one can do it, is the most desirable.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - II,
1498:Wrath…”
“What,” he murmured against her, working her with his nose. “You don’t like?”
“Shut up and get back to doing—”
His tongue slipping under the panties cut her off…and made him have to slow himself down.
She was so slick and wet and soft and willing, it was all he could do to keep himself from hauling her on the rug and going at her deep and hard. And then they’d both miss out on the fun of anticipation.
Moving the cotton aside with his hand, he kissed her pink flesh, then delved in. She was oh, so ready for him, and he knew it because of the honey that he swallowed as he dragged upward in a long, slow lick.
But it wasn’t enough, and holding the panties to the side was distracting. With his fang, he punctured them, then split them apart right up the middle, leaving the two halves to hang off her hips. His palms went up to her ass and squeezed hard as he quit fooling around and got busy working out his female with his mouth. He knew exactly what she liked best, the sucking and the licking and the going in with his tongue.
Closing his eyes, he took it all in, the scent and the taste and the feel of her shuddering against him as she peaked and came apart.
Behind the fly of his leathers, his cock was screaming for attention, the rasp of the buttons not nearly sufficient to satisfy what it was demanding, but tough shit.
His erection was going to have to chill for a while, because this was too sweet to stop anytime soon.
When Beth’s knees wobbled, he took her down to the floor and stretched one of her legs up, keeping to his pace while shoving her fleece to her neck and putting his hand under her bra.
As she orgasmed again, she grabbed onto one of the desk legs, pulling hard and bracing her free foot into the rug.
His pursuit pushed them both farther and farther beneath where he discharged his kingly duties until he had to crouch down to fit his shoulders.
Eventually her head was out the other side and she was gripping the pansy-ass chair he sat in and dragging it with her.
As she cried out his name once more, he prowled up her body and glared at the stupid, nancy chair. “I need something heavier to sit in.”
Last coherent thing he said.
His body found the entrance to hers with an ease that spoke of all the practice they’d had and…Oh, yeah, still as good as the first time.
Wrapping his arms around her, he rode her hard, and she was right there with him as the storm rolling through his body gathered in his balls until they stung.
Together, he and his shellan moved as one, giving, receiving, going faster and faster until he came and kept going and came again and kept going until something hit his face.
In full animal mode, he growled and swiped at it with his fangs.
It was the drapes.
He’d managed to fuck them out from under the desk, past the chair, and over to the wall.
Beth burst out laughing and so did he, and then they were cradling each other. ~ J R Ward,
1499:Chicago, Illinois 1896
Opening Night
Wearing her Brünnhilda costume, complete with padding, breastplate, helm, and false blond braids, and holding a spear as if it were a staff, Sophia Maxwell waited in the wings of the Canfield-Pendegast theatre. The bright stage lighting made it difficult to see the audience filling the seats for opening night of Die Walküre, but she could feel their anticipation build as the time drew near for the appearance of the Songbird of Chicago.

She took slow deep breaths, inhaling the smell of the greasepaint she wore on her face. Part of her listened to the music for her cue, and the other part immersed herself in the role of the god Wotan’s favorite daughter. From long practice, Sophia tried to ignore quivers of nervousness. Never before had stage fright made her feel ill. Usually she couldn’t wait to make her appearance. Now, however, nausea churned in her stomach, timpani banged pain-throbs through her head, her muscles ached, and heat made beads of persperation break out on her brow. I feel more like a plucked chicken than a songbird, but I will not let my audience down.

Annoyed with herself, Sophia reached for a towel held by her dresser, Nan, standing at her side. She lifted the helm and blotted her forehead, careful not to streak the greasepaint.

Nan tisked and pulled out a small brush and a tin of powder from one of the caprious pockets of her apron. She dipped the brush into the powder and wisked it across Sophia’s forehead. “You’re too pale. You need more rouge.”

“No time.”

A rhythmic sword motif sounded the prelude to Act ll. Sophia pivoted away from Nan and moved to the edge of the wing, looking out to the scene of a rocky mountain pass. Soon the warrior-maiden Brünnhilda would make an appearance with her famous battle cry.

She allowed the anticpaptory energy of the audience to fill her body. The trills of the high strings and upward rushing passes in the woodwinds introduced Brünnhilda. Right on cue, Sophia made her entrance and struck a pose. She took a deep breath, preparing to hit the opening notes of her battle call.

But as she opened her mouth to sing, nothing came out. Caught off guard, Sophia cleared her throat and tried again. Nothing. Horrified, she glanced around, as if seeking help, her body hot and shaky with shame.

Across the stage in the wings, Sophia could see Judith Deal, her understudy and rival, watching.

The other singer was clad in a similar costume to Sophia’s for her role as the valkerie Gerhilde. A triumphant expression crossed her face.

Warwick Canfield-Pendegast, owner of the theatre, stood next to Judith, his face contorted in fury. He clenched his chubby hands.

A wave of dizziness swept through Sophia. The stage lights dimmed. Her knees buckled. As she crumpled to the ground, one final thought followed her into the darkness. I’ve just lost my position as prima dona of the Canfield-Pendegast Opera Company. ~ Debra Holland,
1500:I’m okay. I think all this isolation, and all the extra security stuff, is just starting to wear on me. I’m going a little stir-crazy being cooped up all the time.” She tried to explain her sulky mood. “Especially with Homecoming this weekend. The idea of sitting around here, while everyone else is out having fun, just sucks.”
He didn’t react the way she’d expected him to react. She’d expected some more sympathy, and maybe even some suggestive comments about the two of them being left alone together. What she didn’t expect was for him to smile at her. But he did. And it was his sideways smile, which told Violet that he knew something she didn’t.
“What?” she demanded adamantly.
He grinned. He was definitely keeping something from her.
“Tell me!” she insisted, glowering at him.
“I don’t know . . .” he teased her. “I’m not sure you deserve it.”
She punched him in the arm for making her beg. “Please, just tell me.”
He laughed at her. “Fine. I give up. Bully.” He pretended to rub his arm where she’d hit him. “What if I were to tell you that . . .”—he dragged it out, making her lean closer in anticipation, his crooked smile lighting up his face—“. . . we’re still going to the dance?”
Violet was speechless. That wasn’t at all what she’d expected him to say.
“Yeah, right,” she retorted cynically. “My parents barely let me go to school, let alone go to the dance.”
“You’re right, they didn’t want you to go, but we talked about it, and even your uncle Stephen helped out. The football game was definitely out of the question; there are just too many people coming and going, and there’re no restrictions for getting in. But the dance is at school, in the gym. Only students and their dates can get in, and your uncle said he was already planning to have extra security there. So, as long as I promise to keep a close eye on you . . . which I do”—his voice suggested that the last part had nothing to do with keeping her safe, and Violet felt her cheeks flushing in response—“your parents have agreed to let you go.”
She glanced down at her ankle, double-wrapped in Ace bandages, and completely useless. “But I can’t dance.” She felt crestfallen.
He slid his finger beneath her shin and lifted it up so that she was staring into his eyes. “I don’t care at all if we dance. I just want to take my girlfriend”—his emphasis on the word gave her goose bumps, and she smiled—“to Homecoming.”
They stayed there like that, with their eyes locked and unspoken meaning passing between them, for several long, electrifying moments. Violet was the first to break the spell. “Lissie’ll be there,” she stated in a voice that was devoid of any real jealousy.
Jay shook his head, still gazing at her intently. “I won’t even notice her. I won’t be able to take my eyes off you.”
Violet was glad she was already sitting, because his words made her feel weak and fluttery. The corner of her mouth twitched upward with satisfaction. “Not if I have any say in it, you won’t,” she answered. ~ Kimberly Derting,

IN CHAPTERS [150/731]



  310 Integral Yoga
   87 Poetry
   37 Christianity
   35 Fiction
   32 Occultism
   29 Philosophy
   22 Psychology
   19 Yoga
   12 Science
   11 Mythology
   6 Theosophy
   6 Integral Theory
   4 Mysticism
   3 Hinduism
   3 Education
   2 Philsophy
   2 Kabbalah
   2 Cybernetics
   1 Thelema
   1 Baha i Faith
   1 Alchemy


  244 Sri Aurobindo
  149 The Mother
  116 Satprem
   80 Nolini Kanta Gupta
   29 H P Lovecraft
   21 Carl Jung
   20 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
   14 Sri Ramakrishna
   8 Walt Whitman
   8 Plotinus
   8 Plato
   8 John Keats
   8 Friedrich Schiller
   8 A B Purani
   7 William Wordsworth
   7 Percy Bysshe Shelley
   7 Ovid
   7 Lucretius
   7 James George Frazer
   6 Saint Augustine of Hippo
   6 George Van Vrekhem
   5 Swami Vivekananda
   5 Robert Browning
   5 Friedrich Nietzsche
   5 Aleister Crowley
   4 William Butler Yeats
   4 Rudolf Steiner
   4 Joseph Campbell
   4 Alice Bailey
   3 Rainer Maria Rilke
   3 Jorge Luis Borges
   3 Edgar Allan Poe
   3 Anonymous
   2 Ralph Waldo Emerson
   2 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
   2 Patanjali
   2 Norbert Wiener
   2 Mahendranath Gupta
   2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
   2 Franz Bardon
   2 Aldous Huxley


   49 The Synthesis Of Yoga
   29 Lovecraft - Poems
   26 The Life Divine
   18 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
   16 Agenda Vol 13
   15 Essays On The Gita
   15 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
   14 Record of Yoga
   13 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
   13 Letters On Yoga III
   13 Letters On Yoga II
   13 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
   13 Agenda Vol 10
   13 Agenda Vol 07
   12 The Secret Of The Veda
   12 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
   12 Agenda Vol 04
   11 The Human Cycle
   11 The Future of Man
   11 The Divine Comedy
   11 Agenda Vol 08
   10 Savitri
   10 Agenda Vol 01
   9 Mysterium Coniunctionis
   9 Letters On Yoga IV
   9 Letters On Yoga I
   9 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
   9 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
   8 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
   8 Schiller - Poems
   8 Keats - Poems
   8 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
   8 Agenda Vol 09
   8 Agenda Vol 02
   7 Wordsworth - Poems
   7 Whitman - Poems
   7 The Golden Bough
   7 Shelley - Poems
   7 Of The Nature Of Things
   7 Metamorphoses
   7 Essays Divine And Human
   7 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
   6 Vedic and Philological Studies
   6 The Phenomenon of Man
   6 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
   6 Preparing for the Miraculous
   6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
   5 Questions And Answers 1956
   5 Questions And Answers 1953
   5 City of God
   5 Browning - Poems
   5 Agenda Vol 11
   4 Yeats - Poems
   4 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
   4 The Secret Doctrine
   4 The Practice of Psycho therapy
   4 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
   4 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
   4 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
   4 Some Answers From The Mother
   4 Questions And Answers 1955
   4 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
   4 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
   4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
   4 Collected Poems
   4 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
   4 Aion
   4 Agenda Vol 06
   3 The Bible
   3 Rilke - Poems
   3 Raja-Yoga
   3 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
   3 Prayers And Meditations
   3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
   3 On Education
   3 Liber ABA
   3 Isha Upanishad
   3 Agenda Vol 12
   3 Agenda Vol 03
   3 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
   2 Words Of The Mother II
   2 The Practice of Magical Evocation
   2 The Perennial Philosophy
   2 Theosophy
   2 The Integral Yoga
   2 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
   2 Symposium
   2 Questions And Answers 1954
   2 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
   2 Poe - Poems
   2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
   2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
   2 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
   2 Labyrinths
   2 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
   2 Kena and Other Upanishads
   2 Hymn of the Universe
   2 General Principles of Kabbalah
   2 Emerson - Poems
   2 Cybernetics
   2 Agenda Vol 05
   2 5.1.01 - Ilion


00.00 - Publishers Note B, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Like a perfume that rises straight upward without wavering,
   My love goes to Thee..]

00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The Gods feed upon Svdh and Vaa, as these represent the ascending movement of human consciousness: it is man's self-giving and aspiration and the upward urge of his heart and soul that reach to the Gods, and it is that which the immortals take into themselves and are, as it were, nourished by, since it is something that appertains to their own nature.
   And in response they descend and approach and enter into the aspiring human soulthis descent and revelation and near and concrete presence of Divinity, this Hanta is man's food, for by it his consciousness is nourished.
  --
   Fire represents the Heart. It is that which gives the inner motive to the forces of life, it is the secret inspiration and aspiration that drive the movements of life. It is the heat of consciousness, the ardour of our central being that lives in the Truth and accepts nothing, nothing but the Truth. It is the pure and primal energy of our divine essence, driving ever upward and onward life's course of evolution.
   Air is Mind, the world of thought, of conscious formation; it is where life-movements are taken up and given a shape or articulate formula for an organised expression. The forms here have not, however, the concrete rigidity of Matter, but are pliant and variable and fluidin fact, they are more in the nature of possibilities, rather than actualities. The Vedic Maruts are thought-gods, and lndra (the Luminous Mind), their king, is called the Fashioner of perfect forms.
  --
   Man has two souls corresponding to his double status. In the inferior, the soul looks downward and is involved in the current of Impermanence and Ignorance, it tastes of grief and sorrow and suffers death and dissolution: in the higher it looks upward and communes and joins with the Eternal (the cosmic) and then with the Absolute (the transcendent). The lower is a reflection of the higher, the higher comes down in a diminished and hence tarnished light. The message is that of deliverance, the deliverance and reintegration of the lower soul out of its bondage of worldly ignorant life into the freedom and immortality first of its higher and then of its highest status. It is true, however, that the Upanishad does not make a trenchant distinction between the cosmic and the transcendent and often it speaks of both in the same breath, as it were. For in fact they are realities involved in each other and interwoven. Indeed the triple status, including the Individual, forms one single totality and the three do not exclude or cancel each other; on the contrary, they combine and may be said to enhance each other's reality. The Transcendence expresses or deploys itself in the cosmoshe goes abroad,sa paryagt: and the cosmic individualises, concretises itself in the particular and the personal. The one single spiritual reality holds itself, aspects itself in a threefold manner.
   The teaching of Yama in brief may be said to be the gospel of immortality and it consists of the knowledge of triple immortality. And who else can be the best teacher of immortality than Death himself, as Nachiketas pointedly said? The first immortality is that of the physical existence and consciousness, the preservation of the personal identity, the individual name and formthis being in itself as expression and embodiment and instrument of the Inner Reality. This inner reality enshrines the second immortality the eternity and continuity of the soul's life through its incarnations in time, the divine Agni lit for ever and ever growing in flaming consciousness. And the third and final immortality is in the being and consciousness beyond time, beyond all relativities, the absolute and self-existent delight.

0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
   But the most remarkable experience during this period was the awakening of the Kundalini Sakti, the "Serpent Power". He actually saw the Power, at first lying asleep at the bottom of the spinal column, then waking up and ascending along the mystic Sushumna canal and through its six centres, or lotuses, to the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus in the top of the head. He further saw that as the Kundalini went upward the different lotuses bloomed. And this phenomenon was accompanied by visions and trances. Later on he described to his disciples and devotees the various movements of the Kundalini: the fishlike, birdlike, monkeylike, and so on. The awaken- ing of the Kundalini is the beginning of spiritual consciousness, and its union with Siva in the Sahasrara, ending in samadhi, is the consummation of the Tantrik disciplines.
   About this time it was revealed to him that in a short while many devotees would seek his guidance.

0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
    the red triangle is upwards, like fire, and the blue
    triangle downwards, like water. In the magical hexa-
  --
    and the rest of the chapter in poetry, the upward.
     The first part shows the fall from Nought in four

0.01 - Life and Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   the profoundest reason of its being in that general truth and that unceasing aim of Nature which it represents, and find by virtue of this new self-knowledge and self-appreciation its own recovered and larger synthesis. Reorganising itself, it will enter more easily and powerfully into the reorganised life of the race which its processes claim to lead within into the most secret penetralia and upward to the highest altitudes of existence and personality.
  In the right view both of life and of Yoga all life is either consciously or subconsciously a Yoga. For we mean by this term a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the secret potentialities latent in the being and - highest condition of victory in that effort - a union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cosmos. But all life, when we look behind its appearances, is a vast Yoga of Nature who attempts in the conscious and the subconscious to realise her perfection in an ever-increasing expression of her yet unrealised potentialities and to unite herself with her own divine reality. In man, her thinker, she for the first time upon this Earth devises selfconscious means and willed arrangements of activity by which this great purpose may be more swiftly and puissantly attained.
  --
  Mother in her vast upward labour. It is this view of Yoga that can alone form the basis for a sound and rational synthesis of Yogic methods. For then Yoga ceases to appear something mystic and abnormal which has no relation to the ordinary processes of the World-Energy or the purpose she keeps in view in her two great movements of subjective and objective selffulfilment; it reveals itself rather as an intense and exceptional use of powers that she has already manifested or is progressively
  Life and Yoga

0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   and the Individual. If the individual and Nature are left to themselves, the one is bound to the other and unable to exceed appreciably her lingering march. Something transcendent is needed, free from her and greater, which will act upon us and her, attracting us upward to Itself and securing from her by good grace or by force her consent to the individual ascension.
  It is this truth which makes necessary to every philosophy of Yoga the conception of the Ishwara, Lord, supreme Soul or supreme Self, towards whom the effort is directed and who gives the illuminating touch and the strength to attain. Equally true is the complementary idea so often enforced by the Yoga of devotion that as the Transcendent is necessary to the individual and sought after by him, so also the individual is necessary in a sense to the Transcendent and sought after by It. If the

0.06 - Letters to a Young Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  part of the being, between that which pushes upwards and that
  which pulls downwards and therefore is subject to all outer

0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  or upward, we can bring down into ourselves or raise up from
  the depths calm, quiet, peace and finally silence. It is a concrete, positive silence (not the negative silence of the absence

01.02 - Natures Own Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   An organ in the human being has been especially developed to become the effective instrument of this accelerated Yogic process the self-consciousness which I referred to as being the distinctive characteristic of man is a function of this organ. It is his soul, his psychic being; originally it is the spark of the Divine Consciousness which came down and became involved in Matter and has been endeavouring ever since to release itself through the upward march of evolution. It is this which presses on continually as the stimulus to the evolutionary movement; and in man it has attained sufficient growth and power and has come so far to the front from behind the veil that it can now lead and mould his external consciousness. It is also the channel through which the Divine Consciousness can flow down into the inferior levels of human nature. It is the being no bigger than the thumb ever seated within the heart, spoken of in the Upanishads. It is likewise the basis of true individuality and personal identity. It is again the reflection or expression in evolutionary Nature of one's essential selfjivtman that is above, an eternal portion of the Divine, one with the Divine and yet not dissolved and lost in it. The psychic being is thus on the one hand in direct contact with the Divine and the higher consciousness, and on the other it is the secret upholder and controller' (bhart, antarymin) of the inferior consciousness, the hidden nucleus round which the body and the life and the mind of the individual are built up and organised.
   The first decisive step in Yoga is taken when one becomes conscious of the psychic being, or, looked at from the other side, when the psychic being comes forward and takes possession of the external being, begins to initiate and influence the movements of the mind and life and body and gradually free them from the ordinary round of ignorant nature. The awakening of the psychic being means, as I have said, not only a deepening and heightening of the consciousness and its release from the obscurity and limitation of the inferior Prakriti, confined to the lower threefold status, into what is behind and beyond; it means also a return of the deeper and higher consciousness upon the lower hemisphere and a consequent purification and illumination and regeneration of the latter. Finally, when the psychic being is in full self-possession and power, it can be the vehicle of the direct supramental consciousness which will then be able to act freely and absolutely for the entire transformation of the external nature, its transfiguration into a perfect body of the Truth-consciousness in a word, its divinisation.

01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Here is the Augustinian mantra taken as the motto of The Scale of Perfection: We ascend the ascending grades in our heart and we sing the song of ascension1. The journey's end is heavenly Jerusalem, the House of the Lord. The steps of this inner ascension are easily visible, not surely to the outer eye of the sense-burdened man, but to the "ghostly seeing" of the aspirant which is hazy in the beginning but slowly clears as he advances. The first step is the withdrawal from the outer senses and looking and seeing within. "Turn home again in thyself, and hold thee within and beg no more without." The immediate result is a darkness and a restless darknessit is a painful night. The outer objects of attraction and interest have been discarded, but the inner attachments and passions surge there still. If, however, one continues and persists, refuses to be drawn out, the turmoil settles down and the darkness begins to thin and wear away. One must not lose heart, one must have patience and perseverance. So when the outward world is no more-there and its call also no longer awakes any echo in us, then comes the stage of "restful darkness" or "light-some darkness". But it is still the dark Night of the soul. The outer light is gone and the inner light is not yet visible: the night, the desert, the great Nought, stretches between these two lights. But the true seeker goes through and comes out of the tunnel. And there is happiness at the end. "The seeking is travaillous, but the finding is blissful." When one steps out of the Night, enters into the deepest layer of the being, one stands face to face to one's soul, the very image of God, the perfect God-man, the Christ within. That is the third degree of our inner ascension, the entry into the deepest, purest and happiest statein which one becomes what he truly is; one finds the Christ there and dwells in love and union with him. But there is still a further step to take, and that is real ascension. For till now it has been a going within, from the outward to the inner and the inmost; now one has to go upward, transcend. Within the body, in life, however deep you may go, even if you find your soul and your union with Jesus whose tabernacle is your soul, still there is bound to remain a shadow of the sinful prison-house; the perfect bliss and purity without any earthly taint, the completeness and the crowning of the purgation and transfiguration can come only when you go beyond, leaving altogether the earthly form and worldly vesture and soar into Heaven itself and be in the company of the Trinity. "Into myself, and after... above myself by overpassing only into Him." At the same time it is pointed out, this mediaeval mystic has the common sense to see that the going in and going above of which one speaks must not be understood in a literal way, it is a figure of speech. The movement of the mystic is psychological"ghostly", it is saidnot physical or carnal.
   This spiritual march or progress can also be described as a growing into the likeness of the Lord. His true self, his own image is implanted within us; he is there in the profoundest depth of our being as Jesus, our beloved and our soul rests in him in utmost bliss. We are aware neither of Jesus nor of his spouse, our soul, because of the obsession of the flesh, the turmoil raised by the senses, the blindness of pride and egoism. All that constitutes the first or old Adam, the image of Nought, the body of death which means at bottom the "false misruled love in to thyself." This self-love is the mother of sin, is sin itself. What it has to be replaced by is charity that is the true meaning of Christian charity, forgetfulness of self. "What is sin but a wanting and a forbearing of God." And the whole task, the discipline consists in "the shaping of Christ in you, the casting of sin through Christ." Who then is Christ, what is he? This knowledge you get as you advance from your sense-bound perception towards the inner and inmost seeing. As your outer nature gets purified, you approach gradually your soul, the scales fall off from your eyes too and you have the knowledge and "ghostly vision." Here too there are three degrees; first, you start with faith the senses can do nothing better than have faith; next, you rise to imagination which gives a sort of indirect touch or inkling of the truth; finally, you have the "understanding", the direct vision. "If he first trow it, he shall afterwards through grace feel it, and finally understand it."
  --
   Indeed, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the Eastern and Western approach to Divine Love, the Christian and the Vaishnava, for example. Indian spirituality, whatever its outer form or credal formulation, has always a background of utter unity. This unity, again, is threefold or triune and is expressed in those great Upanishadic phrases,mahvkyas,(1) the transcendental unity: the One alone exists, there is nothing else than theOneekamevdvityam; (2) the cosmic unity: all existence is one, whatever exists is that One, thereare no separate existences:sarvam khalvidam brahma neha nnsti kincaa; (3) That One is I, you too are that One:so' ham, tattvamasi; this may be called the individual unity. As I have said, all spiritual experiences in India, of whatever school or line, take for granted or are fundamentally based upon this sense of absolute unity or identity. Schools of dualism or pluralism, who do not apparently admit in their tenets this extreme monism, are still permeated in many ways with that sense and in some form or other take cognizance of the truth of it. The Christian doctrine too says indeed, 'I and my Father in Heaven are one', but this is not identity, but union; besides, the human soul is not admitted into this identity, nor the world soul. The world, we have seen, according to the Christian discipline has to be altogether abandoned, negatived, as we go inward and upward towards our spiritual status reflecting the divine image in the divine company. It is a complete rejection, a cutting off and casting away of world and life. One extreme Vedantic path seems to follow a similar line, but there it is not really rejection, but a resolution, not the rejection of what is totally foreign and extraneous, but a resolution of the external into its inner and inmost substance, of the effect into its original cause. Brahman is in the world, Brahman is the world: the world has unrolled itself out of the Brahmansi, pravttiit has to be rolled back into its, cause and substance if it is to regain its pure nature (that is the process of nivitti). Likewise, the individual being in the world, "I", is the transcendent being itself and when it withdraws, it withdraws itself and the whole world with it and merges into the Absolute. Even the Maya of the Mayavadin, although it is viewed as something not inherent in Brahman but superimposed upon Brahman, still, has been accepted as a peculiar power of Brahman itself. The Christian doctrine keeps the individual being separate practically, as an associate or at the most as an image of God. The love for one's neighbour, charity, which the Christian discipline enjoins is one's love for one's kind, because of affinity of nature and quality: it does not dissolve the two into an integral unity and absolute identity, where we love because we are one, because we are the One. The highest culmination of love, the very basis of love, according to the Indian conception, is a transcendence of love, love trans-muted into Bliss. The Upanishad says, where one has become the utter unity, who loves whom? To explain further our point, we take two examples referred to in the book we are considering. The true Christian, it is said, loves the sinner too, he is permitted to dislike sin, for he has to reject it, but he must separate from sin the sinner and love him. Why? Because the sinner too can change and become his brother in spirit, one loves the sinner because there is the possibility of his changing and becoming a true Christian. It is why the orthodox Christian, even such an enlightened and holy person as this mediaeval Canon, considers the non-Christian, the non-baptised as impure and potentially and fundamentally sinners. That is also why the Church, the physical organisation, is worshipped as Christ's very body and outside the Church lies the pagan world which has neither religion nor true spirituality nor salvation. Of course, all this may be symbolic and it is symbolic in a sense. If Christianity is taken to mean true spirituality, and the Church is equated with the collective embodiment of that spirituality, all that is claimed on their behalf stands justified. But that is an ideal, a hypothetical standpoint and can hardly be borne out by facts. However, to come back to our subject, let us ow take the second example. Of Christ himself, it is said, he not only did not dislike or had any aversion for Judas, but that he positively loved the traitor with a true and sincere love. He knew that the man would betray him and even when he was betraying and had betrayed, the Son of Man continued to love him. It was no make-believe or sham or pretence. It was genuine, as genuine as anything can be. Now, why did he love his enemy? Because, it is said, the enemy is suffered by God to do the misdeed: he has been allowed to test the faith of the faithful, he too has his utility, he too is God's servant. And who knows even a Judas would not change in the end? Many who come to scoff do remain to pray. But it can be asked, 'Does God love Satan too in the same way?' The Indian conception which is basically Vedantic is different. There is only one reality, one truth which is viewed differently. Whether a thing is considered good or evil or neutral, essentially and truly, it is that One and nothing else. God's own self is everywhere and the sage makes no difference between the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant. It is his own self he finds in every person and every objectsarvabhtsthitam yo mm bhajati ekatvamsthitah"he has taken his stand upon oneness and loves Me in all beings."2
   This will elucidate another point of difference between the Christian's and the Vaishnava's love of God, for both are characterised by an extreme intensity and sweetness and exquisiteness of that divine feeling. This Christian's, however, is the union of the soul in its absolute purity and simplicity and "privacy" with her lord and master; the soul is shred here of all earthly vesture and goes innocent and naked into the embrace of her Beloved. The Vaishnava feeling is richer and seems to possess more amplitude; it is more concrete and less ethereal. The Vaishnava in his passionate yearning seeks to carry as it were the whole world with him to his Lord: for he sees and feels Him not only in the inmost chamber of his soul, but meets Him also in and I through his senses and in and through the world and its objects around. In psychological terms one can say that the Christian realisation, at its very source, is that of the inmost soul, what we call the "psychic being" pure and simple, referred to in the book we are considering; as: "His sweet privy voice... stirreth thine heart full stilly." Whereas the Vaishnava reaches out to his Lord with his outer heart too aflame with passion; not only his inmost being but his vital being also seeks the Divine. This bears upon the occult story of man's spiritual evolution upon earth. The Divine Grace descends from the highest into the deepest and from the deepest to the outer ranges of human nature, so that the whole of it may be illumined and transformed and one day man can embody in his earthly life the integral manifestation of God, the perfect Epiphany. Each religion, each line of spiritual discipline takes up one limb of manone level or mode of his being and consciousness purifies it and suffuses it with the spiritual and divine consciousness, so that in the end the whole of man, in his integral living, is recast and remoulded: each discipline is in charge of one thread as it were, all together weave the warp and woof in the evolution of the perfect pattern of a spiritualised and divinised humanity.

01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   To be divine or to remain humanthis is the one choice that is now before Nature in her upward march of evolution. What is the exact significance of this choice?
   To remain human means to continue the fundamental nature of man. In what consists the humanity of man? We can ascertain it by distinguishing what forms the animality of the animal, since that will give us the differentia that nature has evolved to raise man over the animal. The animal, again, has a characteristic differentiating it from the vegetable world, which latter, in its turn, has something to mark it off from the inorganic world. The inorganic, the vegetable, the animal and finally manthese are the four great steps of Nature's evolutionary course.
  --
   So the humanity of man consists in his consciousness of the self or ego. Is there no other higher mode of consciousness? Or is self-consciousness the acme, the utmost limit to which consciousness can raise itself? If it is so, then we are bound to conclude that humanity will remain eternally human in its fundamental nature; the only progress, if progress at all we choose to call it, will consist perhaps in accentuating this consciousness of the self and in expressing it through a greater variety of stresses, through a richer combination of its colour and light and shade and rhythm. But also, this may not be sothere may be the possibility of a further step, a transcending of the consciousness of the self. It seems unnatural and improbable that having risen from un-consciousness to self-consciousness through a series of continuous marches, Nature should suddenly stop and consider what she had achieved to be her final end. Has Nature become bankrupt of her creative genius, exhausted of her upward drive? Has she to remain content with only a clever manipulation, a mere shuffling and re-arranging of the materials already produced?
   As a matter of fact it is not so. The glimpses of a higher form of consciousness we can see even now present in self-consciousness. We have spoken of the different stages of evolution as if they were separate and distinct and incommensurate entities. They may be described as such for the purpose of a logical understanding, but in reality they form a single progressive continuum in which one level gradually fuses into another. And as the higher level takes up the law of the lower and evolves out of it a characteristic function, even so the law of the higher level with its characteristic function is already involved and envisaged in the law of the lower level and its characteristic function. It cannot be asserted positively that because man's special virtue is self-consciousness, animals cannot have that quality on any account. We do see, if we care to observe closely and dispassionately, that animals of the higher order, as they approach the level of humanity, show more and more evident signs of something which is very much akin to, if not identical with the human characteristic of self-consciousness.

0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  that is roused by the wind and rises upwards, but falls
  back dead or dying as soon as the wind drops. Vigilant,

0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  To remain turned upwards and to live in the true consciousness - the two seem complementary to each other.
  Are they not two ways of saying the same thing? - certainly
  --
  careful! Look upwards"?
  It is what is usually called conscience, but in fact it is the psychic

0 1958-08-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   There (gesture above the head), everything has been resolved, I could write books on how to resolve this or that, how the synthesis is made, etc., but here (the body) I live this synthesis stumblingly. The two coexist, but it is still not THAT (gesture, hands clasped together, pointing upwards).
   (silence)

0 1958-11-08, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   Yes, it was not a willed experience, for I had not decided I would do this. It did not correspond to an inner attitude. In a meditation, one can decide, I will meditate on this or on that or on something else I will do this or that. For meditations, I usually have a kind of inner (or higher) perception of what has to be done, and I do it. But it was not that way. I had decided: nothing, to decide nothing, to be like that (gesture of turning upwards).
   And then it happened.

0 1958-11-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   One does not cure hypocrisy by pulling down below what is already above but by lifting upwards what is still down below. To yield to an impulse of revolt is a defeat and a cowardice unworthy of a soul like yours.
   Do not flee the difficulty, face it courageously and carry home the victory.

0 1959-10-06 - Sri Aurobindos abode, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   In fact, when I walk back and forth in my room, I dont cut myself off from the rest of the worldalthough it would be so much more convenient! All kinds of things come to mesuggestions, wills, aspirations. But automatically I make a movement of offering: things come to me and just as they are about to touch my head, I turn them upwards and offer them to the Light. They dont enter into me. For example, if someone speaks to me while I am saying my japa, I hear quite well what is being said, I may even answer, but the words remain a little outside, at a certain distance from the head. And yet sometimes, there are things that insist, more defined wills that present themselves to me, so then I have to do a little work, but all that without a pause in the japa. If that happens, there is sometimes a change in the quality of my japa, and instead of being fully the power, fully the light, it is certainly something that produces results, but results more or less sure, more or less long to fructify; it becomes uncertain, as with all things of this physical world. Yet the difference between the two japas is imperceptible; its not a difference between saying the japa in a more or less mechanical way and saying it consciously, because even while I work I remain fully conscious of the japa I continue to repeat it putting the full meaning into each syllable. But nevertheless, there is a difference. One is the all-powerful japa; the other, an almost ordinary japa There is a difference in the inner attitude. Perhaps for the japa to become true, a kind of joy, an elation, a warmth of enthusiasm has to be added but especially joy. Then everything changes.
   Well, it is the same thing, the same imperceptible difference, when it comes to entering the world of Truth. On one side there is the falsehood, and on the other, close by, like the lining of this one, the true life. Only a little difference in the inner quality, a little reversal, is enough to pass to the other side, into the Truth and Light.

0 1960-05-21 - true purity - you have to be the Divine to overcome hostile forces, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   What was needed was to effect a shift, a sort of transference upwards, a lifting up of all these things that come to meso that each one, each thing, each circumstance could directly and automatically receive the force from above, the light, the response from above, and I would be a mere intermediary and a channel of the Light and the Force.
   Well, I tried hard but I couldnt really find the way. At times, I almost seemed to have it, a mere nothing would have been enough; it was just a matter of getting the knack (and at heart, this is what Power is all aboutto get the knack, to suddenly seize upon the means, the right vibration, what in India is called siddhi). Well, after his departure, all of a sudden it came. It happened while I was doing my japa, while I was walking up and down my room As if I were holding all that in my armsit was so concrete and lifting it up towards the Light, along with this ascending OM, rising from the very depths, OM!and I was carrying all these people, and it was spreading forth, PHYSICALLY spreading, and I was carrying the earth, I was carrying the whole universe, but in such a tangible, concrete wayall towards the Supreme Lord.

0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   Later on, when Sri Aurobindo left his body, I said to myself, If only I knew what he had known, it would be easier! So when Swami and later X came, I thought, I am going to take advantage of this opportunity. I had written to Swami that I was working on transforming the cells of the body and that I had noticed the work was going faster with Xs influence. So it was understood that X would help when he came thats how things began, and this idea has remained with X. But I have raced on I dont wait. Ive raced on, Ive gone like wildfire. And now the situation is reversed. What I wanted to find out, I found out. I experienced what I wanted to experience, but he is still He is very kind, actually, he wants really to help me. So, when I identified with him the other day during our meditation, I realized that he wanted to give silence, control and perfect peace to the physical mind. My own trick, if you will, is to have as little relationship with the physical mind as possible, to go up above and stay therethis (Mother indicates her forehead), silent, motionless, turned upwards, while That (gesture above the head) sees, acts, knows, decidesall is done from there. Only there can you feel at ease.
   Along the way, I once went down into this physical mind for awhile to try to set it right, to organize it a little (it was done rather quickly, I didnt stay there long). So when I went inside X, I saw It was rather curious, for its the opposite of the method we follow. In his material consciousness (physical and vital), he has trained himself to be impersonal, open, limitless, in communication with all the universal forces. In the physical mind, silence, immobility. But in the speculative mind, the one there at the very top of the head what an organization, phew! All the tradition in its most superb organization, but such a ri-gi-dity! And it had a pretty quality of light, a silver blueVERY pretty. Oh, it was very calm, wonderfully calm and quiet and still. But what a ceiling it had!the outer form resembled rigid cubes. Everything inside was beautiful, but that There was a very large cube right at the top, I recall, bordered by a purple line, which is a line of powerall this was quite luminous. It looked like a pyramid; the smaller cubes formed a kind of base, the lower part of which faded into something cloudy, and then this passed imperceptibly downwards to a more material realm, or in other words, the physical mind. The cube on top was the largest and most luminous, and the least yieldingeven inflexible, you could say. The others were somewhat less defined, and at the bottom it was very blurred. But up at the top!thats where I wanted to go, right to the top.

0 1960-10-11, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   It has never left. I have always kept it. Like a smooth white surface turned upwards. And at any moment at all You see, we speak like a machine, but there nothing moves; at any moment at all it can turn towards the heights. Its ALWAYS turned like that, but we can become aware of it being like that. Then, if we listen, we can hear what comes from above. My active consciousness, which was here (Mother points to her forehead), has settled above, and it has never again moved from there.
   I told this to Xor rather had someone tell himto see his reaction. And I realized that he did not understand in the least! Once Amrita asked him how he himself SAW and KNEW things. So he tried to explain; he told Amrita that he had to pull his consciousness upwards by a gradual effort, to go beyond the heart, beyond the throat center to pull it right up here (the top of the head), and once there, youre divine, you know! All of a sudden, I understood that when I said it was there, above the head, it must have seemed absolutely impossible to him! For him, its the crown of the head1 (what they call the thousand-petalled lotus), just at the top of the head, whereas in my experience it opens, it rises and you go above, and then you settle there For a number of years it even changed my [physical] visionit was as if I were looking at things from above. It returns from time to time, too, as if suddenly I were seeing from above instead of from here, at eye level.
   But the faculty of forming thoughts is now there, up above; its no longer here (Mother points to her forehead). And thats contrary to their teachings.
  --
   But what you are speaking of, this sort of sound-mill, this milling of words interminably repeating the same thing, Ive suddenly caught it two or three times (not very often and with long intervals). It has always seemed fantastic to me! How is it stopped? Always in the same way. Its something that takes place outside, actually; its not insideits outside, on the surface, generally somewhere here (Mother indicates the temples), and the method is to draw your consciousness up above, to go there and remain therewhite. Always this whiteness, white like a sheet of paper, flat like a plate of glass. An absolutely flat and white and motionless surfacewhite! White like luminous milk, turned upwards. Not transparent: white.
   When this mill starts turningusually it comes from this side (Mother indicates the right side of the head)it takes hold of any sound or any word at all, and then it starts turning, harping on the same thing. This has happened to me a dozen times perhaps, but it doesnt come from me; it comes from outside, from someone or something or some particular work. So then you take itas if you were picking it up with pincers, and then (She lifts it upwards), then I hold it there, in this motionless whiteno need to keep it there for long!
   Arent you aware of this thing up above, this white plate at the crown of the head? Its what receives intuitions. Its just like a photographic plate, and its not even activethings pass right through it without our even realizing it. And then if you concentrate just a little, everything stops, everything stops.

0 1960-11-12, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   I have quite the feeling that I myself do nothing at all, absolutely nothing. The only thing I do is this (gesture of offering upwards), constantly this, in everythingin thoughts, feelings, sensations, in the bodys cells, all the time: You, You, You. Its You, its You, its You Thats all. And nothing else.
   In other words, a more and more complete, a more and more integral assent, more and more like this (gesture of letting herself be carried). Thats when you have the feeling that you must be ABSOLUTELY like a child.

0 1960-11-15, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   So I understood that this must correspond to a certain realm of experience; I understood all those who say, If it has to be like this, if it can never be otherwise, then (this opposition, this abyss between a TRUE life, a TRUE consciousness, a TRUE activity, something living, powerful, fulfilling and life as it now is), if there must always be this difference between the physical expression as it is or as it can be in the present circumstances, and the true life, then For if despite everythingdespite this tremendous distance Ive covered in my life (these memories go back more than sixty years) and all the evolutionary effort upwards I have made since that time IN MATTER (Im not speaking of leaving Matter behind, but IN MATTER, IN action)if that doesnt further reduce this gap between the true consciousness and the possible material realization, then I understand I understand why people say, Its hopeless. (Of course, this hopeless is meaningless to me.)
   But I (how can I put this?) I lived their experience, I lived it; and even events which seem quite extraordinary when seen from afar, which is the way they appear to most people, even historical things which have furthered the earths transformation and its upheavals the crucial events, the great works, you might sayare woven from the SAME fabric, they are the SAME thing! When you look at all this from afar, on the whole it can make an impression, but the life of each minute, of each hour, of each second is woven from this SAME fabric, drab, dull, insipid, WITHOUT ANY TRUE LIFEa mere reflection of life, an illusion of lifepowerless, void of any light or anything that resembles joy in the least. Oh! if it has always to remain like that, then we dont want any of it.

0 1960-12-23, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
   For when something isnt right, a pressure always comes down on the body from above, the pressure of the descending Force. But in this case it wasnt that at all; rather, it was like this (Mother holds her palms upwards in an attitude of total surrender), but beatific in that it lives in itself, it is existence in itself and thats all.
   I came here in that state directly after the meditation, and when I sat down You see, I didnt even have the (naturally there is no question of idea) I dont know, not even the instinct to pick up a flower for you, you understand? And when I sat down here, the consciousness of the column of Light started coming. There was no more personality, no more individuality: there was only a column of Light descending right into the very cells of the body and thats all.

0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   This detachment, as I told you, came afterwards (it was evidently indispensable); and as soon as it came, everything began to get disorganized. Well, the detachment must surely have come so that. Actually, my immediate impression was: so that I wouldnt get worried and say to myself, Oh, now it wont work any morethis is the end. So I wouldnt worry. All right, I said, dont bother with it.(gesture of surrender, hands opened upwards) And for the first two or three days I was absolutely detached, watching and not bothering about it. Its only with this last attack on my legs. Because the rest of it tired me and made me ill but it didnt hinder my work; but things become difficult when the legs dont function.
   We shall see, mon petit! Well see whats going to happen (Mother laughs).

0 1961-02-28, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its not from me. It came from there (gesture upwards). But it pleased me.
   See conversation of February 18: 'Sri Aurobindo is an Action...'

0 1961-04-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   After that, I spend hours concentrated in prayernot exactly prayer but (gesture palms turned upwards), like that, beseeching.
   What has been achieved now is that I am absolutely detached from EVERYTHING. From everything, beginning with my body and including the work, ideas, conceptions, even the [people], all, all of them. It all seems to me so utterly dull and nonexistent.

0 1961-04-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   And I see a very steady, insistent and regular action to eliminate moral values. How I have been plagued all my life by these moral values! Everything is immediately placed on a scale of moral values (not ordinary moralityfar from it! But a sense of what has to be encouraged or discouraged, what helps me towards progress or what hampers it); instantly everything was seen from the angle of this will to progresseverything, all circumstances, reactions, movements, absolutely everything was translated by that. Now, the subconscient is mounting upwards and, knee-deep in it, you see it as a lesson to tell you: so much for all your notions of progress! They are all based on illusionsa general lie. Things are not at all what they seem, they dont have the effects they appear to have, nor the results that are perceivedall, all, all, oh Lord!
   (silence)

0 1961-04-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Ah, but thats far more difficult than talkingfar more! Far more, infinitely more difficult than talking. If you are a bit clear, transparentits enough just to be like this, at a given moment (gesture of opening upwards), to catch the Light, and then you can talk about it. Once you have seen it, you dont forget it. But to do.
   This paucity, this narrowness. Its relatively easy to get out of mental paucity, mental narrowness: one has only to pierce a hole, go beyond, and view things from above; and yes, immediately, it all widens. Thats relatively easy. But this vital and PHYSICAL paucity, material narrowness ohh!

0 1961-08-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   After a while, I too began having meditations with people. I had begun a sort of overmental creation, to make each god descend into a beingthere was an extraordinary upward curve! Well, I was in contact with these beings and I told Krishna (because I was always seeing him around Sri Aurobindo), This is all very fine, but what I want now is a creation on earthyou must incarnate. He said Yes. Then I saw him I saw him with my own eyes (inner eyes, of course), join himself to Sri Aurobindo.
   Then I went into Sri Aurobindos room and told him, Heres what I have seen. Yes, I know! he replied (Mother laughs) Thats fine; I have decided to retire to my room, and you will take charge of the people. You take charge. (There were about thirty people at the time.) Then he called everyone together for one last meeting. He sat down, had me sit next to him, and said, I called you here to tell you that, as of today, I am withdrawing for purposes of sadhana, and Mother will now take charge of everyone; you should address yourselves to her; she will represent me and she will do all the work. (He hadnt mentioned this to me!Mother bursts into laughter)

0 1961-10-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   You know, it [Mothers consciousness] is an immobile mirror that projects things from below upwards and receives things from above to transmit them below. This mirror is two-surfaced, and absolutely immobile, not adding any vibration to what is received or transmitted: a perfect neutrality. In this mirror, therefore, you would be able to see your book a little more impersonally, outside yourself and your own creative power.
   (Satprem makes a face; he feels shy about reading his text aloud)

0 1961-10-30, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The secret lies in matter. Because Agni is imprisoned in matter and we ourselves are imprisoned there. It is said that Agni is without head or feet, that it conceals its two extremities: above, it disappears into the great heaven of the supraconscient (which the Rishis also called the great ocean), and below, it sinks into the formless ocean of the inconscient (which they also called the rock). We are truncated. But the Rishis were men of a solid realism, a true realism resting upon the Spirit; and since the summits of mind opened out upon a lacuna of lightecstatic, to be sure, but with no hold over the worldthey set upon the downward way.6 Thus begins the quest for the lost sun, the long pilgrimage of descent into the inconscient and the merciless fight against the dark forces, the thieves of the sun, the panis and vritras, pythons and giants, hidden in the dark lair with the whole cohort of usurpers: the dualizers, the confiners, the tearers, the COVERERS. But the divine worker, Agni, is helped by the gods, and in his quest he is led by the intuitive ray, Sarama, the heavenly hound with the subtle sense of smell who sets Agni on the track of the stolen herds (strange, shining herds). Now and again there comes the sudden glimmer of a fugitive dawn then all grows dim. One must advance step by step, digging, digging, fighting every inch of the way against the wolves whose savage fury increases the nearer one draws to their denAgni is a warrior. Agni grows through his difficulties, his flame burns more brilliantly with each blow from the Adversary; for, as the Rishis said, Night and Day both suckled the divine Child; they even said that Night and Day are the two sisters, Immortal, with a common lover [the sun] common they, though different their forms (I.113.2,3). These alternations of night and brightness accelerate until Day breaks at last and the herds of Dawn7 surge upward awakening someone who was dead (I.113.8). The infinite rock of the inconscient is shattered, the seeker uncovers the Sun dwelling in the darkness (III.39.5), the divine consciousness in the heart of Matter. In the very depths of Matter, that is to say, in the body, on earth, the Rishis found themselves cast up into Light that same Light which others sought on the heights, without their bodies and without the earth, in ecstasy. And this is what the Rishis would call the Great Passage. Without abandoning the earth they found the vast dwelling place, that dwelling place of the gods, Swar, the original Sun-world that Sri Aurobindo calls the Supramental World: Human beings [the Rishis emphasize that they are indeed men] slaying the Coverer have crossed beyond both earth and heaven [matter and mind] and made the wide world their dwelling place (I.36.8). They have entered the True, the Right, the Vast, Satyam, Ritam, Brihat, the unbroken light, the fearless light, where there is no longer suffering nor falsehood nor death: it is immortality, amritam.
   ***

0 1962-05-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   This trip would not be an opening upwards, a flight towards a higher realization that, no. Categorically no.
   But thats not what I was after!

0 1962-07-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   It was a very pleasant sensation. I would sit in a little armchair made especially for me, all alone in my room, and I (I didnt know what it was, you see, not a thing, nothingmentally zero) and I had a VERY PLEASANT feeling of something very strong, very luminous, and it was here (above the head). Consciousness. And I felt, Thats what I have to live, what I have to be. Not with all those words, naturally, but (Mother makes a gesture of aspiration upward). Then I would pull it down, for it was it was truly my raison dtre.
   That is my first memoryat five years old. Its impact was more on the ethical side than the intellectual; and yet it took an intellectual form too, since. You see, apparently I was a child like any other, except that I was hard to handle. Hard in the sense that I had no interest in food, no interest in ordinary games, no liking for going to my friends houses for snacks, because eating cake wasnt the least bit interesting! And it was impossible to punish me because I really couldnt have cared less: being deprived of dessert was rather a relief for me! And then I flatly refused to learn reading, I refused to learn. And even bathing me was very hard, because I was put in the care of an English governess, and that meant cold bathsmy brother took it in stride, but I just howled! Later it was found to be bad for me (the doctor said so), but that was much later. So you get the picture.
  --
   Some receive it from above; for others, it rises from below (gesture to the base of the spine). As I once told you, the old system always proceeds from below upwards, while Sri Aurobindo pulls from above downwards. This becomes very clear in meditation (well, in yoga, in yogic experience): for those who follow the old system, its invariably the kundalini at the base [of the spine] rising from center to center, center to center, until the lotus (in an ironic tone) bursts open here gesture at the crown of the head). With Sri Aurobindo, it comes like this (gesture of descending Force) and then settles here (above the head); it enters, and from there it comes down, down, down, everywhere, to the very bottom, and even below the feet the subconscientand lower still, the inconscient.
   Its the Shakti. He said, you know (I am still translating it), that the shakti drawn up from below (this is what happens in the individual process) is already what could be called a veiled shakti (it has power, but it is veiled). While the Shakti drawn down from above is a PURE Shakti; and if it can be brought down carefully and slowly enough so that it isnt (how shall I put it?) polluted or, in any case, obscured as it enters matter, then the result is immediately much better. As he has explained, if you start out with this feeling of a great power in yourself (because its always a great power no matter where it awakens), theres inevitably a danger of the ego meddling in. But if it comes pure and you are very careful to keep it pure, not to rush the movement but let it purify as it descends, then half the work is done.

0 1962-10-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   People come, letters arrive, various circumstances and problems arise (its over now, but at the timeeven a year ago that kind of thing was sometimes a problem for me). Well, right away, I (Mother opens her hands in front of her forehead, palms upwards, as though presenting the problem to the Lord): Here, Lord, look at this. All I am good for is (same gesture): I am presenting it to You, Lord. And then I keep still, I just keep still: I wont move unless You move me, I wont speak unless You make me speak. And then you stop thinking about it. You think about it just for a second, long enough to do this (same gesture). It comes in like this, then up it goes (gesture showing a problem coming to Mother from one side and being sent above). And later, you suddenly realize youre speaking or acting or making a decision or writing a letter or and He has done it all.
   But one can be full of excellent goodwill and still want to Do things. And thats what complicates everything. Or else theres a lack of faith, a lack of belief in the Lords abilityyou think you have to do things yourself because He doesnt know how! (Mother laughs) This sort of stupidity is very widespread, you know: How can He see these things? Were living in a world of Falsehood, how can He see Falsehood? But in fact He does see things as they are!

0 1963-03-09, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Later, Mother repeated the same remark: "I am not much concerned with this field, I see it from the OTHER angle What I refer to here is seen from below upward, while I see it the other way (gesture from above downward), so it assumes a very different character. We'll talk about it again later."
   In the following conversation, Mother gave a very recent example of someone cured by the supramental force acting in the material mind: "After three warnings which he didn't heed, A. [a Paris disciple], one morning, found himself half-paralyzed. And the next day, it started spreading to the other side, the left side. At that point, he gave a callit struck him to see one side completely paralyzed and the other following suit, he saw himself going down, so he gave a call. And he says that inside a few minutes, a stupendous Force came into him and that Force said, "No!" And almost automatically, everything came to a stop. Nothing came over the left side, and the right side started to improve. And when I received the first telegram informing me that A. had to take to his bed because of an 'attack' (a 'heart attack,' they said, but it wasn't the heart, it was an embolism in the brain), with the telegram in my hands, I saw, written OVER the telegram's words: 'It's nothing, no need to worry'! So I said coolly, 'Oh' it's nothing, no need to worry.' (Mother laughs) Then the letter came with all the details: thrombosis, and so on. But he says he feels a Force [near Mother] that's not in his ordinary little life over there, he finds it makes all the differenceit's something which gives a LIFE that's not in his ordinary little life in France. Anyhow, this is something like a miracle."

0 1963-03-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I came across a man who had that blue light but I found him rather formidable. He looked after all the religious rites and priests of B.s state. He came here and asked to see me. I saw him on a December 9 (I think) when I paid a visit to the estate at Aryankuppam. I was walking in the gardens when suddenly I felt something pulling at meand none too gently! I turned around and saw a tall man, standing and staring at me. So (I didnt know who he was, no one had told me), I stared back and simply answered his impudence! And pfft! it just fell off. I was surprised. Later (I had not yet been told who he was), he asked to see me. When he entered the room, I felt I felt a solid being. I dont know how to define it, I had never before felt it in a human beingsolid. As solid as rock. Extraordinarily solidcoagulated, an edifice. And quite powerful, I must say. Not like an arrow (gesture upward) but all around him. Then it was very funny (because theres no doubt he must have had an awesome effect on people instantly, without a word or anything), but I answered in my own way, with something else!
   He entered the room wearing some kind of religious headdress, I cant say what, and intending to be very arrogant. He went past me stiffly, and suddenly what do I see but the man do his pranam.2 He stepped back, took off his hat and did his pranam. And stayed that way for nearly a quarter of an hour. And it was interesting, his response was interesting. Then he started talking to me (someone translatedhe spoke in Hindi, I think), asking me to take care of B. I said something in turn, and then thought strongly, Now, time is up, it cant last forever! (He had already been there for more than fifteen minutes.) And suddenly I see him stiffen, put his thing back on his head, and go.
  --
   And he was blue. His aura was blue, with blue pulsationsnot radiating out or upward, but coagulated all around him. A blue like the sea when its very deep, very tranquil, but luminous. A magnificent blue.
   Satprem's Tantric guru.

0 1963-03-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its the same with people who get cured. That I know, to some extent: the Power acts so forcefully that it is almost miraculousat a distance. The Power I am very conscious of the Power. But, I must say, I find it doesnt act here so well as it does far away. On government or national matters, on the terrestrial atmosphere, on great movements, also as inspirations on the level of thought (in certain people, to realize certain things), the Power is very clear. Also to save people or cure themit acts very strongly. But much more at a distance than here! (Although the receptivity has increased since I withdrew because, necessarily, it gave people the urge to find inside something they no longer had outside.) But here, the response is very erratic. And to distinguish between the proportion that comes from faith, sincerity, simplicity, and what comes from the Power Some people I am able to save (naturally, in my view, its because they COULD be saved), this is something that for a very long time I have been able to foresee. But now I dont try to know: it comes like this (gesture like a flash). If, for instance, I am told, So and so has fallen ill, well, immediately I know if he will recover (first if its nothing, some passing trouble), if he will recover, if it will take some time and struggle and difficulties, or if its fatalautomatically. And without trying to know, without even trying: the two things come together.2 This capacity has developed, first because I have more peace, and because, having more peace, things follow a more normal course. But there were two or three little instances where I said to the Lord (gesture of presenting something, palms open upward), I asked Him to do a certain thing, and then (not very often, it doesnt happen to me often; at times it comes as a necessity, a necessity to present the thing with a commentfrom morning to evening and evening to morning I present everything constantly, thats my movement [same gesture of presenting something] but here, there is a comment, as if I were asking, Couldnt this be done?), and then the result: yes, immediately. But I am not the one who presents the thing, you see: its just the way it is, it just happens that way, like everything else.3 So my conclusion is that its part of the Plan, I mean, a certain vibration is necessary, enters [into Mother], intervenes, and No stories to tell, mon petit! Nothing to fill people with enthusiasm or give them trust, nothing.
   Three or four days ago, a very nice man, whom I like a lot, who has been very useful, fell ill. (He has in fact been ill for a long time, and he is struggling; for all sorts of reasons of family, milieu, activities and so on, he isnt taken care of the way he should be, he doesnt take care of his body the way he should.) He had a first attack and I saw him afterwards. But I saw him full of life: his body was full of life and of will to live. So I said, No need to worry. Then after some time, maybe not even a month, another attack, caused not by the same thing but by its consequences. I receive a letter in which I am informed that he has been taken to the hospital. I was surprised, I said, But no! He has in himself the will to live, so why? Why has this happened? The moment I was informed and made the contact, he recovered with fantastic speed! Almost in a few hours. He had been rushed to the hospital, they thought it was most serious, and two days later he was back home. The hospital doctor said, Why, he has received a new life! But thats not correct: I had put him back in contact with his bodys will, which, for some reason or other, he had forgotten. Things like that, yes, theyre very clear, they take place very consciously but anyway, nothing worth talking about!

0 1963-04-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   He does put you in contact with a peace, its a facta boxed-in peace, but a peace all the same, a real peace, a concrete, concrete stillness. So the thing to be done (because that peace is perceptible Ive had the experience of it so many times) is to remain very objective within that peace; then you can benefit from the peace without accepting its limits. You should, for instance, be able to keep that peace in the cells (the brain cells if you feel tired) without allowing yourself to be enclosed like that. There is no need to struggle, just remain turned upward. Its very hard to explain. But maybe you will experience it, then youll understand what I mean.
   There is always a vibration subtler than his vibration of peace, and that one must remain free, without getting enclosed in the other. For example, if something pulls and causes a mental tension in the head, just keep in contact with that peace (oh, he does have a capacity of mental immobility), and let it penetrate you, but without concentrating all your being on it: allow the rest of your activity to unfold as usual in an infinity. Its only the vibrations of the physical mind that you should keep in that stability.

0 1963-05-11, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The drawing starts here (Mother draws the first half of the 8): its the Supreme leaning forward. Then, Nature in its base, Nature in sleep (the base of the 8). And here (the top of the 8), I put two little drawings (as if to symbolize an eye, a nose and a mouth) to evoke the summit of consciousness. So the Supreme is leaning forward like this and Nature rises like this (Mother draws the second half of the 8). All this (the top of the 8) is golden, then it becomes prismatic (the middle of the 8), and deep blue here (the base of the 8), in the most material part of the creation, and the blue becomes lighter and lighter (going upward again), and finally golden. Perpetually.
   Eight is the symbol of infinity for mathematicians ().

0 1963-06-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   And I came out like this (gesture as if Mother suddenly emerged from the experience with a movement backward and upward). How can I explain? I was trying to find my way by going down, to find a way out down below, but I couldnt find it. So when that old man came, someone who was with me very obligingly went to turn out the light [on the old mans orders]! Then I felt within myself, I cant bear it, I cant stand here and watch this light being turned outthis light which turned on when I came I cant bear that! And I left abruptly like this (same gesture of stepping backward and upward), and found myself instantly back in my bed.
   Yet the way I seek is ever descending, descending, descendingnever to the heights. Its always descending, descending, descending.

0 1963-06-22, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   In order to be complete, we should add that we are aware (not aware: we know it, its a certainty) that all the upward paths are open, traveled, you can go there as you like and when you like. Thats it, and thats why, when I wanted to come out of the experience, it meant going upward, quite naturally. Not that the passage above is closed, on the contrary, its traveled, explored but inadequate. We must find the corresponding passage down below.
   (silence)

0 1963-08-24, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Because that was my question, I wondered, But why? I who am Any second I just have to do this (gesture upward) and its theres only the Lord, all is THATbut in such an absolute way that all that is not It vanishes! So the proportion at present.. (laughing) is that too many things would have to disappear!
   That I understood.

0 1963-09-18, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Because NOTHING in the consciousness budged during those changeovers [back and forth from the true to the false movement]; the consciousness is like that, turned not upward, not inward, turned simply turned to the Lord, living in His Light, which, in the physical world, becomes a golden splendor. The consciousness is turned to That. There is nothing but That, its the sole reality, the sole truth. And It vibrates like this (Mother touches her hands, her arms), It vibrates in all the cells, everywhere. I go like this (Mother makes a gesture of collecting it in the air around), as if I picked it up. It isnt ethereal, its very material; it feels like an air that is thick but vibrant, very vibrant. The consciousness is like that. And all this goes on in the body. But with the presence of that old idiot which is immediately pessimistic, catastrophic, defeatisthow defeatist, oh it sees everything as a calamity. And then that wonderful character, after imagining the worse (in the space of a second, of course), it submits it all to the Lord and tells Him, Here, Lord, here is Your work, its all Yours, do what You will with it! The silly idiot, why did it have to prepare its catastrophes! A catastrophe, invariably a catastrophe, everything is catastrophic but it offers its catastrophe to the Lord!
   And the answer is invariably a smile full of such patience, oh! That patience gives me a sense of wonder every second.

0 1963-10-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Yesterday (this is an example I give you, but in all three domains its similar), yesterday it was a question of money. The question of money, for more than twelve years, has been a problemgrowing increasingly acute because the expenses are increasing fantastically while the income is decreasing! (laughing) So the two things together make the problem very acute. It results in things to be paid but no money, which means that the cashier (the poor cashier, it does him a lot of good from the yogic viewpoint: he has acquired a calm that he never had before! But still he is the one who has to stand the greatest tension), the cashier spends money and I cannot reimburse him. Very well. And then its not for me to run about, look for money, arrange things, discuss with people, of course, that wouldnt be proper (!), and those who do it for me have in them a rather sizable amount of tamas, which I cannot yet shake up. Anyway, yesterday they proposed something absurd to me (I dont want to go into the details, it doesnt matter), but their proposal was absurd and put me in a totally unacceptable situation. In other words, it might have brought a legal action against me, I might have been summoned before the court, anyway, all kinds of inadmissible thingsnot that I care personally, but theyre inadmissible. When they proposed their idea to me, I looked and saw it was silly; I was very quiet, when, suddenly, there came into me a Power (I told you it happens now and then) like this (massive gesture). When it comes, you feel as though you could destroydestroy everything with it you see, its too awesome for the present state of the earth. So I answered very quietly that it was unacceptable, I said why, and I returned the paper. Then something COMPELLED me to add: If I am here, it is not because of any necessity or obligation; it is not a necessity from the past, not a karma, not any obligation, any attraction, any attachment, but only, solely and absolutely because of the Lords Grace. I am here because He keeps me here, and when He no longer keeps me here, when He considers I am not to stay any longer, I wont stay. And I added (I was speaking in English), As for me (as for me [gesture upward] that is, not this [gesture to the body]), as for Me, I consider that the world isnt ready: its way of responding inwardly and outwardly, even visibly in those around me, proves that the world isnt ready something must happen for it to be ready. Or else it will take QUITE SOME TIME for it to be prepared. Its all the same to me: whether it is ready or not makes no difference. And everything could collapse, Icouldntcareless. And with what force I said that! My arm rose, my fist banged on the tablemon petit, I thought I was going to break everything!
   I was watching the scene, thinking, Why the devil am I made to do this?! These people are, apparently, quite devoted, quite surrendered and intimate enough not to be afraid. (I dont know what effect it had on them, but it must have had some effect.) As soon as it was over, I started working again, looking into affairs and so on. Afterwards, once I was alone, I wondered, Why did that come into me? And in the evening, I had the solution to the situation: its here (Mother takes an envelope on the table). I didnt even look at it (Mother opens the envelope and looks at the amount of a check).

0 1963-11-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The first thing is to detach your consciousness, thats most important. And to say: I-AM-NOT-THIS, its something that has been ADDED, placed to enable me to touch Matter but it isnt me. And then if you say, That is me (gesture upward), youll see that you will be happy, because it is lovelylovely, luminous, sparkling. Its really fine, it has an exceptional quality. And thats you. But you have to say, That is me, and be convinced that its you. Naturally, the old habits come to deny it, but you must know that theyre old habits, nothing else, they dont matter that is you.
   This movement is indispensable. A moment comes when one must absolutely separate oneself from all this, because only when one has separated oneself and become quite conscious that one is there (gesture above the head), that one is THAT, only then can one come down again to change it all. Not to forsake it, but to be its master.

0 1963-12-14, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   When I noticed Ws difficulties, I put a lot of force on him, a lot, a great concentration to get him out of that tight corner, because I felt a kind of wavering in him, I felt he wasnt so steady on the path any more. Thats what worried me. So I put a very great concentration of force on him to set him on the right road again. And, as I said, the Force circulates; it circulates: it isnt something which goes out like that, like a little beam which you send out, which reaches its goal and stays there thats not it. Its a thing (round gesture) that spreads out with waves of concentration. And Ive noticed this for everybody (I did my first study on myself), but the ego must be completely (gesture of palms upward, immobile) must become nonexistent, must stop interfering, at any rate, in order to feel that great, universal Pulsation.
   It is simply the art of putting yourself in the right place in order to be in the path of the Force.
  --
   The way the world is now physically organized, with the difference and specialization in the forms, in sexes, encourages a kind of opposition between the two poles, the union of which results in creation. So, naturally, each pole has enormous difficulty understanding the other (although it thinks and believes it does), especially understanding the pole I place underneath (gesture signifying the basis of the world), which is the effectively creative pole, that is to say, what is expressed by woman. She feels very well that without this (gesture above) the full understanding isnt there; but this, which is above, doesnt AT ALL understand the creative power of that which is belowit knows it in principle, but doesnt understand it. And there is a lack of adaptation, a sort of conflict, which shouldnt exist. It never existedneverbetween Sri Aurobindo and me, but I could see it didnt exist because he had adopted the attitude of complete surrender to the eternal Mother (the stage, in the creation, of complete surrender). I would see it, and it embarrassed me! It embarrassed me, I thought, But why does he think he has to do that (laughing), as if I couldnt understand! On the contrary, I thirst for the other attitude for identifying myself this way instead of that way (Mother presses her fist upward against her hand above): for identifying myself from below upward instead of from above downward. It was an aspiration, which has been there almost for eternities for the universal creative Force to identify itself with the Creator. And to identify itself not through the descent of the Creator, but through the ascent of the Force the conscious ascent. But Sri Aurobindo willed it that way, so it was that way and then I was very busy with my work. For the thirty years we lived together, it went on that way, perfectly smoothly; and I kept my aspiration quiet because I knew that it was his will. But since he left and I was obliged to do his work, so to speak, things have changed. But I didnt in the least want the Creator, because of my taking up the work, to be obliged to adapt himself to the creative Force (that wont do at all!), and my whole aspiration has been for the creative Force to consciously BECOME the Creator. Its becoming increasingly that way. And at the last meeting [with Sri Aurobindo], for a time (not the whole time, but some time), it was that way. Then I understood; it made me understand the play of all the forces in the two elements the two polesand how they could be joined, through what process that opposition could disappear so that the total Being might exist.
   Were on the way. And its growing clearer and clearer. It will be tremendously interesting. But thats for later on.

0 1964-01-04, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   He is a very good man, but very ignorantit seems funny to say that about a pundit, a great pundit who knows Sanskrit better than the head of the Maths [monasteries] of the South, but I say that he lacks this: the opening up above. He has a connection in a straight line (gesture tapering off to a point above), and indeed its very high up, but its a pinpointa sharp point that gives him an experience which is his ALONE: he cannot pass it on to others. You understand, it isnt an immensity rising upward: its a pinpoint.
   Last time, when he came to meditate, just before he came upstairs, all of a sudden I felt the Lord coming (He has a particular way of becoming concrete when He wants me to do something), and He became concrete with the will that I should take advantage of this mans goodwill to widen his consciousness. It was very clear. And He became concrete with a Power, you know, one of those overwhelming Powers and a wonderful Love. It came like that, and he was caught in the Movementwhat he was conscious of, I cannot say. But when he left the room, he said he had had an experience. And this time, he was quite sincere, spontaneous, natural, not trying to to make a show.2 It was very good.

0 1964-02-05, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   They come more and more often, those things that I scribble on a slip of paper, and they always follow the same process: first, always a sort of explosionlike the explosion of a power of truth; it makes great dazzling white fireworks (Mother smiles), much more than fireworks! Then it rolls and rolls (gesture above the head), it works and works; and then comes the impression of an idea (but the idea is lower down, its like clothing), and the idea contains its sensation, it brings the sensation along with it the sensation was there before, but without any idea, so you couldnt define it. There is only one thing: its always the explosion of a luminous Power. Then, afterwards, if you look at it while remaining very still, while above all the head keeps quieteverything keeps quiet (gesture of a stillness turned upward)then, all of a sudden, somebody speaks in your head (!), somebody speaks. Its the explosion that speaks. Then I take a pencil and my paper, and I write. But between what speaks and what writes, there is still a difficult little passage, with the result that when I have written, something above isnt satisfied. So I again keep still: Ah, no, not that wordthis one sometimes it takes two days for the thing to be really definitive. But those who are satisfied with the power of the experience skimp it all and send you off into the world of sensational revelations, which are distortions of the Truth.
   One must be very level-headed, very still, very criticalespecially very still, silent, silent, silent, without trying to grab at the experience: Ah, is it this? Ah, is it that? Then one spoils it all. But one must looklook at it very attentively. And in the words, there is a remnant, something left of the original vibration (so little), something remains, something which makes you smile, which is pleasant, it bubbles like a sparkling wine, and then here (Mother shows a word or a passage in an imaginary note), its lackluster; so you look at it with your knowledge of the language or sense of the rhythm of the words, and you notice: Here, a pebble the pebble must be removed; so then you wait, until suddenly it comesplop!it falls into place: the true word. If you are patient, after a day or two it becomes quite exact.

0 1965-03-20, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   So for me (I mean for this body), the only recourse is a blissful surrender (gesture of immobile offering upward), and not a heavy, not an inert surrender: intense, intense! And in a joy, oh, extraordinary. Thats the only thing.
   I dont know, maybe for others it [the ecstasy] is allowed to last, but for this body After a while, all the problems from outside come back, that is to say, all the vibratory difficulties of the world are allowed to reach it again in order to be taken up and transformed in the Light of the Lord. And the whole problem crops up again.

0 1965-03-24, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   There is a rather curious development. For some time now, but more and more precisely, when I hear something, when someone reads something to me or I listen to some music or am told of some event, immediately something vibrates: the origin of the activity or the level on which its taking place or the origin of the inspiration is automatically translated as a vibration in one of the centers. And then, depending on the quality of the vibration, its something constructive or negative; and when at some point it makes contact, however slightly, with a domain of Truth, there is (how can I explain?) like the spark of a vibration of Ananda. And the thought is absolutely silent, still, nothingnothing (Mother opens her hands upward in a gesture of complete offering). But this perception is growing increasingly precise. And thats how I know: I know the source of the inspiration, where the action is located and the quality of the thing.
   What precision! Oh, an infinitesimal precision, in the details.
  --
   After perfect stillness, there is the movement of inner aspiration (I am always referring to the aspiration of the cells I am using words to describe something wordless, but there is no other way to express oneself), the surrender, that is to say, the SPONTANEOUS AND TOTAL acceptance of the supreme Will (which is unknown to us). Does the total Will want things to go this way or that way, that is, towards the disintegration of certain elements or towards? And then again, there are endless nuances: there is the passage from one height to another (I am speaking of cellular realizations, of course, dont forget that), I mean that you have a certain inner equilibrium, an equilibrium of movement, of life, and its understood that in order to go from one movement to a higher movement, there is almost always a descent, then a new ascent there is a transition. So does the shock received impel you to go down in order to climb up again, or does it impel you do go down in order to abandon old movements? Because there are cellular ways of being that have to disappear in order to give way to others; there are others that climb down in order to climb up again with a higher harmony and organization. This is the second point. And you should wait and see WITHOUT POSTULATING IN ADVANCE what has to be. There is especially, of course, the desire: the desire to be comfortable, the desire to be in peace and all that that must cease absolutely and disappear. You must be absolutely without any reaction, like this (gesture of immobile offering upward, palms open). And then, when you are like that (you, meaning the cells), after a while the perception comes of the category the movement belongs to, and you just have to follow the perception, whether it is that something must disappear and be replaced by something else (which one doesnt know yet), or whether it is that something must be transformed.
   And so forth. And its like that all the time.
  --
   To get over all that. And the only way to do it is for all, every one of the cells, every second, to be (gesture of immobile offering upward) in an adoration, an aspirationan adoration, an aspiration, an adoration, an aspiration. And nothing else. Then, after a time, there is joy, too, and then it ends with blissful trust. When that trust is established, everything will be fine. But its much easier said than done. Only, for the moment, I am convinced that it is the only way, there is no other.
   There. Give your hands.

0 1965-08-07, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I am not saying it is final, far from it, but its much more under control. The cessation lasted perhaps an hour or two, I dont remember, but its activity isnt so mechanical anymore. You know that sort of mental silence in which everything falls flat (immobile, horizontal gesture); well, it can now be done with this material mindit falls flat, turned upward.
   But it is a beginning, just the beginning.

0 1965-10-16, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   If he was brought up in a Christian way, its the photo where he is young which is good, they instantly see in it the face of Christ I All of them. The day before yesterday again, an American painter, who is here and has read Sri Aurobindos books, wanted to do a portrait of Sri Aurobindo (he never saw him) from photosits just as it was with the bust in Sri Aurobindos room!1 They all make a mystic Sri Aurobindo with narrow temples, like that (gesture tapering upward), a long mystic face, because they cant get out of their Christianity! For them, of course, the Power, anything that expresses the Power, oh! (gesture of repulsion)
   I wanted to say that to this American. For them, spiritual life is sacrifice, its the God who sacrifices himself: he renounces the joys of the earth and sacrifices his existence to save mankind. And they cant get out of it!

0 1966-02-19, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Now, to tell you the truth, we are on the upward curve again. I think we have really reached the bottom of incoherence, absurdity and ugliness the taste for the ugly and the unsightly, the dirty, the offensive. We have, I think, reached rock bottom. If its taken in the right way (and I think there are people who have taken it in the right way), it can lead you straight to the Yoga, straight. That is, you feel a sort of very deep detachment from all the things of this world, a very intense need to find something else, an imperious need to find something truly beautiful, truly fresh, truly good so, quite naturally, it leads you to a spiritual aspiration. And those horrors seem to have divided people: a minority who were ready have risen very high; a majority who werent ready have gone down very low. Those are now wallowing in mud, and thats why we cant get out of it for the moment; and if it goes on, we will be moving towards a new war, and this time it will really be the end of this civilization I am not saying the end of the world, because nothing can be the end of the world, but the end of this civilization, which means we will have to build another. You may tell me that it will be very good, for this civilization is on the decline, its rotting away; but still, there were in it some beautiful things that deserved to be preserved, and it would be a great pity if all that disappeared. But if there is a new war, I can tell you that it will all disappear. For men are very clever creatures, and they have found the way to destroy everything. And they will use it, because whats the use of spending billions to make certain bombs if they arent to be used? Whats the use of discovering that a city can be destroyed in a few minutes if not to destroy it! One wants to see the fruit of ones efforts! If there is a war, thats what will happen.
   Quite appropriate. Well publish it in the next Bulletin.

0 1966-03-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I have tried many things, a great many, I have looked a great deal, and I see only one thats absoluteonly one thats absolute and can bring the absolute result, its this (gesture turned upward): the complete annulment of all that, leaving it all, To You, LordYou, You, to You. And it isnt a being with a form, thats not it; it isnt a formless force, its It has nothing to do with thought, only with this: the contact. And the contact, an unmistakable contact, which nothing can imitatenothing, nothing at all has the power to imitate it. And for every difficulty, every time, whatever it is, simply this: Everything to You, Lord. Everything for You, to You. You alone can do it, You, You alone, You alone. You alone are the Truth; You alone are the Power. And those words are nothing, they are only the very clumsy expression of something a stupendous Power.
   Its only the incapacity, the clumsiness, the lack of faith we mix into it that takes away His power. The minute we are truly pure, that is, under His influence alone, there are no limits, no limitsnothing, nothing, there is nothing, no law of Nature that can resist, nothing, nothing.

0 1966-06-11, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   And at the same time I also had the experience (an experience Ive had very, very often) that when you live in the Light, there is perfect comprehension, and it isnt something reflected or seen, thats not it, it is something that IS, that exists: a living Light. And as soon as you want to express it, it gets into the balloon, and then it becomes conventional (even without uttering words: just saying it to yourself). When you are like this (immobile gesture turned upward), then its The Thing. And as soon as you try to formulate it to yourself, and, even more so, to write it, it seems to get into the balloon and it becomes conventional. To such a point that these days its very difficult for me, when I am active, to write anything, I find it so flat and dry and distorted.
   But at night (laughing) as if by reaction, I dictate all kinds of things! But I dont remember what I write, its absolutely elsewhere.

0 1966-08-03, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   And with all this, there is (it almost seems to be the key to the problem, to the understanding), there is a special concentration on the why, the how of death. Years and years ago, when Sri Aurobindo was still here, there came one day a sort of dazzling, imperious revelation: One dies only when one chooses to die. I told Sri Aurobindo, This is what I saw and KNEW. He said to me, It is true. Then I asked him, Always, in every case? He said, Always. Only, one isnt conscious, human beings arent conscious, but thats how it is. But now I am beginning to understand! Some experiences, some examples are given in the details of the bodys inner vibrations, and I see that there is a choice, a choice generally unconscious, but which, in some individuals, can be conscious. I am not talking about sentimental cases, I am talking about the body, the cells accepting disintegration. There is a will like this (Mother raises a finger upward) or a will like that (Mother lowers her finger). The origin of that will lies in the truth of the being, but it seems (and that is something marvelous), it seems that the final decision is left to the choice of the cells themselves.
   I am not at all referring to the physical, vital, psychic consciousnesses, not to any of that: I am referring to the consciousness of the cells.
   Thats how the present moment is: the will may be like this (Mother raises a finger upward), or it may be like that (finger downward). Like that, it means dissolution; like this, it means continuation and progresscontinuation with the necessity of progress. There is something which is the consciousness of the cells (a consciousness that observes, and which, when it is awakened, is a wonderful witness), and that consciousness is the one which goes like this (same gesture) or like that. This is expressed by a will to endure or to last, or by a need for the annihilation of rest. And then, when these cells are full of that light that golden light, that splendor of divine Lovethere is a sort of thirst, a need to participate in That, which takes away all that is or can be difficult in the endurance: that disappears, it becomes a glory. Then
   Thats what is being learned.

0 1966-08-10, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   After Satprem had left, Mother remained silent for a long time, then turned to Sujata and told her, "Strange, very strange, I've never seen a lotus bud bowing down." Then, as Sujata looked at her without understanding, Mother added, "The heart lotus is always turned upward; it's the aspiration. Here, it bows down towards the earth."
   ***

0 1966-10-05, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   About the financial situation, I have a little story to tell you, which took place on Sunday or Monday. I told you that the situation was quite to ordinary consciousnesses, it was critical. And there was a payment to be made. I dont remember the material details, but something had to be paid very urgently (I think it was to the workers: they were hungry and hadnt been given their money). And I needed a certain amountwhich I didnt have: I had nothing. Then a sort of compassion came into me for those people who didnt have any money. I saw it wasnt right, and I couldnt do anything because there was none. So, in the evening while I was walking (I have an hour of meditation and quiet, of concentration), I presented it all like this (gesture upward), and with an almost childlike attitude I said to the Lord (He was there, of course, I was with Him) something that can be translated (I dont know, I dont speak but it could be translated into words) roughly like this: I know You are with me and behind everything I do and everywhere, but Id like to know whether what I do, the work I do, interests You or not! (Mother laughs) And if it does interest You, well, I must have this money.
   It came like that, in a quite childlike form, but very, very pure. And two days later, when it was necessary for the money to come, for me to have money, just as everything seemed quite impossible, Amrita suddenly came in, telling me, Here, so-and-so has sent a cheque for such-and-such an amount.Exactly the amount needed. And I think it was the first time that person had sent money. It was quite unexpected, absolutely a miraclea miracle for children. The required amount, just at the required time, and absolutely unexpected. Then I had a good laugh. And I said to myself, How silly we can be! We dont know that everything happens exactly as it has to.

0 1966-10-08, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   All this is going on up above. And then, whats very amusing is that when I see, I dont see like that (gesture from below upward), I see like this (gesture from above downward), and I see up above. Its a little higher than this (gesture above the head), and I see from above.
   But I saw those curves, I began seeing them. I know them, I have seen them since the beginning of the month and they are growing more precise. And they are quite prettyvery pretty, very elegant. And this one [the new one] is like a magnificent spout of watermuch lovelier than that! And it keeps rising, it doesnt fall back, but it sprays a golden rain on the earth.

0 1966-10-19, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Naturally, all those entities were more or less spontaneously doing the Supremes work, but (how can I explain it?) without their having a conscious will: they did it simply and spontaneously, because they were beings of harmony, working harmoniously. But now, in Durgas case its very clearvery clear: she is like this (gesture turned upward, awaiting the Supremes Command). In her relationship with the hostile beings, in her legendary yearly battle (which is of course symbolic), she is like this (same gesture), eager to know the direction, the indication, the gesture to be made.
   When Sri Aurobindo was here, every year at the time of Durgas battle, I used to receive from him the very clear indication of the aspect of the adverse forces that had to be vanquished and subdued. (It was very interesting, and I generally noted it down, but I dont know where all that has gone.) It went on like that for thirty years. And after his departure there only remained the Supreme.

0 1966-10-22, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Oh, if you knew to what point There arent any reactions, you understand. I look at it all with a very clear vision, a very clear knowledge of the consequences, but there arent any reactions: I simply become a kind of machine that signs this, does this and that. And then, when I need to write something, I turn into an automaton: I remain absolutely blank, silent, like this (gesture of immobility, turned upward), and then I leave it (it depends on the case), either Sri Aurobindo or else something from up above comes and dictates. I am like this (same gesture), and more and more so I am increasingly like this: nonexistent, a machine.
   I have told them several times that they might as well replace this with a nicely designed robot, because this (laughing) doesnt need to be here! A well-designed robot, with a sophisticated mechanism: you press one button for one thing, another button for another thing, and it works!

0 1966-11-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I never think of anythingoh, thats a blessing, you know, mon petit! I never think of anything without good reason! I am like this (gesture of immobile contemplation, turned upward). The only thing thats formulated with words is: Lord, You what You will, what You know, what You do, there is only You. You. Like that (same gesture of immobility). And all of a sudden, without thinking about it, without looking for it, plop! a drop of lightah!
   Its convenient.

0 1966-12-07, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But in what Ive read of yours (I set apart the book on Sri Aurobindo because that was a very special case: all sensitive people have instantly been brought into contact with Sri Aurobindo; that was a very special case), but in your first book [The Goldwasher] which I read, I felt it came from above. I feel that. Only, of course, it would be unreadable: it has to be concretized, materialized. But if one has oneself a relationship with this plane above, one must feel it in what is written: many people feel a something that suffuses the whole thing. Thats why I want you to read me your new book, its to see if that is there. You know, I am like this (gesture to the forehead showing a vast stillness), it has become a constant state: a screen. A screen for absolutely everything. And really nothing comes from within: its either this way (horizontal gesture around Mother) or this way (gesture from above); horizontally from outside, or the response from above. Here (gesture to the level of the emotive heart), its something so neutral as to be nonexistent; and here (gesture to the forehead), its vast, even, still. So if I stop (gesture turned upward), right away, instantly, it comes in waves: a continuous light which comes down and through, comes down and through, comes down (gesture of a circulation through Mother as through a transmitter-receiver device). When something is read out to me or people ask me questions or they tell me about some matter or other, its always like that (a screen). And whats very interesting is that when its a question that deserves no answer or a matter that doesnt require my intervention, or anyway anything that can be expressed by Its no concern of mine, its none of my business, then theres an absolute blank: absolutely empty, neutral, without answer. I am obliged to say that there is no answer (if I were to tell the truth I should say, I cant hear anything, I dont understand). So its absolutely still and neutral, and if it remains like that, it means theres nothing, I have nothing to do with it. Otherwise, when there is an answer no time even elapses, theres hardly any lapse of time: the answer seems to come even as I am spoken to. Then I take the paper or letter right away and answer. Its automatic. The whole work is done like that. Theres nothing here (gesture to the forehead).
   Obviously we have to reconcile ourselves to it. The world is in a state of considerable imperfection, so everything that manifests in the world partakes of that imperfectionwhat can we do about it? The only thing we can do is to slowly try and transform but thats slow, so slow, unceasingtransform this body.

0 1966-12-14, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Oh, I can guarantee its humanly impossible. I know what it is, I have constantly to to disappear into the Supreme. Otherwise, its not possible. The physical personality constantly, constantly goes away like this (gesture upward) so He alone may be there. Otherwise I couldnt hold out.
   Fortunately, they [the people Mother will see tomorrow] come to receive, so that somewhat lessens the (smiling) the kind gift of all their difficulties (but they leave enough of them behind!). They come with the idea of receiving the force, so I am naturally active (gesture of a link between above and below), and thats better, much better. With those who really come with the idea that they are going to receive and be streng thened, it makes the work easier.

0 1966-12-31, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I think thats why I am becoming deaf! Its because I am constantly listening there (gesture turned upward), all the time. So I am not listening enough here.
   Its the same thing with my eyes. I have started seeing things with my eyes open, and, oh! Peoples state, their thoughts, and especially the state of their vital (because its a vision of the physical, a very subtle, very vitalized physical, and its a representation of things in pictures). And their state shows itself as if you knew (Mother laughs) the things one can see! A myriad of forms, faces, expressions. Youd think its an album by the sharpest humorist imaginable. Its extraordinarily humorous and sharp in the perception and the sense of how ridiculous people are. Then, in the middle of all that, suddenly a beautiful form, a beautiful picture, a beautiful expression appears; something so beautiful, so pure, so wonderfully noble! And it all turns round and round, constantly. Its very amusing, really.

0 1967-02-18, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Once, very long ago, when Sri Aurobindo was telling me about himself, that is, of his childhood, his education, I put the question to him, I asked him, Why am I, as an individual being, so mediocre? I can do anything; all that I have tried to do I have done, but never in a superior way: always like this (gesture to an average level). Then he answered me (at the time I took it as a kindness or commiseration), Thats because it gives great supplenessa great suppleness and a vast scope; because those who have perfection are concentrated and specialized. As I said, I took it simply like a caress to comfort a child. But now I realize that the most important thing is not to have any fixity: nothing should be set, definitive, like the sense of a perfection in the realization that puts a total stop to the forward march. The sense of incapacity (with the meaning I said of mediocrity, of something by no means exceptional) leaves you in a sort of expectation (gesture of aspiration upward) of something better. And then, the most important thing is supplenesssuppleness, suppleness. Suppleness and breadth: reject nothing as useless or bad or inferiornothing; set nothing up as really superior and beautifulnothing. Remain ever open, ever open.
   The ideal is to have this suppleness and receptivity and surrender, that is, so total an acceptance of the Influence that no matter what comes the instrument adapts itself instantly to express it naturally, spontaneously and effortlessly. With everything, of course: with the plastic arts, with music, with writing.

0 1967-04-03, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   So when we say, To want what God wants or To unite with the divine Will, its our way of looking (gesture from the bottom upwards, or from below to above). And its quite approximate. But there And the marvellous thing is that its not what we in our infirmity may conceive of as a simplification, its really the Whole: the manifested, the non-manifested, the yet-to-be-manifested, everything, but everything the Whole. At that second, when you are there, its omnipotence. Omnipotence, absolute freedom, the unforeseeable, and the existent whole. And that
   Naturally, words are idiotic.

0 1967-04-05, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   In most people its three-quarters asleep and distorted; in many its still quite distorted. But whats necessary is not to leap from one consciousness to the otherit is, quite simply, to open ones consciousness (gesture upward) and fill it with the vibrations of the Truth, putting it in harmony with what must be here (up there, its from all eternity), but HERE, what must be HERE: the tomorrow of the earth. And if you weigh yourself down with a whole burden that you have to drag along if you drag behind you all that you should let go of, you wont be able to move forward very fast.
   Mind you, knowing things from the past of the earth can be very interesting and useful, but it must not be something that binds you or holds you back. If you use it as a springboard, its all right. But in fact, its rather secondary.

0 1967-05-06, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But I found that interesting, because Its generally like this: the Force is there, working, and if something comes (a call from someone, a prayer or something), all this (gesture to the forehead) generally remains absolutely still, immobile, letting only the Force pass through, and all I sometimes do is simply (gesture of offering or presenting something upward): Lord, here is this task, its for You. Thats all, and I leave it. But in this case, I was sitting at my table (the telegram had just come), and I concentrated and quite deliberately and consciously I put him in contact with the Force. Because there was a whole world of suggestions, he expected the end: This time its the end. So because of that, I concentrated and put a formation.
   (silence)

0 1967-07-26, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   So all that has come back to be sorted out, put in its place, offered (gesture upward), and now, its over.
   Here is the text of Mother's fourth and last note on the subject: "Naturally the teacher has to test the student to know if he or she has learnt something and has made a progress. But this test must be individual and adapted to each student, not the same mechanical test for all of them. It must be a spontaneous and unexpected test leaving no room for pretence and insincerity. Naturally also, this is much more difficult for the teacher but so much more living and interesting also. I enjoyed your remarks about your students. They prove that you have an individual relation with them and that is essential for good teaching. Those who are insincere do not truly want to learn but to get good marks or compliments from the teacher they are not interesting."

0 1967-07-29, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its a strange thing, its as if you suddenly emerge from a conventional atmosphere of thought, which is like a terrestrial atmosphere (I dont mean its an ordinary thought, I mean its in the field of human mentality), and then there is, above, something that sees things quite differently. As if Yes, things are ordinarily seen like this (gesture from below upward), while that sees like this (gesture from above downward), so when you enter there, you see things that you know here (you know them, they arent new), but you see them with a totally different look. And naturally, the notation is also done differently. (Mother looks for a note)
   It came in two ways. Those things are SEEN, you understand, seen. Words come afterwards to try and transcribe what was seen. The first thing that came was thus:

0 1967-08-19, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   This morning, during the experience, the body felt the whole bliss of the condition, but it was very conscious of its incapacity to manifest and very conscious in such a perfect peace, like this (gesture with the palms of the hands open upward), in which there wasnt even the intensity of the need. It was simply a vision of how things were, how the condition was. And it was something like this: the conditions of the earth are such, the conditions of the substance are such that a local and momentary manifestation, as an example, is not impossible, but the transformation that would make possible the new Manifestation of the supramental being and not just as an isolated case, but with its place and role in earth lifedoes not appear to be immediate. That was the impression.
   And there was no anguish to know or anything of the sort, there was simply a very tranquil vision of things, absolutely devoid of almost any need: it was like this (same gesture with palms open), as peaceful as can be, smiling, tranquil, with a sense of eternity. All that in this body, which was totally, entirely conscious of its incapacity. Naturally, the body, for its part, very clearly feels it neither knows nor is able to know or will or do: simply like this (gesture with palms open), as peacefully open, receptive, surrendered as possible. And that was the result (the vision that the Manifestation was not for the immediate future).

0 1967-09-13, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   You know, when I go there (to the music room) to see people, I simply concentrate and there is a sort of invocation to the Lords Presence. And when He is there, when I feel the whole room full of Him, then its good. That is the sole will (immobile, passive gesture turned upward). I expressed this when I said to someone, I give them a bath of the Lord! And thats indeed how it is: His Presence, His Action His Presence, His Action Thats all. And when I look at them, there is no more person: there is only His Presence and His Action.
   So there we are, it has a different effect on each one!

0 1967-09-16, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   When I read her letter and learned the whole story, as always I did like this (gesture of immobile offering upward), and then the TRUE thing came (not at all what she thinks or what the Pope thinks, but the TRUE thing): an essential unity that will manifest on earth, but not just for this particular religion for ALL religions, all the religions that were manifestations of a (let us say, to understand each other clearly), an Avatar, that is, something that was sent down from above, that came to earth to bring a message, and a religion came out of it (I am not talking about all the forms of superstition and ignorance). Those religions are destined to go back to their Origin and form a complex unity, complete, total, that is to say, the essence of all human aspirations for the unknown Divine. And that has not only been sanctioned: it EXISTS. In other words, its ready to descend.
   In egoistic and limited human consciousnesses, it finds expression in this or that person, or it finds expression in the Pope who, naturally, would like to.3 Thats his whole raison dtre, otherwise he would just be one little man among many others. In other words, there is the whole motivation of human egoism that is there. Thats what distorts everything. But there is a something (which they talk about without knowing what they talk about), a something ready to manifest. And at the same time I seem to be told, Dont worry, be in peace, you dont need to do anything: it WILL BE, and as usual you will spontaneously say what you need to say, without knowing it. There.

0 1967-10-14, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   And since how many years? Since something like 1915, I feltconstantly felt I was acting on the Command: the Command from above. The personal impulsion had disappeared. Since as long as that, 1915, and in that condition, there has been a whole evolution and transformation. And now, when I look back, not only all I used to do, but the way of looking at things, especially the way of looking at things [seems childish to me]. The reaction was already like this (wide-open, even gesture), because great care had been taken to correct any ignorant reaction; the reaction was already very much like this (same wide open gesture), but it was VOLUNTARILY so, not spontaneously so. Thats the great difference. You understand, that sort of universal equality like this (same gesture) was voluntary, it was the effect of a constant vigilance and a constant will. Now also the vigilance is constant, but its replaced by the vigilance and will to be constantly like this (Mother turns the two palms of her hands upward, like a bowl and forming an upside-down triangle at the level of her forehead), all the time like this inwardly, turned inward, as though each cell were turned inward, towards its centre of light thats how it is. And there is still a vigilance not to forget, not to flagall the cells turned inward towards That. So all that outward play, oh, how childish it all looks! And now I do things that are far more childish, lots of little things that are, to the ordinary human outlook, totally useless and quite childish but all that isnt the same thing its (a vast, supple, slow gesture) like the waves and rhythm of a divine Harmony expressing itself.
   I might put it like this: at the time of this declaration (of 1954), I was still taking things seriously. At the time of the classes, when I spoke, I was taking all those things seriously.

0 1967-10-19, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The body itself is learning that every time it thinks of itself, theres a small catastrophenot catastrophe, but I mean on the bodys scale: a cellular catastrophe every time there is even a slight turning in on itself. It must forget itself completely, forget itself, and most importantly, it must not try to find support, comfort, understanding, help or anything of the sort (horizontal gesture all around)only there (gesture with palms open upward and the two hands forming a kind of upside down triangle): the only support is the Divine. The only support. The only help, the only responsibility. All the rest. There isnt one thing coming from or towards a human being that isnt mixed; and the moment its mixed, it means conflict.
   This is a time of extremes, even extremes in the downright material. Did I tell you both the other day that I had received the first flower of a plant which visibly was supramental powera flower like this (gesture), a hibiscus? And yesterday there was the first flower of another plant, also a hibiscus, this big, snow-white, with such a colour at the centre! An indefinable colour, it cant be described. Its golden pink, but so beautiful that you wonder how such colours can be physical. A flower this big (gesture, about fifteen centimetres), the first flower was yesterday. And that was VISIBLY (it expressed itself, you know) the Victory of Love, the Power of Love. Its as if all this physical Nature were, oh, like this (gesture of intense aspiration), tryingshe tries, and there is a Response. They are blessed not to have a mind.

0 1968-01-06, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its the physical ego that has been destroyed and is now like this (gesture with arms open upward). So it finds it odd! I dont know how to explain. This way of putting oneself in the center of things and seeing them in relation to that center of consciousness seems so You understand, the consciousness is spread out; its as much there or there as here, and it sees everything in relation to a higher, central Consciousness (Mother brings her two arms together, joining the tips of her hands above her head in a triangle pointing towards the Supreme), which is like a kind of Beaconan immutable, all-powerful beacon throwing the same light on all things, without the least personal reaction of any sort.
   And the last vestigesyesterday they seemed to be the last ones, because of this text they had asked me to read Naturally, when I speak I say I because its the body that speaks, but it has no sense of I, it Its very hard to explain. Anyway, because of this affair, I said, Ah, but how, how can that be said when its not me?Theres no me, its not me! And at the same time, there was this Consciousness above, saying, No personal reactions theres no more me, and if this must be done, let it be done. And for hours and hours, there was such a peculiar state in which everything It was like kinds of vestiges, or pieces of bark, I dont know; pieces of something a bit hard or shriveled, which had crumbled and were turning into dust, and nothing, nothing but this Great Vibration (gesture like two great wings beating in the infinite), so powerful, so calm the whole day. A sort of perception that life in a seemingly personal form like this one is only for actiononly for action, for the requirements of action; and there must be no reactions, only the instrument actingacting on the supreme Impulse, without reactions. And the perception was so clear that all, but all memories have been abolished, and are being increasingly abolished, so there may only remain a sort of mass of vibrations organized so as to make you do what needs to be done in the whole for everything to be prepared and (gesture of ascent) for everything to grow, to strive more and more towards the transformation.

0 1968-02-14, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Ah! (Mother raises her two hands upward in a gesture of offering)
   Its far easier to say and believe that the world cannot be changed and must be left to its own decompositionyou just go away peacefully. How easy! How easy.

0 1968-03-02, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But just this (Mother points to the cover) is terribly aggressive. Instead of aspiration blossoming out (Mother opens her arms upward)
   Its like the blade of a guillotine.

0 1968-05-04, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   All these last days, there has been an INTENSE work, extremely intense, of impersonalization of the physical consciousness. It results in a sort of (unsteady gesture) You understand, the whole solid base that makes up the corporeal personhop! gone, taken away. So then, at times theres a wobbliness. For instance, for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, I had a total abolition of memoryof recollection and memory. And Now I am used to those things (theres a tremendous number of them), so I stay like that, exclusively turned towards all the cells are still, silent and exclusively turned towards the Force, the Consciousness, like this (gesture with the arms opened upward), and they wait. And then, there is a sort of concentration of energy, of force, and suddenly, as if coming from elsewhere (thats a very odd sensation) You see, all that we do, all that we know, everything is based on a sort of semiconscious memory which is there thats gone. And theres nothing anymore. Its replaced by a sort of luminous Presence, and things are there, but you dont know how. Its not as if they had come back as before, its not that, its Theyre there effortlessly. And whats there is ONLY JUST whats needed at a given moment. There isnt all that baggage you constantly drag behind yourself like that, as before, its not that: theres JUST the thing you need. But you have to be very, very still; if youre restless or excited in the least, or even if you make an effort, theres nothing anymore. And on the most material level, there is also a sort of perception that the whole material equilibrium of the past has disappeared too, and that anything may happen at any time. Fortunately (that must be why its done), fortunately the cells have a very ardent faith, very ardent.
   I told you just before that I had felt that avalanche of attacks. It came in a very subtle form: the unreality of the conception that has been admitted and adopted the unreality of the divine Presence in the body, the unreality of the world in transformation towards a more and more divine state; like an unreality surging up (gesture as of a wave from below), in a sly way, to cut off the base and support of the faith.
   But the Consciousness was there, and the awareness that it was an attack; and there was no battle, no attempt to convince or anything, simply like that (Mother opens her arms upward), a TOTAL surrender.
   And that I told you, it cant be touched.

0 1968-07-20, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Mother draws with her two arms a sort of path going towards her, rising upward, then coming down again through her towards the people. The whole path looks much like the silhouette of a single Being.)
   Image 3

0 1968-08-28, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   There was only one moment when really something in the body (I dont know what) said (But I didnt note that, because I dont want it to be said, it mustnt be said; I am saying it to you simply to explain, but it mustnt be published, it mustnt be said, I dont want.) The body said (it was in its Communion), it said, I am ready for complete dissolution. I am ready for eternal life. But not this, not this state of semi-decomposition: I must get out of it. And from that moment on, things took a turn upward.
   That is to say, for a few minutes the body lost patience. And then it knew, this fool, a few minutes later, it knew it had simply refused to accept a more total experiencevery well. You see, the body hadnt had the necessary courage or endurance or patience or faith to accept a more total experience.

0 1968-09-21, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   So there is only one response (gesture with hands open upward): unshakable calm, and putting the Supreme here, and thats all. But it [the attack] doesnt really affect, yet its still there, that is, its not repulsed, not dissolved: its there (gesture as if encircling Mother). And its been like this since I told you right at the beginning: a formidable formation.
   But Mother, almost every night I wake up with headaches.1 My nights are tiring, very tiring.

0 1968-12-14, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its completely silent here (gesture to the forehead); I just turn (gesture upward) and wait, and I think what comes first is the purest, that is, the least mixed with activities; afterwards, its as if here in the atmosphere it got mixed with mental vibrations.
   ***

0 1969-02-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But then, at a certain point, the body wondered, Who or what is it that takes pleasure in this immense unfolding which started with something so obscure and moves towards something so luminous? All of a sudden, the body wondered, Why? And then (Mother holds her hands open upward, in suspense) there was no answer In fact, it was made to feel, Not yet. You arent yet ready, not yet. You cant understand.
   (silence)

0 1969-02-15, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The cells themselves were saying their effort to be transformed, and there was a Calm. (How can I explain this?) The body was saying its aspiration and will to prepare itself, and, not asking but striving to be what it should be; all that always with this question (its not the body that asks it, its the environment, those around the world, as if the world were asking the question): Will it continue, or will it have to dissolve? The body is like this (gesture of abandon, hands open upward), it says, What You will, Lord. But then, it knows the question is decided, and One doesnt want to tell itit accepts. It doesnt lose patience, it accepts, it says, Very well, it will be as You will. But That which knows and That which doesnt answer is something that cant be expressed. It is yes, I think the only word that can describe the sensation it gives is an Absolutean Absolute. Absolute. Thats the sensation: of being in the presence of the Absolute. The Absolute: absolute Knowledge, absolute Will, absolute Power Nothing, nothing can resist. And then this Absolute (theres this sensation, concrete) is so merciful! But if we compare it with all that we regard as goodness, mercy ugh! thats nothing at all. Its THE Mercy with the absolute power and its not Wisdom, not Knowledge, its It has nothing to do with our process. And That is everywhere, its everywhere. Its the bodys experience. And to That it has given itself entirely, totally, without asking anythinganything. A single aspiration (same gesture, hands open upward), To be capable of being That, what That wills, of serving Thatnot even serving, of BEING That.
   But that state, which lasted for several hours never had this body, in the ninety-one years its been on earth, felt such happiness: freedom, absolute power, and no limits (gesture here and there and everywhere), no limits, no impossibilities, nothing. It was all other bodies were itself. There was no difference, it was only a play of the consciousness (gesture like a great Rhythm) moving about.

0 1969-04-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   In this Consciousness theres really an extraordinary power. And it encourages to actit encourages. Previously, when I was told that someone was ill or there had been an accident, something of the sort, I would merely do this (gesture of offering, both hands open upward): I would present it to the supreme Lord, and that was all, I would remain like that (immobile, passive gesture). Now this Force encourages me to take (laughing) to take the supreme Lord and put him like this (swordlike gesture) on the event. You understand, instead of being like that (gesture of passive offering), its like this (swordlike gesture). It responds. Strange.
   (silence)

0 1969-05-31, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The book is The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon, whose central theme is "Violence alone pays" (quoted in The Indian Express of May 30). An extract: "The practice of violence binds men together as a whole, since each individual forms a violent link in the great chain, a part of the great organism of violence which has surged upward." The book is prefaced by Jean-Paul Sartre, who says even more explicitly, "Irrepressible violence... is man recreating himself." It is "mad fury" through which "the wretched of the earth" can "become men." "To shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone... there remains a dead man and a free man."
   On Thursday 29th May. On the 30th too, mother received no one. This is probably the course of experience that began a little before Pavitra's departure (see conversation of May 17).

0 1969-06-04, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But what has become its business, in such an intense, intense manner that its almost inexpressible, is You, You, You, You that no word can express: the Divine, to use a word. Thats all. For everything: eating the Divine; sleeping the Divine; suffering the Divine like this (Mother turns her two hands upward). With a sort of steadiness, of stillness there is a great unification in the cells.
   (silence)

0 1969-08-16, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   To live almost from minute to minute, to be like this (gesture turned upward), attentive only to the thing one has to do every momentand to let the All-Consciousness decide We never know things, even with the most general vision; we never know things except VERY partiallyvery partially. So our attention is drawn to this, drawn to that, but such and such other thing exists, too. And to give a lot of importance to dangerous or harmful things is to give them strength.
   (Mother goes into a contemplation)
  --
   With those workers, for instance You know that the workers (not the workers, the servants) sent me a threatening letter three days ago (have you heard about that?); a threatening letter (in English) telling me I had to receive them and discuss with them their working conditions, or else they would wreak havoc on August 15, yesterday The letter was read out to me. I was like this (gesture turned upward), and there simply came (ah, I forgot: they also wrote that if I didnt reply, they would conclude the letter hadnt been given to me, that I hadnt seen it, and they would start their agitation). So it came like thatno thought, you understand, completely blank, like thatit came, I took a piece of paper, and I wrote (in English), I have received your letter and read it and then, If you have the slightest fear of God, keep quiet. The letter was sentthey didnt do anything, not a move.
   Its like that, you see, I always try to be in the state you describe, like that, WHATEVER HAPPENS, and alwaysalways, without exceptionif something needs to be done, I am made to do it.
  --
   And Ive noticed that at different moments, with different people, I am made to act very differently, and the experience is itself very differentagain, all of it like this (same gesture turned upward, immobile).
   Only, one must have reached a state in which, naturally, there are no more preferences or desires or disgusts or attractions or anythingall that is gone.

0 1969-08-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Actively, outwardly, I would never have been able to say, Choose this man. I only said, The best for the country. I dont know why or how, because because, mon petit, our human consciousness is SO SMALL! Even when we identify with the general Consciousness, we feel so small, so microscopic in comparison with the true, all-containing Consciousness. We cant contain all! Even, even when we identify with this Consciousness, we become like this (gesture showing emptiness at the forehead level), absolutely silent and still, with only a luminous Vibration, IMMENSE, you know, infinite, and an infinite power, too, but (same gesture to the forehead) no translation of any sort, nothing like a thought. So then, if we want to intervene between That and circumstances, we are OBLIGED to make mistakes, we cant do otherwise! So the only way is to stay like this (still gesture, turned upward). Thats why I am like this, silent. You told me, I dont understand your way of acting in Auroville: its nothing but that. Its because our thought limits, opposeseven, even the vastest consciousness, you understand, is only a TERRESTRIAL consciousness, a terrestrial consciousness, and its very small. Very small. And very small especially from the point of view of consequences, of the sequence of circumstances (Mother draws a curve), of how this will bring about thatwe dont see. So one must be like this (gesture turned upward), and simply let this Consciousness act. And there was the result: it is the third man who made it. I found it quite amusing. Quite amusing. I thought, There you are!
   In my vision (I cant swear its supramental, but at any rate it was much above a mental vision), I chose one man [Deshmukh], and everyone giggled, telling me it was an impossibilityit was the one thing that could make India immediately great. Immediately it gave India a place in the world, which was her true place. Everyone found it profoundly ridiculous. So then, I was asked to choose from among three candidates, and the most obviously incapable of the three was chosen as as the man who would help the most in Indias development and blossoming. There.

0 1969-08-27, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But there, if one is like this (still gesture, turned upward), then its the Supreme Power that comes. Then
   Its a frightful ordeal.

0 1969-10-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I felt it, but it didnt hurl! And theres no trace. And theres nothing there was enough to crush you! (Mother laughs) And there was nothing. The body was tranquil, tranquil, tranquil. It woke me up, and I wondered if Id been hurt, but there was nothing. And where it fell, I saw it, I felt the shock I felt it, thats what woke me up: a shock and a sort of weight, and a gap in the wall as big as a door. So then, the bodys reaction, but instantaneous (that is, without reflecting or anything), instantaneous, was Oh, Lord, like this (Mother opens her arms upward), smiling. Not at all frightened or Then I took a good look and wondered, Am I hurt anywhere? There was nothing. Because I kept the two together: the state of vision and the physical state at the same time; in the state of vision I wanted to know whether Id been hurt (it hadnt done anything), and in both states the reaction was the same, like this (same gesture, arms open), with a smile. So it shows that the thing is really done.
   Later this morning, when I was fully awake, I wondered, How could I get that? How could that being do it? (Because it did take place, I received it! [Mother laughs] He wasnt stopped from doing it.) Then the answer was very clear: it was for your body to learn that its really and effectively protected, even if something takes place.

0 1969-10-11, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Ah, but the aim was to withdraw from Matter. The aim was to withdraw here (gesture of drawing all energies upward) and reject Matter, like all illusionists, you understand. Its the continuation of Buddhism, too.
   (silence)

0 1969-10-29, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   One cant know. As for me, I am convinced that one cant know, that one must be like this (Mother opens her hands upward). What Ive said here [in the Notes on the Way] is true: one must be like that, and then let the Consciousness act through oneself.
   Thats what I tried to do. Dont you see any error in that?
  --
   Yes. One doesnt know The body here is beginning to understand thoroughly that one must be like this (gesture upward). The one most important thing is to have ones consciousness CONSTANTLY turned towards towards the Perfection we must manifest. Thats all.
   With the understanding we have, its IMPOSSIBLE to know. Our vision is too small.

0 1969-11-29, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Only, its approach isnt the same. Its as if-curiously, as if the Force were from above downward and not from below upward, in the sense that the direction in the body is the same as when the Energy or Force descends into the body to use the organs; its the same thing: its the Force, the Consciousness that uses a certain power of understanding. Its like this (gesture from above downward), the origin isnt in the brain. Always, the Consciousness is always there (gesture above the head), even the consciousness that makes the body function. Only, the body felt it needed that, the power of mental analysis.
   But it came as an IMPERSONAL activity, quite impersonal, there is no sense whatsoever of even an individualization of thought, you understand? Thats not there. Its like an instrument being used. An instrument of organization, thats really it.

0 1969-12-13, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its the only solution, theres no other. All the rest is aspirations, conceptions, hopes its still the superman, but not the supramental. Its a higher humanity that tries to lift its whole humanity upward, but its useless. Its useless.
   The image is very clear of all this humanity clinging and climbing, striving to catch like that, but actually not giving itselfit wants to take! And that wont do. It has to nullify itself. Then something else can come, can take its place.

0 1970-01-03, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The trouble ([laughing] I say trouble!) is that in people it expresses itself as disorders. People close to me for the work fall ill. One of them is at the nursing home, the other is in difficulty. And depending on their receptivity, I must find a way to make them understand that they shouldnt worry, that its not an illness, but the bodys resistance. The body [Mothers body] has learned that at its own expense!Its constantly like that: if you are in the true position, everything is fineprovided you dont observe yourself, dont keep observing, Oh, the body is like this, or like that, it feels this way or As soon as you pay attention to it, as soon as the consciousness is turned to it, something goes wrong. It goes wrong. One has to be like this (gesture turned upward). And then, there is something that KNOWS all the same, something that knows, but without observing (I dont know how to explain). And you can see that as soon as the consciousness of the cells takes the true attitude, the thing that manifested as a disorder no longer manifests as such: the nature of the manifestation changeshow?
   Not only that, the may Your Will be done (without worrying in the least about what it is, what that Will may be, in other words an acceptance of anything in advance) is replaced in a strange waya strange wayby something that has nothing to do with thought and less and less to do with vision, something superior which is a kind of perceptiona new kind of perception: you KNOW. But that has already come for a few seconds. Now and then it comes, and then the old habits start up again. Its above, far, far above thought, and above vision. Its a kind of perception: there is no more differentiation of the organs (Mother touches her eyes, her ears). And its a perception yes, which is total: its at the same time (if you want to explain it), at the same time vision, hearing, and knowledge. A perception something that is a new type of perception. So then, you KNOW. It replaces learning. But the moment you want to bring it to the plane of learning, its over, you lose contact.

0 1970-01-10, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   And then, no furniture, but first a wooden floor, probably (like here), then over the wooden floor, a thick foam rubber, and over it, a carpet, like here. We have to choose the color. The whole thing will be white. I am not sure if Sri Aurobindos symbols will be white I dont think so. I didnt see them white, I saw them with an undefinable color, between gold and orange. A color of that sort. They will stand upright, carved in stone. And a globe not transparent but translucent. Then, at the bottom [of the globe], a light will be projected upward and will enter the globe diffusely. And from outside, rays of light will fall onto the center. No other lights: no windows, an electric ventilation. And no furniture, nothing. A place to try and find ones consciousness.
   Outside, it will be something like this (Mother unrolls another plan). We dont know if the roof will have a pointed shape or

0 1970-01-31, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The nearer a part of the being (any part) draws to the moment of the transition, that is, the more ready it is for that transition, the more sensitive it becomes. And then, when you reach the point where you can go beyond the stage of problems and see with the universal vision, problems take on, to the personal sensitiveness, a most intense acuteness. I had noticed it before, and now its recurring for the body. Its acquiring a terrifying sensitiveness, you understand. People who dont know why things are like that really get terrified. The possibility of discomfort, of Its the same thing with problems. Only, for those who KNOW and who have understood, its the opportunity of making the last progress, of doing this (Mother opens her hands upward).
   Basically, what still has the illusion of being something separate must dissolve. It must say to itself, Its not my business, I dont exist. Thats the best attitude it can take. Then it goes into the great Universal Rhythm.

0 1970-07-11, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I felt a center below the feet.5 There was one below the feet, one at the knees, one here (gesture at the base of the spine), and all of it (Mother gestures, drawing the energies upward), like this, drawn up, and it came here (gesture to the heart).
   Does Sri Aurobindo speak of that transformation of the subconscient and its becoming conscious?
  --
   What I am conscious of is the Consciousness there (gesture above); thats something unchanging. This (gesture to the forehead): blank. If it starts stirring, its very uncomfortable, but generally it doesnt stir at allone day it stirred for a few minutes, and it was extremely unpleasant. Its like this (gesture like a motionless bar), blank: a blank feeling, like blank paper. This (gesture from the throat to the mouth) is the connection with people, and thats EXTREMELY unpleasant, really extremely unpleasant (I cant say), and materially it results in the deterioration of teeth and Very unpleasant. Here (gesture to the heart) I told you, all energies, from below the feet (Mother gestures as if pulling it all upward), all that was brought up to here. Here (gesture to the heart), its like a sun, always. Its like a radiant sun: thats where I work; thats where I work from. But with the centers there (gesture to the base of the spine), all the energies have been as if brought up to the heart.
   And thats so natural. This and this (gesture to the heart and above the head), its so natural that I dont even observe it anymore: its my way of being.

0 1970-07-25, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Laughing) Its a bit as if someone had taken my head and turned it around! (Mother turns her head upward). You know, this (gesture above) is where the Consciousness is, so the head was taken and turned the right way! (laughter)
   (silence)

0 1971-05-01, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Its the time to make a (gesture of a leap upward).
   As for the power of organization, its an extremely powerful power that has come I feel that just by doing this (Mother quietly closes her hand), I can crush things. Its quite surprising. And so, if this power is put at the service of a higher order, of the truer consciousness something will be achieved.
   We must we must take a leap upward.
   All those who seek to restore order pull back towards all the old ideas thats why they are unsuccessful. But thats all over now. Its over. We are going upward. Only those who can go upward are able to accomplish something.
   (long silence)
  --
   (Mother goes into trance holding Satprems hands in her right hand while her left hand remains turned upward, in midair, then her arm slowly comes down to rest.)
   From the state of Andhra Pradesh.

0 1971-07-31, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   To master the sex-impulse,to become so much master of the sex-centre that the sexual energy would be drawn upwards, not thrown outwards and wastedit is so indeed that the force in the seed can be turned into a primal physical energy supporting all the others, retas into ojas. But no error can be more perilous than to accept the immixture of the sexual desire and some kind of subtle satisfaction of it and look on this as a part of the sadhana. It would be the most effective way to head straight towards spiritual downfall and throw into the atmosphere forces that would block the supramental descent, bringing instead the descent of adverse vital powers to disseminate disturbance and disaster. This deviation must be absolutely thrown away, should it try to occur and expunged from the consciousness, if the Truth is to be brought down and the work is to be done.
   Sri Aurobindo

0 1971-10-06, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I am fully open to anything the Lord wantsanything, even the most difficult of things. I am fully open like this (Mother opens the palms of her hands upward): what You want, Lord, what You want thats my joy. Thats all.
   Its my LIFE. Its the essence of the life in me, in the body. It is like this: what You wantwith a joy, a joy that is unadulterated.

0 1972-02-26, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I dont know, for its spontaneous. Except when someone talks to me or something comes and breaks that state, but otherwise, left to itself, the body is quite naturally like this (immutable gesture, turned to the above). Perhaps this is the means (same gesture upwards): a contemplation of the Divine.
   (smiling silence)
  --
   You see, for a time its like this: What You will, what You will. And then this too falls silent and (Mother opens her hands upwards in a gesture of offering and immobile contemplation).
   (silence)

0 1972-04-19, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The consciousness own attitude towards the Divine is to be as if nestling in the Divine I could even say engulfed in the Divine: what You will, what You will, what You will, what You will. As a basic attitude its very good, I could say. But when suddenly, something in the body goes wrong, and you dont know why (oh, most of the time its due to an outside cause, like a disorder coming from outside), so then you dont know what to dothere is no longer a mind to decide what to do; while the consciousness remains like this (hands open upwards). But then you dont know what to do, so you do nothing.
   There is certainly something to be learned.
   But if the consciousness is turned upward, doesnt the Intervention or the Action take place automatically?
   Probably.

0 1972-05-27, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But there (Mother stretches her arms upwards, then slowly extends them as if to embrace the universe), its luminous, its clear, its strong, its wide. Physically, too. It is PHYSICAL, thats what is amazing! Before, I used to withdraw into an inner state of being (I know them all, Ive experienced them, Ive had a conscious life), but all that, all that is finished. Completely finished. (Smiling) As if the physical world were becoming double.1
   Naturally, to the ordinary eye, I am still an old woman sitting in a chair and unable to move freely. Although at times, I suddenly feel that if I stood up, I could walk perfectly well. But something tells me, Patience, patience, patience So I wait.

0 1972-06-17, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Life is tolerable only like this (Mother opens her hands upwards).
   The body the body itselffeels like a little baby cradled in the arms of the Lord. But if it leaves this attitude only for a few seconds, it feels its like deathinstant dissolution. Thats how it is.

0 1972-07-26, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   You know, this (Mother sweeps a hand across her forehead) is almost emptiness itself. Theres nothing here (forehead) nothing. When I am perfectly quiet and still (Mother raises a finger upward), some things come (gesture above), some things get done or straightened outit takes place above. When I am like that, after a while a whole world of things gets done, gets organized, but its (what can I say?) its another kind of reality, a more substantial reality. How is it more substantial? I dont know. Matter seems unsubstantial compared to that. Unsubstantial, opaque, unreceptive. Whereas that is.
   The funny part is that people think I am asleep! I dont at all sleep. Thats how I spend my nights: a Force at work.

0 1972-07-29, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Mother closes her eyes, palms upwards, and plunges in. Then her eyes open, immense, immobile.)
   Perhaps because the difference between life and death is not what we imagine!

0 1972-08-16, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   I am like this (hands offered upward).
   (silence)

0 1972-08-19, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   If you could simply. More and more I feel that unless we do this (Mother opens her hands upwards in a gesture of surrender), and leave it, with an INTENSE faith in the divine Grace, its just impossible.
   Like this (same gesture).

0 1972-08-30, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   And (how can I put it?) the difference between the two: thought is something that goes like this (whirling, restless gesture), ever in motion whereas consciousness is like this (gesture hands open, offered upward). I cant explain it.
   (Mother closes her eyes, her hands remain open)

0 1972-10-25, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   So my sole means is to remain quietvery, very quiet (Mother opens her hands upwards). To feel that the individuality is nothing, absolutely nothingso the divine rays can pass, pass through it. Its the only solution. It must be the Divine who who fights the battle.
   (silence)

0 1972-11-08, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (silence hands turned upwards)
   And you?

0 1972-12-10, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   The only remedy is to be like this (gesture, hands turned upward in contemplative silence) when time ceases to exist.
   I now wonder whether I was not, in my own measure, beginning to learn the painful lesson of oneness, which starts with all the ambient ill-will. Now I understand fully well that there must be no more "person" in order to withstand all that. If there is "somebody-who," it is painful and dangerous.

0 1972-12-23, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   So my one external resourceEXTERNALLYis to say the mantra: OM Namo Bhagavateh (its an external part of myself that says it); but inside, I am like this (Mother opens her hands upward in total stillness). And now if I remain like that, hours may go by, and I wont know it.
   Whats the time?

0 1972-12-30, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Nothing is impossible (Mother opens her hands upward).
   (silence)

0 1973-01-24, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   There is something (Mother opens her palms upward).
   (long silence)

0 1973-02-03, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Mother opens her hands upwards and plunges in)
   I cant speak.

02.01 - A Vedic Story, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Fire then is the energy of consciousness secreted in the heart of things. It is that which moves the creation upward, produces the unfolding evolution that is history, both individual and collective. It is kindled, it increases in volume and strength and purity and effectiveness, as and when a lower element is offered and submitted to a higher reality and this higher reality impinges upon the lower one (which is what the rubbing of the arai or the pressing of the soma symbolises); the limitation is broken, the small enters into and becomes the vast, the crooked is straightened and leng thened out, what was hidden becomes manifest. This is described as the progression of the sacrifice (adhvaraadvanceon the path). That is also the victorious battle waged against the dark forces of Ignorance. The goal, the purpose is the descent and manifestation of the gods here upon earth in human vehicles.
   But this Fire is not normally available. It is lost, imbedded in the thick petrified folds of unconsciousness and inconscience. Man's soul is not an apparent reality. It has to be found out, called forth, brought to the front. Even so, in the normal consciousness, the soul, the divine fire is a flickering, twinkling, hesitating spark; it is not sure of itself, not certain of its destiny. Yet when the time is ripe and the call comes, the gods, the luminous forces from above descend with all their insistence and meet the hidden godhead: Agni is reminded of his work and destiny which nothing can frustrate or cancel. He has to consent and undertake his sacrificial labour.

02.01 - The World War, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   When man was a dweller of the forest,a jungle man,akin to his forbear the ape, his character was wild and savage, his motives and impulsions crude, violent, egoistic, almost wholly imbedded in, what we call, the lower vital level; the light of the higher intellect and intelligence had not entered into them. Today there is an uprush of similar forces to possess and throw man back to a similar condition. This new order asks only one thing of man, namely, to be strong and powerful, that is to say, fierce, ruthless, cruel and regimented. Regimentation can be said to be the very characteristic of the order, the regimentation of a pack of wild dogs or wolves. A particular country, nation or raceit is Germany in Europe and, in her wake, Japan in Asiais to be the sovereign nation or master race (Herrenvolk); the rest of mankindo ther countries and peoplesshould be pushed back to the status of servants and slaves, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. What the helots were in ancient times, what the serfs were in the mediaeval ages, and what the subject peoples were under the worst forms of modern imperialism, even so will be the entire mankind under the new overlordship, or something still worse. For whatever might have been the external conditions in those ages and systems, the upward aspirations of man were never doubted or questioned they were fully respected and honoured. The New Order has pulled all that down and cast them to the winds. Furthermore in the new regime, it is not merely the slaves that suffer in a degraded condition, the masters also, as individuals, fare no better. The individual here has no respect, no freedom or personal value. This society or community of the masters even will be like a bee-hive or an ant-hill; the individuals are merely functional units, they are but screws and bolts and nuts and wheels in a huge relentless machinery. The higher and inner realities, the spontaneous inspirations and self-creations of a free soulart, poetry, literaturesweetness and light the good and the beautifulare to be banished for ever; they are to be regarded as things of luxury which enervate the heart, diminish the life-force, distort Nature's own virility. Man perhaps would be the worshipper of Science, but of that Science which brings a tyrannical mastery over material Nature, which serves to pile up tools and instruments, arms and armaments, in order to ensure a dire efficiency and a grim order in practical life.
   Those that have stood against this Dark Force and its over-shadowing menaceeven though perhaps not wholly by choice or free-will, but mostly compelled by circumstancesyet, because of the stand they have taken, now bear the fate of the world on their shoulders, carry the whole future of humanity in their march. It is of course agreed that to have stood against the Asura does not mean that one has become sura, divine or godlike; but to be able to remain human, human instruments of the Divine, however frail, is sufficient for the purpose, that ensures safety from the great calamity. The rule of life of the Asura implies the end of progress, the arrest of all evolution; it means even a reversal for man. The Asura is a fixed type of being. He does not change, his is a hardened mould, a settled immutable form of a particular consciousness, a definite pattern of qualities and activitiesgunakarma. Asura-nature means a fundamental ego-centricism, violent and concentrated self-will. Change is possible for the human being; he can go downward, but he can move upward too, if he chooses. In the Puranas a distinction has been made between the domain of enjoyment and the domain of action. Man is the domain of action par excellence; by him and through him evolve new and fresh lines of activity and impulsion. The domain of enjoyment, on the other hand, is where we reap the fruits of our past Karma; it is the result of an accumulated drive of all that we have done, of all the movements we have initiated and carried out. It is a status of being where there is only enjoyment, not of becoming where there can be development and new creation. It is a condition of gestation, as it were; there is no new Karma, no initiative or change in the stuff of the consciousness. The Asuras are bhogamaya purusha, beings of enjoyment; their domain is a cumulus of enjoyings. They cannot strike out a fresh line of activity, put forth a new mode of energy that can work out a growth or transformation of nature. Their consciousness is an immutable entity. The Asuras do not mend, they can only end. Man can certainly acquire or imbibe Asuric force or Asura-like qualities and impulsions; externally he can often act very much like the Asura; and yet there is a difference. Along with the dross that soils and obscures human nature, there is something more, a clarity that opens to a higher light, an inner core of noble metal which does not submit to any inferior influence. There is this something More in man which always inspires and enables him to break away from the Asuric nature. Moreover, though there may be an outer resemblance between the Asuric qualities of man and the Asuric qualities of the Asura, there is an intrinsic different, a difference in tone and temper, in rhythm and vibration, proceeding as they do, from different sources. However cruel, hard, selfish, egocentric man may be, he knows, he admitsat times, if hot always, at heart, if not openly, subconsciously, if not wholly consciously that such is not the ideal way, that these qualities are not qualifications, they are unworthy elements and have to be discarded. But the Asura is ruthless, because he regards ruthlessness as the right thing, as the perfect thing, it is an integral part of his swabhava and swadharma, his law of being and his highest good. Violence is the ornament of his character.
   The outrages committed by Spain in America, the oppression of the Christians by Imperial Rome, the brutal treatment of Christians by Christians themselves (the inquisition, that is to say) or the misdeeds of Imperialists generally were wrong and, in many cases, even inhuman and unpardonable. But when we compare with what Nazi Germany has done in Poland or wants to do throughout the world, we find that there is a difference between the two not only in degree, but in kind.One is an instance of the weakness of man, of his flesh being frail; the other illustrates the might of the Asura, his very spirit is unwilling. One is undivine; the other antidivine, positively hostile. They who cannot discern this difference are colour-blind: there are eyes to which all deeper shades of colour are black and all lighter shades white.

02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Now this imprisoned consciousness in Matter forces Matter to be conscious again when driven on the upward gradient. This tension creates a fire, as it were, in the heart of Matter, a mighty combustion and whorl in the core of things, of which the blazing sun is an image and a symbol. All this pressure and heat and concussion and explosion mean a mighty struggle in Matter to give birth to that which is within. Consciousness that is latent must be made patent; it must reveal itself in Matter and through Matter, making Matter its vehicle and embodiment. This is the mystery of the birth of Life, the first sprouting of consciousness in Matter. Life is half-awakened consciousness, consciousness yet in a dream state. Its earliest and most rudimentary manifestation is embodied in the plant or vegetable world. The submerged consciousness strives to come still further up, to express itself to a greater degree and in a clearer mode, to become more free and plastic in its movements; hence the appearance of the animal as the next higher formulation. Here consciousness delivers itself as a psyche, a rudimentary one, no doubt, a being of feeling and sensation, and elementary mentality playing in a field of vitalised Matter. Even then it is not satisfied with itself, it asks for a still more free and clear articulation: it is not satisfied, for it has not yet found its own level. Hence after the animal, arrives man with a full-fledged Mind, with intelligence and self-consciousness and capacity for self-determination.
   Thus we see that evolution, the unfolding of consciousness follows exactly the line of its involution, only the other way round: the mounting consciousness re-ascends step by step the same gradient, retraces the same path along which it had descended. The descending steps are broadly speaking (I) Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, (2) Supermind and its secondary form Overmind, (3) Mind(i) mind proper and (ii) the intermediary psyche, (4) Life, (5) Matter. The ascending consciousness starting from Matter rises into Life, passes on through Life and Psyche into Mind, driving towards the Supermind and Sachchidananda. At the present stage of evolution, consciousness has arrived at the higher levels of Mind; it is now striving to cross it altogether and enter the Overmind and the Supermind. It will not rest content until it arrives at the organisation in and through the Supermind: for that is the drive and purpose of Nature in the next cycle of evolution.
   Physical Science speaks of irreversibility and entropy in Nature's process. That is to say, it is stated that Nature is rushing down and running down: she is falling irrevocably from a higher to an ever lower potential of energy. The machine that Nature is, is driven by energy made available by a break-up of parts and particles constituting its substance. This katabolic process cannot be stopped or retraced; it can end only when the break-up ceases at dead equilibrium. You cannot lead the river up the channel to its source, it moves inevitably, unceasingly towards the sea in which it exhausts itself and finds its last repose andextinction. But whatever physical Science may say, the science of the spirit declares emphatically that Nature's process is reversible, that a growing entropy can be checked and countermanded: in other words, Nature's downward current resulting in a continual loss of energy and a break-up of substance is not the only process of her activity. This aspect is more than counterbalanced by another one of upward drive and building up, of re-energisation and re-integration. Indeed, evolution, as we have explained it, is nothing but such a process of synthesis and new creation.
   Evolution, which means the return movement of consciousness, consists, in its apparent and outward aspect, of two processes, or rather two parallel lines in a single process. First, there is the line of sublimation, that is to say, the lower purifies and modifies itself into the higher; the denser, the obscurer, the baser mode of consciousness is led into and becomes the finer, the clearer, the nobler mode. Thus it is that Matter rises into Life, Life into Psyche and Mind, Mind into Overmind and Supermind. Now this sublimation is not simply a process of refinement or elimination, something in the nature of our old Indian nivtti or pratyhra, or what Plotinus called epistrophe (a turning back, withdrawal or reabsorption): it includes and is attended by the process of integration also. That is to say, as the lower rises into the higher, the lower does not cease to exist thereby, it exists but lifted up into the higher, infused and modified by the higher. Thus when Matter yields Life, Matter is not destroyed: it means Life has appeared in Matter and exists in and through Matter and Matter thereby has attained a new mode and constitution, for it is no longer merely a bundle of chemical or mechanical reactions, it is instinct with life, it has become organic matter. Even so, when Lire arrives at Mind, it is not dissolved into Mind but both Life and Matter are taken up by the mental stuff, life becomes dynamic sentience and Matter is transformed into the grey substance of the brain. Matter thus has passed through a first transformation in Life and a second transformation in Mind; it awaits other transformations on other levels beyond Mind. Likewise, Life has passed through a first transformation in Mind and there are stages in this transformation. In the plant, Life is in its original pristine mode; in the animal, it has become sentient and centralised round a rudimentary desire-soul; in man, life-force is taken up by the higher mind and intelligence giving birth to idealism and ambition, dynamisms of a forward-looking purposive will.
   We have, till now, spoken of the evolution of consciousness as a movement of ascension, consisting of a double process of sublimation and integration. But ascension itself is only one line of a yet another larger double process. For along with the visible movement of ascent, there is a hidden movement of descent. The ascent represents the pressure from below, the force of buoyancy exerted by the involved and secreted consciousness. But the mere drive from below is not sufficient all by itself to bring out or establish the higher status. The higher status itself has to descend in order to be manifest. The urge from below is an aspiration, a yearning to move ever upward and forward; but the precise goal, the status to be arrived at is not given there. The more or less vague and groping surge from below is canalised, if assumes a definite figure and shape, assumes a local habitation and a name when the higher descends at the crucial moment, takes the lower at its peak-tide and fixes upon it its own norm and form. We have said that all the levels of consciousness have been createdloosened outby a first Descent; but in the line of the first Descent the only level that stands in front at the outset is Matter all the other levels are created no doubt but remain invisible in the background, behind the gross veil of Matter. Each status stands confined, as it were, to its own region and bides its time when each will be summoned to concretise itself in Matter. Thus Life was already there on the plane of Life even when it did not manifest itself in Matter, when mere Matter, dead Matter was the only apparent reality on the material plane. When Matter was stirred and churned sufficiently so as to reach a certain tension and saturation, when it was raised to a certain degree of maturity, as it were, then Life appeared: Life appeared, not because that was the inevitable and unavoidable result of the churning, but because Life descended from its own level to the level of Matter and took Matter up in its embrace. The churning, the development in Matter was only the occasion, the condition precedent. For, however much one may shake or churn Matter, whatever change one may create in it by a shuffling and reshuffling of its elements, one can never produce Life by that alone. A new and unforeseen factor makes its appearance, precisely because it comes from elsewhere. It is true all the planes are imbedded, submerged, involved in the complex of Matter; but, in point of fact, all planes are involved in every other plane. The appearance or manifestation of a new plane is certainly prepared, made ready to the last the last but onedegree by the urge of the inner, the latent mode of consciousness that is to be; still the actualisation, the bursting forth happens only when the thing that has to manifest itself descends, the actual form and pattern can be imprinted and established by that alone. Thus, again, when Life attains a certain level of growth and maturity, a certain tension and orientationa definite vector, so to say, in the mathematical languagewhen it has, for example, sufficiently organised itself as a vehicle of the psychic element of consciousness, then it buds forth into Mind, but only when the Mind has descended upon it and into it. As in the previous stage, here also Life cannot produce Mind, cannot develop into Mind by any amount of mechanical or chemical operations within itself, by any amount of permutation and combination or commutation and culture of its constituent elements, unless it is seized on by Mind itself. After the Mind, the next higher grade of consciousness shall come by the same method and process, viz. first by an uplifting of the mental consciousnessa certain widening and deepening and katharsis of the mental consciousness and then by a descent, gradual or sudden, of the level or levels that lie above it.
   This, then, is the nature of creation and its process. First, there is an Involution, a gradual foreshorteninga disintegration and concretisation, an exclusive concentration and self-oblivion of consciousness by which the various levels of diminishing consciousness are brought forth from the plenary light of the one supreme Spirit, all the levels down to the complete eclipse in the unconsciousness of the multiple and disintegrate Matter. Next, there is an Evolution, that is to say, embodiment in Matter of all these successive states, appearing one by one from the down most to the topmost; Matter incarnates, all other states contri bute to the incarnation and uphold it, the higher always transforming the lower in a new degree of consciousness.
  --
   These characters, it is true, are not clear and pronounced, do not lie in front, at the beginning of the human personality. The normal human person has his psyche very much behind; but it is still there as antarymin, as the secret Inner Controller. And whatever the vagaries of the outer instruments or their slavery to the mode of Ignorance, in and through all that, it is this Inner Guide that holds the reins and drives upward in the end.
   Thus naturally there appear gradations of the human personality; as the consciousness in the human being rises higher and higher, the psychic centre organises a higher and higher a richer, wider, deeper personality. The first great conversion, the first turning of the human personality to a new mode of life and living, that is to say, living even externally according to the inner truth and reality, the first attempt at a conscious harmonisation of the psychic consciousness with its surface agents and vehicles is what is known as spiritual initiation. This may happen and it does happen even when man lives in his normal mental consciousness. But there is the possibility of growth and evolution and transformation of personality in higher and a higher spiritual degree through the upper reaches of the higher Mind, the varying degrees of the Overmind and finally the Supermind. These are the spheres, the fields, even the continents of the personality, but the stuff, the substance of the personality, the inner nucleus of consciousness-force is formed, first, by the flaming aspiration, the upward drive within the developing and increasing psychic being itself, and secondly, by the descent, to a greater and greater degree, of the original Being from which it emanated. The final coalescence of the fully and integrally developed psychic being with the supreme splendour of its very source, the Jivatman, occurs in the Supermind. When this happens the supramental personality becomes incarnate in the physical body: Matter in the material plane is transformed into a radiant substance made of pure consciousness, the human personality becomes a living form of the Divine. Thus the wheel comes full circle: creation returns to the point from which it started but with an added significance, a new fulfilment.
   The mystery of rebirth in the evolution of the human personality is nothing but the mystery of the developing psyche. At first this psyche or soul is truly a being: no bigger than the thumb it is the hardly audible still small voice. The experiences of lifesweet or bitter, happy or unhappy, good or bad, howsoever they may appear to the outward eye and perceptionall the dialectics of a terrestrial existence contri bute to the growth and development of the psychic consciousness. Each span of life means a special degree or mode of growth necessitated by the inner demand and drive of the divine Individual seated within the heart. The whole end in view of this secret soul is to move always towards and be united again with its Oversoul, its original and high archetype in the Divine Consciousness: the entire course of its earthly evolution is chalked out and patterned by the exact need of its growth. Whatever happens in each particular life, all the currents of all the lives converge and coalesce, and serve the psychic consciousness to swell in volume and intensity and be one with the Divine Consciousness. Or, in a different imagery, one can say that the multifarious experiences of various lives are as fuel to the Inner Firethis Psychic Agni which is just a spark or a thin tongue at the outset of the human evolutionary course; but with the addition of fuel from life to life this Fire flames up, indeed, becomes ultimately a conflagration that bums and purifies the entire outer vehicle and transforms it into radiant mattera fit receptacle, incarnation of the supernal Light. The mounting Fire (the consciousness-energy secreted in the earth-bound heart of Matter) finally flares up, discloses itself in its full amplitude and calls and attracts into it the incandescent supramental Solar Sphere which is the type and pattern it has to embody and express. This is the marriage of Heaven and Earth, of which the mystics all over the earth in all ages spoke and sangto which the Vedic Rishi refers when he declares:

02.02 - Rishi Dirghatama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   You must have already noticed that the utterance of Dirghatama carries a peculiar turn, even perhaps a twist. In fact his mantras are an enigma, a riddle to which it is sometimes difficult to find the fitting key. For example when he says, "What is above is moving downward and what is down is moving upward; yes, they who are below are indeed up above, and they who are up are here below," or again, "He who knows the father below by what is above, and he who knows the father who is above by what is below is called the poet (the seer creator)", we are, to say the least, not a little puzzled.
   The old delightful rishito use the epithets he gives to his Agniand blind into the bargain, continues, the substance and manner in the same way paradoxical and enigmatic, perhaps deliberately tantalising and confusing:
  --
   The cow gazing upward holds with her front legs the hind legs of her calf and the calf with its front legs holds the hind legs of its mother.4
   Needless to say these are signs and symbols and figures of a language seeking to express truths and realities of an invisible world, spiritual and occult. We are reminded of the "twilight" language of the poet-saints (Siddhacharyas) of Bengal of much later days.
  --
   A word is perhaps necessary to complete the sense of the commentary. Agni has been called old and ancient (Palita), but why? Agni is the first among the gods. He has come down upon earth, entered into matter with the very creation of the material existence. He is the secret energy hidden in the atom which is attracting, invoking all the other gods to manifest themselves. It is he who drives the material consciousness in its evolutionary re-course upward towards the radiant fullness in the solar Supra-Consciousness at the summit. He is however not only energy, he is also delight (vma). For he is the Soma, the nectarous flow, occult in the Earth's body. For Earth is the storehouse of the sap of Life, the source of the delightful growths of Life here below.
   Sri Aurobindo says: "In the deep and mystic style of the Dirghatamas Auchathya as in the melodious lucidity of Medhatithi Kanwa, in the puissant and energetic hymns of Vishwamitra as in Vashishtha's even harmonies we have the same firm foundation of knowledge and the same scrupulous adherence to the sacred conventions of the Initiates."

02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Professor Alexander spoke of the emergence of deities who would embody emergent properties other than those manifest in the Mind of man. Morgan asks whether there is not also a Deityor the Deityin the making. He establishes the logical necessity of such a consummation in this way: the evolutionary urge (or nisus, as it has been called) in its upward drive creates and throws up on all sides, at each stage, forms of the new property or principle of existence that has come into evidence. These multiple forms may appear anywhere and everywhere; they are strewn about on the entire surface of Nature. These are, however, the branchings of the evolutionary nisus which has a central line of advance running through the entire gradation of emergents; it is, as it were, the central pillar round which is erected a many-storeyed edifice. The interesting point is this, that at the present stage of emergence, what the central line touches and arrives at is the Deity. Or, again, the thing can be viewed in another way. At the bottom the evolutionary movement is broad-based on Matter but as it proceeds upward its extent is gradually narrowed down;
   Life is less extensive than Matter and Mind is still less extensive than Life. Thus the scheme of the movement can be figured as a pyramid the base of the pyramid represents Matter, but the apex where the narrowing sides converge is what is called the Deity.
  --
   The principle of Avatarhood stands justified in this scheme as a necessary and inevitable element in the terrestrial evolutionary movement. An Avatar embodies a new emergent property: he incarnates a new principle of being and consciousness, he manifestsunfolds from below or brings down from above upon eartha higher and deeper principle of organisation. He is the nucleus round which the new organisation crystallises. A Rama comes and human society attains a new status: against a mainly vitalistic and egoistic organisation whose defender and protagonist is Ravana, is set up an ideal of sattwic humanity. A Krishna appears and human consciousness is lifted, potentially at least, to a still higher level of spiritual possibility. The Avatar following, rather tracing, in his upward movement the central line of the evolutionary nisus, cuts a path, as it were, in the virgin forest of a realm of consciousness still unknown and foreign to human steps. As the Avatar presses and passes on, the way is cleared for other, ordinary human beings to come up and naturalise themselves in a new country promising a higher destiny which He discovers and conquers for them.
   Now at this point we reach the crux of the problem, the supreme secretrahasyam uttamamas the Gita would say. For the apex of the pyramid, the crown of evolution, the consummation of the central line of emergence would then be nothing less than the manifestation, the terrestrial incarnation of the Supreme Divine. The Deity thus fully emerged would embody the truth and play of creation in its widest scope and highest elevation; it would mean the utter fulfilment of human destiny and terrestrial Purpose.

02.04 - The Kingdoms of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The upward look was alien to her sight,
  Forgotten the fearless godhead of her walk;
  --
  It had no inward look, no upward gaze.
  42.26

02.05 - The Godheads of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Or to stare upward measuring the Unknown.
  47.3

02.06 - The Integral Yoga and Other Yogas, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Yogas go straight from Mind into some featureless condition of the cosmic Silence and through it try to disappear upward into the Highest. The object of this Yoga is to transcend mind and enter into the Divine Truth of Sachchidananda which is not only static but dynamic and raise the whole being into that Truth.
  Those who seek the self by the old Yogas separate themselves from mind, life and body and realise the self apart from these things. It is perfectly easy to separate mind, vital and physical from each other without the need of supermind. It is done by the ordinary Yogas.
  --
  Power, Purity, Peace, Ananda of which we become aware above and which descends into the being and progressively replaces the ordinary consciousness by its own movements - that is the second transformation. We realise also the consciousness itself as moving upward, ascending through many planes physical, vital, mental, overmental to the supramental and Ananda planes.
  This is nothing new; it is stated in the Taittiriya Upanishad that there are five Purushas, the physical, the vital, the mental, the

02.07 - The Descent into Night, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
    Here must the traveller of the upward Way -
    For daring Hell's kingdoms winds the heavenly route -

02.08 - Jules Supervielle, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   His poetry is very characteristic and adds almost a new vein to the spirit and manner of French poetry. He has bypassed the rational and emotional tradition of his adopted country, brought in a mystic way of vision characteristic of the East. This mysticism is not however the normal spiritual way but a kind of oblique sight into what is hidden behind the appearance. By the oblique way I mean the sideway to enter into the secret of things, a passage opening through the side. The mystic vision has different ways of approachone may look at the thing straight, face to face, being level with it with a penetrating gaze, piercing a direct entry into the secrets behind. This frontal gaze is also the normal human way of knowing and understanding, the scientific way. It becomes mystic when it penetrates sufficiently behind and strikes a secret source of another light and sight, that is, the inner sight of the soul. The normal vision which I said is the scientist's vision, stops short at a certain distance and so does not possess the key to the secret knowledge. But an aspiring vision can stretch itself, drill into the surface obstacle confronting it, and make its contact with the hidden ray behind. There is also another mystic way, not a gaze inward but a gaze upward. The human intelligence and the higher brain consciousness seeks a greater and intenser light, a vaster knowledge and leaps upward as it were. There develops a penetrating gaze towards heights up and above, to such a vision the mystery of the spirit slowly reveals itself. That is Vedantic mysticism. There is a look downward also below the life-formation and one enters into contact with forces and beings and creatures of another type, a portion of which is named Hell or Hades in Europe, and in India Ptl and rastal. But here we are speaking of another way, not a frontal or straight movement, but as I said, splitting the side and entering into it, something like opening the shell of a mother of pearl and finding the pearl inside. There is a descriptive mystic: the suprasensuous experience is presented in images and feeling forms. That is the romantic way. There is an explanatory mysticism: the suprasensuous is set in intellectual or mental terms, making it somewhat clear to the normal understanding. That is I suppose classical mysticism. All these are more or less direct ways, straight approaches to the mystic reality. But the oblique is differentit is a seeking of the mind and an apprehension of the senses that are allusive, indirect, that move through contraries and negations, that point to a different direction in order just to suggest the objective aimed at. The Vedantic (and the Scientific too) is the straight, direct, rectilinear gaze the Vedantin says, May I look at the Sun with a transfixed gaze'; whether he looks upward or inward or downward. But the modem mystic is of a different mould. He has not that clear absolute vision, he has the apprehension of an aspiring consciousness. His is not religious poetry for that matter, but it is an aspiration and a yearning to perceive and seize truth and reality that eludes the senses, but seems to be still there. We shall understand better by taking a poem of his as example. Thus:
   Alter Ego

02.09 - Two Mystic Poems in Modern French, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   To have the queen always by his side the king must close the doors and windows of the lower storey of his palace and climb the stairs upward.
   The king must shed all fear. There will be no palace to live in but a bare rock upon which he will find the queen lying down.

02.10 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  And upward points the spirit's climbing Fire.
  66.2

02.11 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Its upward slope looks down on our earth-poise:
  On a slant not too precipitously steep

02.13 - Rabindranath and Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Vibhutis, emanations and embodiments of the higher destiny of mankind appear upon earth from time to time to lead and guide the race on the upward way. And we are fortunate that we are born in an age that has been blessed by two such Shining Ones.
   "Salutation"

03.01 - The Evolution of Consciousness, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The cycles of evolution tend always upward, but they are cycles and do not ascend in a straight line. The process therefore gives the impression of a series of ascents and descents, but what is essential in the gains of the evolution is kept or, even if eclipsed for a time, reemerges in new forms suitable to the new ages.
  The Creation has descended all the degrees of being from the Supermind to Matter and in each degree it has created a world, reign, plane or order proper to that degree. In the creating of the material world there was a plunge of this descending

03.10 - Hamlet: A Crisis of the Evolving Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The consciousness that rules over the tragedy of Hamlet, the destiny that works itself out in the play of the forces portrayed in that great drama, are the consciousness and the destiny of the human soul at a most fateful crisis, a crucial turning-point in the course of its evolution. The soul, lodged in the human embodiment, moves forward and upward, towards a greater and greater self-expression and self-expansion, a continual heightening and widening of its consciousness, a constant sublimation and transfiguration of its mode of being and living. And in the progressive gradient so pursued, there are certain stages or level-crossings that can be clearly marked out in view of their importance and significance.
   Shakespeare himself records, in two other of his major dramas, the mystery of two such stages preceding the one he deals with in Hamlet: one in Macbeth and the other in King Lear. Indeed these three mighty creations form a triology with the Karma of the human soul at different crises as its theme. King Lear represents human consciousness low down in the scale of evolution, almost at its starta nature primitive and barbarian. We seem to go back into a prehistoric world, a paleolithic age the domain of utter ignorance, of vulgar greed and hunger, where one sees the rank play of a raw and crude and aboriginal nature. Man is here simply the eater, a true brother of the rest of the animal kind, one in blood with the tiger and the wolf. He is the sheer biological or vital being the Rakshasainto whom the light of the Mind has not yet descended, at least not to the extent of effecting an appreciable change in his original and primitive texture. It is a world ruled by the mode of tamas. 1

03.12 - The Spirit of Tapasya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Heroism consists in this untiring march upward to more and more rarefied heights. That means the growth of consciousness, its uplifting and expansion, freeing it from the limitations of the ignorant egoistic movements, pressing it forward to the domains of higher illuminations, towards spiritual consciousness and soul-knowledge, towards communion with the Divine, the cosmic and the transcendent Reality. That is the real work and labour. Bodily suffering is nothing: it is neither a sign nor a test of the ardours of consciousness thus seeking to uplift itself. Indeed, Tapas, the word from which tapasya is derived, means energy of consciousness, and Tapasya is the exercise, the utilisation of that energy for the ascent and expansion of the consciousness. It is this inner athleticism that is the thing needful, not its vain physical simulacrumnot the one which is commonly worshipped.
   Virgil: Aeneid, VI. 128

04.01 - To the Heights I, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Unwelcome guests are prowling round about. At times they even knock at the door and try to peep through the windows. I have all the doors and windows bolted and barred. And I shall not open them, neither out of kindness nor curiosity. Let them howl in the chill night outside and go their way or perish. I await my own Guest who shall reveal himself from within; for him I keep the hearth clean and warm. I tend the fire patiently and assiduously. The flames brighten and mount upwardeach a voice that calls and prays for the coming of the Beloved.
   O Soul! Listen to his sweet footfall. Lend not your ear to other voices. Gather together in silence all the eagerness of the heart. Lo! the profundities ring with the music of his anklets!

04.02 - Human Progress, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   This super consciousness is based upon a double movement of sublimation and integration which are precisely the two things basically aimed at by present-day psychology to meet the demands of new facts of consciousness. The rationalisation, specialisation or foreshortening of consciousness, mentioned above, is really an attempt at sublimation of the consciousness, its purification and ascension from baseranimal and vegetalconfines: only, ascension does not mean alienation, it must mean a gathering up of the lower elements also into their higher modes. Integration thus involves a descent, but it has to be pointed out, not merely or exclusively that, as Jung and his school seem to say. Certainly one has to see and recognise the aboriginal, the infra-rational elements imbedded in our nature and consciousness, the roots and foundations that lie buried under the super-structure that Evolution has erected. But that recognition must be accompanied by an upward look and sense: indeed it is healthy and fruitful only on condition that it occurs in a consciousness open to an infiltration of light coming from summits not only of the mind but above the mind. If we go back, it must be with a light that is ahead of us; that is the sense of evolution.
   A slumber did my spirit seal, Miscellaneous Poems

04.03 - Consciousness as Energy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The Yogi the Hatha Yogi, the Raja Yogi, the Tantrikseeks consciously to master this life energy, to possess and use it as he wills. The Yogi, the true Yogi, aims at a higher quality, a deeper potentiality of the life energy: it may be called the Inner Life Energy. This inner life energy is in a line with, is one with the universal life energy; therefore it is said when one possesses and controls this power one has comm and over the universal power. All other energiesvisible, tangible, concretised and canalisedare particular formations and embodiments of till, mother energy. Even the most physical and material energiesmechanical, electrical, nervous, etc.are all derivatives and lesser potentials of this fount and origin. The mastery of the inner vital energy is the whole secret of what is known as occultism, even magic, black or white, spell and other allied powers or miracles. The eight siddhis well known to the Yogis are the natural results of this mastery. With such a mastery the Yogi controls and guides his own destiny; he can also in the same way control and guide the destiny of others, even of peoples and humanity at large. That is the deeper meaning the great phrase of the Gitalokasagrahacarries. Indeed, great souls are precisely they who move with the upward current of Nature, in and through whom Nature works out vast changes, prepares the steps of evolution in the world and humanity.
   But what again is this universal vital energy? This also is an instrument, not the ultimate agent. After all, vital energy is blind by itself; it moves instinctively or intuitively, as Bergson would say; it does not know consciously beforeh and the next step it is going to take. Consciousness then is the secret. This is the power behind the throne, it is this to which the Upanishad refers in its analysis of the ultimate dynamics of things as the life of Life, prasva pr .

04.03 - The Eternal East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   So then we say that the East starts from the summit and surveys reality from above downwards, while the West starts from below and works upward. The two complementary movements can be described in several other graphic terms. Instead of a movement from the summit to the base and of another from the base to the apex, that is to say, a movement of ascent and of descent, we can speak of a movement from within outward and of that from outside inward, that is to say, from the centre to the periphery and from the periphery to the centre; we can speak also of a movement of contraction, withdrawal or concentration and a movement of expansion; and expression and diffusion. Again, we can refer to a vertical movement and a horizontal movement. All however express the same truth. We postulate one reality, take our stand upon that and work our way towards the other; the two together form the total reality and together can they give the integral life fulfilment.
   As I have said, the history of mankind, as a matter of fact, the whole history of creation gives a graphic picture of the interaction of this double movement. There are ages and countries in which one or the other of the two takes precedence and special or exclusive emphasis. But the inner story is always a converging movement.

04.08 - An Evolutionary Problem, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   I am afraid the metaphysics here found fault with is not surely false, it is the critics appreciation that is at fault. The metaphysics is perhaps somewhat too physical in its imagery and terminology, that is to say, graphic in the Shavian manner, but the matter seems to us quite all right. What the critic fails to understand is that it is not the conscious idea in the mind that brings about its concrete realisation. What is there at the outset in the evolutionary urge is a life-force, blind, no doubt in the usual sense, but driving towards greater expression and articulation, towards a more and more conscious and clear perception of ends and means. Thus, for example,the root shoots out of the earth into the open air, throws up the stem and the stem grows upward and branches out into tendrils and leaves: all that process means an ardent yearning, a wanting, to rush and plunge into the light and air above: The root or the seed underground does not see the light or air, how then does it move towards that? In fact, it is not necessary to have seen eyes, known what eyes are in order to grow the vision and the organ. We will what we need: yes, but what we need is not always or wholly covered by the conscious minds conception of it. The needs lie deep down and most of them are unconscious; and at a time, at a stage when conscious mind has not yet evolved, it is a secret sense of the life-force, an instinctive orientation to what is useful and needful that infallibly guides the living organism.
   Evolution is purposive: not because it has had always a mentally conscious aim before it, for the mind is a later production, but because the purpose is latent within as an involved force and is gradually unrolled and worked out. It is not as indeterminate and unpredictable as Bergson would have it; it has a veiled determination, a disposition implanted in the very movement by the stress of an apparent unconsciousness seeking conscious formulation. We might also say, reverting to our analogy, that the seed sprouts towards light and air, because it had absorbed light and air in its original formation out of the flower blooming in the open space: the impress of that contact is taken into the very grain of its substance, in its chromosomes and genesit remains there as an indelible memory (although not of the human cerebral variety). It is no wonder therefore that an inner urge towards light gradually leads towards the formation of the instrument for sight. The organism may have no notion of the external eye, but the external eye is only a projection of an inner eye that lies imbedded in the sensory continuum. Behind the physical eye there is a subtle eye, the eye of the eye, as the Upanishad calls it, the secret gaze of an involved consciousness in the apparently unconscious.

04.42 - To the Heights-XLII, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The flame sweeps tireless ever upward-
   Call unto it the bending Grace from beyond,

05.01 - Of Love and Aspiration, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   upward to the Highest!
   Downward into the Deepest!

05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, it has been said, begins where other yogas end. Other yogas end by the attainment of the Brahman or some form or mode of it or something akin to it, which means the transcendent Reality, the supreme status of the Spirit beyond name and form, beyond all particular manifestation. It is the final realisation of the soul in its upward ascent, the nee plus ultra. Sri Aurobindo's Yoga takes that poise for granted and upon it bases its own development and structure. In other words, it works for the descent of the Spirit upon the level from which the Spirit worked up. The Mystery of the descent is the whole characteristic secret of this Yoga.
   The general idea of a descent of the Spirit, that is to say, the Divine, the conception of avatra and avataraais, of course, not new. But here there is a difference. Avatara or Avatarana in the older disciplines was more or less an intervention of God as God, the working of a Force come specifically in the midst of the world circumstances, maintaining still its divine transcendental character, to work out a given problem, accomplish a special mission and then, when the work is done, retire to its own status. It is, as it were, a weapon of flame and light hurled into the earthly frayeven like the discus of Vishnu and having accomplished its mission, going back into the hand of the thrower, its fount and origin. The task of the Avatara was usually bhbhra-haraa, lightening earth's load: it means removing the sinful and preserving the virtuous, re-establishing the reign of Law. Esoterically, he also embodied the Way to spiritual fulfilment. There was no question of saving humanityit was more serving than savingby transfiguring it, giving it a new body and life and mind, nor was there any idea of raising the level of earth-consciousness.

05.03 - Of Desire and Atonement, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   As the consciousness rises upwards from the Present and broadens out, it not only creates the Future but also recreates the Past.
   Years are not needed to undo the sins of years-a single moment can efface an age.

05.04 - The Measure of Time, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   It is when things are arranged in this manner, the right thing in the right place, that divine perfection, the Realisation in the material, is attained. And for this consummation to come about, the process that is followed is a greater and greater infiltration of higher and higher forces into the field of disorder, of our normal life and consciousness. The time taken simply indicates that the process is being worked out; it is an expression of the rhythm of procedure. But to the Divine; the Supreme Consciousness that works, time itself has no separate meaning or intrinsic value; for it a thousand or a million years do not mean more than what is one moment for us. Indeed, the slowness of time simply marks the steps of events in the lower ranges of creation: as we rise higher and higher, forces from there come down into the lower field, and the tempo of events quickens; finally, when the highest peak is attained and its forces descend and intervene in the ordering of the lowest levels, then the change, the arrangement that is being worked out, is accomplished immediately and without delay: the time lag is abolished altogether. Time may be compared to a kind of elastic bond connecting the highest and the lowest and running through the intermediate zones. It contracts as one moves upward and is telescoped, as it were, at the top.
   ***

05.05 - Of Some Supreme Mysteries, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The Soul is a portion of the Divine, enshrined in the heart of the human being; it is the child of the Mahakti , it is the immortal in mortality, the secret godhead that urges the earthly creature ever forward and upward in the march of-evolution, ever expressing and embodying more and more of its inner truth in the actualities of life.
   The Self is the Purua in the individual; it is the consciousness as pure being, simply existent in its own delight, which sees and sanctions all and is yet aloof from the mutabilities of the life becoming.

05.17 - Evolution or Special Creation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   According to the Yogic or occult view of things, however, the two conceptions that human mind sets against each other need not be and are not contradictory. Indeed both are true and both are factors working out the progress of life. Evolution is a movement upward, the urge of consciousness to grow and expand and rise to a higher and greater articulation: the change follows a scale of degrees. But there comes a point in the progressive march when a change of degree means a change of kind and the phenomenon presents itself as a sudden, unforeseen mutation. This is due to the fact that there happens at the moment, in answer to a last call as it were from below, a descent of consciousness from the higher into the lower. All the grades of being or consciousness are always there in the cosmic infinity, only it is a matter of gradual manifestation in the physical world. The higher scales are kept in the background,the march of life starts from the lowest, the material rung. One by one they manifest or descend, formulate themselvesin the lower as these grow and rise and get ready to receive the descent. The gap or missing link means the irruptionof a new principle or mode of consciousness, the bursting of the cocoon, as it were, at the end of the period of gestation in the previous mode. Thus we can say that in the beginning there was only Matter and Matter was being churned until a point of tension or saturation was reached when Life precipitated and became embodied and evident in Matter. In the same way, out of a concentrated incubation that Life underwent,it brought down Mind from the hidden mind-plane and the vegetable kingdom gave birth to the animal. Latterly when Intelligence and self-consciousness descended, it was Man that appeared on earth.
   Looked at from below, as the lower marches forward and upward, the scene presents itself as Evolution, growth, Nature's gradual unfolding of herself: looked at from above, as the higher seems poised and descends when the time and occasion are ready, creation appears as a series of special intervention. Both movements are facts of Nature and implement each other.
   ***

WORDNET



--- Overview of adj upward

The adj upward has 2 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
                    
1. (2) upward ::: (directed up; "the cards were face upward"; "an upward stroke of the pen")
2. (0) up, upward ::: (extending or moving toward a higher place; "the up staircase"; "a general upward movement of fish")

--- Overview of adv upward

The adv upward has 2 senses (first 1 from tagged texts)
                    
1. (6) up, upwards, upward, upwardly ::: (spatially or metaphorically from a lower to a higher position; "look up!"; "the music surged up"; "the fragments flew upwards"; "prices soared upwards"; "upwardly mobile")
2. up, upwards, upward ::: (to a later time; "they moved the meeting date up"; "from childhood upward")





--- Similarity of adj upward

2 senses of upward                          

Sense 1
upward
   => up (vs. down)

Sense 2
up(prenominal), upward(prenominal)
   => ascending(prenominal) (vs. descending)


--- Antonyms of adj upward

2 senses of upward                          

Sense 1
upward

INDIRECT (VIA up) -> down

Sense 2
up(prenominal), upward(prenominal)

INDIRECT (VIA ascending) -> descending



--- Pertainyms of adj upward

2 senses of upward                          

Sense 1
upward

Sense 2
up(prenominal), upward(prenominal)


--- Derived Forms of adj upward
                                    




IN WEBGEN [10000/53]

Wikipedia - Allen Upward
Wikipedia - Basilar part of occipital bone -- Section of the main skull bone that extends forward and upward
Wikipedia - Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward -- 2001 album
Wikipedia - Buoyancy -- Upward force that opposes the weight of an object immersed in fluid
Wikipedia - Hatchback -- car body configuration with a rear door that swings upward to provide access to a cargo area
Wikipedia - Hyperthermophile -- An organism that thrives in extremely hot environments from 60*C upwards
Wikipedia - Posterior auricular muscle -- Muscle that pulls the ear upward and backward
Wikipedia - Potrero (landform) -- A long mesa that at one end slopes upward to higher terrain.
Wikipedia - Standing bell -- Bell with rim upwards, eg a singing bowl
Wikipedia - Superstructure -- Upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline; structure above the deck of a ship
Wikipedia - Upward planar drawing
Wikipedia - Upwelling -- The replacement by deep water moving upwards of surface water driven offshore by wind
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12568410-upwards-arrow
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1443037.The_Sparks_Fly_Upward
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/162849.Ragged_Dick_and_Struggling_Upward
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17316488-falling-upwards
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18217751-falling-upward
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21413760-the-upward-spiral
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25045046-the-upward-spiral
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/262015.Backward_and_Upward
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27212282-the-soul-s-upward-yearning
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29977871-a-tiny-upward-shove
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/328341.Falling_Upwards
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40890210-the-upward-spiral-workbook
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42141323-crashing-upwards
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43107284-the-upward-spiral
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43107285-the-upward-spiral
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/982989.Struggling_Upward_Or_Luke_Larkin_s_Luck
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9963483-falling-upward
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1341745.Allen_Upward
https://allpoetry.com/Allen-Upward
Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College(1991) - Though representing a slight step upward in budget from the previous two Ghoulies installments, this is still a rather silly exercise in childish fart jokes and rubbery monster effects. The title critters are mini-demons summoned forth from a demonic chamber pot (seriously!) by the occult-obsessed D...
Making Love(1982) - Zach and Claire, an upwardly mobile middle class couple living in Los Angeles seem to be living the fairy tale marriage most people can only dream about. With successful careers, a new Beverly Hills home, a good circle of friends, and a deep love for each other, the couple seems to have it all. Howe...
Sunday Bloody Sunday(1971) - A mature detailed look at the complexities of love set in 1971 London. First, there's Alex - a modern upwardly mobile working-class woman whose love and affections for Bob - an artist - complicate matters in her life. Secondly, there's Dr. Daniel Hirsh - a gay middle-aged successful doctor with a th...
Last Christmas(2019) - Katarina 'Kate' Andrich, a young aspiring singer, works a dead-end job as an elf at a year-round Christmas shop in Central London, whose owner calls herself 'Santa'. She is homeless after being forced out by her flatmate. While at work, she notices a man outside staring upwards. She talks with him,...
Dream Home (2010) ::: 6.6/10 -- Wai dor lei ah yat ho (original title) -- Dream Home Poster -- Cheng Li-sheung is a young, upwardly mobile professional finally ready to invest in her first home. But when the deal falls through, she is forced to keep her dream alive - even if it means keeping her would-be neighbors dead. Director: Ho-Cheung Pang (as Pang Ho-cheung)
Fun with Dick and Jane (1977) ::: 6.5/10 -- PG | 1h 35min | Comedy, Crime | 18 March 1977 (West Germany) -- When an upwardly mobile couple find themselves unemployed and in debt, they turn to armed robbery in desperation. Director: Ted Kotcheff Writers: David Giler (screenplay), Jerry Belson (screenplay) | 2 more credits Stars:
The Aeronauts (2019) ::: 6.6/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 40min | Action, Adventure, Drama | 6 December 2019 (USA) -- A balloon pilot and a scientist find themselves in a fight for survival while attempting to make discoveries in a gas balloon in the 1860s. Director: Tom Harper Writers: Richard Holmes (inspired by the book 'Falling Upwards' by), Tom Harper
https://frozen.fandom.com/wiki/Onward_and_Upward
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/EverUpwardReach_Ltd
Satsuriku no Tenshi -- -- J.C.Staff -- 16 eps -- Game -- Adventure Horror Psychological Thriller -- Satsuriku no Tenshi Satsuriku no Tenshi -- With dead and lifeless eyes, Rachel Gardner wishes only to die. Waking up in the basement of a building, she has no idea how or why she's there. She stumbles across a bandaged murderer named Zack, who is trying to escape. After promising to kill her as soon as he is free, Rachel and Zack set out to ascend through the building floor by floor until they escape. -- -- However, as they progress upward, they meet more twisted people, and all of them seem familiar with Rachel. What is her connection to the building, and why was she placed in it? Facing a new boss on each floor, can Rachel and Zack both achieve their wishes? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 415,899 6.89
s.CRY.ed -- -- Sunrise -- 26 eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Super Power Drama -- s.CRY.ed s.CRY.ed -- A strange environmental phenomenon 22 years ago in the Kanazawa prefecture caused the land to split and protrude upwards reaching unprecedented heights, creating the secluded area known as The Lost Ground. Kazuma is a young mercenary who lives in the Lost Ground, looking for any work he can find to sustain his livelihood within the harsh environment. He is one of the few people that are gifted with the Alter ability, which allows him to plaster his right arm and torso with a metallic alloy. When this mercenary encounters HOLY, an order whose purpose is to suppress and capture what they call Native Alter Users, and one of the elite members of HOLY, Ryuho, an epic rivalry begins. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- 73,269 7.37
s.CRY.ed -- -- Sunrise -- 26 eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi Adventure Super Power Drama -- s.CRY.ed s.CRY.ed -- A strange environmental phenomenon 22 years ago in the Kanazawa prefecture caused the land to split and protrude upwards reaching unprecedented heights, creating the secluded area known as The Lost Ground. Kazuma is a young mercenary who lives in the Lost Ground, looking for any work he can find to sustain his livelihood within the harsh environment. He is one of the few people that are gifted with the Alter ability, which allows him to plaster his right arm and torso with a metallic alloy. When this mercenary encounters HOLY, an order whose purpose is to suppress and capture what they call Native Alter Users, and one of the elite members of HOLY, Ryuho, an epic rivalry begins. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Discotek Media, Sentai Filmworks -- 73,269 7.37
Allen Upward
Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward
Christopher Upward
Come Come Come Upward
Edward Upward
Upward
Upward continuation
Upwardly Global
Upwards exposed uses
Upward Stars



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