A few reminders from mystical ancestors that it is in the body that holiness happens:
MICHAELANGELO (1475-1564)
“Earth is the meagre source of all that we
can know while still fleshbound. To those who see
in the right way it gives most copiously…”
“All that we have of wisdom and of faith
Derives from the earth, and if I love you with
Fervour, I shall reach god and find sweet death.”
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TERESA OF AVILA (1515-1582)
“May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.”
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HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862)
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.”
“However mean your life is, meet and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its doors as early in the spring. Cultivate property like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts… Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.”
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WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892)
“Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from, The scent of these armpits is aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles and all the creeds… if I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body”
“…the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
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EDWARD CARPENTER (1844-1929)
“We are arriving at one of the most fruitful and important turning points in the history of the race, the Self is entering into relation with the Body. for, that the individual should conceive and know himself, not a toy and a chance-product of his own bodily heredity, but as identified and continuous with the Eternal Self of which his body is a manifestation, is indeed to begin a new life and to enter a hitherto undreamed world of possibilities….this transformation, whilst the greatest and most wonderful, is also of course the most difficult in Man’s evolution, for him to effect. it may roughly be said that the whole of the civilisation-period in Man’s history is the preparation for it.”
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ALLEN GINSBERG (1926-1997)
JUMPING INTO THE 21ST CENTURY….
rainbow messenger 