White Ajah ~ Inspirational Quotes

[Delenn]

Many years ago I used to post inspirational quotes in The Tower. Sometimes, if they had enough likes, I would start a topic for discussion in the White Ajah. I am getting this small tradition started again but this time I would like to invite everyone to post quotes and sayings that have helped them in life in someway. And if there is interest in one in particular, pm me and I will consider working with you to start a topic. 

 

The only rule is that the quote must uplift or inspire you in some fashion.

 

Here is a poem to start us off; 

 

“Tell me of thine eyes

And I will tell thee of thy heart.

Tell me of thy feet

And I will tell thee of thy hands.

Tell me of thy sleeping

And I will tell thee of thy waking.

Tell me of thy desires

And I will tell thee of thy need.”

― Frank Herbert, Dune

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by Delenn

[EirikDaude]

I will post a poem by a Norwegian poet myself. The poet said this about it himself:

 

Quote

“My motivation? «The poor man’s comfort is comforting himself,» says (the Norwegian poet) Wildenvey. I wrote this poem at a time I was feeling quite low – on bare ground, so to speak. And I was literally on bare ground, on a grassy hill somewhere in Bærum (a municipality just outside Oslo), where I lay one Spring day wishing I were six feet under. But the mere ground and the grass and Spring had a beneficial effect; suddenly I was overtaken by the mood a poet once called «a high metaphysical mood», and I grabbed hold of pencil and paper.

 

Usually it is quite rare that one can draw courage and strength from poems you have written yourself – after they have been written. But «Amor Fati» I have actually been able to resort to when I got into trouble in life; it’s as if I were reading a kind of «Word of the Night», written by another and wiser person. That is the reason why I choose this poem. ”

 

The poem is a bit longer than the one Delenn Sedai posted, I hope you don't mind 😅

 

Of course, it was originally written in Norwegian, so some of the rhythm and nuance may be lost. I still really like it though!

 

Amor Fati

André Bjerke, translated by  Hossein Kashani

 

You should arm yourself,
not like a Caesar with a raised sword
against the world, but with the words:
Amor Fati – love your fate.

 

You should make this axiom
your strongest liberator;
You have chosen your path in the thicket,
Don’t look sideways at other paths!

 

The pain, too, is your servant,
Paralyzed, crushed and dejected
you see that it reunites you
with what is required.

 

The fall and the betrayal, too,
will help you like friends,
Your defeats are rich
gifts placed in your hands.

 

Once, contented
by being worthy of your destiny
you shall know: This was my will,
All that happens to me happens justly.

 

Then say, when the green woods
of your joy for life has been wandered through:
I want nothing different,
I wish nothing changed.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

This is a bit of a cliché, in Britain at least, but it still inspires me. 

 

If by Rudyard Kipling

Quote

 

If you can keep your head when all about you

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated don't give way to hating,

    And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same:

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    ⁠And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    ⁠Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

    ⁠And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

 

 

[Rhea]

Quote

“Nature has given us all the pieces required to achieve exceptional wellness and health, but has left it to us to put these pieces together.”—Diane McLaren

 

[Delenn]

We are just a month away from the release of the latest adaptation of Dune Pt2. I thought this quote might be appropriate here. *grins* 

 

“We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans.”

― Frank Herbert, Dune

[Delenn]

 

Untitled Poem by Ben Bushill 

There are children playing on my altar,

knocking over the holy pictures

and eating the offerings to the ancestors.

Mice have nibbled the prayer beads

and monkeys stole the incense

to trade for fruit.

A herd of buffalo have left their footprints

on the pristine cloth,

and an old yew has dropped its bitter berries

in the wine chalice.

My ceremonial robes have sauce all down the front

and my prayers

are a battered and strange mixture

of gratitude and swearing,

the ramblings of a mad old man

drunk on love and grief.

How can it all be here at once!?

It was easier when the altar cloth was white and clear

the single candle bright and obvious,

when love was love

and suffering was suffering.

Now its all here

raucous screams of hungry gulls

the wonderful velvet brown of bullrushes

and silence deep as an autumn sea

where jellyfish glide like

falling leaves.

A heart that’s twisted and pulled and shaped

dough in the baker’s strong and unrelenting hands,

grief and faith and love and pain

making new colours that this poor soul

has never seen

even when the light is on the water

and a half moon sits in the depths of the textured heavens.

I threw away the rule book years ago

but sometimes I wish this heart

came with instructions

or at least a hint or two.

It turns out though that nobody knows the way

that we are all being and becoming

as life flowers through us

infinite creativity blossoming

over and over again

in a billion forms

new colours spilling from the palette

of the vast turning miracle of source,

a free running fountain of everyfeckinthing

that somehow we must stretch to love

and honour

on our messy altars

stained by tears

and the perfect pain of being.

I lay this pilgrim soul down

amid the crumbs and stains

of broken bread,

the wine has run down my chin

to frame my inevitably aching

heart in a spray of colour

and as I lie there in this divine, glorious mess,

chattering monkeys swinging from my beard,

my lips are moving

and if you draw close

you may hear the name of god

opening like a single, bright flower

in endless windblown field of grass.

 

 

 

I altered one word to fit this community's standard of language rules.

[Delenn]

A favorite quote from Teddy Roosevelt

 

[Delenn]

I know, you never intended to be in this world.

But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.

There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.

Bless the eyes and the listening ears.

Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.

Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.

Or not.

I am speaking from the fortunate platform

of many years,

none of which, I think, I ever wasted.

Do you need a prod?

Do you need a little darkness to get you going?

Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,

and remind you of Keats,

so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,

he had a lifetime. ~Mary Oliver

(Book: Blue Horses)

[Delenn]

Just a reminder that anyone can post anything that has been a moving quote or poem! 🤍 I found this lovely one today... ❄️ 

 

We need to teach the children the old words,

words like brabble and grubble,

twitter-light and clinkerbell;

words which dance and trip and slip

and drip like honey off the tongue

Teach them that a hazy halo of cloud

around the moon is called a moonbroch

and that swiftly moving clouds are named

cairies;

how a vixen’s wedding is a sunny shower of

rain, and that a single sunbeam breaking through thick cloud is known as a messenger

Teach them to know the seasons and scents

of queen of the meadow and bride of the sun,

how to tell Jupiter’s staff from fairy fingers

and which roses bloom with the strawberry moon

Teach them to spot pricklebacks in the tottlegrass,

how to recognise a smeuse or a bishop-barnaby,

when to watch the sky for flittermice and yaffles,

and to pay attention to the dumbeldore and mousearnickle

as she graces the lazy leahs of summer

Teach them a few of the old Sussex words for mud,

like gubber and slub and stodge and pug,

so they know that the precious soil beneath their toes

is anything but worthless dirt

Teach them to be users and keepers and makers

of the words which bring the land alive:

a storybook, where everything has its rightful place, including us;

where the wilds are fearful and filled with magic

and people do noble things, and nothing is impossible

In this world of harsh new words —

words like planetary dysmorphia and solastalgia,

extinction debt and grief mitigation,

megadrought and megafire,

anthropogenic, pyrocene,

words which alarm and get stuck in our throats

describing a world which our hearts cannot grasp —

we need to teach the children the old words,

so that if they should feel lost,

the old words might colour for them

a warm and breathing, living map,

a light to guide them safely home.

 

- Caroline Mellor

[Rhea]

HOPE.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

 

And sweetest in the Gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

 

I 've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

 

- Emily Dickinson

[Delenn]

 

don't let your
skin become
so thick that
nothing can 
hurt you anymore

 

getting wounded
is part of the experience 

the scars you 
collect are all
part of your story 

 

take off your armor
and give vulnerability
a chance to paint
your naked form

 

feel the sunlight
on your shoulders

let the wind move
through your hair

 

give your tears a 
chance to be counted

allow us to be swept
up in your smile

 

~ you see, my love,

 

you weren't born
to be hidden behind
a towering wall

 

you were formed out
of an ancient whisper to
become a natural wonder

where we all visit to
listen to the songbirds
sing through the pines of 
your evergreen beauty

 

you were given this skin
to be kissed softly

 - don't let it grow scales 

 

you were given your eyes
to reflect starlight 

- don't close them to keep us from
seeing your soul

 

you were given your hands
to lace inside another hand

- don't keep them constantly 
folded in your lap

 

my love,

 

I know this world
can be a sharpened spear
that will often pierce you

 

but 

 

when given a choice
bleeding is always 
better than apathy

 

someday when we
meet in the moving
cosmic river that exists
on the crawling fringe 
of everything

 

let's take turns
washing each other's
scars while saying
the same prayer 
over and over:

 

"I got this wound
for caring and I 
got this one for
having an open heart

 

but that is the cost
that comes from being
a living work of sacred art."

 

   ~ John Roedel