They Depart, They Return

We die with the dying.
See, they depart, and
we go with them.
We are born with the dead.
See, they return, and 
they bring us with them.

T.S. Eliot

Sono's Death Poem

Don't just stand there with your hair turning grey.
Soon enough the seas will sink your little island.
So while there's still the illusion of time,
set out for another shore. No sense packing a bag.
You won't be able to lift it into your boat.
Give away all your collections.
Take only new seeds and an old stick.
Send out some prayers on the wind 
before you sail. Don't be afraid.
Someone knows you're coming.
An extra fish has been salted.

Mona Santacroce

When the Sun is Shining

The time to repair the roof
is when the sun is shining.

John F. Kennedy

What It's All About

What's the meaning of the universe?
What's the meaning of a flea? 
It's just there. That's it. And your
own meaning is that you're there.
We're so engaged in doing things
to achieve purposes of outer value
that we forget that the inner value,
the rapture that is associated with 
being alive, is what it's all about.

Joseph Campbell

Not the Body, But the Consciousness

The problem in middle life, when the body
has reached its climax of power and
begins to decline, is to identify yourself
not with the body, which is falling away,
but with the consciousness of which
it is a vehicle. This is something
I learned from myths.

Joseph Campbell

Simple and Forgotten Things

You must go in quest of yourself,
and you will find yourself again
only in the simple and forgotten things.
Why not go into the forest for a time,
literally? Sometimes a tree tells you
more than can be read in books.

Carl Jung

The Universe

You are the soul, the universe,
and what animates the universe.

Rumi