A beautiful song, “I Will Show You Love”, by Kendall Payne:
I will show you love like you’ve never loved before I will go the distance and back for more if you just say the word
You will come alive again and all the trying times you felt, the pain that you have suffered through, will never get the best of you You will hope in something real that won’t depend on how you feel When you call my name then I will answer, answer
I am on your side though the wind and waves beat against your faith You were on my mind when the world was made Trust in me my child, Trust in me my child
Walk out on the water where you have no control So scared to death of failure you sacrifice your soul, please let that go
You have climbed an uphill road, You have worn a heavy load You have cried through endless nights and nearly given up the fight Watched your dreams like falling stars the heartaches made you who you are Now looking back you see that I have always been there
Where you gonna hide? Where you gonna hide from Me? Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go that I can’t see?
I have heard you cry and it breaks my heart for I love you so I would never lie, this is not the end there is still a hope
Happypizza: Here is an amazing collection of quotes on the subject of loneliness and solitude. Definitely worth a read, with some positive ways to look at the experience–and sometimes pain–of loneliness.
All humans are frightened of their own solitude. But only in solitude can we learn to know ourselves, learn to handle our own eternal aloneness.–Han Suyin
Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.–Thomas Browne
Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.–Alice Koller
Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all life’s greatest tests alone.–Agnes Macphail
Each of us is alone in the world. It takes great courage to meet the full force of your aloneness. … When you face your aloneness, something begins to happen. Gradually, the sense of bleakness changes into a sense of true belonging. This is a slow and open-ended transition but it is utterly vital in order to come into rhythm with your own individuality. –John O’Donohue (Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong)
I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It’s the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.–Peter Hoeg (Smilla’s Sense of Snow)
I learned…that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.–Brenda Ueland
I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.–Albert Einstein
I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.–Henry David Thoreau
Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.–Pearl S. Buck
Isolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. I think great things can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart.–Jeanne Marie Laskas
It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking . . . in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.–Franz Kafka
It is well to be alone. It fertilizes the creative impulse.–Max Nordau
Language has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone, and the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.–Paul Johannes Tillich
Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall.–Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.–Indra Devi
Man cannot survive without air, water and sleep. Next in importance comes food. And close on its heels, solitude.–Thomas Szasz
One must learn an inner solitude, where or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind.–Meister Eckhart
Only in quiet waters do thing mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.–Hans Margolius
Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.–Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Gift from the Sea)
The person who has not learned to be happy and content while completely alone for an hour a day, or a week has missed life’s greatest serenity.–H. Clay Tate (Building a Better Home Town)
Solitude can be frightening because it invites us to meet a stranger we think we may not want to know–ourselves.–Melvyn Kinder
Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.–Abraham Cowley
Solitude gives birth to the original in us.–Thomas Mann
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.–James Russell Lowell
…solitude is such a potential thing. We hear voices in solitude, we never hear in the hurry and turmoil of life; we receive counsels and comforts, we get under no other condition…–Amelia Barr
Face to the wind on Flickr - Photo Sharing--by Ian@NZFlickr
Great inspiration for the new year (2010)
Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times —By Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
Mis estimados:
Do not lose heart. We were made for these times.
I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. It is true, one has to have strong cojones and ovarios to withstand much of what passes for “good” in our culture today. Abject disregard of what the soul finds most precious and irreplaceable and the corruption of principled ideals have become, in some large societal arenas, “the new normal,” the grotesquerie of the week. It is hard to say which one of the current egregious matters has rocked people’s worlds and beliefs more. Ours is a time of almost daily jaw-dropping astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.
…You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet … I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is — we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. I cannot tell you often enough that we are definitely the leaders we have been waiting for, and that we have been raised since childhood for this time precisely.
…I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able crafts in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. I would like to take your hands for a moment and assure you that you are built well for these times. Despite your stints of doubt, your frustrations in arighting all that needs change right now, or even feeling you have lost the map entirely, you are not without resource, you are not alone. Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. In your deepest bones, you have always known this is so. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
…We have been in training for a dark time such as this, since the day we assented to come to Earth. For many decades, worldwide, souls just like us have been felled and left for dead in so many ways over and over – brought down by naiveté, by lack of love, Read the rest of this entry »
Difficulties are the admission tickets to the game of life. But, at times, we cannot help suspecting that life would be much more pleasant without the hassles. Is that what you think? Before answering, ponder the following.
In a world without hurdles, there are no champions; without suffering, there are no saints; without battles, there are no victories; without rain, no rainbows. Doesn’t it appear that a world that includes pain is more rewarding than one that doesn’t? Isn’t heat necessary to produce gold, pressure and polishing necessary to produce diamonds, and adversity necessary to produce character?
Here’s how Henry Ford expressed the same sentiment: “Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. We must learn that the setbacks … which we endure help us to march onward.”
