Isabella

“No one is anything more than a slow event and I knew I was not a woman but a series of movements, not a life, but a shake, and this put a knot in my throat and a pause in my breathing and it turned in my stomach, to know that my stomach was not a stomach but a turn and my breath was nothing if it did not move and my throat without voice was just some slowly decaying meat but I had nothing to say anymore, not yet, and BELINDA refilled my coffee and the surface rolled and rippled and then it almost stilled but not quite because it shook as it will always shake and I watched it keep shaking.”
― Catherine Lacey, Nobody Is Ever Missing

“I should at least have learned more about how it had come to be that Rema had abandoned her mother, before I asked her to marry - and hopefully not abandon - me. But I saw Rema all prismatically, all fractured and reconstituted as if seen in the valley of an unshined silver spoon and actually I'm glad love does that, I shouldn't complain about love or love's perspective - distorted or no, to feel superior to it would be wrong, as if there were some better way of seeing.”
― Rivka Galchen

“From her thighs, she gives you life
And how you treat she who gives you life
Shows how much you value the life given to you by the Creator.
And from seed to dust
There is ONE soul above all others --
That you must always show patience, respect, and trust
And this woman is your mother.
And when your soul departs your body
And your deeds are weighed against the feather
There is only one soul who can save yours
And this woman is your mother.
And when the heart of the universe
Asks her hair and mind,
Whether you were gentle and kind to her
Her heart will be forced to remain silent
And her hair will speak freely as a separate entity,
Very much like the seaweed in the sea --
It will reveal all that it has heard and seen.

This woman whose heart has seen yours,
First before anybody else in the world,
And whose womb had opened the door
For your eyes to experience light and more --
Is your very own MOTHER.
So, no matter whether your mother has been cruel,
Manipulative, abusive, mentally sick, or simply childish
How you treat her is the ultimate test.
If she misguides you, forgive her and show her the right way
With simple wisdom, gentleness, and kindness.
And always remember,
That the queen in the Creator's kingdom,
Who sits on the throne of all existence,
Is exactly the same as in yours.
And her name is,
THE DIVINE MOTHER.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“You want to work spells,' Ogion said presently, striding along. 'You've drawn too much water from that well. Wait. Manhood is patience. Mastery is nine times patience. What is that herb by the path?'
'Strawflower.'
'And that?'
'I don't know.'
'Fourfoil, they call it.' Ogion had halted, the coppershod foot of his staff near the little weed, so Ged looked closely at the plant, and plucked a dry seedpod from it, and finally asked, since Ogion said nothing more, 'What is its use, Master?'
'None I know of.'
Ged kept the seedpod a while as they went on, then tossed it away.
'When you know the fourfoil in all its seasons root and leaf and flower, by sight and scent and seed, then you may learn its true name, knowing its being: which is more than its use. What, after all, is the use of you? or of myself? Is Gont Mountain useful, or the Open Sea?' Ogion went on a half mile or so, and said at last, 'To hear, one must be silent.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea