Vanesa M.

“Evanescent grace, you vanish as a vapor
does, or love in open air.”
― Jill Alexander Essbaum, Heaven

“We can hardly bear to look. The shadow may carry the best of the life we have not lived. Go into the basement, the attic, the refuse bin. Find gold there. Find an animal who has not been fed or watered. It is you!! This neglected, exiled animal, hungry for attention, is a part of your self. —Marion Woodman (as quoted by Stephen Cope in The Great Work of Your Life)”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“The “night sea journey” is the journey into the parts of ourselves that are split off, disavowed, unknown, unwanted, cast out, and exiled to the various subterranean worlds of consciousness. It is the night sea journey that allows us to free the energy trapped in these cast-off parts—trapped in what Marion would call “the shadow.” The goal of this journey is to reunite us with ourselves. Such a homecoming can be surprisingly painful, even brutal. In order to undertake it, we must first agree to exile nothing.”
― Stephen Cope, The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling

“Give out your last coin, trek a thousand miles home, feel the throbbing pain coming from the blisters and understand the meaning of love.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson