Bhavi

“If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky. Better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else’s hearth.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“The present onslaught leaves no space for mourning, since mourning requires an afterwards, but only for repeated shock and the ebb and flow of grief. We who are not there, witnessing from afar, in what ways are we mutilating ourselves when we dissociate to cope? To remain human at this juncture is to remain in agony. Let us remain there: it is the more honest place from which to speak.”
― Isabella Hammad, Recognising the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative

“This land like a mirror turns you inward
And you become a forest in a furtive lake;
The dark pines of your mind reach downward,
You dream in the green of your time,
Your memory is a row of sinking pines.

Explorer, you tell yourself, this is not what you came for
Although it is good here, and green;
You had meant to move with a kind of largeness,
You had planned a heavy grace, an anguished dream.

But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper
And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper
In an elementary world;
There is something down there and you want it told.”
― Gwendolyn MacEwen, The Shadow-Maker

“You are not obligated to complete the work,
but neither are you free to abandon it.

Do not be daunted
by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.

If you attend to Reality,
you will receive great reward;
for effort itself is good fortune.

Reality can be trusted
to pay you the value of your work;
every deed has a consequence.

And know this---
the payment of the righteous is tranquillity:
knowing that "this, too, shall pass.”
― Pirke Avot