Apphia

“In a culture of gratitude, everyone knows that gifts will follow the circle of reciprocity and flow back to you again.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“The water's boiling.' Her voice had no weight to it, like feathers. It was neither gloomy not absent-minded, as might be expected of someone who was ill. But it wasn't bright or lighthearted either. It was the tone of t a person who didn't belong anywhere, someone who had passed into a border area between states of being.”
― Han Kang, The Vegetarian

“My neighbour's blinds were down. What were their dreams and nightmares? How different it would be to see them now, slack in the jaw, bodies open. We might be able to say something truthful to one another instead of the usual rolled-up Goodmornings.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

“The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;”
― Galway Kinnell