Joanna

“Considered phenomenologically—that is, as we actually experience and live it—the body is a creative, shape-shifting entity. Certainly, it has its finite character and style, its unique textures and temperaments that distinguish it from other bodies; yet these mortal limits in no way close me off from the things around me or render my relations to them wholly predictable and determinate. On the contrary, my finite bodily presence alone is what enables me to freely engage the things around me, to choose to affiliate with certain persons or places, to insinuate myself in other lives. Far from restricting my access to things and to the world, the body is my very means of entering into relation with all things.”
― David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

“Beginnings are always ripe with possibilities, for they hold the promise of completion. Through love we imagine a new way of being. You see me as I’ve never seen myself. You airbrush my imperfections, and I like what you see. With you, and through you, I will become that which I long to be. I will become whole. Being chosen by the one you chose is one of the glories of falling in love. It generates a feeling of intense personal importance. I matter. You confirm my significance.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“In some Native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“How do you know that you are on your path – because it disappears. That’s how you know. How do you know that you are really doing something radical? Because you can’t see where you are going. That’s how you know. And everything you have lent on for your identity has gone. And so you are going to enter the black contemplative splendours of self-doubt, at the same time as you are setting out on this radical new path.”
― David Whyte