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John Michael Roccamo
https://www.goodreads.com/leavesinthecity
“At the threat of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal power in the human soul: one quite reasonably tells a man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of averting it; the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger, since it is not in man's power to foresee everything and escape from the general march of events, and it is therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to think about what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second.”
― War and Peace
― War and Peace
“In America, men widely divided from the majority by their opinions are helpless to oppose its power; all others hope to win it over.”
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“For it is precisely how I feel, who have inherited not measurable wealth but, as we all do who care tor it, that immeasurable fund of thoughts and ideas, from writers and thinkers long gone into the ground-and, inseparable from those wisdoms because demanded by them, the responsibility to live thoughtfully and intelligently. To enjoy, to question—never to assume, or trample. Thus the great ones (my great ones, who may not be the same as your great ones have taught me—to observe with passion, to think with patience, to live always caringly.”
― Upstream: Selected Essays
― Upstream: Selected Essays
“Shamanism is arguably the oldest of spiritual endeavors, born as it was at the dawn of human awareness. For our Paleolithic ancestors, death was the first teacher, the first pain, the edge beyond which life as they knew it ended and wonder began. Religion was nursed by mystery, but it was born of the hunt, from the need on the part of humans to rationalize the fact to live they had to kill what they most revered, the animals that gave them life. Rich and complex rituals and myths evolved as an expression of the covenant between the animals and humans, a means of containing within manageable bounds the fear and violence of the hunt and maintaining a certain essential balance between the consciousness of man and the unreasoning impulses of the natural world.”
― One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest
― One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest
“The priest of the earth shrine reminded me of Grandfather, and made me understand why the wise pay little attention to their bodies. In their world dirt has no negative effect on life because they have no concept of its being evil. These earth people live like Mother Earth—their cleanliness is in their spirits. I wondered if those who spend their lives obsessed with looking beautiful are not fighting to cover up something ugly deep within. Our shallow appreciation of outward beauty might be more a confused reaction to the memory of true beauty than an actual encounter with it. In that case the beauty that exists on the outside of a person would serve only as a reminder to us of the real beauty of the spirit behind it. These elders had long ago understood this and chose to focus their energies where they really count—on matters of the soul.”
― Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman
― Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman
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