Alejandra

“In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock. This was not an ocean like the one you have imagined. Nor was the rock like the one you have imagined. The girl, however, might be as you imagined—assuming you imagined her as thoughtful, soft-spoken, and overly fond of collecting cups.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves.”
― Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

“I love memories. They are our ballads, our personal foundation myths. But I must acknowledge that memory can be cruel if left unchallenged. Memory is often our only connection to who we used to be. Memories are fossils, the bones left by dead versions of ourselves. More potently, our minds are a hungry audience, craving only the peaks and valleys of experience. The bland erodes, leaving behind the distinctive bits to be remembered again and again. Painful or passionate, surreal or sublime, we cherish those little rocks of peak experience, polishing them with the ever-smoothing touch of recycled proxy living. In so doing—like pagans praying to a sculpted mud figure—we make of our memories the gods which judge our current lives. I love this.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea

“True giving is a thoroughly joyous thing to do. We experience happiness when we form the intention to give, in the actual act of giving, and in the recollection of the fact that we have given.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions