Lawrence

“Loving ourselves and each other deepens our disruption of the dominant systems. They want us unwell, fearful, exhausted, and without deep self-love because you are easier to manipulate when you are distracted by what is not real or true.”
― Tricia Hersey, Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage and kindness. If we remember those times and place, and there are so many where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act. Hope is the energy for change. The future is an infinite succession of presents and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of the worst of everything around us, is a marvelous victory.”
― Howard Zinn, A People's History of American Empire

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.”
—Archilochus”
― Kazu Haga, Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm

“It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.”
― Osho, Beyond Enlightenment