HeatRush

“The life of the jivanmukta is not normal. A normal life is one spent trying to avoid pain and seek pleasure. The jivanmukta, on the other hand, experiences pain and pleasure with equanimity, understanding that everything we experience is the karmic result of past actions.”
― Sharon Gannon, Jivamukti Yoga: Practices for Liberating Body and Soul

“Alexandra’s fat bare toes, corned and bent by years in shoes shaped by men’s desires and cruel notions of beauty,”
― John Updike, The Witches of Eastwick

“Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, Collected Poems

“She had been born in the West, where white and violet mountains lift in pursuit of the delicate tall clouds, and tumbleweed rolls in pursuit of the horizon.”
― John Updike, The Witches of Eastwick