Inger Hanson

“Fiction, in a less direct way, will teach me, teach me things I would never learn had I not opened myself to them in story.”
― Madeline L'engle

“neuroscientists monitored guitarists playing a short melody together, they found that patterns in the guitarists’ brain activity became synchronized. Similarly, studies of choir singers have shown that singing aligns performers’ heart rates. Music seems to create a sense of unity on a physiological level. Scientists call this phenomenon synchrony and have found that it can elicit some surprising behaviors. In studies where people sang or moved in a coordinated way with others, researchers found that subjects were significantly more likely to help out a partner with their workload or sacrifice their own gain for the benefit of the group. And when participants rocked in chairs at the same tempo, they performed better on a cooperative task than those who rocked at different rhythms. Synchrony shifts our focus away from our own needs toward the needs of the group. In large social gatherings, this can give rise to a euphoric feeling of oneness—dubbed “collective effervescence” by French sociologist Émile Durkheim—which elicits a blissful, selfless absorption within a community.”
― Ingrid Fetell Lee, Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness

“To plan is to hope … without feeling passive.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, P for Pessimism: A Collection of Funny yet Profound Aphorisms

“Our bodies align with these rhythms of life in our footsteps (slow tiptoe or urgent stomp), the sleeping rise-fall breath of your baby on your chest, or a row of oak trees mirrored in a rippling lake. A butterfly’s wings flap every second—flapflapflap—to keep it free-floating through the sky, dipping now and again to kiss sweet flowers. Rhythms benefit from variety too; a gentle spring rainstorm turns dramatic with an unexpected thunderclap.”
― Amy Masterman, Sacred Sensual Living: 40 Words for Praying with All Your Senses