“I can’t tell you where I found the lion or what it had
in its mouth, but I can tell you all the old stories
are about sacrifice, like the beggar who chained church bells around the neck of a lamb and offered it
to the river. I can tell you the old secrets—
how an albatross found the ocean floor but had to die to reach it, or how the soul is exiled to the body,
the body an interruption between shadow and light.”
“You don’t know anyone at the party, so you don’t want to go. You don’t like cottage cheese, so you haven’t eaten it in years. This is your choice, of course, but don’t kid yourself: it’s also the flinch. Your personality is not set in stone. You may think a morning coffee is the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it’s really just a habit. Thirty days without it, and you would be fine. You think you have a soul mate, but in fact you could have had any number of spouses. You would have evolved differently, but been just as happy. You can change what you want about yourself at any time. You see yourself as someone who can’t write or play an instrument, who gives in to temptation or makes bad decisions, but that’s really not you. It’s not ingrained. It’s not your personality. Your personality is something else, something deeper than just preferences, and these details on the surface, you can change anytime you like. If it is useful to do so, you must abandon your identity and start again. Sometimes, it’s the only way.”
“Still, the dark
forgives the sun its eagerness. The boy forgives the bull
that gored him. We believe because the night after the birds were stolen, we woke up singing. We heal
whether we want to or not. Whenever we raise
our hands to the sky, they are filled with light.”
— Traci Brimhall: “The New World” from Our Lady of Ruins (via poetsfieldguide)
