A Quote by John Ashbery
The soul establishes itself. But how far can it swim out through the eyes And still return safely to its nest?
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Honestly, it is difficult for me because I cannot return to Indonesia safely. So how am I supposed to make another movie in Indonesia when I cannot safely return to Indonesia?
...notice how he will come to manhood with his own particular soul bespeaking itself through the windows which are his eyes, and such lovely eyes surely do prophesy and indicate the loveliest of souls.
When the soul betrays itself and loses the blessed and longed-for fervor, let it carefully investigate the reason for losing it. And let it arm itself with all its longing and zeal against whatever caused this. For the former fervor can return only through the same door through which it was lost.
That's what makes it so right. Your eyes—your soul is there, but the rest of you is still so undefined. That's the beauty of childhood. The eyes show everything you've seen so far, but the rest of you is still so open to possibility, to whatever you might become.
Here I am, safely returned over those peaks from a journey far more beautiful and strange than anything I had hoped for or imagined - how is it that this safe return brings such regret?
The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home.
Normally an infant learns to use his mother as a "beacon of orientation" during the first five months of life. The mother's presence is like a fixed light that gives the child the security to move out safely to explore the world and then return safely to harbor.
As I experience it, appreciation of beauty is access to the soul. With beauty in our lives, we walk and carry ourselves more lightly and with a different look in our eyes. To look into the eyes of someone beholding beauty is to look through the windows of the soul. Anytime we catch a glimpse of soul, beauty is there; anytime we catch our breath and feel "How beautiful!," the soul is present.
How easily the routine of sin establishes itself.
One's character is set at an early age. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life. I hate to see you swim out so far you can't swim back.
A great deal of anthropological/ethnological literature describes indigenous peoples who live in oneness with the natural world and one another. Survival itself necessitates a borderlessness between inner and outer worlds. At times we still feel a return to that unified state. T.S. Eliot’s designation of our return is ‘through the unknown remembered gate.'
Silence is the nest and music is the bird. The bird leaves the nest early in the morning and returns to the nest in the evening. Similarly, in the spiritual world, divine music comes from the inmost soul of Silence.
The human soul doesn't want to be fixed, it simply wants to be seen and heard. The soul is like a wild animal - tough, resilient and shy. When we go crashing through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself.
If you go far enough out you can see the Universe itself, all the billion light years summed up time only as a flash, just as lonely, as distant as a star on a June night if you go far enough out. And still, my friend, if you go far enough out you are only at the beginning - of yourself.
The way of peace is a soul journey. . . . If you can live from the level of your soul, you are doing something very special. The important thing is how much consciousness you add to the whole of human existence, for that is how eternity expresses itself, like a lamp shining through the window of eternity.
That is another theme in the book [Dreams from My Father]. How do we exercise more empathy in our public discourse? How do we get the black to see through the eyes of the white? Or the citizen to see through the eyes of the immigrant? Or the straight to see through the eyes of the gay? That has always been a struggle in our politics.
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