+ vibes

“after a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul and you learn love doesn’t always mean leaning and company doesn’t always mean security.

and you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t always promises and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes ahead with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.

and you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

after a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.

so you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers and you learn that you really can endure, you really are strong, you really do have worth and you learn and you learn with every goodbye you learn.”

“If you don’t stand near the fire you aren’t endangered by its flames,”

the fear always tells me.

But so too, if I don’t stand near the fire, I will never get the chance to dance in its light. 

“People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That’s not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.” 

- Pema Chodron

Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.

-Rumi

“The knowledge I acquired through constant struggle was much more valuable to me than if it had been dispensed by a talkative, didactic professor intending to fill my head. Today’s education, with its crash courses, its CliffsNotes, its how-to videos, its Internet instant answers and its multitude of shortcuts gives the impression of winning the race against time, but what it really does is spread insidiously the frailties of artificialness. I have the certitude that although the sum of my autodidactic discoveries took a long time to crystallize, I did not lose any time. In fact, I won; the result remains solidly anchored inside me, and it will fuel my creativity for the rest of my life.”

-Phillipe Petit