And so we come to this month’s quotes. And we have a long list this time! So let’s dive in …
The heart of man is very much like the sea; it has its storms, it has its tides, and in its depths, it has its pearls too.
[Vincent Van Gogh]
Writers function largely by not knowing what the world is like at all from one point of view, perhaps very well from another.
[Anthony Powell, Dance]
What matters is not what happens objectively but how it is seen, experienced and described by the people affected.
[Robin Bynoe]
All human beings are descendants of tribal people who were spiritually alive, intimately in love with the natural world, children of Mother Earth. When we were tribal people, we knew who we were, we knew where we were, and we knew our purpose. This sacred perception of reality remains alive and well in our genetic memory. We carry it inside of us, usually in a dusty box in the mind’s attic, but it is accessible.
[John Trudell]
I’m one of those regular weird people.
[Janis Joplin]
Over time, natural evolutionary changes have allowed classified documents to spread more effectively through their environments, with some employing burrs similar to those of burdock seed pods, specially adapted to cling to business suit fabrics.
[Katie Mack]
Radical Embodiment. Return to your purest state. Strip away the veils. Go back to who you were before they convinced you to hide. Stretch out of the way you had to contort yourself. Expand. Unfurl. Let go of everything anyone has ever told you about yourself, both positive and negative. Do the same with your own words. Take off your ego. Shed every layer that isn’t true. Find that nakedest foundation and see what grows through the cracks. Shame is an invitation. Vulnerability enables connection. Rawness creates synthesis. Think about whimsy. Think about folly. Beauty isn’t the goal. You only owe yourself acceptance and care. Feel it all. Allow it all. Let yourself grow out from within you. Let them past your skin and onto everything you touch. Blossom. Get dizzy. Get silly. Be in your body. Be your body. As whole and nakedly you as possible. Now you are rooted. You can sway in the wind without breaking. You can grow, you can grow, you can grow.
[Marin May, Econudist]
Nudism is not a state of dress. Nudism is a state of mind.
[unknown]
I was raised to treat the janitor with the same respect as the CEO.
[Tom Hardy]
Druids follow the eightfold Wheel of the Year. Which means that we have something to do every six weeks. It’s a useful period of time. You always have the next moment in sight. It creates a pattern through the year.
[Katherine May]
February. We get a great boost this month from the lengthening of the evenings, and a few mild days can see us itching to start the year, to sow seeds and throw ourselves into action. We are like shoots pushing through the dark soil, faces eagerly towards the sun. But it is too soon. The Gaelic festival of Imbolc falls on the 1st-2nd, and the word may come from Oímelc, the Old Irish word for the beginning of spring (itself deriving from oí-melg, meaning “ewe’s milk” or “in the belly”, a reference to pregnancy and the forthcoming lambing). This moment is that initial stirring into life, first pushing tentatively above the soil. Make plans and gather seeds for future sowing, but tend your flame carefully through these icy days and long dark nights.
[The Almanac]
The older I get the more I realise it is OK to live a life that others do not understand.
[unknown]
When one is not making the decision between
Screaming with rage or
Uncontrollably sobbing
At the state of the country,
There is life to be lived.
The everyday trudging,
The waking up and going to sleep does not
Come to a stop and so
In between breathing, laughing,
Cupping our hands to
Catch the sun in the morning,
We all have a responsibility to …
Mend our country piece by piece
In small and larger ways.
[Lidudumalingani Mqombothi, Letters from South Africa, Episode 4, BBC Radio 4]
I find the television very educational. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
[Groucho Marx]
Your body is made from stars and one day it will be soil. Between all that, you are human.
[Marin May, Econudist]
But it’s both irresponsible and dangerous to view nudism and naturism as nothing more than a leisure activity, diminishing it to recreation and relaxation without philosophical principles and with no relationship to civil rights and civil liberties struggles.
[Unknown]
Naked Enchantment. There is more to this moment. Slip beneath its surface. Dig a little deeper. Find the wonder, the mystery, the magic. All of this was once new to you. Do you remember that? Become the embodiment of childlike awe and wonder. Forget about shame, maturity, modesty – cast off anything too strict or serious. There is light and colour and texture and perfume. Everything out “there” is invited within. Strip off all barriers to this moment. Become bare, wide-eyed curiosity. Uncovered, let it all in. Deeper, deeper. Let it seep, let it burrow, and feel how deep your spirit reaches, how wide your capacity for connection. See the infinite possibilities branching outwards. Feel the warmth of consciousness. Not just yours, but everyone’s. It’s all here inside you. It always was, and always will be. You are united, you are bound. Grounded in magic, in possibility. Be here. Be now. As naked and raw and weird as your deepest, truest self. Become enchanted.
[Marin May, Econudist]
With living systems, we are looking at the accumulation of a couple of billion years of evolutionary adaptation, which has had plenty of time to encrust everything with interlocking, overlapping rococo epicyclic curlicues, but in a complete nonhuman manner.
[Derek Lowe]
As you grow older, unnecessary noise starts to irritate your soul.
[Unknown]
What would happen if you filled the Large Hadron Collider with feta?
Dennis Cartilage, Ashford
Brian says: “Well, I wouldn’t recommend it, Dennis. l once left halt a Peparami and a can of Lilt in there by accident, and their particles collided within the machine to create a grapefruit-flavoured sentient sausage measuring 26 miles in length. It took three months to destroy the hideous abomination, and you wouldn’t believe the bollocking I got oft the CERN president afterwards. So I imagine that if you filled the LHC with feta, you’d probably generate a super-conscious block of sheep’s cheese roughly the size of Wales.
[Unknown but probably Private Eye]
No matter how big a hammer you use, you can’t pound common sense into stupid people.
[Unknown]
I don’t know what word in the English language – I can’t fine one – applies to people who are willing to sacrifice the literal existence of organized human life so they can put a few more dollars into highly stuffed pockets. The word “evil” doesn’t even begin to approach it.
[Noam Chomsky]
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.
[Aldous Huxley]
We exist as temporary states between stardust and soil.
[Marin May, Econudist]
