Anchor Saying Quotes

She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" You'd probably kick my butt." You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-" Oh, you so wanted to." Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. You're laughing at me," I complained. I am not!" You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.

Each night before I fall asleep, I make it a point to turn to my wife and silently say "Only you, only ever you". And her love slips quietly around me, holding me, anchoring me, reminding me that the loudest words are the ones we live.

A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope

She might be without country, without nation, but inside her there was still a being that could exist and be free, that could simply say I am without adding a this, or a that, without saying I am Indian, Guyanese, English, or anything else in the world.

I’ve heard parents say all they want is “the best” for their children, but the best is subjective and anchored by how they know and learned the world.

Some days later, I understood what he was trying to say, that getting grown means learning how to work that current: learning when to hold fast, when to drop anchor, when to let it sweep you up.

I do want to get married. It's a nice idea. Though I think husbands are like tattoos--you should wait until you come across something you want on your body for the rest of your life instead of just wandering into a tattoo parlor on some idle Sunday and saying, 'I feel like I should have one of these suckers by now. I'll take a thorny rose and a "MOM" anchor, please. No, not that one--the big one.

You saved the world," annabeth said. "We saved the world." "And Rachel is the new Oracle, which means she won't be dating anybody." "You don't sound disappointed," I noticed. Annabeth shrugged. "Oh, I don't care." "Uh-huh." She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" "You'd probably kick my butt." "You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" "Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking—" "Oh, you so wanted to." "Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought—I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. "Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. "You're laughing at me," I complained. "I am not!" "You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it." When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body. I could've stayed that way forever, except a voice behind us growled, "Well, it's about time!" Suddenly the pavilion was filled with torchlight and campers. Clarisse led the way as the eavesdroppers charged and hoisted us both onto their shoulders. "Oh, come on!" I complained. "Is there no privacy?" "The lovebirds need to cool off!" Clarisse said with glee. "The canoe lake!" Connor Stoll shouted. and they dumped us in the water.

It's called a sea anchor,' [Evanlyn] explained. 'It'll stop us drifting too far.' Alyss was impressed. 'And you said you were pig-ignorant when it came to boats.' 'I don't remember saying that,' Evanlyn replied with a frown. Alyss shrugged. 'Oh? Well, it must have been me.

The sky, like the sea, can anchor us. It says: hey, it’s okay, there is something bigger than your life that you are part of, and it’s – literally – cosmic.

The anchor symbolizes clarity and courage during chaos and confusion,” my Grand-mere says. “Chaos and Confusion, aren’t those your cats names?” Now I know her story is a delusion.

Thomas More: Will, I'd trust you with my life. But not your principles. You see, we speak of being anchored to our principles. But if the weather turns nasty you up with an anchor and let it down where there's less wind, and the fishing's better. And "Look," we say, "look, I'm anchored! To my principles!

The death of a billionaire is worth more to the media than the lives of a billion poor people.

He sniffs my hair again, and I wonder if he's hard right now. Is he overcome with lust for me? "You smell bad," Aron says. “When was the last time you bathed?” Man, fuck this guy.

Anxiety felt like a grapnel anchor had been pickaxed into your back, one prong in each lung, one through the heart, one through the spine, the weight curving your posture forward, dragging you down to the murky depths of the sea floor. The good news was that you kind of got used to it after a while. Got used to the gasping, brink-of-heart-attack feeling that followed you everywhere. All you had to do was grab one of the prongs that stuck out from the bottom of your sternum, give it a little shake, and say, “Listen, asshole. We’re not dying. We have shit to do.

And then sometimes, rarely, in the middle of the night, he’d be sweet. Pulling me into his lap, kissing me, caressing me. Letting me fly but anchoring me with his eyes. Speaking words he’d never dare say in the light of day.

His hatred for all was so intense that it should extinguish the very love from which it was conceived. And thus, he ceased to feel. There was nothing further in which to believe that made the prospect of feeling worthwhile. Daily he woke up and cast downtrodden eyes upon the sea and he would say to himself with a hint of regret at his hitherto lack of indifference, 'All a dim illusion, was it? Surely it was foolish of me to think any of this had meaning.' He would then spend hours staring at the sky, wondering how best to pass the time if everything—even the sky itself— were for naught. He arrived at the conclusion that there was no best way to pass the time. The only way to deal with the illusion of time was to endure it, knowing full well, all the while, that one was truly enduring nothing at all. Unfortunately for him, this nihilistic resolution to dispassion didn’t suit him very well and he soon became extremely bored. Faced now with the choice between further boredom and further suffering, he impatiently chose the latter, sailing another few weeks along the coast , and then inland, before finally dropping anchor off the shores of the fishing village of Yami.

Though I think husbands are like tattoos, - you should wait until you come across something you want on your body for the rest of your life instead of just wandering into a tattoo parlor on some idle Sunday and saying, "I feel like I should have one of these suckers by now. I'll take a thorny rose and a 'MOM' anchor, please.

What if I don't want the monster to stop being a monster? What if that's the only anchor I have left? What if my sanity depends on being able to point at a bad thing and say, That is the bad thing. Haven't I already lost enough time losing track of who the enemy is? I've spent half of my life not knowing the difference between killing myself and fighting back.

Women must find their own answer. That’s the important thing. I’m no longer interested in books about women written by men. Even if I could believe in their objectivity, I just can’t find their opinions relevant. Now I will only believe what a woman has to say about women, because even if it’s not entirely true, it’s her struggle and she’s on the way to the answer. Many of you seek masculine approval. Even though you have inside you your way of talking and writing, you have mountains of it inside you, and even though it is enough to begin expressing yourselves so long as it is with your vocabulary, your abstractions, and your own conceptualization, I think you are still afraid of the master: men. Of their judgment. As long as you have this fear, you will not progress. I think the future belongs to women. Men have been completely dethroned. Their rhetoric is stale, used up. We must move on the rhetoric of women, one that is anchored in the organism, in the body.

I love you, Mary," he says, and that is when I let the tears come. The great heaving sobs of terror and pain that shake my body until I can do nothing but grab on to Travis to anchor me to this spot. He pulls me toward him and I curl around his body as I weep. I fall into darkness with his fingers trailing through my har, my cheeks still wet and my body heaving.

The Voyager We are all lonely voyagers sailing on life's ebb tide, To a far off place were all stripling warriors have died, Sometime at eve when the tide is low, The voices call us back to the rippling water's flow, Even though our boat sailed with love in our hearts, Neither our dreams or plans would keep heaven far apart, We drift through the hush of God's twilight pale, With no response to our friendly hail, We raise our sails and search for majestic light, While finding company on this journey to the brighten our night, Then suddenly he pulls us through the reef's cutting sea, Back to the place that he asked us to be, Friendly barges that were anchored so sweetly near, In silent sorrow they drop their salted tears, Shall our soul be a feast of kelp and brine, The wasted tales of wishful time, Are we a fish on a line lured with bait, Is life the grind, a heartless fate, Suddenly, "HUSH", said the wind from afar, Have you not looked to the heavens and seen the new star, It danced on the abyss of the evening sky, The sparkle of heaven shining on high, Its whisper echoed on the ocean's spray, From the bow to the mast they heard him say, "Hope is above, not found in the deep, I am alive in your memories and dreams when you sleep, I will greet you at sunset and with the moon's evening smile, I will light your path home.. every last lonely mile, My friends, have no fear, my work was done well, In this life I broke the waves and rode the swell, I found faith in those that I called my crew, My love will be the compass that will see you through, So don't look for me on the ocean's floor to find, I've never left the weathered docks of your loving mind, For I am in the moon, the wind and the whale's evening song, I am the sailor of eternity whose voyage is not gone.

This life is a hospital in which each patient is possessed by the desire to change beds. One wants to suffer in front of the stove and another believes that he will get well near the window. It always seems to me that I will be better off there where I am not, and this question of moving about is one that I discuss endlessly with my soul "Tell me, my soul, my poor chilled soul, what would you think about going to live in Lisbon? It must be warm there, and you'll be able to soak up the sun like a lizard there. That city is on the shore; they say that it is built all out of marble, and that the people there have such a hatred of the vegetable, that they tear down all the trees. There's a country after your own heart -- a landscape made out of light and mineral, and liquid to reflect them!" My soul does not reply. "Because you love rest so much, combined with the spectacle of movement, do you want to come and live in Holland, that beatifying land? Perhaps you will be entertained in that country whose image you have so often admired in museums. What do you think of Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts and ships anchored at the foot of houses?" My soul remains mute. "Does Batavia please you more, perhaps? There we would find, after all, the European spirit married to tropical beauty." Not a word. -- Is my soul dead? Have you then reached such a degree of torpor that you are only happy with your illness? If that's the case, let us flee toward lands that are the analogies of Death. -- I've got it, poor soul! We'll pack our bags for Torneo. Let's go even further, to the far end of the Baltic. Even further from life if that is possible: let's go live at the pole. There the sun only grazes the earth obliquely, and the slow alternation of light and darkness suppresses variety and augments monotony, that half of nothingness. There we could take long baths in the shadows, while, to entertain us, the aurora borealis send us from time to time its pink sheaf of sparkling light, like the reflection of fireworks in Hell!" Finally, my soul explodes, and wisely she shrieks at me: "It doesn't matter where! It doesn't matter where! As long as it's out of this world!

Love is an anchor -- it stops you from drifting away. Love is sticking up for your friends and family, or even your pets. Love is being brave and saying what you feel. Love is making music or playing tennis; it's doing what you want to do. Love is holding on and not letting go.

Always too eager for the future, we Pick up bad habits of expectancy. Something is always approaching; every day Till then we say, Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear, Sparkling armada of promises draw near. How slow they are! And how much time they waste, Refusing to make haste! Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked, Each rope distinct, Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits Arching our way, it never anchors; it's No sooner present than it turns to past. Right to the last We think each one will heave to and unload All good into our lives, all we are owed For waiting so devoutly and so long. But we are wrong: Only one ship is seeking us, a black- Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back A huge and birdless silence. In her wake No waters breed or break. - Next, Please

When you ignore your belly, you become homeless. You spend your life trying to erase your own existence. Apologizing for yourself. Feeling like a ghost. Eating to take up space, eating to give yourself the feeling that you have weight here, you belong here, you are allowed to be yourself -- but never quite believing it because you don't sense yourself directly. . . . I started teaching a simple belly meditation in which I asked people to become aware of sensations in their belly (numbness and emptiness count as sensations). Every time their mind wandered . . . I asked them to begin counting their breaths so they could anchor their concentration. Starting with the number one and saying it on the out breath, they'd count to seven and begin again. If they were able to stay concentrated on the sensations in their belly centers, they didn't need to use counting as a concentration anchor. . . . you begin the process of bringing yourself back to your body, to your belly, to your breath because they -- not the mind medleys -- are here now. And it is only here, only now that you can make a decision to eat or not eat. To occupy your own body or to vacate your arms and your legs while still breathing and go through your days as a walking head. . . . Meditation is a tool to shake yourself awake. A way to discover what you love. A practice to return yourself to your body when the mind medleys threaten to usurp your sanity.

God’s grace is strong enough to hold me steady through every difficulty.

...Maybe it's low-wage work in general that has the effect of making feel like a pariah. When I watch TV over my dinner at night, I see a world in which almost everyone makes $15 an hour or more, and I'm not just thinking of the anchor folks. The sitcoms and dramas are about fashion designers or schoolteachers or lawyers, so it's easy for a fast-food worker or nurse's aide to conclude that she is an anomaly — the only one, or almost the only one, who hasn't been invited to the party. And in a sense she would be right: the poor have disappeared from the culture at large, from its political rhetoric and intellectual endeavors as well as from its daily entertainment. Even religion seems to have little to say about the plight of the poor, if that tent revival was a fair sample. The moneylenders have finally gotten Jesus out of the temple.

… Jerott?’ Two steps away, Jerott stood perfectly still. ‘I hear you.’ ‘You sound like a schoolmaster,’ said Lymond’s voice at his ear, with a trace of its usual lightness. ‘It doesn’t matter. Go on.’ Jerott did not move. ‘What were you going to say?’ ‘Something regrettable. I’ll say it; and then we can both forget it,’ said Lymond. ‘You put up with a lot, you know. More than you should. More than other people can be expected to do.… I find I need a sheet anchor against Gabriel. However much I try—don’t let me turn you against me.

The last time you came to see me there were anchors in your eyes, hardback books in your posture. You were the five star general of sureness, a crisp white tuxedo of a man. I was fiddling with my worn coat pockets, puffing false confidence ghosts in the cold January air. My hands were shitty champagne flutes brimming with cheap merlot. I couldn’t touch you without ruining you, so I didn’t touch you at all. It’s when you’re on the brink of something that you lose your balance. You told me that once. When I can’t bring myself to say what I need to, my heart plays Russian Roulette with my throat. I swear I fired that night, but, nothing. Someday, I’ll show you the bullet I had for you, after time has done the wash. I’ll take it out of the jar of missed opportunities. We’ll hold it up to the light. You’ll roll it around your mouth like a fallen tooth. You won’t forgive me exactly, but we’ll laugh about how small it is. We’ll wonder how such a little thing could ever have meant so much.

He said that I could be anything and do anything, and no one can stop me but me.” I say what he did, “You are your own anchor, Ryke. When you fail, you hurt yourself more than anyone else. Do you want to keep burning or are you going to let yourself rise?

We lay in each other's arms, rescuing each other from drowning. Each of us needed the other more than we were able to say. On this very odd night, the world could have gone down, and we would have been okay.

Saying sorry too much is an anchor on your upward mobility.

Sister Ernestine said something very nasty about how maybe Miss Simon didn’t realize how unpleasant detention at the Mission Academy could be. I assured Sister Ernestine that if she was threatening corporal punishment, I would tell my mother, who was a local news anchor-woman and would be over here with a TV camera so fast, nobody would have time to say so much as a single Hail Mary. Sister Ernestine was pretty quiet after that.

There is an anchor for the soul at the cross of Christ, and it is saying to you today, ‘I love you.’ Yes, there is freedom but I have never lost control. It is saying to you, ‘I will take the worst and use it for eternal good.’ It is saying to you, ‘I am painting on a canvas bigger than you can see or understand,’ and it’s saying to you, ‘I understand.’ That cross is saying, ‘I understand.’ And when this stuff happens, we want to run away from God and be made at God and hate God. But when you look at the cross, you can’t because you realize and you can’t stop with the question we all want to ask, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ Or if you are a believer, ‘God why are you letting this happen to me?’ When you look at the cross, another thought emerges and the thought is, ‘Jesus, this happened to you. What’s happening to me, happened to you. You know about pain. You went through loss. You suffered death. You were mistreated. You were rejected. Everything in my life, good and bad, was all put on you.

Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord; Once it was the feeling, Now it is His Word. Once His gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own; Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone. Once 'twas painful trying, Now 'tis perfect trust; Once a half salvation, Now the uttermost. Once 'twas ceaseless holding, Now He holds me fast; Once 'twas constant drifting, Now my anchor's cast. Once 'twas busy planning, Now 'tis trustful prayer; Once 'twas anxious caring, Now He has the care. Once 'twas what I wanted, Now what Jesus says; Once 'twas constant asking, Now 'tis ceaseless praise. Once it was my working, His it hence shall be; Once I tried to use Him, Now He uses me. Once the power I wanted, Now the Mighty One; Once for self I labored, Now for Him alone. Once I hoped in Jesus, Now I know He's mine; Once my lamps were dying, Now they brightly shine. Once for death I waited, Now His coming hail; And my hopes are anchored, Safe within the veil.

He sees through that, though. I exasperate him, I annoy him, and he scowls at me like he wants to punch my fucking teeth down my throat. And it all goes away when he says thump, thump, thump. Because he hears my heart and it anchors him. How can I say no to that? Who cares if he’s a man or a woman or somewhere in between? It doesn’t matter. All I care about is that he sees me. Like, really sees me. And I see him.

Generosity says a great deal about a person's emotional and spiritual development. When it's hard to give, or it feels like ripping away a part of the self, we are still anchored in our attachments or stories we've created about scarcity. If this applies to you, make friends with the part of you that feels resentful or finds it difficult to give.

There's an elderly woman fussing with the top of the cream pitcher, trying to get it open. Her purse sits on the counter, but as I approach, she picks up the handbag and anchors it to her side, crossing her arm over the strap. “Oh, that pitcher can be tricky,” I say. “Can I help?” She thanks me and smiles when I hand her back the cream. I'm sure she doesn't even realize she moved her purse when I got closer. But I did.

She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" You'd probably kick my butt." You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-" Oh, you so wanted to." Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. You're laughing at me," I complained. I am not!" You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.” When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body. I could've stayed that way forever, except a voice behind us growled, "Well, it's about time!" Suddenly the pavilion was filled with torchlight and campers. Clarisse led the way as the eavesdroppers charged and hoisted us both onto their shoulders. "Oh, come on!" I complained. "Is there no privacy?" "The lovebirds need to cool off!" Clarisse said with glee. "The canoe lake!" Connor Stoll shouted. and they dumped us in the water.

You took my paper smudged with tears and you read it out loud. You told me what worked in the essay, and what didn’t work. You asked me questions about word choice, pacing, and something you called political symbolism. You asked me what I was really trying to say with the essay and suggested I start with saying exactly that. You challenged me to use the rest of the essay to discover ideas and questions I didn’t already know and feel. “A good question anchored in real curiosity is much more important than a cliché or forced metaphor,” you told me.

Financially, I'm certainly not a rich man. I spent half my savings just to get on this ship, and by the time we drop anchor in Callao I'll have less than $2k to my name. At 31 years of age, that's nothing to boast about. But I can't say I'm all that worried.

I have never pictured my own wedding. I do not want to get married. It's a nice idea. Though I think husbands are like tattoos--you should wait until you come across something you want on your body for the rest of your life instead of just wandering into at tattoo parlor on some idle Sunday and saying, "I feel like I should have one of these suckers by now. I'll take a thorny rose and a 'MOM' anchor, please. No, not that one--the big one.

You smell bad," Aron says. “When was the last time you bathed?

Say you want to conquer the world but that you also might be willing to let me do it with you—even if I’m doing it from here. Because you are the wild sea and unkempt storms and constellations in a world where I am the anchor for everyone I know.” He leans forward, as if his heart is stretched as taut as his tone. “And you remind me that I can do impossible things.

The people are Anchors," I say. "People don't make good Anchors, though, Craig. They change. The people here are going to change. The patients are going to leave. You can't rely on them.

And What Good Will Your Vanity Be When The Rapture Comes” says the man with a cart of empty bottles at the corner of church and lincoln while I stare into my phone and I say I know oh I know while trying to find the specific filter that will make the sun’s near-flawless descent look the way I might describe it in a poem and the man says the moment is already right in front of you and I say I know but everyone I love is not here and I mean here like on this street corner with me while I turn the sky a darker shade of red on my phone and I mean here like everyone I love who I can still touch and not pass my fingers through like the wind in a dream but I look up at the man and he is a kaleidoscope of shadows I mean his shadows have shadows and they are small and trailing behind him and I know then that everyone he loves is also not here and the man doesn’t ask but I still say hey man I’ve got nothing I’ve got nothing even though I have plenty to go home to and the sun is still hot even in its endless flirt with submission and the man’s palm has a small river inside I mean he has taken my hand now and here we are tethered and unmoving and the man says what color are you making the sky and I say what I might say in a poem I say all surrender ends in blood and he says what color are you making the sky and I say something bright enough to make people wish they were here and he squints towards the dancing shrapnel of dying light along a rooftop and he says I love things only as they are and I’m sure I did once too but I can’t prove it to anyone these days and he says the end isn’t always about what dies and I know I know or I knew once and now I write about beautiful things like I will never touch a beautiful thing again and the man looks me in the eyes and he points to the blue-orange vault over heaven’s gates and he says the face of everyone you miss is up there and I know I know I can’t see them but I know and he turns my face to the horizon and he says we don’t have much time left and I get that he means the time before the sun is finally through with its daily work or I think I get that but I still can’t stop trembling and I close my eyes and I am sobbing on the corner of church and lincoln and when I open my eyes the sun is plucking everyone who has chosen to love me from the clouds and carrying them into the light-drunk horizon and I am seeing this and I know I am seeing this the girl who kissed me as a boy in the dairy aisle of meijer while our parents shopped and the older boy on the basketball team who taught me how to make a good fist and swing it into the jaw of a bully and the friends who crawled to my porch in the summer of any year I have been alive they were all there I saw their faces and it was like I was given the eyes of a newborn again and once you know what it is to be lonely it is hard to unsee that which serves as a reminder that you were not always empty and I am gasping into the now-dark air and I pull my shirt up to wipe whatever tears are left and I see the man walking in the other direction and I chase him down and tap his arm and I say did you see it did you see it like I did and he turns and leans into the glow of a streetlamp and he is anchored by a single shadow now and he sneers and he says have we met and he scoffs and pushes his cart off into the night and I can hear the glass rattling even as I watch him become small and vanish and I look down at my phone and the sky on the screen is still blood red.

She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" You'd probably kick my butt." You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-" Oh, you so wanted to." Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. You're laughing at me," I complained. I am not!" You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.” When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body.

Frank grabbed a tourist brochure stuck under the napkin dispenser. He began to read it. Piper patted Leo’s arm, like she couldn’t believe he was really here. Nico stood at the edge of the group, eyeing the passing pedestrians as if they might be enemies. Coach Hedge munched on the salt and pepper shakers. Despite the happy reunion, everybody seemed more subdued than usual—like they were picking up on Leo’s mood. Jason had never really considered how important Leo’s sense of humor was to the group. Even when things were super serious, they could always depend on Leo to lighten things up. Now, it felt like the whole team had dropped anchor. “So then Jason harnessed the venti,” Hazel finished. “And here we are.” Leo whistled. “Hot-air horses? Dang, Jason. So basically, you held a bunch of gas together all the way to Malta, and then you let it loose.” Jason frowned. “You know, it doesn’t sound so heroic when you put it that way.” “Yeah, well. I’m an expert on hot air. I’m still wondering, why Malta? I just kind of ended up here on the raft, but was that a random thing, or—” “Maybe because of this.” Frank tapped his brochure. “Says here Malta was where Calypso lived.” A pint of blood drained from Leo’s face. “W-what now?” Frank shrugged. “According to this, her original home was an island called Gozo just north of here. Calypso’s a Greek myth thingie, right?” “Ah, a Greek myth thingie!” Coach Hedge rubbed his hands together. “Maybe we get to fight her! Do we get to fight her? ’Cause I’m ready.” “No,” Leo murmured. “No, we don’t have to fight her, Coach.” Piper frowned. “Leo, what’s wrong? You look—” “Nothing’s wrong!” Leo shot to his feet. “Hey, we should get going. We’ve got work to do!” “But…where did you go?” Hazel asked. “Where did you get those clothes? How—” “Jeez, ladies!” Leo said. “I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need two extra moms!” Piper smiled uncertainly. “Okay, but—” “Ships to fix!” Leo said. “Festus to check! Earth goddesses to punch in the face! What are we waiting for? Leo’s back!” He spread his arms and grinned. He was making a brave attempt, but Jason could see the sadness lingering in his eyes. Something had happened to him…something to do with Calypso.

The door creaked as it began to open. Gray moved like lightning, slapping his left palm against the door and slamming it shut before it had opened more than a fraction of an inch. "Hey!" a woman squawked indignantly from the other side. "This one’s occupied," he said hoarsely, not missing a beat with his plunging hips. "Go somewhere else." Faith couldn’t say anything. Her eyes widened with alarm, but all she could do was look helplessly up at him. Gray’s lips drew back over his teeth and his head dropped forward as he began hammering faster. His face was flushed, satisfaction only a few moments away. Faith shuddered wildly as the coil of tension suddenly released and the fierce, pulsing flood of sensation swept through her. Shivering and pushing hard against him, she buried her face against his chest and bit his shirt to muffle her gasping cries. He kept his hand flat against the door, gripping her bottom with his right hand to anchor himself. He shoved hard into her, twice, three times, again, then bucked violently. His head fell back and a harsh, guttural cry rumbled up from his chest. There was an insistent banging on the door. "What are you doing in there?" the woman said in shrill, grating tones. "That’s the lady’s room! You aren’t supposed to be in there!" Slowly Gray’s head came up. The expression in his eyes was indescribable, as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. He took a deep breath, and exploded. "Goddamn it, woman!" he roared with furious indignation. "Can’t you tell I’m busy?

Apathist is a someone who understands his limitations and the current situation, accepts them, works with what he knows on what he gets, doing his best and being content with that alone irrespective of the ultimate outcome. He will not indulge in exploring other philosophical positions for he will always be anchored by his strong sense of realism unwaveringly committing himself to it. He is not afraid or ashamed of saying that he does not care when the topic delves into theology or supernaturalism for his knowledge roots him to the present moment, as limited as it maybe. This knowledge is however functional. As a consequence, he lives in a state of apathia and ataraxia which are his ultimate goal. To him, what does not affect his present reality need not be dwelled upon.

QUALITIES There is a sun-star rising outside form. I am lost in that other. It's sweet not to look at two worlds, to melt in meaning as honey melts in milk. No one tires of following the soul. I don't recall now what happens on the manifest plane. I stroll with those I have always wanted to know, fresh and graceful as a water lily, or a rose. The body is a boat; I am waves swaying against it. Whenever it anchors somewhere, I smash it loose, or smash it to pieces. If I get lazy and cold, flames come from my ocean and surround me. I laugh inside them like gold purifying itself. A certain melody makes the snake put his head down on a line in the dirt....Here is my head, brother: What next! Weary of form, I come into qualities. Each says, "I am a blue-green sea. Dive into me!" I am Alexander at the outermost extension of empire, turning all my armies in toward the meaning of armies, Shams.

People say that teenagers don’t know how to love like an adult. Part of me believes that, but I’m not an adult and so I have nothing to compare it to. But I do believe it’s probably different. I’m sure there’s more substance in the love between two adults than there is between two teenagers. There’s probably more maturity, more respect, more responsibility. But no matter how different the substance of a love might be at different ages in a person’s life, I know that love still has to weigh the same. You feel that weight on your shoulders and in your stomach and on your heart no matter how old you are. And my feelings for Atlas are very heavy. Every night I cry myself to sleep and I whisper, “Just keep swimming.” But it gets really hard to swim when you feel like you’re anchored in the water.

I stand here (I write standing up) and I say, “No!” No, this book will NOT be lost! This book is necessary. It’s an important work from an important man. I was the number one News Anchor in all of San Diego. My name is Ron Burgundy and what you have in your hands is a very big deal. It’s … my … life. It’s my words. It’s my gift to you.

KAREN: He said that I didn't know what I was saying and that if I didn't go forward with the pregnancy I'd regret it for the rest of my life. He just didn't understand. I wasn't scared of regretting not having a child. But I was scared of regretting having a child. I was scared of bringing an unwanted life into this world. I was scared of living my life, feeling like I'd anchored myself to the wrong dock. I was scared of being pushed to do something I knew I did not want. Graham didn't want to hear it.

Words can be said but it's the attitude that defines their value. Attitude is the anchor of every word we say or everything we do.

I’ve heard parents say all they want is “the best” for their children, but the best is subjective and anchored by how they know and learned the world. The expectations my father had of me had nothing to do with me and all to do with how he understood masculinity, what it meant to be a man, a strong black man. My father welcomed two sons into the world, and one was feminine and needed fixing.

I'm not saying it's simple to find and tell the truth. It takes a great deal of hard work, intellectual honesty, open-mindedness, and a willingness to keep listening to people even when your gut is telling you they're full of it. Then it involves drilling through the layers of one's cultural assumptions and prejudgments, all the way down to the mushy middle of all of us, where I believe there's a basic humanity that tells us what's right and what's wrong. If we as writers apply that code - without the anchors of agenda or ideology - we can lift our prose to something that can be called the truth. It's the very best of what journalism can and should be.

What our phrenological exam says is that we understand how the universe behaved, but that most of the universe is made of stuff about which we are clueless. Our profound areas of ignorance notwithstanding, today, as never before, cosmology has an anchor, because the CMB reveals the portal through which we all walked. It’s a point where interesting physics happened, and where we learned about the universe before and after its light was set free.

She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" You'd probably kick my butt." You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-" Oh, you so wanted to." Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. You're laughing at me," I complained. I am not!" You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.” When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body.

Time passed in brewing tea, the odd remark, cigarettes, then dawn came up. The widening light caught the plumage of quails and partridges...and quickly I dropped this wonderful moment to the bottom of my memory, like a sheet-anchor that one day I could draw up again.You stretch, pace to and fro feeling weightless, and the word 'happiness' seems too thin and limited to describe what has happened. In the end, the bedrock of experience is not made up of the family, or work, of what others say or think of you, but of moments like this when you are exalted by a transcendent power that is more serene than love. Life dispenses them parsimoniously; our feeble hearts could not stand more.

This is an unpopular yet essential truth. All ships that land at the shore of grace weigh anchor from the port of sin. We must start where God starts. We won’t appreciate what grace does until we understand who we are. We are rebels. We are Barabbas. Like him, we deserve to die. Four prison walls, thickened with fear, hurt, and hate, surround us. We are incarcerated by our past, our low-road choices, and our high-minded pride. We have been found guilty. We sit on the floor of the dusty cell, awaiting the final moment. Our executioner’s footsteps echo against stone walls. Head between knees, we don’t look up as he opens the door; we don’t lift our eyes as he begins to speak. We know what he is going to say. “Time to pay for your sins.” But we hear something else. “You’re free to go. They took Jesus instead of you.” The door swings open, the guard barks, “Get out,” and we find ourselves in the light of the morning sun, shackles gone, crimes pardoned, wondering, What just happened? Grace happened.

Taking both of my hands, he pulls me into the tide. Salt water deepens the lavender satin of my gown to almost black. The waves push into it, making it heavier and heavier. “Tell me when,” he says. I nod. When Galen is neck deep and I’m clinging to him to keep my head above water. When my saturated prom dress feels like an anchor grasping at my limbs. When the moon is directly overhead and makes the silver flecks in his eyes shimmer like gems. That’s when I’m ready. “Now,” I breathe. He brushes his lips against mine. Once Twice. So soft it barely feels like anything. But it also feels like everything. He pulls me under. One day, when Galen and I are mated, I’ll be a princess. But I’ll never feel more like a princess than right now, in his arms, dancing on the ocean floor. He pulls my from my trance with his lips against me ear. “Emma.” It’s silly how my own name can send tingles shooting everywhere. “Hmm?” “I’ve been thinking. About us.” He pulls away from me. “I think…I think I need a distraction.” “Um. A distraction? From me?” The words taste vinegary in my mouth. They turn sweet again when Galen throws his head back and laughs. “Emma,” he says, brushing his thumb across my bottom lip. “You are the one thing I’m sure of. Completely. Without thinking twice. But I want to get away from here for a little while. And I want you to come with me. I know you’re set on going to college in the fall. I’m only asking for the summer. Let’s go somewhere. Do something.” I float up until I’m eye level with him. “Let’s. Where will we go?” He shrugs. “I don’t care, as long as it’s away from any ocean.” “So…the desert?” He grimaces. “The mountains?” I laugh. “Deal. We’ll go to the mountains.” “You’re sure?” I pull him by the neck until our noses touch. “Completely. Without thinking twice.

The worst part was that anxiety didn’t just affect the way you thought, or the way you talked, or the way you were around others it affected the way your heart beat. The way you breathed. What you ate. How you slept. Anxiety felt like a grapnel anchor had been pickaxed into your back, one prong in each lung, one through the heart, one through the spine, the weight curving your posture forward, dragging you down to the murky depths of the sea floor. The good news was that you kind of got used to it after a while. Got used to the gasping, brink-of-heart-attack feeling that followed you everywhere. All you had to do was grab one of the prongs that stuck out from the bottom of your sternum, give it a little shake, and say, “Listen, asshole. We’re not dying. We have shit to do.

A brick could be used to control whole populations of people. Just get a good looking person, like a news anchor, to give it out to the masses and say soothing things with a straight face and all will be OK and the system will continue on as centrally planned. 


The thing was,I knew exactly how I had survived.Mary had been on to something with her anchor theory,but she was a little unclear on the logistics. Jack told me he dreamed of me every night, and it was as if I were really there. I was in a dark place,and he helped me see. Now Jack was invading my dreams every night. Not a dream Jack,but the real thing. I know this because during one of the first dreams, he told me what the tattoo on his arm said. Ever Yours. The next morning,I rushed to draw the image from memory, and then I researched it. The symbols were artistic versions of ancient Sanskrit words.They stood for eternity and belonging. Ever Yours, just as Jack had said. There was no way my subconscious could have come up with that explanation on its own. I'd finally found the connection Meredith had longed for,the tether from an anchor that kept a Forfeit alive. They were bound together through their dreams,sustaining each other during sleep. When I was asleep,Jack would come to my bedroom and sit on the end of the mattress and face me.He came to me every night,talking about his uncle's cabin, the Christmas Dance, how my hair hides my eyes,how my hand fits in his, how he loves me.How he'll never leave. I spent the first few dreams saying "I'm sorry" over and over and over, until he threatened to stay away if I didn't stop.

I’m always astonished when readers suggest that I must write my novels while high on pot or (God forbid!) LSD. Apparently, there are people who confuse the powers of imagination with the effects of intoxication. Not one word of my oeuvre, not one, has been written while in an artificially altered state. Unlike many authors, I don’t even drink coffee when I write. No coffee, no cola, no cigarettes. There was a time when I smoked big Havana cigars while writing, not for the nicotine (I didn’t inhale) but as an anchor, something to hold on to, I told myself, to keep from falling over the edge of the earth. Eventually, I began to wonder what it would be like to take that fall. So one day I threw out the cigars and just let go. Falling, I must say, has been exhilarating -- though I may change my mind when I hit bottom.

She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" "You'd probably kick my butt." "You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" "Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-" "Oh, you so wanted to." "Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. "Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. "You're laughing at me," I complained. "I am not!" "You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.” When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body.

She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" "You'd probably kick my butt." "You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" "Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-" "Oh, you so wanted to." "Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. "Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. "You're laughing at me," I complained. "I am not!" "You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.” When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body. ― Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian

She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" "You'd probably kick my butt." "You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" "Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-" "Oh, you so wanted to." "Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. "Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. "You're laughing at me," I complained. "I am not!" "You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.” When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body. ― Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian

One of my greatest fears is family decline.There’s an old Chinese saying that “prosperity can never last for three generations.” I’ll bet that if someone with empirical skills conducted a longitudinal survey about intergenerational performance, they’d find a remarkably common pattern among Chinese immigrants fortunate enough to have come to the United States as graduate students or skilled workers over the last fifty years. The pattern would go something like this: • The immigrant generation (like my parents) is the hardest-working. Many will have started off in the United States almost penniless, but they will work nonstop until they become successful engineers, scientists, doctors, academics, or businesspeople. As parents, they will be extremely strict and rabidly thrifty. (“Don’t throw out those leftovers! Why are you using so much dishwasher liquid?You don’t need a beauty salon—I can cut your hair even nicer.”) They will invest in real estate. They will not drink much. Everything they do and earn will go toward their children’s education and future. • The next generation (mine), the first to be born in America, will typically be high-achieving. They will usually play the piano and/or violin.They will attend an Ivy League or Top Ten university. They will tend to be professionals—lawyers, doctors, bankers, television anchors—and surpass their parents in income, but that’s partly because they started off with more money and because their parents invested so much in them. They will be less frugal than their parents. They will enjoy cocktails. If they are female, they will often marry a white person. Whether male or female, they will not be as strict with their children as their parents were with them. • The next generation (Sophia and Lulu’s) is the one I spend nights lying awake worrying about. Because of the hard work of their parents and grandparents, this generation will be born into the great comforts of the upper middle class. Even as children they will own many hardcover books (an almost criminal luxury from the point of view of immigrant parents). They will have wealthy friends who get paid for B-pluses.They may or may not attend private schools, but in either case they will expect expensive, brand-name clothes. Finally and most problematically, they will feel that they have individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and therefore be much more likely to disobey their parents and ignore career advice. In short, all factors point to this generation

I appreciate it. It’s the right thing to do.”   “You make it sound as if I’m doing it for you,” Aron says, amused. He studies my face for a moment longer and then releases me.   “Well, aren’t you?” I retort back. “Doing this for me? Unless you were planning on doing it before I said anything out of the goodness of your own heart?”   “No,” he admits with a chuckle. “It did not occur to me.”   “That’s why I’m here,” I tell him sassily, turning back toward the cottage.   “So you can be my heart?” he asks as I start to walk away.   My own heart skips a beat. I smile as I hold my sleeve to my nose and head for the cottage.

Hey.’ Annabeth slid next to me on the bench. ‘Happy birthday.’ She was holding a huge misshapen cupcake with blue icing. I stared at her. ‘What?’ ‘It’s August eighteenth,’ she said. ‘Your birthday, right?’ I was stunned. It hadn’t even occurred to me, but she was right. I had turned sixteen this morning – the same morning I’d made the choice to give Luke the knife. The prophecy had come true right on schedule, and I hadn’t even thought about the fact that it was my birthday. ‘Make a wish,’ she said. ‘Did you bake this yourself?’ I asked. ‘Tyson helped.’ ‘That explains why it looks like a chocolate brick,’ I said. ‘With extra-blue cement.’ Annabeth laughed. I thought for a second then blew out the candle. We cut it in half and shared, eating with our fingers. Annabeth sat next to me and we watched the ocean. Crickets and monsters were making noise in the woods, but otherwise it was quiet. ‘You saved the world,’ she said. ‘We saved the world.’ ‘And Rachel is the new Oracle, which means she won’t be dating anybody.’ ‘You don’t sound disappointed,’ I noticed. Annabeth shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t care.’ ‘Uh-huh.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?’ ‘You’d probably kick my butt.’ ‘You know I’d kick your butt.’ I brushed the cake off my hands. ‘When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable … Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal.’ Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. ‘Yeah?’ ‘Then up on Olympus,’ I said, ‘when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking –’ ‘Oh, you so wanted to.’ ‘Well, maybe a little. But I didn’t, because I thought – I didn’t want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking …’ My throat felt really dry. ‘Anyone in particular?’ Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. ‘You’re laughing at me,’ I complained. ‘I am not!’ ‘You are so not making this easy.’ Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. ‘I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.’ When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body.

This idea (Taqwa)can be effectively conveyed by the term "conscience," if the object of conscience transcends it. This is why it is proper to say that "conscience" is truly as central to Islam as love is to Christianity when one speaks of the human response to the ultimate reality—which, therefore, is conceived in Islam as merciful justice rather than fatherhood. Taqwā, then, in the context of our argument, means to be squarely anchored within the moral tensions, the "limits of God," and not to "transgress" or violate the balance of those tensions or limits. Human conduct then becomes endowed with that quality which renders it "service to God [‘ibāda].

Sometimes, after they'd done the shopping, they would stop, each with his or her cart, in front of a bookstore that carried the paperback edition of his book. His wife would point to it and say: you're still there. Invariably, he would nod and then they would continue browsing the mall stores. Did he know her or didn't he? He knew her, of course he did, it was just that sometimes reality, the same little reality that served to anchor reality, seemed to fade around the edges, as if the passage of time had a porous effect on things, and blurred and made more insubstantial what was itself already, by its very nature, insubstantial and satisfactory and real.

The way of life is towards fulfillment, however, wherever it may lead. To restore a human being to the current of life means not only to impart self-confidence but also an abiding faith in the processes of life. A man who has confidence in himself must have confidence in others, confidence in the fitness and Tightness of the universe. When a man is thus anchored he ceases to worry about the fitness of things, about the behavior of his fellow-men, about right and wrong and justice and injustice. If his roots are in the current of life he will float on the surface like a lotus and he will blossom and give forth fruit. He will draw his nourishment from above and below; he will send his roots down deeper and deeper, fearing neither the depths nor the heights. The life that’s is in him will manifest itself in growth, and growth is an endless eternal process. He will not be afraid of withering, because decay and death are part of growth. As a seed he began and as a seed he will return. Beginnings and endings are only partial steps in the eternal process. The process is everything … the way … the Tao. The way of life! A grand expression. Like saying Truth. There is nothing beyond it … it is all. And so the analyst says Adapt yourself! He does not mean, as some wish to think—adapt yourself to this rotten state of affairs! He means: adapt yourself to life! Become an adept! That is the highest adjustment—to make oneself an adept.

She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" "You'd probably kick my butt." "You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" "Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-" "Oh, you so wanted to." "Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. "Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. "You're laughing at me," I complained. "I am not!" "You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.” When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body.” ― Rick Riordan, The Last Olympian

Just as a child cries out in the dark to make a sign of its own persona, which, in its infinite fear, it senses is insufficient, so men, who in the solitude of their empty spirit feel insufficient, inadequately affirm themselves, feigning the sign of the persona they do not have, “knowledge,” as if it were already in their hands. They no longer hear the voice of things telling them, “You are,” and amidst the obscurity they do not have the courage to endure, but each seeks his companion’s hand and says, “I am, you are, we are,” so that the other might act the mirror and tell him,“you are, I am, we are”; and together they repeat, “we are, we are, because we know, because we can tell each other the words of knowledge, of free and absolute consciousness.” Thus do they stupefy one another.

I don't want you to see me naked," I say, my bottom lip trembling. "Not now, not like this." "Keep your undergarments on," he says, lifting my dress over my head. "Whoa. God, you're gorgeous." He picks me up and gingerly places me in the bathtub. Instantly, my teeth start chattering. "I'm getting in with you," he says, and I jolt. "I'll keep my boxers on. It'll be like we're in bathing suits. On a holiday at a beach." He whips his socks and his jeans off, and then his T-shirt, his body sheer and cut perfection. Those abs---an eight-pack, or, as they say in France, le bar du chocolat. Those legs. The tattoo of two tigers anchored on his hairless and sculpted chest. And I'm too sick, too delirious, to explore every delicious detail. Charles lifts my back and slides behind me. He wraps his arms around my waist and I sink into his embrace, snuggling into the warmth of his body.

—and the anchor asked if my old professor had anything he wanted to say to the millions of people he had touched. Although he did not mean it this way, I couldn’t help but think of a condemned man being asked for his final words. “Be compassionate,” Morrie whispered. “And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place.” He took a breath, then added his mantra: “Love each other or die.

Let it hurt. Pick those flowers on your lungs and let it wither. Let your heart stop beating for someone who doesn’t deserves it. Let yourself be burn to your worst degree. Fall right down on your knees and scream the damn pain inside you. You’ve let the love to do its work, let it hurt. That’s part of its work. Let it bleed. Let the tears roll down your face. For once, allow yourself to be an artist. Let your mouth bleed with the unspoken feelings you’ve been wanting to say and be the author of your own story. Let the abstract in you be seen by the people who are doubting you. Do not cut your wrist, blood and scar might ruin your skin. I know, your heart was cut by the words they’ve stabbed on you, let it bleed with poetry and speak for yourself. Let it heal. For how many times people could’ve told you that time heals. Let me now tell you that it’s you, and you only, who could heal yourself. You could pick your broken pieces and build a better and stronger you. Let it heal, not for anyone. Let it heal for yourself. Even for once, let it be for yourself. And let it go. Snap out of the darkness you’re in right now. Let go of the pain that’s stopping you from moving forward. Let the toxic people go, you could’ve been better without them. Stop holding on to the anchor. Stop drowning yourself from sadness. You could always be happy. Just learn to let go of the things that keep you away from that possibility, just let go.

But young children, whose prefrontal cortexes have barely begun to ripen, can’t conceive of a future, which means they spend their lives in the permanent present, a forever feeling of right now. At times, this is a desirable state of consciousness; indeed, for meditators, it’s the ultimate aspiration. But living in the permanent present is not a practical parenting strategy. “Everybody would like to be in the present,” says Daniel Gilbert, a social psychologist at Harvard and author of the 2006 best-seller Stumbling on Happiness. “Certainly it’s true that there is an important role for being present in our lives. All the data say that. My own research says that.” The difference is that children, by definition, only live in the present, which means that you, as a parent, don’t get much of a chance. “Everyone is moving at the same speed toward the future,” he says. “But your children are moving at that same speed with their eyes closed. So you’re the ones who’ve got to steer.” He thinks about this for a moment. “You know, back in the early seventies, I hung out with a lot of people who wanted to live in the present. And it meant that no one paid the rent.” In effect, parents and small children have two completely different temporal outlooks. Parents can project into the future; their young children, anchored in the present, have a much harder time of it. This difference can be a formula for heartbreak for a small child.

If you asked me, I’d tell you I’m a fundamentally happy person, someone whose heart is capable of big leaps in the air. Which is a weird thing to say, actually, considering how much of my life I’ve spent depressed. It’s not just that so many shitty things have happened to me, it’s that for the longest time I didn’t know how to make my life better. Finally, as if I were someone discovering a secret door in a secret garden, the future revealed itself to me. But now that I’m here, I still feel the weight of the past. Sometimes it’s like my legs have been bound with anchor chains, and I’ve been thrown off a ship into the cruel ocean, and all I can do is sink. I guess there are different kinds of depression. There’s the kind that just crushes you for no reason, what Mom calls the clinical kind. But this isn’t that. This is the other kind, the kind that comes because the things that have happened to you are actually just unbelievably, heartbreakingly sad.

They are more inward looking by nature, and for them the outward movement into form is minimal. They would rather return home than go out. They have no desire to get strongly involved in or change the world. If they have any ambitions, they usually don’t go beyond finding something to do that gives them a degree of independence. Some of them find it hard to fit into this world. Some are lucky enough to find a protective niche where they can lead a relatively sheltered life, a job that provides them with a regular income or a small business of their own. Some may feel drawn toward living in a spiritual community or monastery. Others may become dropouts and live on the margins of a society they feel they have little in common with. Some turn to drugs because they find living in this world too painful. Others eventually become healers or spiritual teachers, that is to say, teachers of Being. In past ages, they would probably have been called contemplatives. There is no place for them, it seems, in our contemporary civilization. On the arising new earth, however, their role is just as vital as that of the creators, the doers, the reformers. Their function is to anchor the frequency of the new consciousness on this planet. I call them the frequency-holders. They are here to generate consciousness through the activities of daily life, through their interactions with others as well as through “just being.” In this way, they endow the seemingly insignificant with profound meaning. Their task is to bring spacious stillness into this world by being absolutely present in whatever they do. There is consciousness and therefore quality in what they do, even the simplest task. Their purpose is to do everything in a sacred manner. As each human being is an integral part of the collective human consciousness, they affect the world much more deeply than is visible on the surface of their lives.

  1. Do not be proud of any excellence that is not your own. If a horse should be proud and say, ‘I am handsome’, it would be supportable.   2. But when you are proud and say, ‘I have a handsome horse’, know that you are proud of something that belongs not to you but to the horse.   3. What, then, is your own? Only your reaction to the appearances of things.   4. Thus, when you react to how things appear in true accordance with their nature, you will be proud with reason; for you will take pride in some good of your own.   5. Consider when, on a voyage, your ship is anchored; if you go on shore to get water you may amuse yourself along the way with picking up a shellfish.   6. However, your attention must also be towards the ship, waiting for the captain to call you on board;   7. For when he does so, you must immediately leave all these things, otherwise you will miss the ship as it sails.   8. So it is with life. Whatever you find while, so to say, wandering on the beach, is fine.   9. But if necessity calls, you must run to the ship, leaving these things, and regarding none of them. 10. For there is a proper time for all things, including a proper time to grieve, and to prepare to die. 11. The question to be asked at the end of each day is, ‘How long will you delay to be wise?

■    All negotiations are defined by a network of subterranean desires and needs. Don’t let yourself be fooled by the surface. Once you know that the Haitian kidnappers just want party money, you will be miles better prepared.         ■    Splitting the difference is wearing one black and one brown shoe, so don’t compromise. Meeting halfway often leads to bad deals for both sides.         ■    Approaching deadlines entice people to rush the negotiating process and do impulsive things that are against their best interests.         ■    The F-word—“Fair”—is an emotional term people usually exploit to put the other side on the defensive and gain concessions. When your counterpart drops the F-bomb, don’t get suckered into a concession. Instead, ask them to explain how you’re mistreating them.         ■    You can bend your counterpart’s reality by anchoring his starting point. Before you make an offer, emotionally anchor them by saying how bad it will be. When you get to numbers, set an extreme anchor to make your “real” offer seem reasonable, or use a range to seem less aggressive. The real value of anything depends on what vantage point you’re looking at it from.         ■    People will take more risks to avoid a loss than to realize a gain. Make sure your counterpart sees that there is something to lose by inaction.

After All This" After all this love, after the birds rip like scissors through the morning sky, after we leave, when the empty bed appears like a collapsed galaxy, or the wake of disturbed air behind a plane, after that, as the wind turns to stone, as the leaves shriek, you are still breathing inside my own breath. The lighthouse on the far point still sweeps away the darkness with the brush of an arm. The tides inside your heart still pull me towards you. After all this, what are these words but mollusk shells a child plays with? What could say more than the eloquence of last night’s constellations? or the storm anchored by its own flashes behind the far mountains? I remember the way your body wavers under my touch like the northern lights. After all this, I want the certainty of hidden roots spreading in all directions from their tree. I want to hear again the sky tangled in your voice. Some nights I can hear the footsteps of the stars. How can these words ever reveal the secret that waits in their sleeping light? The words that walk through my mind say only what has already passed. Beyond, the swallows are still knitting the wind. After a while, the smokebush will turn to fire. After a while, the thin moon will grow like a tear in a curtain. Under it, a small boy kicks a ball against the wall of a burned out house. He is too young to remember the war. He hardly knows the emptiness that kindles around him. He can speak the language of early birds outside our window. Someday he will know this kind of love that changes the color of the sky, and frees the earth from its moorings. Sometimes I kiss your eyes to see beyond what I can imagine. Sometimes I think I can speak the language of unborn stars. I think the whole earth breathes with you. After all this, these words are all I have to say what is impossible to think, what shy dreams hide in the rafters of my heart, because these words are only a form of touch, only tell you I have no life that isn’t yours, and no death you couldn’t turn into a life.

The negativity bias—the tendency to give more weight to negative information and experiences than positive ones—sure isn’t helping matters. Then there’s anchoring: the predilection for relying too heavily on one piece of information when making decisions. “When people believe the world’s falling apart,” says Kahneman, “it’s often an anchoring problem. At the end of the nineteenth century, London was becoming uninhabitable because of the accumulation of horse manure. People were absolutely panicked. Because of anchoring, they couldn’t imagine any other possible solutions. No one had any idea the car was coming and soon they’d be worrying about dirty skies, not dirty streets.

At this point doubts started to creep in. One was always reading of young men running away to sea, or people shipping as deck-hands and working their passages. There seemed to be no special qualifications needed. No ropes had to be spliced. No rigging had to be climbed. All you did was paint the anchor, chip rust off the deck plating and say 'aye, aye, sir', when addressed by an officer. It was a tough life and you met tough men. There were weevils in the ship's biscuits and you had little to eat but skilly. Quarrels were settled with bare fists and you went about naked to the waist. But one of the crew always had a concertina and there were sing-songs when the day's work was done. In after life you wrote a book about it.

We say that we mourn the dead, and there is some truth in that. We lament the flower frozen in full bloom, cut off at the moment of promise, or another long wilted, whose slow fading and drawn-out, painful diminishment cast a shadow over a vibrant and glorious past. And yet. Once the eyes are closed and the heart is stilled, we come to understand that the worst of the pain has passed. For them. The dead have no more use for pain, for memory or regret. Regret is for the living. And so when we stand at the bedside, the graveside, the casket, our mourning is less for the beloved departed than it is for ourselves. We mourn the missed opportunity, the word unspoken or spoken in haste, the hole in our lives and the unsettling of our souls, our own disappointments and the loss of innocence. We gaze upon the stillness that is unending and feel our self-importance crack and the myth of our immortality smash. We stare upon the face of death to see ourselves more clearly, to satisfy our curiosity, to make peace with the inescapable. We hold our breath, try to imagine what it would be like never to take another and what the departed know now that we don’t. We try to conjure what the life we have left would look like if such knowledge were ours. We try to imagine ourselves kind and expansive and giving, balanced and patient, more honest, more thankful, more peaceful, content with what we have, mindless of what we have not. We imagine ourselves happy. For a moment, we believe we can be. And then, because we can’t help ourselves, we breathe and, breathing, are reminded of the many other things we cannot help. The faith of a moment fades and hope is replaced by the intimate knowledge of our imperfections. Lonely, weeping, we stand with our feet anchored to the ground, watching our better angels fly above us and beyond us to time out of mind, and we mourn.

But without Emily, Greg would feel—paradoxically for such a social creature—alone. Before they met, most of Greg’s girlfriends were extroverts. He says he enjoyed those relationships, but never got to know his girlfriends well, because they were always “plotting how to be with groups of people.” He speaks of Emily with a kind of awe, as if she has access to a deeper state of being. He also describes her as “the anchor” around which his world revolves. Emily, for her part, treasures Greg’s ebullient nature; he makes her feel happy and alive. She has always been attracted to extroverts, who she says “do all the work of making conversation. For them, it’s not work at all.” The trouble is that for most of the five years they’ve been together, Greg and Emily have been having one version or another of the same fight. Greg, a music promoter with a large circle of friends, wants to host dinner parties every Friday—casual, animated get-togethers with heaping bowls of pasta and flowing bottles of wine. He’s been giving Friday-night dinners since he was a senior in college, and they’ve become a highlight of his week and a treasured piece of his identity. Emily has come to dread these weekly events. A hardworking staff attorney for an art museum and a very private person, the last thing she wants to do when she gets home from work is entertain. Her idea of a perfect start to the weekend is a quiet evening at the movies, just her and Greg. It seems an irreconcilable difference: Greg wants fifty-two dinner parties a year, Emily wants zero. Greg says that Emily should make more of an effort. He accuses her of being antisocial. “I am social,” she says. “I love you, I love my family, I love my close friends. I just don’t love dinner parties. People don’t really relate at those parties—they just socialize. You’re lucky because I devote all my energy to you. You spread yours around to everyone.” But Emily soon backs off, partly because she hates fighting, but also because she doubts herself. Maybe I am antisocial, she

She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" You'd probably kick my butt." You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-" Oh, you so wanted to." Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. You're laughing at me," I complained. I am not!" You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.

Life is a hospital, in which every patient is possessed by the desire to change his bed. This one would prefer to suffer in front of the stove, and that one believes he would get well if he were placed by the window. It seems to me that I should always be happier elsewhere than where I happen to be, and this question of moving is one that I am continually talking over with my soul. "Tell me, my soul, poor chilled soul, what do you say to living in Lisbon? It must be very warm there, and you would bask merrily, like a lizard. It is by the sea; they say that it is built of marble, and that the people have such a horror of vegetation that they uproot all the trees. There is a landscape that would suit you -- made out of light and minerals, with water to reflect them." My soul does not answer. "Since you love tranquillity, and the sight of moving things, will you come and live in Holland, that heavenly land? Perhaps you could be happy in that country, for you have often admired pictures of Dutch life. What do you say to Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts, and ships anchored at the doors of houses?" My soul remains silent. Perhaps Batavia seems more attractive to you? There we would find the intellect of Europe married to the beauty of the tropics. Not a word. Can my soul be dead? "Have you sunk into so deep a stupor that only your own torment gives you pleasure? If that be so, let us flee to those lands constituted in the likeness of Death. I know just the place for us, poor soul! We will leave for Torneo. Or let us go even farther, to the last limits of the Baltic; and if possible, still farther from life. Let us go to the Pole. There the sun obliquely grazes the earth, and the slow alternations of light and obscurity make variety impossible, and increase that monotony which is almost death. There we shall be able to take baths of darkness, and for our diversion, from time to time the Aurora Borealis shall scatter its rosy sheaves before us, like reflections of the fireworks of Hell!" At last my soul bursts into speech, and wisely cries to me: "Anywhere, anywhere, as long as it be out of this world!

Yawning, I crawl into bed as Aron sharpens his knives, and I'm just about to drift off to sleep when the lumpy hay mattress sinks in on one side, and then a big body crawls into bed next to me.   "For real?" I groan as Aron promptly shoves his way onto the narrow mattress and proceeds to take up most of the bed. "You don't even have to sleep."   “You know this is how I protect you best.”   "What's going to attack me while I sleep?" I ask, yawning.   "A wizard could send poisonous snakes to rise up from the floor, creep into bed and kill you."   Jesus. I'm awake now. I roll onto my back and stare up at the ceiling as Aron shifts next to me, trying to get comfortable. "So undead, snakes from the floor, gods wandering the earth…anything else I should know about in this world of yours so I can never sleep again? Dragons? Killer mermen?"   "Don't be foolish. Mermen are long dead."   "You didn't say dragons were."   "Do not go looking for dragons, then," he says, and I don't know if he's joking or not.   "I'm not a big fan of this whole place, just so you know."   "Neither am I. 

Almost Out Of The Sky" Almost out of the sky, half of the moon anchors between two mountains. Turning, wandering night, the digger of eyes. Let’s see how many stars are smashed in the pool. It makes a cross of mourning between my eyes, and runs away. Forge of blue metals, nights of stilled combats, my heart revolves like a crazy wheel. Girl who have come from so far, been brought from so far, sometimes your glance flashes out under the sky. Rumbling, storm, cyclone of fury, you cross above my heart without stopping. Wind from the tombs carries off, wrecks, scatters your sleepy root. The big trees on the other side of her, unprooted. But you, cloudless girl, question of smoke, corn tassel. You were what the wind was making with illuminated leaves. Behind the nocturnal mountains, white lily of conflagration, ah, I can say nothing! You were made of everything. Longing that sliced my breast into pieces, it is time to take another road, on which she does not smile. Storm that buries the bells, muddy swirl of torments, why touch her now, why make her sad. Oh to follow the road that leads away from everything, without anguish, death, winter waiting along it with their eyes open through the dew

The first stage is claiming the intention: “I am Word through this intention to do whatever you wish. Word I am Word,” “I am Word through this intention to do whatever I want. Word I am Word,” and then you fill in the blank. “I am Word through my desire to know myself more.” “I am Word through my intention to believe in my abilities.” “I am Word through my intention to create the perfect job.” “Word I am Word through these intentions. Word I am Word,” is how we present it. Now once this is stated, the energy moves and we go forward in consciousness and we create with the vibration. So the first stage is the intention. The next stage is acclimation to the frequency. Once you have stated an intention and it goes forth, then you have to acclimate to it. And that means to respect it and to believe it and to honor it. You cannot set out an intention to clean your apartment and then throw a bottle of garbage on the floor and sit back and expect it to be cleaned. You have to take the actions that correspond to the intentions. But that doesn’t mean blind action. It simply means staying conscious and present as your intention is set forth: “If I move as I am moved, I will then make the choices that are in honor of the intention I have created and set forward.” That is different than acting blindly; it is different than running around acting as if you don’t truly believe it’s so. But when we say acclimate, we simply mean you have set the intention and now you have to let it settle in, and honor it, and believe it, and trust that it is coming into fruition. That is part two. The third part is reception: “I am in my reception of my intentions, reaping the benefits of that which I have called forth into being. Word I am Word through this intention. Word I am Word.” Here we have just given you a hint that you can actually call forth your intention and then set the intention to receive the benefits of it as well, which will actually anchor it in more fully in vibration if you wish to do it this way. But you can also just trust in faith, in cosmic truth, that when you set out an intention in light it is returned to the sender in fullness. Prayer is a form of intention; however, there is a difference between begging for something and stating your own worth as the receiver of an answered prayer. However, in order to do this fully you have to believe you are supported in prayer, or in your intention, or whichever way you want to describe this process for yourself given your history and your vocabulary. If you believe that there is a God who is saying no all the time, that will be your experience.

It wasn’t until she had almost reached its lights that she heard another rider in the hills behind her. Ice slid down Kestrel’s spine. Fear, that the rider was Arin. Fear, at her sudden hope that it was. She pulled Javelin to a stop and swung to the ground. Better to go on foot through the narrow streets to the harbor. Stealth was more important now than speed. Beating hooves echoed in the hills. Closer. She hugged Javelin hard around the neck, then pushed him away while she still could bear to do it. She slapped his rump in an order to head home. Whether he’d go to her villa or Arin’s, she couldn’t say. But he left, and might draw the other rider after him if she was indeed being pursued. She slipped into the city shadows. And it was magic. It was as if the Herrani gods had turned on their own people. No one noticed Kestrel skulking along walls or heard her cracking the thin ice of a puddle. No late-night wanderer looked in her face and saw a Valorian. No one saw the general’s daughter. Kestrel made it to the harbor, down to the docks. Where Arin waited. His breath heaved white clouds into the air. His hair was black with sweat. It hadn’t mattered that Kestrel had been ahead of him on the horse path. Arin had been able to run openly through the city while she had crept through alleys. Their eyes met, and Kestrel felt utterly defenseless. But she had a weapon. He didn’t, not that she could see. Her hand instinctively fell to her knife’s jagged edge. Arin saw. Kestrel wasn’t sure what came first: his quick hurt, so plain and sharp, or her certainty--equally plain, equally sharp--that she could never draw a weapon on him. He straightened from his runner’s crouch. His expression changed. Until it did, Kestrel hadn’t perceived the desperate set of his mouth. She hadn’t recognized the wordless plea until it was gone, and his face aged with something sad. Resigned. Arin glanced away. When he looked back it was as if Kestrel were part of the pier beneath her feet. A sail stitched to a ship. A black current of water. As if she were not there at all. He turned away, walked into the illuminated house of the new Herrani harbormaster, and shut the door behind him. For a moment Kestrel couldn’t move. Then she ran for a fishing boat docked far enough from its fellows that she might cast off from shore unnoticed by an sailors on the other vessels. She leaped onto the deck and took rapid stock of the boat. The tiny cabin was bare of supplies. As she lifted the anchor and uncoiled the rope tethering the boat to its dock, she knew, even if she couldn’t see, that Arin was talking with the harbormaster, distracting him while Kestrel prepared to set sail.

On the second Sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky. Her skin was blue, her blood was red. She broke over an iron gate, crimping it on impact, and there she hung, impossibly arched, graceful as a temple dancer swooning on a lover’s arm. One slick finial anchored her in place. Its point, protruding from her sternum, glittered like a brooch. She fluttered briefly as her ghost shook loose, and torch ginger buds rained out of her long hair. Later, they would say these had been hummingbird hearts and not blossoms at all. They would say she hadn’t shed blood but wept it. That she was lewd, tonguing her teeth at them, upside down and dying, that she vomited a serpent that turned to smoke when it hit the ground. They would say a flock of moths came, frantic, and tried to lift her away. That was true. Only that. They hadn’t a prayer, though. The moths were no bigger than the startled mouths of children, and even dozens together could only pluck at the strands of her darkening hair until their wings sagged, sodden with her blood. They were purled away with the blossoms as a grit-choked gust came blasting down the street. The earth heaved underfoot. The sky spun on its axis. A queer brilliance lanced through billowing smoke, and the people of Weep had to squint against it. Blowing grit and hot light and the stink of saltpeter. There had been an explosion. They might have died, all and easily, but only this girl had, shaken from some pocket of the sky. Her feet were bare, her mouth stained damson. Her pockets were all full of plums. She was young and lovely and surprised and dead. She was also blue. Blue as opals, pale blue. Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring—not summer—sky.

You mean you’re not going to kiss my wrist again,” I said. “But that’s all right, because I am going to kiss you.” And I did. If I could keep a single moment for all time, that would be the one. I became the very air; I was full of stars. I was the soaring spaces between the spires of the cathedral, the solemn breath of chimneys, a whispered prayer upon the winter wind. I was silence, and I was music, one clear transcendent chord rising toward Heaven. I believed, then, that I would have risen bodily into the sky but for the anchor of his hand in my hair and his round soft perfect mouth. No Heaven but this! I thought, and I knew that it was true to a standard even St. Clare could not have argued. Then it was done, and he was holding both my hands between his and saying, “In some ballad or Porphyrian romance, we would run off together.” I looked quickly at his face, trying to discern whether he was proposing we do just that. The resolve written in his eyes said no, but I could see exactly where I would have to push, and how hard, to break that resolve. It would be shockingly easy, but I found I did not wish it. My Kiggs could not behave so shabbily and still remain my Kiggs. Some other part of him would break, along with his resolve, and I did not see a way to make it whole again. The jagged edge of it would stab at him all his life. If we were to go forward from here, we would proceed not rashly, not thoughtlessly, but Kiggs-and-Phina fashion. That was the only way it could work. “I think I’ve heard that ballad,” I said. “It’s beautiful but it ends sadly.” He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine. “Is it less sad that I’m going to ask you not to kiss me again?” “Yes. Because it’s just for now. The day will come.” “I want to believe that.” “Believe it.” He took a shaky breath. “I’ve got to go.” “I know.” I let him go inside first; my presence was not appropriate for tonight’s ritual. I leaned against the parapet, watching my breath puff gray against the blackening sky as if I were a dragon whispering smoke into the wind. The conceit made me smile, and then an idea caught me. Cautiously, avoiding ice, I hauled myself up onto the parapet. It had a wide balustrade, adequate for sitting, but I did not intend merely to sit. With comical slowness, like Comonot attempting stealth, I drew my feet up onto the railing. I removed my shoes, wanting to feel the stone beneath my feet.

On the second Sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky. Her skin was blue, her blood was red. She broke over an iron gate, crimping it on impact, and there she hung, impossibly arched, graceful as a temple dancer swooning on a lover’s arm. One slick finial anchored her in place. Its point, protruding from her sternum, glittered like a brooch. She fluttered briefly as her ghost shook loose, and torch ginger buds rained out of her long hair. Later, they would say these had been hummingbird hearts and not blossoms at all. They would say she hadn’t shed blood but wept it. That she was lewd, tonguing her teeth at them, upside down and dying, that she vomited a serpent that turned to smoke when it hit the ground. They would say a flock of moths came, frantic, and tried to lift her away. That was true. Only that. They hadn’t a prayer, though. The moths were no bigger than the startled mouths of children, and even dozens together could only pluck at the strands of her darkening hair until their wings sagged, sodden with her blood. They were purled away with the blossoms as a grit-choked gust came blasting down the street. The earth heaved underfoot. The sky spun on its axis. A queer brilliance lanced through billowing smoke, and the people of Weep had to squint against it. Blowing grit and hot light and the stink of saltpeter. There had been an explosion. They might have died, all and easily, but only this girl had, shaken from some pocket of the sky. Her feet were bare, her mouth stained damson. Her pockets were all full of plums. She was young and lovely and surprised and dead. She was also blue. Blue as opals, pale blue. Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring—not summer—sky. Someone screamed. The scream drew others. The others screamed, too, not because a girl was dead, but because the girl was blue, and this meant something in the city of Weep. Even after the sky stopped reeling, and the earth settled, and the last fume spluttered from the blast site and dispersed, the screams went on, feeding themselves from voice to voice, a virus of the air. The blue girl’s ghost gathered itself and perched, bereft, upon the spearpoint-tip of the projecting finial, just an inch above her own still chest. Gasping in shock, she tilted back her invisible head and gazed, mournfully, up. The screams went on and on. And across the city, atop a monolithic wedge of seamless, mirror-smooth metal, a statue stirred, as though awakened by the tumult, and slowly lifted its great horned head.