Aura Of A Person Quotes

Auras tell a lot, Rose, and I'm very good at reading them. Much better than you friends probably are. A spirit dream wraps you own aura in gold, which is how I knew. Your personal aura is unique to you, though it fluctuates with your feelings and soul. When people are in love, it shows. Their auras shine. When you were dreaming, yours was bright. The colors were bright...but not what expected from a boyfriend. Of course, not every relationship is the same. People are at different stages. I would've brushed it off, except..." "Except what?" "Except, when you're with Dimitri, your aura's like the sun. So is his.

Aura," he whispered, "I wish I could wipe away just one of your tears. Then I'd feel like a person again. Like I'm something more than a bunch of light.

Charisma is the numinous aura around a narcissistic personality. It flows outward from a simplicity or unity of being and a composure and controlled vitality. There is gracious accommodation, yet commanding impersonality. Charisma is the radiance produced by the interaction of male and female elements in a gifted personality. The charismatic woman has a masculine force and severity. The charismatic man has an entrancing female beauty. Both are hot and cold, glowing with presexual self love.

Jacob was simply a perpetually happy person, and he carried this happiness with him like an aura, sharing it with whoever was near him. Lika an earthbound sun, whenever someone was within his gravitational pull, Jacob warmed them. It was natural, a part of who he was.

What accounts for the appeal of energy talk? Perhaps trying to prove how much you know about the spiritual nature of life. Ironically, a person who’s really in Enlightenment has absolutely nothing to prove.

He sought freedom in leaving; I found mine in staying. Ultimately, what tore us apart brought me together.

[Raymond Roussel] said that after his first book he expected that the next morning there would be a kind of aura around his person and that everyone in the street would be able to see that he had written a book. This is the obscure desire harboured by everyone who writes. It is true that the first text one writes is neither written for others, nor because one is what one is: one writes to become other than what one is. One tries to modify one's way of being through the act of writing.

Anyone can learn the skill set of Emotional Intelligence, but that won't solve an empath's biggest problem, which is the need to remove pain belonging to others from your aura.

Yuvraj Singh is one of the best batsmen to watch in world cricket when he's in form. He is ego personified. Yuvraj doesn’t just hit the ball, he lets it rebound off his aura.

I am shaped by my past loves—not defined by them, no, but refined by them.

The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good. Touched by a masterpiece, a person begins to hear in himself that same call of truth which prompted the artist to his creative act. When a link is established between the work and its beholder, the latter experiences a sublime, purging trauma. Within that aura which unites masterpieces and audience, the best sides of our souls are made known, and we long for them to be freed. In those moments we recognize and discover ourselves, the unfathomable depths of our own potential, and the furthest reaches of our emotions.

In my quietest hours, I debate, deduce, and decide—who I am versus who I'm meant to be.

I often marveled that the interior peace of the woman was reflected so faithfully in her surroundings. Even the selection and arrangements of her possessions gave an aura of uncluttered calm. In addition, there was a directness in her approach to all of life--including housekeeping--that never failed to fascinate me. Miss Alice was a person to whom color, symmetry of line and contrast of texture were important.

Oscar Wilde said: 'Each man kills the thing he loves.' And it's true. The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far. I have known a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reached their goal - when it was only a step away. This is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it. Renouncing joy and conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.

The greatest book is one written by your pen, but not exactly from your mind.

..giving power to negative thoughts or fears was bringing ideas to life in physical world,idea in mind became emotion in heart,emotion turned into words spoken,written,painted,strummed across guitar strings,or vibrantly held note by Tibetan singing bowl, thoughts affected physical world.

The mirror tosses back a version of me as if it has been whirled through a cosmic blender, morphing into shapes that don't quite stick. It's not only a reflection staring back but a whole gallery of emotions, imprisoned into a perpetual loop —hope flickers, despair looms, joy bursts, and pain shadows. They all merge into faces I swear I've known and echoes of a past I carry, recklessly pieced together in a spectacle of what it means to be achingly, beautifully human.

For the first time, I saw a pink glow breaking through the gray wisps that surrounded her, revealing the color of her true personality. Blush pink. I smiled. I should've known. I had known. Emme was nothing but kindhearted at her core.

The telltale clenching of hands into fists is all the invitation I need as I close the gap to hound his personal space. Suck on my aura you spineless shit!

And it is permissible to want to be alone temporarily to “get away from it all.” But if one mentioned at a party that he liked to be alone, not for a rest or an escape, but for its own joys, people would think that something was vaguely wrong with him—that some pariah aura of untouchability or sickness hovered round him. And if a person is alone very much of the time, people tend to think of him as a failure, for it is inconceivable to them that he would choose to be alone.

There occurred within a causal radius of Brandon Station one of those infinitesimal ripples in the creative silence of the First Cause. In the soul of the great blazing sun there were complicated superhuman vibrations [connected] ... with the feelings of a few intellectual sages who had enough imagination to recognise the conscious personality of this fiery orb as it flung far and wide its life-giving magnetic forces. Roaring, cresting, heaving, gathering, mounting, advancing, receding, the enormous fire-thoughts of this huge luminary surged relentlessly to and fro, evoking a turbulent aura of psychic activity.

I could see that the almost mystical aura of this legendary surgeon -- the single-mindedness, the dedication, the skill -- was mere surface. The surgical persona was something he had crafter to protect himself. But what he had created was a prison. Anytime he strayed from the professional to the personal, he knew what to expect: pain.

I'm on a journey seeking personal enlightenment, and you are disturbing my aura of love.

A patient on the way to surgery travels at twice the speed of a patient on the way to the morgue. Gurneys that ferry the living through hospital corridors move forward in an aura of purpose and push, flanked by caregivers with long strides and set faces, steadying IVs, pumping ambu bags, barreling into double doors. A gurney with a cadaver commands no urgency. It is wheeled by a single person, calmly and with little notice, like a shopping cart(167).

We write our personal story as intermittent authors; the narrator is always searching for a unitive point of view. We strive to perceive oneself from a unified perspective, but it is virtually impossible to do so. Human perception of the self is an illusion. We constantly sift through shifting memories. We experience the present under the fragrance cast by the past and under the illusionary aura of the future.

Jenny slowly awoke on the sacrificial altar to an Ethereal Light that flamed through the east wall, a radiant aura of love dispersing the frightful scene. A glow pulsating from Angeletta's body still burning in the fire pit slowly rose to join the Light. A Heavenly peace infused Jenny as she realized, "There's a man standing in the air straight above me!

According to the biographical notes, Monsieur Julian Carax was twenty-seven, born with the century in Barcelona, and currently living in Paris; he wrote in French and worked at night as a professional pianist in a hostess bar. The blurb, written in the pompous, moldy style of the age, proclaimed that this was a first work of dazzling courage, the mark of a protean and trailblazing talent, and a sign of hope for the future of all of European letters. In spite of such solemn claims, the synopsis that followed suggested that the story contained some vaguely sinister elements slowly marinated in saucy melodrama, which, to the eyes of Monsieur Roquefort, was always a plus: after the classics what he most enjoyed were tales of crime, boudoir intrigue, and questionable conduct. One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. By the time the mind is able to comprehend what has happened, the wounds of the heart are already too deep. She laughed nervously. She had around her a burning aura of loneliness. "You remind me a bit of Julian," she said suddenly. "The way you look and your gestures. He used to do what you are doing now. He would stare at you without saying a word, and you wouldn't know what he was thinking, and so, like an idiot, you'd tell him things it would have been better to keep to yourself." "Someone once said that the moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you've already stopped loving that person forever." I gulped down the last of my coffee and looked at her for a few moments without saying anything. I thought about how much I wanted to lose myself in those evasive eyes. I thought about the loneliness that would take hold of me that night when I said good-bye to her, once I had run out of tricks or stories to make her stay with me any longer. I thought about how little I had to offer her and how much I wanted from her. "You women listen more to your heart and less to all the nonsense," the hatter concluded sadly. "That's why you live longer." But the years went by in peace. Time goes faster the more hollow it is. Lives with no meaning go straight past you, like trains that don't stop at your station.

The phrase 'the fossil record' sounds impressive and authoritative. As used by some persons it becomes, as intended, intimidating, taking on the aura of esoteric truth as expounded by an elite class of specialists. But what is it, really, this fossil record? Only data in search of interpretation. All claims to the contrary that I know, and I know of several, are so much superstition.

Often, her mate is the child of a narcissist, already indoctrinated to regard exploitation and disregard as love. Others lured by the narcissistic aura are those in whom healthy childhood exhibitionism has been repressed. . . . If the parent puts the child to shame for showing off, the need for attention gets repressed into the unconscious. Repression means that the need is not satisfied and continues to press for expression in the adult without her being aware of it. The repressed adult may select an exhibitionistic mate to achieve vicarious satisfaction.

Isaiah pushes off his car and invades my personal space. His dark scent envelops me and my heart literally trips several times as it tries to continue to beat. Even though he doesn’t touch me, it’s like Isaiah is everywhere. Only centimeters separate us, but his warmth surrounds me like a bubble. I have to force myself to lift my chin to look at him. His gray eyes soften, and there’s this playful aura to him, accompanied by a devious tilt of his mouth.

The aura of what is veiled seduces the person to break its magic and disclose the secret. But if it is only distance and foreignness that is seductive, this has the effect of drawing the person in the direction of absolute intimacy and familiarity, a direction which destroys the aura. The stimulus of psychological distance lies in a repulsion that attracts and an attraction which ultimately repulses - a movement never in balance. We enjoy such a stimulus not only in art and the regions of contemplative silence, but above all, in life with things and persons. It forms the air of a genuine milieu without which we would atrophy. Magic that wishes to be and, yet, not to be decoded; promises that promise everything and promise nothing - whoever understands this comprehends the being of the soul in its ultimate questionability.

the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives. Oscar Wilde said: “Each man kills the thing he loves.” And it’s true. The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far. I have known a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reached their goal—when it was only a step away. This is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.

And that’s the terrible myth of organized society. That everything that’s done through the established system is legal. And that word has a powerful psychological impact. It makes people believe that there is an order to life and an order to a system. And that a person who goes through this order and is convicted has gotten all that is due him and therefore society can turn its conscious off and look to other things and other times. And that’s the terrible thing about these past trials that they have this aura of legitimacy an aura of legality. I suspect that better men than the world has known and more of them have gone to their deaths through a legal system then through all the illegalities in the history of man. Six million people in Europe during the Third Reich, legal, Sacco and Vanzetti, quite legal, the Haymarket defendants, legal, the hundreds of rape trials throughout the south where black men were condemned to death all legal, Jesus legal, Socrates legal and that is the kaleidoscopic nature of what we live through here and in other places because all tyrants learn that it is far better to do this thing through some semblance of legality than to do it without that pretext.

A leader's behavior, poise, appearance, vision, demeanor, "pressure", aura, his manner of speaking and listening - all reflect the person within, his principles and values.

Person's behavior reflects nothing but the mirror of an aura he/she brought up in. Never doubt their integrity because of their insecurities.

For compatibility in love relationships, it’s especially important to read facial contrasts, where you have something very different from your partner. Opposites attract. Find out, specifically, why.

People did usually look at her, because she suggested the engaging young person at a party to whom you would like to be introduced, and others because they knew she was Grady McNeil, the daughter of an important man. There were a few whose eyes she held for a different reason: and it was because, in her aura of willful and privileged enchantment, they sensed she was a girl to whom something was going to happen.

I like old things. They have an aura of the past... and I wonder whose hands have touched them. Their long histories give them depth and personality. My dream is to travel in pursuit of those histories... and find my own special place.

When higher ideas from the Abstract Mind or Wisdom of the Soul are downloaded to the personality, to be received at the level of the Concrete Mind or Emotional Aura, the superfast reading of that wisdom or principle is called intuition.

Particles detached from the physical Aura remain around the spot or place where the person has been, and a strongly developed sense found in dogs and other animals enables them to follow up the "scent" of the person or animal they are tracking.

In the center of the movement, as the motor that swings it onto motion, sits the Leader. He is separated from the elite formation by an inner circle of the initiated who spread around him an aura of impenetrable mystery which corresponds to his “intangible preponderance.” His position within this intimate circle depends upon his ability to spin intrigues among its members and upon his skill in constantly changing its personnel. He owes his rise to leadership to an extreme ability to handle inner-party struggles for power rather than to demagogic or bureaucratic-organizational qualities. He is distinguished from earlier types of dictators in that he hardly wins through simple violence. Hitler needed neither the SA nor the SS to secure his position as leader of the Nazi movement; on the contrary, Röhm, the chief of the SA and able to count upon its loyalty to his own person, was one of Hitler’s inner-party enemies. Stalin won against Trotsky, who not only had a far greater mass appeal but, as chief of the Red Army, held in his hands the greatest power potential in Soviet Russia at the time. Not Stalin, but Trotsky, moreover, was the greatest organizational talent, the ablest bureaucrat of the Russian Revolution. On the other hand, both Hitler and Stalin were masters of detail and devoted themselves in the early stages of their careers almost entirely to questions of personnel, so that after a few years hardly any man of importance remained who did not owe his position to them.

Every person who made their village a site of pilgrimage was keeping alive the legacy and the aura of Austen, and as a lifelong fan himself, he appreciated that the villagers were involuntary caretakers of something much bigger than they could guess at.

My physical eyes are like sunglasses, filtering out the colors, but when I'm out here, the aura that emanates from every living thing is clearly visible to me. People, animals, and even plants are surrounded by this transparent bubble of color. Over the years, I've learned that the colors can tell you quite a bit about a person. Like right now, Rei is surrounded by this lemonade yellow, which looks nice, but it's the same shade of yellow my mom has whn she's sold a house to someone and the loan falls through. Sigh.

You will see from what we have said that there are two aspects to the color feature of the Aura; the first depending upon the predominant thoughts habitually manifesting in the mind of the person; the second depending upon the particular feeling, emotion, or passion (if any) being manifested at the particular time.

Can I cuddle up with you when you sleep?” Sma stopped, detached the creature from her shoulder with one hand and stared it in the face. “What?” “Just for chumminess’ sake,” the little thing said, yawning wide and blinking. “I’m not being rude; it’s a good bonding procedure.” Sma was aware of Skaffen-Amtiskaw glowing red just behind her. She brought the yellow and brown device closer to her face. “Listen, Xenophobe—” “Xeny.” “Xeny. You are a million-ton starship. A Torturer class Rapid Offensive Unit. Even—” “But I’m demilitarized!” “Even without your principle armament, I bet you could waste planets if you wanted to—” “Aw, come on; any silly GCU can do that!” “So what’s all this shit for?” She shook the furry little remote drone, quite hard. Its teeth chattered. “It’s for a laugh!” it cried. “Sma, don’t you appreciate a joke?” “I don’t know. Do you appreciate being drop-kicked back to the accommodation area?” “Ooh! What’s your problem, lady? Have you got something against small furry animals, or what?” Look Ms. Sma, I know very well I’m a ship, and I do everything I’m asked to do—including taking you to this frankly rather fuzzily specified destination—and do it very efficiently, too. If there was the slightest sniff of any real action, and I had to start acting like a warship, this construct in your hands would go lifeless and limp immediately, and I’d battle as ferociously and decisively as I’ve been trained to. Meanwhile, like my human colleagues, I amuse myself harmlessly. If you really hate my current appearance, all right; I’ll change it; I’ll be an ordinary drone, or just a disembodied voice, or talk to you through Skaffen-Amtiskaw here, or through your personal terminal. The last thing I want is to offend a guest.” Sma pursed her lips. She patted the thing on its head and sighed. “Fair enough.” “I can keep this shape?” “By all means.” “Oh goody!” It squirmed with pleasure, then opened its big eyes wide and looked hopefully at her. “Cuddle?” “Cuddle.” Sma cuddled it, patted its back. She turned to see Skaffen-Amtiskaw lying dramatically on its back in midair, its aura field flashing the lurid orange that was used to signal Sick Drone in Extreme Distress.

Your aura has nothing to do with colors or foods you like.” She smiled. “Yellow can mean spiritual. And brown I associate with good sense, practical. Someone grounded in reality. I see your aura as being very spiritual but also very practical. Now mind you, that is my interpretation. For each person, colors mean a different thing.

But Rousseau — to what did he really want to return? Rousseau, this first modern man, idealist and rabble in one person — one who needed moral "dignity" to be able to stand his own sight, sick with unbridled vanity and unbridled self-contempt. This miscarriage, couched on the threshold of modern times, also wanted a "return to nature"; to ask this once more, to what did Rousseau want to return? I still hate Rousseau in the French Revolution: it is the world-historical expression of this duality of idealist and rabble. The bloody farce which became an aspect of the Revolution, its "immorality," is of little concern to me: what I hate is its Rousseauan morality — the so-called "truths" of the Revolution through which it still works and attracts everything shallow and mediocre. The doctrine of equality! There is no more poisonous poison anywhere: for it seems to be preached by justice itself, whereas it really is the termination of justice. "Equal to the equal, unequal to the unequal" — that would be the true slogan of justice; and also its corollary: "Never make equal what is unequal." That this doctrine of equality was surrounded by such gruesome and bloody events, that has given this "modern idea" par excellence a kind of glory and fiery aura so that the Revolution as a spectacle has seduced even the noblest spirits. In the end, that is no reason for respecting it any more. I see only one man who experienced it as it must be experienced, with nausea — Goethe. Goethe — not a German event, but a European one: a magnificent attempt to overcome the eighteenth century by a return to nature, by an ascent to the naturalness of the Renaissance — a kind of self-overcoming on the part of that century. He bore its strongest instincts within himself: the sensibility, the idolatry of nature, the anti-historic, the idealistic, the unreal and revolutionary (the latter being merely a form of the unreal). He sought help from history, natural science, antiquity, and also Spinoza, but, above all, from practical activity; he surrounded himself with limited horizons; he did not retire from life but put himself into the midst of it; he if was not fainthearted but took as much as possible upon himself, over himself, into himself. What he wanted was totality; he fought the mutual extraneousness of reason, senses, feeling, and will (preached with the most abhorrent scholasticism by Kant, the antipode of Goethe); he disciplined himself to wholeness, he created himself. In the middle of an age with an unreal outlook, Goethe was a convinced realist: he said Yes to everything that was related to him in this respect — and he had no greater experience than that ens realissimum [most real being] called Napoleon. Goethe conceived a human being who would be strong, highly educated, skillful in all bodily matters, self-controlled, reverent toward himself, and who might dare to afford the whole range and wealth of being natural, being strong enough for such freedom; the man of tolerance, not from weakness but from strength, because he knows how to use to his advantage even that from which the average nature would perish; the man for whom there is no longer anything that is forbidden — unless it be weakness, whether called vice or virtue. Such a spirit who has become free stands amid the cosmos with a joyous and trusting fatalism, in the faith that only the particular is loathesome, and that all is redeemed and affirmed in the whole — he does not negate anymore. Such a faith, however, is the highest of all possible faiths: I have baptized it with the name of Dionysus. 50 One might say that in a certain sense the nineteenth century also strove for all that which Goethe as a person had striven for: universality in understanding and in welcoming, letting everything come close to oneself, an audacious realism, a reverence for everything factual.

The thing that has to be explained in human relations is precisely the fascination of the person who holds or symbolizes power. There is something about him that seems to radiate out to others and to melt them into his aura, a “fascinating effect,” as Christine Olden called it, of “the narcissistic personality”3 or, as Jung preferred to call him, the “mana-personality.

It was strange how all large trees had their own personalities, expressed through their unique forms and the aura created by the combined effect of the trunk and roots, the bark and branches, the light and shadow. It was as if they could speak. Not with voices, of course, but with what they were, they seemed to stretch out to whoever looked at them. And that was all they spoke about, what they were, nothing else.

The other night out at the bars, I learned that Nietzsche wrote on a typewriter. It is unbelievable to me, and I no longer feel that his philosophy has the same validity or aura of truth that it formerly did. No other detail of his life situating him so squarely in the modern age could have affected me as much as learning this. He typed Zarathustra? Goddamnit, the man had no more connection to the truth than a stenographer!

Sandra stood by, quietly amused: she wore a sugar pink track suit with matching plastic hairslides in the shape of elephants. Edward could see quite clearly behind her shoulder, like the aura visible to spiritualists, the woman she would be in thirty years time. There is probably nothing to be done about people, he thought, nothing at all, nor ever has been: processed, from the cradle to the grave. Most neither know nor care, which makes it worse.

The congressmen in the room just wanted to see them, to use their position to arrange a personal audience, to gaze upon them with their own eyes across the committee table, no more than four feet away, to shake hands with them, occupy the same space on this earth with them for and hour or so, fawn over them, pay homage to them, bathe in their magical aura, feel the radiation of their righteous stuff, salute them, wish upon them the smile of God...

He did not come floating off the mountain as though walking on air. He did not run down shouting “Hallelujah” and “Bless the Lord.” He did not radiate light and joy. There were no choirs of angels, no music of the heavens. No elation, no ecstasy, no golden aura surrounding him. No sense of his absolute, foreordained, unquestionable role as the messenger of God. Not even the whole of the Quran fully revealed, but only a few brief verses. In short, Muhammad did none of the things that might seem essential to the legend of a man who had just done the impossible and crossed the border between this world and another—none of the things that might make it easy to cry foul, to denigrate the whole story as an invention, a cover for something as mundane as delusion or personal ambition. On the contrary: he was convinced that what he had encountered could not be real. At best it must be a hallucination: a trick of the eye or the ear, or his own mind working against him. At worst, possession, and he had been seized by an evil jinn, a spirit out to deceive him, even to crush the life out of him. In fact he was so sure that he could only be majnun, literally possessed by a jinn, that when he found himself still alive, his first instinct had been to finish the job himself, to leap off the highest cliff and escape the terror of what he had experienced by putting an end to all experience.

Each thought, emotion, or feeling is manifested by a certain shade or combination of colors belonging to that particular thought, emotion, or feeling, which color or colors manifest themselves in the Aura of that particular mental principle in which the thought, emotion, or feeling naturally originates, and are of course visible to the observer studying the composite Aura of the thinker. The developed psychic may read the thoughts of a person as he can the pages of an open book,

It is one of the great examples,” as Friedrich Meinecke, the eminent German historian, said, “of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life.”10 To some Germans and, no doubt, to most foreigners it appeared that a charlatan had come to power in Berlin. To the majority of Germans Hitler had—or would shortly assume—the aura of a truly charismatic leader. They were to follow him blindly, as if he possessed a divine judgment, for the next twelve tempestuous years. THE ADVENT OF ADOLF HITLER Considering his origins and his early life,

Yet the contents and structures of the unconscious are the result of immemorial existential situations, especially of critical situations, and this is why the unconscious has a religious aura. For every existential crisis once again puts in question both the reality of the world and man's presence in the world. This means that the existential crisis is, finally, "religious," since on the archaic levels of culture *being* and *the sacred* are one. As we saw, it is the experience of the sacred that founds the world, and even the most elementary religion is, above all, an ontology. In other words, in so far as the unconscious is the result of countless existential experiences, it cannot but resemble the various religious universes. For religion is the paradigmatic solution for every existential crisis. It is the paradigmatic solution notb only because it can be indefinately repeated, but also because it is believed to have a transcendental origin and hence is valorised as a revelation received from an *other*, transhuman world. The religious solution not only resolves the crisis but at the same time makes existence "open" to values that are no longer contingent or particular, thus enabling man to transcend personal situations and, finally, gain access to the world of spirit. This is not the place to develop all the consequences of this close relation between the content and structures of the unconscious on the one hand and the values of religion on the other. We were led to refer to it in order to show in what sense even the most avowedly nonreligious man still, in his deeper being, shares a religiously oriented behavior. But modern man's "private mythologies" -his dreams, reveries, fantasies, and so on- never rise to the ontological status of myths, precisely because they are not experienced by the *whole man* and therefore do not transform a particular situation into a situation that is paradigmatic. In the same way, modern man's anxieties, his experiences in dream or imagination, although "religious" from the point of view of form, do not, as in *homo religiosus*, make part of a *Weltanschauung* and provide the basis for a system of behaviour. -Mircea Eliade, The Sacred And The Profane:The Nature of Religion

We often confuse love for a warm glow we sense in our bellies and as something we can offer and withdraw, like a cat who comes and goes at its pleasure. It’s easy for us to extend love toward those who are lovable, but loving people and situations that are not to our liking isn’t so easy. We give our love “unconditionally,” but when we don’t receive what we feel we deserve, we withdraw it. We then reinvest our love in a new person or situation that we think will give us a better return, but we find it difficult to maintain when we don’t feel recognized or acknowledged. If things don’t work out the way we want them to, we too readily exchange our loving feelings for hatred and resentment. Our initial excitement over a new job, for instance, may sour and become disappointment and bitterness. When we’ve been jilted by a lover, the intense, starry-eyed passion of infatuation can turn into loathing so great that it consumes us. To an Earthkeeper, love is not a feeling or something you barter with. Love is the essence of who you are, and it radiates from you as a brilliant aura: You become love, practice fearlessness, and attain enlightenment.

Recently an interdisciplinary team of scholars identified a common cause.18 It was not an aura of spirituality that descended on the planet but something more prosaic: energy capture. The Axial Age was when agricultural and economic advances provided a burst of energy: upwards of 20,000 calories per person per day in food, fodder, fuel, and raw materials. This surge allowed the civilizations to afford larger cities, a scholarly and priestly class, and a reorientation of their priorities from short-term survival to long-term harmony. As Bertolt Brecht put it millennia later: Grub first, then ethics.19

Repeated belittling remarks or criticisms have serious, damaging psychological effects on the victim. The negative thought, when accepted into the aura and into some of the chakras (energy centers) of the victim, will result in poor self-image, low level of self-confidence and will hinder the future success of the victim. Negative thoughts planted into the chakras of the victim are sometimes called negative programs by other authors of self-help books. In most cases, the planting of a negative thought into the chakra of another person is usually unintentional. Intentional or not, the effects are still psychologically damaging.

And then I saw her, who I could have only assumed with Aura Tsang, a very petite women, with the exotic features of those you associate with an Asian background complete with slick dark hair but the most amazing piercing blue eyes, the type that any Aryan would have be proud of. She seemed to have the persona that made her a person of the world,Yet, there was the energy that she was giving off, a energy of a powerful and brave woman who could and would take on the world and yet she had the gentlest smile complete with dimples. I was transfixed by her and I felt that my heart would burst into a thousand of pieces if she spoke to me, which of course she would and it did.

There have been several intellectual lesbians of physical distinction: Collette, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Carson McCullers, Jane Bowles; and, in altogether another category, simple endearing prettiness, both Eleanor Clark and Katherine Anne Porter deserve their reputations. But Alice Lee Langman was a perfected presence, an enameled lady marked with the androgynous quality, that sexually ambivalent aura that seems a common denominator among certain persons whose allure crosses all frontiers--a mystique not confined to women, for Nureyev has it, Nehru had it, so did the youthful Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley, so did Montgomery Clift and James Dean.

She was a woman of abundant and varied learning, with an extensive imagination, the colorful speech of those who have seen many countries, lived in diverse climates, met different people. And Andrea felt an exotic aura envelop her form, felt a strange seduction emanating from her, an enchantment composed of the vague phantasms of the distant things she had looked at, of the sights she still preserved in her mind's eye, in the memories that filled her soul. And it was an indefinable, inexpressible enchantment; it was as if she carried in her person a trace of the light in which she had been immersed, of the scents she had breathed, of the idioms she had heard; it was as if she carried within her, mingled, faded, indistinct, all the magic of those lands of the sun.

of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far. I have known a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reached their goal—when it was only a step away. This is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.

But she was a baneful person who spoiled my good days and rejoiced in my bad and who would never allow herself to extol or admire me or to view me as others did in the mythic dimensions of a hero king, or as a huge, monumental figure immortalized on a great pedestal of white marble. And that's another thing.. If anything, the Michelangelo statue of Moses in Rome looks more like me in my prime than the one in Florence does of me at any phase in my life. Everybody says so. I wasn't that large, naturally, and I'm not made of marble. I have no scar on my shin or horns jutting from my head. But I had that same superior and sublimely articulated physique and that same unquestionable aura of immortal greatness and strength until I began to lessen with age and they would let me go no more out to battle.

Camille, did you know that when your mother was a little girl she baked her own birthday cakes?" "That's weird," Camille said. "At first she baked birthday cakes for all her friends in school and then one year, I think she was nine, I was having a party for her and she asked if she could bake her own cake. Nine was very young, I thought. It was a complicated cake. I don't remember what kind it was now. I think she made it up." "Do you remember what kind of cake it was, Mom?" I shook my head no, but of course I remembered. The first cake I ever made for myself was a landmark in my personal baking history. It was a lemon glow chiffon that I sliced into twelve half-inch layers, spread with strawberry jam, reassembled, and covered in seven-minute icing. Looking back, such a cake would appear to have been a monstrosity, but to a nine-year-old it was a glamorous, ambitious cake that had the aura of something very French, even though I had no idea what that meant at the time.

The Bostonians is special because it never was ‘titivated’ for the New York edition, for its humour and its physicality, for its direct engagement with social and political issues and the way it dramatized them, and finally for the extent to which its setting and action involved the author and his sense of himself. But the passage above suggests one other source of its unique quality. It has been called a comedy and a satire – which it is. But it is also a tragedy, and a moving one at that. If its freshness, humour, physicality and political relevance all combine to make it a peculiarly accessible and enjoyable novel, it is also an upsetting and disturbing one, not simply in its treatment of Olive, but also of what she tries to stand for. (Miss Birdseye is an important figure in this respect: built up and knocked down as she is almost by fits and starts.) The book’s jaundiced view of what Verena calls ‘the Heart of humanity’ (chapter 28) – reform, progress and the liberal collectivism which seems so essential an ingredient in modern democracy – makes it contentious to this day. An aura of scepticism about the entire political process hangs about it: salutary some may say; destructive according to others. And so, more than any other novel of James’s, it reminds us of the literature of our own time. The Bostonians is one of the most brilliant novels in the English language, as F. R. Leavis remarked;27 but it is also one of the bleakest. In no other novel did James reveal more of himself, his society and his era, and of the human condition, caught as it is between the blind necessity of progress and the urge to retain the old. It is a remarkably experimental modern novel, written by a man of conservative values. It is judgemental about people with whom its author identified, and lenient towards attitudes hostile to large areas of James’s own intellectual and personal inheritance. The strength of the contradictions embodied in the novel are a guarantee of the pleasure it has to give.

■​A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. ■​Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. ■​People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. ■​To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. ■​Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built. ■​Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart. There are three voice tones available to negotiators: 1.​The late-night FM DJ voice: Use selectively to make a point. Inflect your voice downward, keeping it calm and slow. When done properly, you create an aura of authority and trustworthiness without triggering defensiveness. 2.​The positive/playful voice: Should be your default voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. 3.​The direct or assertive voice: Used rarely. Will cause problems and create pushback. ■​Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. Mirroring is the art of insinuating similarity, which facilitates bonding. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.

Yet the contents and structures of the unconscious are the result of immemorial existential situations, especially of critical situations, and this is why the unconscious has a religious aura. For every existential crisis once again puts in question both the reality of the world and man's presence in the world. This means that the existential crisis is, finally, "religious," since on the archaic levels of culture being and the sacred are one. As we saw, it is the experience of the sacred that founds the world, and even the most elementary religion is, above all, an ontology. In other words, in so far as the unconscious is the result of countless existential experiences, it cannot but resemble the various religious universes. For religion is the paradigmatic solution for every existential crisis. It is the paradigmatic solution not only because it can be indefinitely repeated, but also because it is believed to have a transcendental origin and hence is valorized as a revelation received from an other, transhuman world. The religious solution not only resolves the crisis but at the same time makes existence "open" to values that are no longer contingent or particular, thus enabling man to transcend personal situations and, finally, gain access to the world of spirit,

As I contemplated the silent world before me, I thought of the many romantic ideas attached to blindness. Ideas of unusual sensitivity and genius were evoked by the names of Milton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Borges, Ray Charles; to lose physical sight, it is thought, is to gain second sight. One door closes and another, greater one, opens. Homer’s blindness, many believe, is a kind of spiritual channel, a shortcut to the gifts of memory and of prophecy. When I was a child in Lagos, there was a blind, wandering bard, a man who was held in the greatest awe for his spiritual gifts. When he sang his songs, he left each person with the feeling that, in hearing him, they had somehow touched the numinous, or been touched by it. Once, in a crowded market at Ojuelegba, sometime in the early eighties, I saw him. It was from quite a distance, but I remember (or imagine that I remember) his large yellow eyes, calcified to a gray color at the pupils, his frightening mien, and the big, dirty mantle he wore. He sang in a plaintive and high-pitched voice, in deep, proverbial Yoruba that was impossible for me to follow. Afterward, I imagined that I had seen something like an aura around him, a spiritual apartness that moved all his hearers to reach into their purses and put something in the bowl his assistant boy carried.

Little by little, his eyes warmed into that dusky shade of brown she'd come to miss. A shadow traced the outline of his body, from the curve in his neck to the powerful slope of his shoulders. As his glimmering blue aura faded, his hair blackened, and his skin, bronzed from years of training under the sun, glowed with life. She had no idea what came over her- impulse or instinct- but she reached for Shang's hand. He looked surprised, and for an instant she wondered whether it was because he could feel her touch, or because she had reached for him. Maybe both. Shang's stance loosened, and he drew her close, not letting go of her hand. "I told you once you were the craziest man I'd ever met. I guess I have to change that to the craziest woman." Mulan laughed. "You're delaying us from leaving Diyu to tell me that?" "And that Ping was right about his sister." Now Mulan lifted her chin, curious. "Why is that?" "She's strong and kind and beautiful and brave...." "And also speaks her mind," Mulan reminded him. "... Honest, in the way that counts most." "And she occasionally disobeys orders," Mulan warned him, "even from her commanding officer." "... She has discerning judgment." Mulan smiled. Tentatively, she reached for a wisp of hair that clung to Shang's temple. She brushed it aside gently, and Shang caught her hand in his and brought it to his chest. Mulan's skin tingled. "I'll never meet another girl like her," he said. "Now that the war is over, I'd be a fool to let her out of my sight.

Boris Souvarine, hombre clave en el gran éxito del bolchevismo, que ha sido y es la conquista de París como centro de la propaganda comunista, fundador del PCF y que conoció personalmente a Lenin antes de convertirse en uno de los grandes anticomunistas de la historia, expresó así su propia experiencia: Los bolcheviques han heredado esta concepción (la del terrorismo del «hombre nuevo» que teorizaron Netchaev, Bakunin y Chernichevski, retrató Dostoievski en Los demonios y asumió Lenin), adaptándola a sus necesidades y a su época. Para ellos, el mundo se divide en dos: el partido y los demás. Ser expulsado del partido equivale a ser arrojado del planeta. Para permanecer en su seno están dispuestos a todas las bajezas, de acuerdo con su moral amoral; dispuestos a envilecerse, a darse golpes de pecho en público con reservas mentales, a delatarse mutuamente, a jurar obediencia y sumisión perinde ac cadaver, sin perjuicio de reanudar sus maquinaciones tan pronto como les sea posible. El «hombre nuevo» del comunismo está tomado, evidentemente, del «hombre nuevo» del cristianismo. Por eso tantos cristianos y judíos, cuya conciencia de culpa proviene de un airado Jehová o del Pecado Original —que es el origen de clase, burgués o pequeñoburgués, de sus militantes—, se sienten teológicamente en casa al avistar el paraíso social, el comunismo. Hay que sacrificarse, hacer penitencia para merecerlo. Pero el partido tiene una ventaja sobre el Evangelio: obliga a hacer penitencia a los demás. Este aspecto, a la vez expiatorio y coercitivo, masoquista y sádico, otorga un aura especial al militante: la de los inquisidores y los monjes guerreros, que pueden ser también procesados por herejes o caer víctimas de los infieles, pero cuya salvación personal está asegurada por la lucha para la e

The aim of both little books, if you're interested," he said, " is supposedly to wake everybody up to the need and benefits of saying the Jesus Prayer incessantly. First under supervision of a qualified teacher - a sort of Christian guru - and then, after the person's mastered it to some extent, he's supposed to go on with it on his own. And the main idea is that it's not suppose to be just for pious bastards and breast-beaters. You can be busy robbing the goddam poor box, but you're to say the prayer while you rob it. Enlightenment's supposed to come with the prayer, not before it." Zooey frowned, but academically." The idea, really, is that sooner or later, completely on its own, the prayer moves from the lips and the head down to a center in the heart and becomes an automatic function in the person, right along with the heartbeat. And then, after a time, once the prayer is automatic in the heart, the person is supposed to enter into the so-called reality of things. The subject doesn't really come up in either of the books, but, in Eastern terms, there are seven subtle centers in the body, called chakras, and the one most closely connected with the heart is called anahata, which is supposed to be sensitive and powerful as hell, and when it's activated, it, in turn, activates another of these centers, between the eyebrows, called ajna - it's the pineal gland, really, or, rather, an aura around the pineal gland - and then, bingo, there's an opening of what mystics call the 'third eye'. It's nothing new, for God's sake. It didn't just start with the little pilgrim's crowd, I mean. In India, for God knows how many centuries, it's been known as japam. Japam is just the repetition of any of the human names of God. Or the names of his incarnations his avatars, if you want to get technical. The idea being that if you call out the name long enough and regularly enough and literally from the heart, sooner or later you'll get an answer. Not exactly an answer. A response.

The Extraordinary Persons Project In fact, Ekman had been so moved personally—and intrigued scientifically—by his experiments with Öser that he announced at the meeting he was planning on pursuing a systematic program of research studies with others as unusual as Öser. The single criterion for selecting apt subjects was that they be “extraordinary.” This announcement was, for modern psychology, an extraordinary moment in itself. Psychology has almost entirely dwelt on the problematic, the abnormal, and the ordinary in its focus. Very rarely have psychologists—particularly ones as eminent as Paul Ekman—shifted their scientific lens to focus on people who were in some sense (other than intellectually) far above normal. And yet Ekman now was proposing to study people who excel in a range of admirable human qualities. His announcement makes one wonder why psychology hasn't done this before. In fact, only in very recent years has psychology explicitly begun a program to study the positive in human nature. Sparked by Martin Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania long famous for his research on optimism, a budding movement has finally begun in what is being called “positive psychology”—the scientific study of well-being and positive human qualities. But even within positive psychology, Ekman's proposed research would stretch science's vision of human goodness by assaying the limits of human positivity Ever the scientist, Ekman became quite specific about what was meant by “extraordinary.” For one, he expects that such people exist in every culture and religious tradition, perhaps most often as contemplatives. But no matter what religion they practice, they share four qualities. The first is that they emanate a sense of goodness, a palpable quality of being that others notice and agree on. This goodness goes beyond some fuzzy, warm aura and reflects with integrity the true person. On this count Ekman proposed a test to weed out charlatans: In extraordinary people “there is a transparency between their personal and public life, unlike many charismatics, who have wonderful public lives and rather deplorable personal ones.” A second quality: selflessness. Such extraordinary people are inspiring in their lack of concern about status, fame, or ego. They are totally unconcerned with whether their position or importance is recognized. Such a lack of egoism, Ekman added, “from the psychological viewpoint, is remarkable.” Third is a compelling personal presence that others find nourishing. “People want to be around them because it feels good—though they can't explain why,” said Ekman. Indeed, the Dalai Lama himself offers an obvious example (though Ekman did not say so to him); the standard Tibetan title is not “Dalai Lama” but rather “Kundun,” which in Tibetan means “presence.” Finally, such extraordinary individuals have “amazing powers of attentiveness and concentration.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl ditch Darius like that,” an amused voice came from behind me and I turned to find a guy looking at me from a seat at a table in the corner. He had dark hair that curled in a messy kind of way, looking like it had broken free of his attempts to tame it. His green eyes sparkled with restrained laughter and I couldn’t help but stare at his strong features; he looked almost familiar but I was sure I’d never met him before. “Well, even Dragons can’t just get their own way all of the time,” I said, moving closer to him. Apparently that had been the right thing to say because he smiled widely in response to it. “What’s so great about Dragons anyway, right?” he asked, though a strange tightness came over his posture as he said it. “Who’d want to be a big old lizard with anger management issues?” I joked. “I think I’d rather be a rabbit shifter - at least bunnies are cute.” “You don’t have a very rabbity aura about you,” he replied with a smile which lit up his face. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.” “It is. Although a rabbit might be exactly the kind of ruler we need; shake it up from all these predators.” “Maybe that’s why I can’t get on board with this fancy food. It’s just not meant for someone of my Order... although I’m really looking for a sandwich rather than a carrot,” I said wistfully. He snorted a laugh. “Yeah I had a pizza before I came to join the festivities. I’m only supposed to stay for an hour or so anyway... show my face, sit in the back, avoid emotional triggers...” He didn’t seem to want to elaborate on that weird statement so I didn’t push him but I did wonder why he’d come if that was all he was going to do. “Well, I didn’t really want to come at all so maybe I can just hide out back here with you?” I finished the rest of my drink and placed my glass on the table as I drifted closer to him. Aside from Hamish, he was the first person I’d met at this party who seemed at least halfway genuine. “Sure. If you don’t mind missing out on all the fun,” he said. “I’m sorry but am I talking to Roxanya or Gwendalina? You’re a little hard to tell apart.” I rolled my eyes at those stupid names. “I believe I originally went by Roxanya but my name is Tory.” “You haven’t taken back your royal name?” he asked in surprise. “I haven’t taken back my royal anything. Though I won’t say no to the money when it comes time to inherit that. You didn’t give me your name either,” I prompted. You don’t know?” he asked in surprise. “Oh sorry, dude, are you famous? Must be a bummer to meet someone who isn’t a fan then,” I teased. He snorted a laugh. “I’m Xavier,” he said. “The Dragon’s younger brother.” “Oh,” I said. Well that was a quick end to what had seemed like a pleasant conversation. “Actually... I should probably go... mingle or something.” I started to back away, searching the crowd for Darcy. I spotted her on the far side of the room, engaged in conversation with Hamish and a few of his friends. The smile on her face was genuine enough so I was at least confident she didn’t need rescuing. (Tory)

Dear, What’s the Point of it All? What is the point of being nice? When you do not know what you are going to get from it? Knowing eventually sooner rather than later someone and maybe that person you are being nice to will turn their back on you. I always have to stay grounded and focused. When I am there for people, I feel like I am always punished for it. I am always treated as if I committed a crime. I was there for my mom; however, she was killing me slowly but surely. Like my mom, I noticed that when people get themselves in some shit, they get stuck in their own mess. They are confident that they do not have to deal with the consequences—because they know the ‘kind’ person will bail them out. What’s the point of being kind? Like my mom and the officer, there are so many people in the world who are judgmental and tainted because of their selfish needs. What’s the point of my life? Here I am in a library filled with many books. I can read them and go anywhere I want to in my mind, but after I close the book, I will have to snap out of my fantasy world and welcome the cruel cold world, which is reality. If I was a book, I would be better off left on the shelf. There is no excitement in my life—only struggles. What’s the point of living and loving life when the only thing I do is read between the lines and tread carefully? Come to think about it, I am a book that nobody can understand or read. They think they know what is best for me, but if they only take the time to listen, I would be so happy to tell them about me and my needs and wants. My actions scream for attention, but time after time, I am ignored. Sadly, without a care, they were quick to rip out the pages. Yet, once again, nobody noticed me. What’s the point of it all when I never had an opportunity to make a mistake? If I did one thing wrong, they would give up on me and send me to one home after another. I’ve always been fully exposed and had to walk in a line filled with sharp curves from disappointment to disappointment. Sorrow is my aura, and sadness hugs me tightly. It is hard to cry when my eyes are closed shut by the barbed wire fence of my eyelashes as they prohibit tears from falling. What’s the point of complicating my life? I am always back to where I started, and then ... I relive the same patterns, but on a more difficult journey. I believe when you put yourself in your own mess that you should clean it up and start over. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. However, when someone else puts you in their mess, you do not know how to clean up the mess they’ve made. You do not know how to start over because you do not know where to begin. I look at it this way; it is like telling a dead person he/she can start over. How so, when that person’s life no longer exists? I know my life isn’t over. However, I am lost in a maze my mom set up for herself—and she too is lost in her own maze. When a person gets lost in their own maze, they are really fucked up. However, this maze shouldn’t be left for me to figure out. Unfortunately, I am in it, and I have to find my way out one way or another. What’s the point of taking Kace from me? He was safe and in good hands. Now he is worse off with people who are abusing him. He didn’t ask for this—I didn’t either. He deserves so much better. Again, what is the point of it all? What’s the point of making me suffer? Do you get a kick out of it? What are you trying to accomplish? I am trying to understand; what is the point of it all? What is the point? I don’t know why I am here.

Sudden emotional and physical shocks, bouts of depression, and fear and anxiety make a person vulnerable to possession by ripping tears in his or her barrier of spiritual protection (the aura). The djinn, having no defined form, can slip through these tears and cracks quite easily. It is believed that a person should never go to bed crying or with feelings of fear and worry, as this invites the djinn to attack during sleep.

It" is the idea of him or her that resides in us--inspired by the "Something" in them, as Pope has it, "That gives us back the Image of our Mind." Although the perception of It must be excited by some extraordinary perturbation in the looks and personality of the adored, the aura that It broadcasts arises not merely from the singularity of an original, as Walter Benjamin supposed, but also from the fabulous success of its reproducibility in the imaginations of many others, charmed exponentially by the number of its copies. The one-of-kind item must become a type, a replicable role-icon of itself--from "a Charles Hart" or "a Nell Gwyn" to "a Mary Pickford" or "a Douglas Fairbanks"--in order to unleash the Pygmalion effect in the hearts and minds of the fans, making the idea of him or her theirs--as much or more than anything else they might call their own.

In classical art this 'aura' surrounding motherhood depicts repose. The dominant culture projects pregnancy as a time of quiet waiting. We refer to the woman as 'expecting,' as though this new life were flying in from another planet and she sat in her rocking chair by the window, occasionally moving the curtain aside to see whether the ship is coming. The image of uneventful waiting associated with pregnancy reveals clearly how much the discourse of pregnancy leaves out the subjectivity of the woman. From the point of view of others pregnancy is primarily a time of waiting and watching, when nothing happens. For the pregnant subject, on the other hand, pregnancy has a temporality of movement, growth, and change. The pregnant subject is not simply a splitting which the two halves lie open and still, but a dialectic. The pregnant woman experiences herself as a source and participant in a creative process. Though she does not plan and direct it, neither does it merely wash over; rather, she is this process, this change. Time stretches out, moments and days take on a depth because she experiences more changes in herself, her body. Each day, each week, she looks at herself for signs of transformation... For others the birth of an infant may only be a beginning, but for the birthing woman it is a conclusion as well. It signals the close of a process she has been undergoing for nine months, the leaving of this unique body she has moved through, always surprising her a bit in its boundary changes and inner kicks. Especially if this is her first child she experiences the birth as a transition to a new self that she may both desire and fear. She fears a loss of identity, as though on the other side of the birth she herself became a transformed person, such that she would 'never be the same again.

Every person aerosolises around 37 million bacteria per hour. This means that our microbiome isn't confined to our bodies. It perpetually reaches out into our environment. [...] I contain multitudes, yes, but only some of them; the rest, I extend into the world like a living aura.

There are three voice tones available to negotiators: 1.​The late-night FM DJ voice: Use selectively to make a point. Inflect your voice downward, keeping it calm and slow. When done properly, you create an aura of authority and trustworthiness without triggering defensiveness. 2.​The positive/playful voice: Should be your default voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. 3.​The direct or assertive voice: Used rarely. Will cause problems and create pushback. ■​Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. Mirroring is the art of insinuating similarity, which facilitates bonding. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.

Thus the service performed by the new paradigm isn’t, strictly speaking, to reveal the baseness of our moral sentiments; that baseness, per se, counts neither for nor against them; the ultimate genetic selfishness underlying an impulse is morally neutral—grounds neither for embracing the impulse nor for condemning it. Rather, the paradigm is useful because it helps us see that the aura of rightness surrounding so many of our actions may be delusional; even when they feel right, they may do harm. And surely hatred, more often than love, does harm while feeling right. That is why I contend that the new paradigm will tend to lead the thinking person toward love and away from hate. It helps us judge each feeling on its merits; and on grounds of merit, love usually wins.

I made peace with my religious past. I took responsibility for my spiritual journey. I stopped dividing up the world into “sacred” and “secular.” I began listening to and trusting my inner voice. I started looking past the externals, and relating to the deepest reality I knew was present in every human being. I quit making my humanity the enemy. I resisted the need to build a persona around being an enlightened person. I opened myself to the rhythm and flow of life in nature. I explored what it meant to truly be “present” in life and became a student of my spiritual aura and energy. I focused on addressing the root of my

They were talking quietly among themselves, pain radiating from each person, palpable as an aura to a psychic. It didn’t take any special powers to know they were hurting; the slumped shoulders, dark circles and red noses spoke volumes.

At Ardennes she conceived a desire to strangle the young woman who prepped and held down garde manger. The woman, Becky Hemerling, was a culinary-institute grad with wavy blond hair and a petite flat body and fair skin that turned scarlet in the kitchen heat. Everything about Becky Hemerling sickened Denise—her C.I.A. education (Denise was an autodidact snob), her overfamiliarity with more senior cooks (especially with Denise), her vocal adoration of Jodie Foster, the stupid fish-and-bicycle texts on her T-shirts, her overuse of the word “fucking” as an intensifier, her self-conscious lesbian “solidarity” with the “latinos” and “Asians” in the kitchen, her generalizations about “right-wingers” and “Kansas” and “Peoria,” her facility with phrases like “men and women of color,” the whole bright aura of entitlement that came of basking in the approval of educators who wished that they could be as marginalized and victimized and free of guilt as she was. What is this person doing in my kitchen? Denise wondered. Cooks were not supposed to be political. Cooks were the mitochondria of humanity; they had their own separate DNA, they floated in a cell and powered it but were not really of it. Denise suspected that Becky Hemerling had chosen the cooking life to make a political point: to be one tough chick, to hold her own with the guys. Denise loathed this motivation all the more for harboring a speck of it herself. Hemerling had a way of looking at her that suggested that she (Hemerling) knew her better than she knew herself—an insinuation at once infuriating and impossible to refute. Lying awake beside Emile at night, Denise imagined squeezing Hemerling’s neck until her blue, blue eyes bugged out. She imagined pressing her thumbs into Hemerling’s windpipe until it cracked.    Then one night she fell asleep and dreamed that she was strangling Becky and that Becky didn’t mind. Becky’s blue eyes, in fact, invited further liberties. The strangler’s hands relaxed and traveled up along Becky’s jawline and past her ears to the soft skin of her temples. Becky’s lips parted and her eyes fell shut, as if in bliss, as the strangler stretched her legs out on her legs and her arms out on her arms…    Denise couldn’t remember being sorrier to wake from a dream.    “If you can have this feeling in a dream,” she said to herself, “it must be possible to have it in reality.

Beginning thein Book 1 0. 1. In thee beginning, creation Godded the Heavens ere thee. 2. And thou wert without form and void, knowing neither darkness nor light, having no I by which to divine them. And the spilling of your Father moved amidst the waters that came to make you come. 3. And Dad said, Let there be my firmament in the midst of Her waters, and let it divide Her waters as a sword should its sheath. And 20,000 legions of sireofhim were thrust unto the breach by the bidding of their master. 4. And in the Heavens of their heads, in the limbic marchlands of their intimacy, angels roared and dragons sang, and hippogriffs commissurated across fields of blood-filled furrows. 5. ”.are parents our Myths“ 6. Not knowing that they do sow, they sing thee into being. 7. Blind light blazes - a lamp in an empty grave - an O-void shrine. Its name until you came was No, or Un, and there was naught else: no person, place, or thing. And yet - it was as though a thousand million tiny fingers beaconed you out of the dark. 8. Brightnest of paraspectral radiance, unrememeasurable, ununderstandable, that a snake-shaped You came swimming to. So many of you came, writhing, flagellating, so that this shrine became like a shining sun, and one - only one - was chosen to enter the Codesh of Codes. It brought creative agony, the pain of Somethingness, the sudden searing mystortury of Being, since when we have called it Limited. 9. But how could you not have helped but see the tiny hidden singing Unlimited Light, your Own Sopht Aura? Sire of sirens and sunrise and serapheim? 10. This is what you aur - a sarcophagus of secreted light! 11. Thistory is You.

A distinctive poetic atmosphere surrounds our autobiographical being. The culmination of our personal experiences projects an expressive emotional prism upon our faces, a self-projected limelight casting us with an aura-like quality that other people readily perceive and interpret. Each person’s life consists of nurturing his or her poetic seedlings. Introspection is the first and foremost means that people rely upon to grasp the referential nature of their essential personal experiences. Reflective moments allow us to enrich our understanding of life’s nuisances that imbue even our most rouge experiences with a personalized ambiance. The juxtaposition of life’s prosodic fragments with unanticipated moments of exhilaration provides the tension that composes the contrapuntal language driving the meter of our life’s story. The sweeping arch of our hand-tooled stories designates our chosen path and serves to remind us that even persons injured while attempting to discern the pathway to bliss can use their own brand of resourcefulness to rescue themselves.

It’s why I was originally drawn to Gansey,” Malory continued. “Despite his mercurial personality, he has a very pleasant and neutral aura. I don’t feel like I am with another person when I am with him. He doesn’t take from me.

Let's talk about you for a moment, the person reading these lines. Right now, with the book open in your hands, you are engaged in a mysterious, unsettling activity, though habit prevents you from being amazed. Think carefully. You are completely quiet, eyes moving over rows of letters made into meaning, that deliver ideas independent from the world now surrounding you. In other words, you have withdrawn to an inner chamber where absent voices speak, where there are ghosts only you can see (in this case, my phantom self), and where the pace of time's passage is the measure of your level of interest or boredom. You have created a parallel world like the illusion of cinema, a world that depends on you alone. At any moment, you can avert your gaze from these lines and return to the action and movement of the outside world. But in the meantime, you remain on the edge, in the place where you've chosen to be. There is an almost magical aura to the act of reading.

Geriatric or other life extension for the powerful poses a similar threat to a sentient species as that found historically in the dominance of a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. Both assume prerogatives of immortality, collecting more and more power with each passing moment. This is power which draws a theological aura about itself: the unassailable Law, the God-given mandate of the leader, manifest destiny. Power held too long within a narrow framework moves farther and farther away from the adaptive demands of changed conditions. The leadership grows ever more paranoid, suspicious of inventive adaptations to change, fearfully protective of personal power and, in the terrified avoidance of what it sees as risk, blindly leads its people into destruction. ―BuSab Manual

The more often we fall in line with the poor language and attitude of the drowning masses, the more we sound and look like victims. We must never forget that ours is a world of distracted people craving Personal Freedom but often choosing to operate from fear. And so if we aren’t conscious with our will and vigilance, we risk sliding into their tragedy. Life can lose its vibrant aura and charm if we do not bend the energy of our minds toward positive engagement and appreciation

By the way, though Yukinoshita had distanced herself from me, she was also nearby. An aloof-style loner has a wide circle of personal space and emits a strong negative aura that keeps people at bay.

When we were speaking on the phone, I envisioned not a distinct person with a face and body, but rather a vague, faceless essence, as if their whole personality manifested itself into an aura that wasn't exactly physical as we know it.

To Andrei, he could see all that was unpleasant about her face—her large nose and bony frame. But inside her, there was so much peace and contentment that somehow, she lit up everywhere. She was beautiful to him. It was the kind of attraction between people who were really people—and who could see the other person’s aura and makings. He saw what made her flesh move, and not her flesh. The intricate mechanics of her person, and not her shell. Andrei looked at O’Hare and saw something genderless—a kind of organism that was born and that over time has been affected and affects—that was ultimately kind and brave. It was the highest rank of physical desire one could experience. When the beautiful made standard love to each other, there always lay at least one angle of ugly—maybe in the dark, from the side, with a sound they made, or everything once one was finished. In what O’Hare and Andrei shared, beauty could take its time and no second could stop it. It was the type of wholesome love that made a couple stare for minutes at the other, not because they adored their lover’s eye color, but because in those minutes they were speaking to the person within the person, finding them, seeing them see, and playing together in that invisible planet created by two intuitive inventors.

After I woke from my dream within a dream, I clung to what you’d said in the dream about “reference auras.” It seemed to point to a way of trying to live with this unbearable absence. Once someone is in your reference aura, they stay there forever. Couldn’t forever include after death? I mean, if someone has died, they are still in your reference aura and so continue to grow in your heart like a living person. That little boy Ritchie was carrying in his arms was about a year old. “This is the way we do it,” Ritchie said in the dream, and perhaps this is the way to do it.

Do not worry over your past misdeeds—for worry itself breeds demons—but eliminate them from your aura, planting instead good seeds with constructive labors. Feel your own personal responsibility in this problem, for the realization of responsibility is good for the soul. Demonstrate this acceptance of responsibility to the higher powers of Cosmos, for when your light shines out, the spirits of evil must slink into the corners and cover their faces with the shadow of their cloaks.

I once met someone who told me that I had an aura of attracting and engaging weird people. I felt offended because I knew that also implied that I am weird. Recently, after taking a walk through memory lane, I just realized that the person's observation is somehow true. I find normal to be boring but weird to be intriguing. And 'weird' is actually just a deviation from what everyone assumes to be the normal.

After class, Frankie offered to buy her a freshly-squeezed carrot juice at the smoothie bar across the street. It was a timid offer that Katie politely declined, then surprised Frankie by grabbing her hand and asking, “How about a margarita and some queso instead? I’ve had a day.” That’s when Frankie knew she’d found her person.

An achieved state of grace is not a matter of religious conviction. It is an aura that blankets a person and glows so brightly it can be seen for miles and in turn, will attract others to its light. Grace allows one to face insurmountable adversities with courage. To change energies of negative to positive. From a soul lost in night to one found in the daylight. Grace can make a person a Warrior of Light

Joe Acosta sat at a massive glass-and-steel-frame desk in front of a tinted glass wall that framed Biscayne Bay as if it was a photo of Joe’s personal cottage in the woods. In spite of the tint, the late-afternoon light came up off the water and filled the room with a supernatural glow. Acosta stood up as we entered, and the light from the window behind him surrounded him in a bright aura, making it hard to look at him without squinting. But I looked at him anyway, and even without the halo he was impressive. Not physically; Acosta was a thin and aristocratic-looking man with dark hair and eyes, and he wore what looked like a very expensive suit. He was not tall, and I was sure his wife would tower over him in her spike heels. But perhaps he felt that the power of his personality was strong enough to overcome a little thing like being a foot shorter than her. Or maybe it was the power of his money. Whatever it was, he had it. He looked at us from behind his desk, and I felt a sudden urge to kneel, or at least knuckle my forehead. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Sergeant,” he said. “My wife wanted to be here for this.” He waved an arm at the conversation area. “Let’s sit where we can talk,” he said, and he walked around the desk and sat down in the big club chair opposite Alana. Deborah hesitated for a moment, and I saw that she looked a little bit uncertain, as if it had really hit her for the first time that she was confronting somebody who was only a few steps down the chain of command from God. But she took a breath, squared her shoulders, and marched over to the couch. She sat down, and I sat beside her. The

Plato's Academy, formally organized as a religious guild, had the aura of a great spirit reaching out to all listeners. But Aristotle's legacy was a body of knowledge, marking the path of modern learning-accumulating the facts of the world and human experience with an explanation of causes. Aristotle's legacy, then, was not the power of a charismatic personality of grand poetic gifts, but rather the accumulation of a lifetime of scholarly observation. And before Aristotle's writings were recovered by Andronicus, there were centuries of opportunity for his ideas to be distorted. Plato's was an unbroken tradition, Aristotle's was a series of renaissances.