Balancing Rocks Quotes

We may be floating on Tao, but there is nothing wrong with steering. If Tao is like a river, it is certainly good to know where the rocks are.

But it seemed to me that this was the way we all lived: full to the brim with gratitude and joy one day, wrecked on the rocks the next. Finding the balance between the two was the art and the salvation.

In your world I am ashes, I am ancestors, my memories and hopes and dreams have gone to build the City of Bones. In your world, I am lucky, because I do not have to live in a world without you. But in this world, I am you. I am the twinless twin. So I can tell you this: When your twin leaves the earth you live on, it never turns the same way again: the weight of their soul is gone, and everything is off balance. The world rocks under your feet like an unquiet sea. I can't tell you it gets easier. But it does get steadier; you learn how to live with the new rocking of the new earth, the way sailors gain sea legs. You learn. I promise.

Do you see how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls, the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole. But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.

Sometimes we may wonder what we have gotten ourselves into. Unfamiliar or unexpected incidents throw us off balance. Although we have always been stable like rocks in the surf, we feel trapped by our vulnerability. The router of our personality has broken down and no longer emits or receives any signals. We have no interaction with the world. We realize, at that moment, that we are interdependent beings, and our individuality only exists through a cluster of interactions. (“The infinite Wisdom of Meditation“)

What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is a caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape.

Kartik places a sovereign in the lady's cup, and I know that it's likely all he has. "Why did you do that?" I ask. He kicks a rock on the ground, balancing it nimbly between his feet like a ball. "She needed it." Father says it isn't good to give money to beggers. They'll only spend it unwisely on drink or other pleasures. "She might buy ale with it." He shrugs. "Then she'll have ale. It isn't the pound that matters; it's the hope...I know what it's like to fight for things that others take for granted.

Nature is unselfish," she says. "It only wishes to survive. Humanity inflicts harm on it, digs up the earth, poisons the waters, harnesses rock and metal and stone for its own purposes. We are the protectors. We are the connection between humanity and nature. Nature is always searching for balance.

Whoo-eeee!” From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Peter. He was on the road to the side, probably waiting to ensure she’d managed to negotiate the first part of the track. She didn’t stop, her adrenaline pumping. He’d catch up. “Come get me!” she yelled, making a slight counter-direction turn in the air to help her blow into the berm on the other side of the road. The trail crossed a short flat, a marked rock garden, a beam over a bog, another rock drop and berm, a zigzag around massive trees, roots and rocks that kicked the bike’s tyres this way and that and tested her balance, more air over another drop – this one caused by a massive log – enough air for her to do a back flip from a kicker over another part of the forestry trail, steep to the left. The first wall appeared. She took it fast, skidded around to slam into the side of a berm and round off on to another gully crossing. “Whoo-eeee!

While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top,spreading his laugh across the water. Laughing at the girl,at the guys, at George,at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier and the bicycle rider and the service station guys and the five thousand houses and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He know's there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girl friend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.

The man needs to be firm and resolute. He needs to be confident and assured. He needs to be her rock: the one man in the world his submissive can turn to for advice, help, guidance and comfort. And he needs to be able to arouse and excite her. He needs to be able to keep her on edge and off balance. He needs to know her better than she knows herself – and he needs to be all these things to her without losing his honor, or destroying her dignity and independence. He needs to lift her up, Leticia, so that she becomes the person she wants to be, and then he needs to hold her there so she can never ever fall.” Leticia stared up at me and for a long time said

The world is like a seesaw out of balance: on one side is a box of big rocks, tilting it its way. On the other side is a box, and a bunch of us with teaspoons, adding a little sand at a time. One day, all of our teaspoons will add up, and the whole thing will tip, and people will say, 'How did it happen so fast?

We almost couldn’t fit all of our hair into the car, but luckily we were wearing fewer clothes so it balanced out.

As she was working out the calculations in her head, she forgot to really worry about all the physical things that were getting in the way--the balancing of the bow, the aiming, the fear she wasn't going to get it right--and suddenly it all just clicked. She felt it come into sudden, sharp focus, like a spotlight had suddenly focused on her, and she let go of the arrow. That instant, she knew it would hit the target. She let the bow rock gracefully forward on the balance point, watching the arrow, and it smacked into the exact center of her crudely drawn paper circle. Physics. She loved physics. Shane arrived just as she put the arrow into the center, and slowed down, staring from the target to Claire, standing straight and tall, bow still held loosely in one hand and ready to shoot again. "You look so hot right now," he said.

Anna is the only person I’ve ever met more intense than me. Sometimes she scares me a little. But mostly she’s my balance, my rock.

Stability means figuring out how to prioritize what serves you, not feeling like a failure if you don't do everything perfectly, + just balancing everything as best you can.

Ty, I’ve thought so many times about what I would say to you if you reappeared suddenly. If I was walking along the street and you popped out of thin air, walking along beside me like you always used to, with your hands in your pockets and your head tilted back. Mom used to say you walked celestially, looking upat the sky as if you were scanning the clouds for angels. Do you remember that? In your world I am ashes, I am ancestors, my memories and hopes and dreams have gone to build the City of Bones. In your world, I am lucky, because I do not have to live in a world without you. But in this world, I am you. I am the twinless twin. So I can tell you this: When your twin leaves the earth you live on, it never turns the same way again: the weight of their soul is gone, and everything is off balance. The world rocks under your feet like an unquiet sea. I can’t tell you it gets easier. But it does get steadier; you learn how to live with the new rocking of the new earth, the way sailors gain sea legs. You learn. I promise. I know you’re not exactly the Ty I had in this world, my brilliant, beautiful brother. But I know from Julian that you are beautiful and brilliant too. I know that you are loved. I hope that you are happy. Please be happy. You deserve it so much. I want to ask if you remember the way we used to whisper words to each other in the dark: star, twin, glass. But I’ll never know your answer. So I’ll whisper to myself as I fold this letter up and slide it into the envelope, hoping against hope it will somehow reach you. I whisper your name, Ty. I whisper the most important thing: I love you. I love you. I love you. Livvy

The balanced rocks that sit on the inuksuk...represent the balance we strive to find in our lives. Life is fragile, just like the balanced rocks, but they help us remember that anything is possible.

Then like a bird, he gingerly landed on a protruding rock inside the monstrous cavern. I looked up at the wet walls teaming with sea life and reeled back feeling like I was going to lose my balance when I felt him reach around and carefully lift me off. He placed me so I could stand on the rock in front of him. His strong arms wrapped tightly around me so I wouldn’t fall. We stood in astonishment deafened by the noise of the waves hitting the reef all around us. The warmth of his chest radiated against me. I molded my body up against his, my heart erupting in a flutter that caused my legs to weaken. “What do you think?” he whispered into my ear. I felt his hot breath against the side of my neck, which caused me to be light-headed as my heart raced even harder. “Awesome,” I whispered, which was all I could get out as I slinked into his chest a little bit more.

Isn’t she wonderful? A really fine talent, and so beautiful, too.” “Yes,” I said quietly, clapping as well and taking care not to play pat-a-cake. “It’s quite something to make the chandeliers ring like that.” The clapping upset my sensitive sense of balance, and I staggered slightly. Gideon caught me. “I can’t make it out,” he said angrily, his lips close to my ear. “We haven’t been here two hours, and you’re totally drunk! What on earth were you thinking of?” “You said totally. I’m going to tell on you to Giordano,” I giggled. In all the noise, no one else could hear us. “Anyway, it’s too late. No point in locking the stable door after the horse has gone.” A hiccup interrupted me--hic. “Sorry.” I looked around me. “But everyone else is much more drunk than me, so leave out the moral indignation, okay? I have everything under control. You can let go of me again. I stand here as steady as a rock among the breakers.” “I’m warning you,” whispered Gideon, but he did let go of me.

I could feel his heart pump and his muscles strain," she said, "when he balanced himself and me on the rocks. I knew that if we fell, we’d go together; he would never drop me".

I’m glad now I have Peeta to clutch for balance, he is so steady, solid as a rock.

As the drummer, I know that drums fully support the band. Their rhythm keeps things within the pulse and contributes to the overall energy of each performance. I am a very balanced person and I realize that through my personal level of balance, I also outwardly balance Stjepan and Luka.

The ground went out from under her. She sucked in a breath, flailing for balance. Arms came around her waist from behind, jerking her back, keeping her feet in the air. She fought, feeling his chest at her back, but he was too strong. "Damn it," he said, his voice strained. "Do you want to go in the water?" That forced her still. Red and white lights still hung in the distance, warring with the stars. Now that she wasn't running the sound of waves hitting the rocks was unmistakable. And right in front of her. "The water?" she said numbly. He put her feet on the ground, but he didn't let her go. "Yeah. Water. Did you miss the part where I said we're parked on a peninsula?

How do you know when the Sarows is coming?" hummed Lila as she made her way down the ship's narrow hall, fingertips skimming either wall for balance. Right about the, Alucard's warning about Jasta was coming back in full force. "Never challenge that one to a drinking contest. Or a sword fight. Or anything else you might lose. Because you will." The boat rocked beneath her fee. Or maybe she was the one rocking. Hell. Lila was slight, but not short of practice, and even so, she'd never had so much trouble holding her liquor. When she got to her room, she found Kell hunched over the Inheritor, examining the markings on its side. "Hello, handsome," she said, bracing herself in the doorway. Kell looked up, a smile halfway to his lips before it fell away. "You're drunk," he said, giver her a long, appraising look. "And you're not wearing any shoes." "Your powers of observation are astonishing." Lila looked down at her bare feet. "I lost them." "How do you lose shoes?" Lila crinkled her brow. "I bet them. I lost." Kell rose. "To who?" A tiny hiccup. "Jasta." Kell sighed. "Stay here." He slipped past her into the hall, a hand alighting on her waist and then, too soon, the touch was gone. Lila make her way to the bed and collapsed onto it, scooping up the discarded Inheritor and holding it up to the light. The spindle at the cylinder's base was sharp enough to cut, and she turned the device carefully between her fingers, squinting to make out the words wrapped around it. Rosin, read one side. Cason, read the other. Lila frowned, mouthing the words as Kell reappeared in the doorway. "Give-- and Take," he translated, tossing her the boots. She sat up too fast, winced. "How did you manage that?" "I simply explained that she couldn't have them-- they wouldn't have fit-- and then I gave her mine." Lila looked down at Kell's bare feet, and burst into laughter.

You could not presume that people were healthy. You could not presume that they would welcome the little nudges and jostlings of life. You had to behave as though everyone you met was walking a thin wire far above the earth, where the slightest wind might rock them off their balance and send them tumbling to the ground.

You take a step; rocks and dust fall off the cliff. You stumble and you move forward. The voices in your head call you a coward. You are beginning to second-guess yourself because you want to throw in the towel. You close your eyes; a tear falls and travels to your chin. As your eyes are closed the Great Divine’s voice is louder; yet, calmer, soothing; and you feel peace instantly. Your mind feels light, and your body feels balanced. The Great Divine whispers gently and softly in your ear: “Fallen Warrior, I know you have given everything you’ve got, and you feel like you have nothing left to give. Fallen Warrior, I know it’s been a while since you smiled. Fallen Warrior, I see that you are hurting, and I feel your pain. Fallen Warrior, this is not the end. This is the start of your new beginning. Fallen Warrior, do not doubt My or your abilities; you have more going for you than you have going against you. Fallen Warrior, keep moving, you have what it takes; perseverance is your middle name. Fallen Warrior, you are not the victim! You are the victor! You step back because you know why you are here. You know why you are alive. Sometimes you have to be your own Shero.

The man needs to be firm and resolute. He needs to be confident and assured. He needs to be her rock: the one man in the world his submissive can turn to for advice, help, guidance and comfort. And he needs to be able to arouse and excite her. He needs to be able to keep her on edge and off balance. He needs to know her better than she knows herself – and he needs to be all these things to her without losing his honor, or destroying her dignity and independence. He needs to lift her up, Leticia, so that she becomes the person she wants to be, and then he needs to hold her there so she can never ever fall.

Jenny wouldn't be dead if she'd never crashed into Blanche on Kearny Street. P'tit wouldn't exist if Blanche had never met Arthur. Facts as hard as rocks, and Blanche has to pick her way among them, find her balance, with an acrobat's cocky smile.

I shouldn’t have drunk three bottles of vodka in twenty-four hours. But I did. Because that bullshit they feed you about hitting rock bottom and seeing the light? It’s just that. A load of crap. In reality, when you hit rock bottom, you lie there for a long, extended nap, because rock bottom is still solid ground. Especially when the rest of your world is hanging on by a feather for balance

I study her visage, the fluted snow fields and couloirs of ice scoured by avalanches. Horizontal bands of rock curve downward, as if bearing the weight of the sky. Her summit is like a fulcrum on which the heavens lean, balancing the setting sun and rising moon.

Sam wandered through the dark corridor, keeping a hand on the wall to maintain his balance. The stone floor was uneven, and he caught his toe on a couple of rocks that were sticking up in his path. He was about to give up and turn around when he heard something up ahead. He stopped in his tracks, thinking about Patrick Henry’s ghost. He listened carefully and heard a man’s voice coming from around the bend.

Some people are like rocks, they ground you but sometimes put you in a hard place. Others are like the wind, they spin you around and keep you on your toes but sometimes they are unreliable and can get you into trouble. It takes a certain kind of person to balance someone out like that, i'm sure you do that to someone

It is very easy to grow tired at collecting; the period of a low tide is about all men can endure. At first the rocks are bright and every moving animal makes his mark on the attention. The picture is wide and colored and beautiful. But after an hour and a half the attention centers weary, the color fades, and the field is likely to narrow to an individual animal. Here one may observe his own world narrowed down until interest and, with it, observation, flicker and go out. And what if with age this weariness becomes permanent and observation dim out and not recover? Can this be what happens to so many men of science? Enthusiasm, interest, sharpness, dulled with a weariness until finally they retire into easy didacticism? With this weariness, this stultification of attention centers, perhaps there comes the pained and sad memory of what the old excitement was like, and regret might turn to envy of the men who still have it. Then out of the shell of didacticism, such a used-up man might attack the unwearied, and he would have in his hands proper weapons of attack. It does seem certain that to a wearied man an error in a mass of correct data wipes out all the correctness and is a focus for attack; whereas the unwearied man, in his energy and receptivity, might consider the little dross of error a by-product of his effort. These two may balance and produce a purer thing than either in the end. These two may be the stresses which hold up the structure, but it is a sad thing to see the interest in interested men thin out and weaken and die. We have known so many professors who once carried their listeners high on their single enthusiasm, and have seen these same men finally settle back comfortably into lectures prepared years before and never vary them again. Perhaps this is the same narrowing we observe in relation to ourselves and the tide pool—a man looking at reality brings his own limitations to the world. If he has strength and energy of mind the tide pool stretches both ways, digs back to electrons and leaps space into the universe and fights out of the moment into non-conceptual time. Then ecology has a synonym which is ALL.

There is nothing particularly special about that location of the centre of mass. If you were to find yourself at the precise spot that is the centre of mass of the earth-moon system, the only thing unusual that you would notice is that there would be one thousand miles of rock on top of your head. Pluto is only about twice the size of Charon, so if you put Pluto and Charon on the cosmic seesaw you would find that the balance point is a little bit outside Pluto, rather than inside it. Again, there is nothing particularly special going on there. If you were to find yourself at that precise spot, you would only notice that you were very, very cold and could no longer breathe.

Sweet, voluptuous & sexy But I'm hellacious as they get Don't test me! My equilibrium is off I want balance I want my love rocked back To its origin

We'd read while we balanced on the low rock walls that Seamus Heaney made famous in his poetry. A way to leave without really leaving.

I know the sound of each rock and stone And I embrace what others fear You are not to roam in this forgotten place Just the likes of me are welcome here Everything breathes And I know each breath For me it means life For others, it's death It's perfectly in balance Perfectly planned More than enough For this man Like every tree Stands on it's own Reaching for the sky I stand alone I share my world With no one else All by myself I stand alone I seen your world With these very eyes Don't come any closer Don't even try I've felt all the pain And heard all the lies But in my world there's no Compromise Like every tree Stands on it's own Reaching for the sky I stand alone I share my world With no one else All by myself I stand alone.

Crayfish,” I said. I dumped out a tin of water. “Really?” I nodded. “Big ones?” “Not these. You can find them, though.” “Can I see?” She dropped down off the bank just like a boy would, not sitting first, just putting her left hand to the ground and vaulting the three-foot drop to the first big stone in the line that led zigzag across the water. She studied the line a moment and then crossed to the Rock. I was impressed. She had no hesitation and her balance was perfect. I made room for her. There was suddenly this fine clean smell sitting next to me. Her eyes were green. She looked around. To all of us back then the Rock was something special. It sat smack in the middle of the deepest part of the brook, the water running clear and fast around it.

The highest goodness is like water. Water is beneficial to all things but not contend. It stays in places which others despise. Therefore it is near Tao. The weakest things in the world can overmatch the strongest things in the world. Nothing in the world can be compared to water for its weak and yielding nature; yet in attacking the hard and strong nothing proves better than water. For there is no alternative to it. The weak can overcome and the yielding can overcame the hard. This all the world knows but does not practice. This again is the practice of ‘wu-wel’ and nonviolence. Water may be weak, pliable, fluid, but its action is not one of running away from an obstacle. On the contrary, it gives at the point of resistance, envelopes the object and passes beyond it. Ultimately it will wear down the hardest rock. Water is a more telling symbol than land… crossing the river to get to the other side is, again, attaining the state of enlightenment.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy notes that Disaster Area, a plutonium rock band from the Gagrakacka Mind Zones, are generally held to be not only the loudest rock band in the Galaxy, but in fact the loudest noise of any kind at all. Regular concert goers judge that the best sound balance is usually to be heard from within large concrete bunkers some thirty-seven miles from the stage, while the musicians themselves play their instruments by remote control from within a heavily insulated spaceship which stays in orbit around the planet—or more frequently around a completely different planet.

Walking upright between the past and future, a tightrope walk across our times, became, for me, a way of living: trying to maintain a balance between the competing gravities of birth and death, hope and regret, sex and mortality, love and grief, all those opposites or nearly opposites that become, after a while, the rocks and hard places, synonymous forces between which we navigate, like salmon balanced in the current, damned some times if we do or don't.

The Diné Bahane’, the mythic origin story of the Navajo people, concerns balance, give-and-take, facing challenges, and making one’s way in the world, negotiating the constant presence of dark and light, life and death, hozho and its counterpart, hochxo.

Life is wonderful and strange...and it’s also absolutely mundane and tiresome. It’s hilarious and it’s deadening. It’s a big, screwed-up morass of beauty and change and fear and all our lives we oscillate between awe and tedium. I think stories are the place to explore that inherent weirdness; that movement from the fantastic to the prosaic that is life.... What interests me—and interests me totally—is how we as living human beings can balance the brief, warm, intensely complicated fingersnap of our lives against the colossal, indifferent, and desolate scales of the universe. Earth is four-and-a-half billion years old. Rocks in your backyard are moving if you could only stand still enough to watch. You get hernias because, eons ago, you used to be a fish. So how in the world are we supposed to measure our lives—which involve things like opening birthday cards, stepping on our kids’ LEGOs, and buying toilet paper at Safeway—against the absolutely incomprehensible vastness of the universe? How? We stare into the fire. We turn to friends, bartenders, lovers, priests, drug-dealers, painters, writers. Isn’t that why we seek each other out, why people go to churches and temples, why we read books? So that we can find out if life occasionally sets other people trembling, too?

Some of us come from families where we were not taught healthy emotional language and habits. We did not get a balanced perspective of the world and relationships, and some of us got a distorted view of where we stood in relation to the rest of the world. We felt (and many of us still do) less than. In order to make up for that, we learned to exaggerate and lie and blow our accomplishments way out of proportion in order to feel of some value. To succeed, we have to stop thinking we are less than other people. We tell ourselves we are not unworthy, inadequate, or unable to cope fully with life’s problems. We begin to see the glass as half full instead of half empty. We have to get rid of feelings of inability before we can make progress. As we learn more about how false pride has held us back from our full potential, we remember, “If we change our thoughts, we can change ourselves.

At first there was nothing - a profound blue darkness running running deep, laced by skeins of starlight and pale phosphorescent flashes. This four o-clock hour was a moment of utter silence, the indrawn breath of dark, the absolute, trance-like balance between night and day. Then, when it seemed that nothing would ever move or live or know the light again, a hot wind would run over the invisible water. It was like a fore-blast of the turning world, an intimation that its rocks and seas and surfaces still stirred against the sun. One strained one's eyes, scarce breathing, searching for a sign. Presently it came. Far in the east at last the horizon hardened, an imperceptible line dividing sky and sea, sharp as a diamond cut on glass. A dark bubble of cloud revealed itself, warmed slowly, flushing from within like a seed growing, a kernel ripening, a clinker hot with locked-in fire. Gradually the cloud throbbed red with light, then suddenly caught the still unrisen sun and burst like an expanding bomb. Flares and streamers began to fall into the sea, setting all things on fire. After the long unthinking darkness everything now began to happen at once. The stars snapped shut, the sky bled green, vermillion tides ran over the water, the hills around took on the colour of firebrick, and the great sun drew himself at last raw and dripping from the waves. Scarlet, purple, and clinker-blue, the morning, smelling of thyme and goats, of charcoal, splintered rock and man's long sojourn around this lake

more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships.8 These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations, such as being human, vulnerable, or imperfect; selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change—however healthy and beneficial that movement might be. These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families, too.

Arren was silent, pondering this. Presently the mage said, speaking softly, “Do you see, Arren, how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that’s the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls the universe is changed. On every act the Balance of the Whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale’s sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat’s flight, all they do is done within the Balance of the Whole. But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the Balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility. Who am I—though I have the power to do it—to punish and reward, playing with men’s destinies?” “But then,” the boy said, frowning at the stars, “is the Balance to be kept by doing nothing? Surely a man must act, even not knowing all the consequences of his act, if anything is to be done at all?” “Never fear. It is much easier for men to act than to refrain from acting. We will continue to do good and to do evil. . . . But if there were a king over us all again and he sought counsel of a mage, as in the days of old, and I were that mage, I would say to him: My lord, do nothing because it is righteous or praiseworthy or noble to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do and which you cannot do in any other way.

There were worse things than death. There would be a leap and a moment suspended, then a long hopeless curve to the rocks and river below. They would fall like leaves between clouds of swifts and then be washed away by the thundering rapids. Bramble clung to that thought. If their bodies washed away then there could be no identification, no danger of reprisals on her family. She hung on tighter. The roan's hindquarters bunched under her and they were in the air. It was like she had imagined: the leap, and then the moment suspended in air that seemed to last forever. Below her the swifts boiled up through the river mist, swerving and swooping, while she and the roan seemed to stay frozen above them. Bramble felt, like a rush of air, the presence of the gods surround her. The shock made her lose her balance and begin to slide sideways. She felt herself falling. With an impossible flick of both legs, the roan shrugged her back onto his shoulders. Then the long curve downward and she braced herself to see the cliffs rushing past as they fell. Time to die. Instead she felt a thumping jolt that flung her from the roan's back and tossed her among the rocks at the cliff's edge on the other side. On the other side. Her sight cleared, although the light still seemed dim. Her hearing came back a little. On the other side of the abyss a jumble of men and hounds were milling, shouting, astonished and very angry. "You can't do that!" one yelled. "It's impossible!" "Well, he shagging did it!" another said. "Can't be impossible!" "Head for the bridge!" Beck shouted. "We can still get him! I want that horse!

Hadrian walked over to where the boys were fighting and sat on the grass near Denek to watch. Denek, who was only twelve years old, glanced at him curiously. “Who are you?” “My name is Hadrian,” he replied as he extended his hand. The boy shook it, squeezing harder than was necessary. “You’re Denek, right? The Pickerings’ third son? Perhaps you should speak with my friend Myron, seeing as how I hear you are monastery-bound.” “Am not!” he shouted. “Going to the monastery, I mean. I can fight as well as Fanen.” “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Hadrian said. “Fanen is flat-footed, and his balance is off. He’s not going to improve much either, because Mauvin is teaching him, and Mauvin is favoring his right and rocks back on his left too much.” Denek grinned at Hadrian and then turned to his brothers. “Hadrian says you both fight like girls!” “What’s that?” Mauvin said, whacking aside Fanen’s loose attack once more. “Oh, ah, nothing,” Hadrian said, trying to recant, and glared at Denek, who just kept grinning. “Thanks a lot,” he told the boy.

You ask me how I manage to put some balance into my life. This is a question I ask myself, as each day I am swallowed up more by my work.… So often I feel I am on a rock, battered from all sides by rising waves. The only escape route is heavenwards. For an hour or a day, I let the waves beat upon the rock; I stop looking out to the horizon and only look upwards towards God.

The need for urgency is because one, two maybe three more steps, and the human race will be balancing itself on the edge of a flood quarry, and then, it will not be a matter of if, but only when, the tender hooves of G-D's lamb lose [their] footing on the slippery slanted rocks of the Quarry: at which point nothing will save us from the BEAST called FREEMASONRY (Dated October 16, 2012)

Right!” Ennion turned his head to look. “Sorry! I meant left!” The front of the boat slammed against the rock before Ennion had time to do anything. Cordon lost his balance on his seat and tumbled to the side, rocking the boat back and forth. Ennion used his own weight to balance it out. “Right again!” Cordon bellowed when he was sitting up once more. “Stop helping!” Ennion yelled back.

I draw myself up next to her and look at her profile, making no effort to disguise my attention, here, where there is only Puck to see me. The evening sun loves her throat and her cheekbones. Her hair the color of cliff grass rises and falls over her face in the breeze. Her expression is less ferocious than usual, less guarded. I say, “Are you afraid?” Her eyes are far away on the horizon line, out to the west where the sun has gone but the glow remains. Somewhere out there are my capaill uisce, George Holly’s America, every gallon of water that every ship rides on. Puck doesn’t look away from the orange glow at the end of the world. “Tell me what it’s like. The race.” What it’s like is a battle. A mess of horses and men and blood. The fastest and strongest of what is left from two weeks of preparation on the sand. It’s the surf in your face, the deadly magic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat. It’s speed, if you’re lucky. It’s life and it’s death or it’s both and there’s nothing like it. Once upon a time, this moment — this last light of evening the day before the race — was the best moment of the year for me. The anticipation of the game to come. But that was when all I had to lose was my life. “There’s no one braver than you on that beach.” Her voice is dismissive. “That doesn’t matter.” “It does. I meant what I said at the festival. This island cares nothing for love but it favors the brave.” Now she looks at me. She’s fierce and red, indestructible and changeable, everything that makes Thisby what it is. She asks, “Do you feel brave?” The mare goddess had told me to make another wish. It feels thin as a thread to me now, that gift of a wish. I remember the years when it felt like a promise. “I don’t know what I feel, Puck.” Puck unfolds her arms just enough to keep her balance as she leans to me, and when we kiss, she closes her eyes. She draws back and looks into my face. I have not moved, and she barely has, but the world feels strange beneath me. “Tell me what to wish for,” I say. “Tell me what to ask the sea for.” “To be happy. Happiness.” I close my eyes. My mind is full of Corr, of the ocean, of Puck Connolly’s lips on mine. “I don’t think such a thing is had on Thisby. And if it is, I don’t know how you would keep it.” The breeze blows across my closed eyelids, scented with brine and rain and winter. I can hear the ocean rocking against the island, a constant lullaby. Puck’s voice is in my ear; her breath warms my neck inside my jacket collar. “You whisper to it. What it needs to hear. Isn’t that what you said?” I tilt my head so that her mouth is on my skin. The kiss is cold where the wind blows across my cheek. Her forehead rests against my hair. I open my eyes, and the sun has gone. I feel as if the ocean is inside me, wild and uncertain. “That’s what I said. What do I need to hear?” Puck whispers, “That tomorrow we’ll rule the Scorpio Races as king and queen of Skarmouth and I’ll save the house and you’ll have your stallion. Dove will eat golden oats for the rest of her days and you will terrorize the races each year and people will come from every island in the world to find out how it is you get horses to listen to you. The piebald will carry Mutt Malvern into the sea and Gabriel will decide to stay on the island. I will have a farm and you will bring me bread for dinner.” I say, “That is what I needed to hear.” “Do you know what to wish for now?” I swallow. I have no wishing-shell to throw into the sea when I say it, but I know that the ocean hears me nonetheless. “To get what I need.

Seriously: Do you want to spend your working life simply being satisfied? When you look back on 50 years spent in business, do you want to be able to say, “Well, I was satisfied"?? No! Make happiness your goal. As in, “Let’s make this a workplace where people are happy to work." As in, “I’ve been working for 50 years now, and it absolutely rocks! To me work is challenging, stimulating and just plain fun.

Apartment windows are cracked open to the cold to balance overzealous radiators, and there's comfort in the sounds drifting out. Each window Amelia passes hints at the warmth inside: people talking, people laughing, kitchen sounds, the steady pulse of music. Now salsa, now reggae. Now opera, now rock. voices in English, in Spanish in Korean, in junkie gibberish. And she's a part of it, at least as long as the sounds of all those lives wash over her.

autrefois, il y avait des galeries aux maisons. Et quelque-fois, les gens restaient assis, tard dans la nuit, bavardant s'ils en avaient envie, se balançant dans leurs fauteuils, silencieux s'ils n'éprouvaient pas le besoin de parler. parfois, ils restaient là, tranquillement, à réfléchir à ruminer. Mon oncle dit que les architectes ont supprimé les galeries pour des raisons d'esthétique. Mais mon oncle dit que c'est un prétexte, rien de plus; la véritable raison, cachée en dessous, c'est qu'on ne voulait pas voir des gens passer des heures assis à ne rien faire, à se balancer, à discuter; c'était une forme détestable de vie en commun. Les gens parlaient trop. Et ils avaient le temps de penser. Alors on a détruit les galeries. Et les jardins, aussi. Il ne reste presque plus de jardins...Et voyez les mobiliers. Plus de rocking-chairs. Ils sont trop confortables. Il faut obliger les gens à courir, à prendre de l'exercise.

Shibui: a kind of beauty that only time can reveal. Shibui was the subtle beauty of grey and brown moss on an old rock. And the taste of an old wine which recalled a ripening of grapes and the perfect balance of sun, wind and rain—that too was shibui. Drisana’s face radiated shibui—‘radiate’ was not quite the right word—her face revealed the grain of her character and her life’s experiences as if it were a piece of ivory painstakingly and beautifully carved by time.

When you’re climbing up a rock face, your hands are not more than a few inches from your eyes, but when you’re coming down, your feet are never less than five feet below you, which means that when you look down you’ve far more chance of losing your balance. Got the idea?’ George laughed. ‘Ignore my friend,’ he said. ‘And not just because he’s a hide-bound Tory, but he’s also a lackey of the capitalist system.’ ‘True enough,’ said Guy without shame. ‘So what clubs have you signed up for?’ asked Brooke, turning his attention to Guy. ‘Apart from cricket, the Union, the Disraeli Society and the Officers’ Training Corps,’ replied Guy. ‘Good heavens,’ said Brooke. ‘Is there no hope for the man?’ ‘None whatsoever,’ admitted Guy. Turning to George, he added, ‘But at least I’ve found what you’ve been looking for, so the time has come for you to follow me.’ George raised his mortar board to Brooke, who returned the compliment. Guy led the way to the next row of stalls, where he pointed triumphantly at a white awning that read CUMC, founded 1904. George slapped his friend on the back. He began to study a display of photographs showing past and present undergraduates standing on the Great St Bernard Pass, and on the summits of Mont Vélan and Monte Rosa. Another board on the far side of the table displayed a large photograph of Mont Blanc, on which was written the words Join us in Italy next year if you want

I used to pursue the need for excitement and creativity excessively by sleeping around, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco and occasionally using drugs. I was in a rock and roll band and I thought I was a real bad boy. I even have the tattoos to prove it. After I told Yogi Hari my story at his ashram, he joked around when he was introducing me and said: He used to be Bad-John, but now he is Good-John. (It’s a pun on the pronunciation of my name Gudjon – and if you ever meet me, I’ll probably use it to get you to pronounce my name correctly).

Harriet turned round, and we both saw a girl walking towards us. She was dark-skinned and thin, not veiled but dressed in a sitara, a brightly coloured robe of greens and pinks, and she wore a headscarf of a deep rose colour. In that barren place the vividness of her dress was all the more striking. On her head she balanced a pitcher and in her hand she carried something. As we watched her approach, I saw that she had come from a small house, not much more than a cave, which had been built into the side of the mountain wall that formed the far boundary of the gravel plateau we were standing on. I now saw that the side of the mountain had been terraced in places and that there were a few rows of crops growing on the terraces. Small black and brown goats stepped up and down amongst the rocks with acrobatic grace, chewing the tops of the thorn bushes. As the girl approached she gave a shy smile and said, ‘Salaam alaikum, ’ and we replied, ‘Wa alaikum as salaam, ’ as the sheikh had taught us. She took the pitcher from where it was balanced on her head, kneeled on the ground, and gestured to us to sit. She poured water from the pitcher into two small tin cups, and handed them to us. Then she reached into her robe and drew out a flat package of greaseproof paper from which she withdrew a thin, round piece of bread, almost like a large flat biscuit. She broke off two pieces, and handed one to each of us, and gestured to us to eat and drink. The water and the bread were both delicious. We smiled and mimed our thanks until I remembered the Arabic word, ‘Shukran.’ So we sat together for a while, strangers who could speak no word of each other’s languages, and I marvelled at her simple act. She had seen two people walking in the heat, and so she laid down whatever she had been doing and came to render us a service. Because it was the custom, because her faith told her it was right to do so, because her action was as natural to her as the water that she poured for us. When we declined any further refreshment after a second cup of water she rose to her feet, murmured some word of farewell, and turned and went back to the house she had come from. Harriet and I looked at each other as the girl walked back to her house. ‘That was so…biblical,’ said Harriet. ‘Can you imagine that ever happening at home?’ I asked. She shook her head. ‘That was charity. Giving water to strangers in the desert, where water is so scarce. That was true charity, the charity of poor people giving to the rich.’ In Britain a stranger offering a drink to a thirsty man in a lonely place would be regarded with suspicion. If someone had approached us like that at home, we would probably have assumed they were a little touched or we were going to be asked for money. We might have protected ourselves by being stiff and unfriendly, evasive or even rude.

It was slow at first, dead things slowly mouldering away. The flies in the corners, the dried flowers in their clay pots. The stuffed bird Alfie bought, only because he was both fascinated and disgusted by it in equal measures, was molting on it's perch. It's feathers falling like leaves then laying, parched and cracking dry. The sea shells I kept on my windowsill turned slowly back into sand and the wind filtering through the curtains blew the pieces into the creases of my bedsheets. When I pulled them over my head at night they felt like waves crashing against my ears. It made my thoughts sodden and heavy like impalpable clay, they dredged through my mind like half-forgotten things. Wave: a face, a feeling, the ghost of a name balancing on my teeth and ready to- crash: and now gone, like a dream I once tried to remember though it was already evaporating quick from my morning-shaking fingers. I started dreaming of crumbling sandcastles and the ocean lapping at my feet. I woke in waves and lay, rocking, until I got up to place my feet in the quiet carpet and watch through my down-turned, dream-filled lashes, as it exhaled dust at every step.

For most of the time, one disciplines oneself to ignore the discomfort of being hot or tired or having sore hip bones or being hungry, thirsty. Someone once characterized backpacking as the most miserable way of getting from Point A to Point B. But when salt restores the electrolyte balance, when water cools the insides as well as the brow, when food refurbishes the body’s cells, when time has been spent off one’s feet and a heavy pack is a mile downcanyon, then there follows a tremendous rush of well-being, a physical sense of buoyancy, all out of proportion to the time and place.

It was 12:08 a.m. I had just six minutes to get to the top of the lighthouse. I took off running up the rocks, trying to go as fast as I could while maintaining some sort of balance. When I got up to the lighthouse door, a loud explosion echoed through the sky behind me and I spun around. I shielded my eyes with my hand from the cold rain, which was now coming down harder than ever, as I looked at the interruption into the otherwise quiet Scottish night. Giant flames rose up into the air on the beach below the manor and two long lines of fire burst horizontally across the sky. The world was on fire.

Pop trips over some vegetation and lets go. I’m roaring down the slanting, bumpy dirt path, trying to dodge the rocks and shrieking with delighted terror. I’m heading into the stand of Java plum trees at the end of our clearing when I lose balance and crash into a lantana bush. I’m winded and scratched as I try to crawl out of the prickly bush. My bike lies in the path, tires spinning, already getting smeared with red Kauai dirt. Pop runs over and picks me up to see if I’m okay. My knees have hit something and are scraped, lantana thorns tangle my hair, but I’m panting with excitement. “Let’s do it again!

Do the gentlemen know what times we are living in? An epoch has commenced that has long been foretold: the Church is rocking, rocking so heavily that it is doubtful whether it can regain its balance: for faith has gone missing... The number of those whom a certain degree and breadth of knowledge has rendered incapable of faith has swelled considerably. This attests to the universal dissemination of coarse rationalism, whose bulldog features are growing more and more widespread. It is quite calmly preparing to measure with its tailor's yardstick the profound mysteries of Christianity over which the centuries have brooded and quarrelled, and imagines itself to be marvellously clever. Above all the central Christian dogma, the doctrine of original sin, has become a risible plaything for the level-headed rationalists ; that is because they think that nothing is clearer and surer than that each man's existence begins at his birth, hence he cannot possibly have entered the world in a state of guilt. How acute of them ! - And just as wolves will start to prowl when poverty and neglect take hold of a village , so an ever-lurking materialism will raise its head in these conditions and assume control along with its companion, bestiality (which certain people call humanism).

President Nixon and Kissinger were joined for the promotion ceremony by CIA director Richard Helms and Defense Secretary Laird; all the men were in a good mood, even Nixon was smiling and laughing. They’d just pulled off one of the great nuclear scares of the Cold War—and only the Soviets had noticed, just as intended. Over the months ahead, though, it became clear the feint had done little either to move forward peace talks in Vietnam or alter the U.S. balance with the Soviet Union. The government never received a single inquiry from an allied nation, nor did any reporter ever ask about it; the feints would remain secret until the 1980s. •

He thought again about the poison. He remembered that one of the animal handlers had been bitten by a compy in a cage. The handler had said the poison was like a narcotic—peaceful, dreamy. No pain. You just wanted to go to sleep. The hell with that, he thought. Hammond picked up a rock, aimed carefully, and threw it, striking one compy flat in the chest. The little animal shrieked in alarm as it was knocked backward, and rolled over its tail. The other animals immediately backed away. Better. Hammond turned away, and started to climb the hill once more. Holding branches in both hands, he hopped on his left leg, feeling the ache in his thigh. He had not gone more than ten feet when one of the compys jumped onto his back. He flung his arms wildly, knocking the animal away, but lost his balance and slid back down the hillside. As he came to a stop, a second compy sprang forward, and took a tiny nip from his hand. He looked with horror, seeing the blood flow over his fingers. He turned and began to scramble up the hillside again. Another compy jumped onto his shoulder, and he felt a brief pain as it bit the back of his neck. He shrieked and smacked the animal away. He turned to face the animals, breathing hard, and they stood all around him, hopping up and down and cocking their heads, watching him. From the bite on his neck, he felt warmth flow through his shoulders, down his spine. Lying on his back on the hillside, he began to feel strangely relaxed, detached from himself. But he realized that nothing was wrong. No error had been made. Malcolm was quite incorrect in his analysis. Hammond lay very still, as still as a child in its crib, and he felt wonderfully peaceful. When the next compy came up and bit his ankle, he made only a halfhearted effort to kick it away. The little animals edged closer. Soon they were chittering all around him, like excited birds. He raised his head as another compy jumped onto his chest, the animal surprisingly light and delicate. Hammond felt only a slight pain, very slight, as the compy bent to chew his neck.

Life sometimes is like tossing a coin in the air calling heads or tails, but it doesn’t matter what side it lands on; life goes on. It is hard when you’ve lost the will to fight because you’ve been fighting for so long. You are smothered by the pain. Mentally, you are drained. Physically, you are weak. Emotionally, you are weighed down. Spiritually, you do not have one tiny mustard seed of faith. The common denominator is that other people’s problems have clouded your mind with all of their negativity. You cannot feel anything; you are numb. You do not have the energy to surrender, and you choose not to escape because you feel safe when you are closed in. As you move throughout the day, you do just enough to get by. Your mindset has changed from giving it your all to—well, something is better than nothing. You move in slow motion like a zombie, and there isn’t any color, just black and white, with every now and then a shade of gray. You’ve shut everyone out and crawled back into the rabbit hole. Life passes you by as you feel like you cannot go on. You look around for help; for someone to take the pain away and to share your suffering, but no one is there. You feel alone, you drift away when you glance ahead and see that there are more uphill battles ahead of you. You do not have the option to turn around because all of the roads are blocked. You stand exactly where you are without making a step. You try to think of something, but you are emotionally bankrupt. Where do you go from here? You do not have a clue. Standing still isn’t helping because you’ve welcomed unwanted visitors; voices are in your head, asking, “What are you waiting for? Take the leap. Jump.” They go on to say, “You’ve had enough. Your burdens are too heavy.” You walk towards the cliff; you turn your head and look at the steep hill towards the mountain. The view isn’t helping; not only do you have to climb the steep hill, but you have to climb up the mountain too. You take a step; rocks and dust fall off the cliff. You stumble and you move forward. The voices in your head call you a coward. You are beginning to second-guess yourself because you want to throw in the towel. You close your eyes; a tear falls and travels to your chin. As your eyes are closed the Great Divine’s voice is louder; yet, calmer, soothing; and you feel peace instantly. Your mind feels light, and your body feels balanced. The Great Divine whispers gently and softly in your ear: “Fallen Warrior, I know you have given everything you’ve got, and you feel like you have nothing left to give. Fallen Warrior, I know it’s been a while since you smiled. Fallen Warrior, I see that you are hurting, and I feel your pain. Fallen Warrior, this is not the end. This is the start of your new beginning. Fallen Warrior, do not doubt My or your abilities; you have more going for you than you have going against you. Fallen Warrior, keep moving, you have what it takes; perseverance is your middle name. Fallen Warrior, you are not the victim! You are the victor! You step back because you know why you are here. You know why you are alive. Sometimes you have to be your own Shero. As a fallen warrior, you are human; and you have your moments. There are days when you have more ups than downs, and some days you have more downs than ups. I most definitely can relate. I was floating through life, but I had to change my mindset. During my worst days, I felt horrible, and when I started to think negatively I felt like I was dishonoring myself. I felt sick, I felt afraid, fear began to control my every move. I felt like demons were trying to break in and take over my life.

One fairly common denominator was having a relationship, personally or professionally, with troubled, needy, or dependent people. But a second, more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships.8 These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations, such as being human, vulnerable, or imperfect; selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change—however healthy and beneficial that movement might be. These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families, too.

What is it about the ancients,’ Pinker asks at one point, ‘that they couldn’t leave us an interesting corpse without resorting to foul play?’ There is an obvious response to this: doesn’t it rather depend on which corpse you consider interesting in the first place? Yes, a little over 5,000 years ago someone walking through the Alps left the world of the living with an arrow in his side; but there’s no particular reason to treat Ötzi as a poster child for humanity in its original condition, other than, perhaps, Ötzi suiting Pinker’s argument. But if all we’re doing is cherry-picking, we could just as easily have chosen the much earlier burial known to archaeologists as Romito 2 (after the Calabrian rock-shelter where it was found). Let’s take a moment to consider what it would mean if we did this. Romito 2 is the 10,000-year-old burial of a male with a rare genetic disorder (acromesomelic dysplasia): a severe type of dwarfism, which in life would have rendered him both anomalous in his community and unable to participate in the kind of high-altitude hunting that was necessary for their survival. Studies of his pathology show that, despite generally poor levels of health and nutrition, that same community of hunter-gatherers still took pains to support this individual through infancy and into early adulthood, granting him the same share of meat as everyone else, and ultimately according him a careful, sheltered burial.15 Neither is Romito 2 an isolated case. When archaeologists undertake balanced appraisals of hunter-gatherer burials from the Palaeolithic, they find high frequencies of health-related disabilities – but also surprisingly high levels of care until the time of death (and beyond, since some of these funerals were remarkably lavish).16 If we did want to reach a general conclusion about what form human societies originally took, based on statistical frequencies of health indicators from ancient burials, we would have to reach the exact opposite conclusion to Hobbes (and Pinker): in origin, it might be claimed, our species is a nurturing and care-giving species, and there was simply no need for life to be nasty, brutish or short. We’re not suggesting we actually do this. As we’ll see, there is reason to believe that during the Palaeolithic, only rather unusual individuals were buried at all. We just want to point out how easy it would be to play the same game in the other direction – easy, but frankly not too enlightening.

The frenzies of the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like old wine worked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them might have felt before; these were not only now kept out of sight through the growing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed, as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison. The hand of Fate had snatched all their souls; and by the stirring perils of the previous day; the rack of the past night's suspense; the fixed, unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild craft went plunging towards its flying mark; by all these things, their hearts were bowled along. The wind that made great bellies of their sails, and rushed the vessel on by arms invisible as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of that unseen agency which so enslaved them to the race. They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them all; though it was put together of all contrasting things — oak, and maple, and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp — yet all these ran into each other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and directed by the long central keel; even so, all the individualities of the crew, this man's valor, that man's fear; guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to. The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others, shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to seek out the thing that might destroy them!

And on the horizon, along the Cordillera where rock and sky met, there was that strange color, somewhere between violet and purple, which he had seen reproduced on so many Indian skirts and shawls and on the woolen bags the campesinos hung from the ears of their llamas; for him it was the color of the Andes, of this mysterious, violent sierra. Besides, thanks to these hills, Naccos had an aura, a magic power. Danger always attracts us. Doesn’t it represent true life, life that’s worthwhile? But security is boredom, it’s stupidity, it’s death. These mountains are full of ancient tombs.Without those presences there wouldn’t be so many spirits in this part of the Andes. In the old days people had the courage to face great troubles by making sacrifices. That’s how they maintained the balance. Life and death like a scale with two equal weights, like two rams of equal strength that lock horns and neither one can advance or retreat.

There was balance, harsh and violent like the noxious air in a swamp. But balance, nonetheless. Then somewhere in the fickle mists of creation came humanity, clawing and afraid, grasping and ambitious. Enveloped in a dangerous world, these creatures lived as scavengers; afraid of the greater things of the world. They were beset by disease, lack of claws or fangs, and the lack of habitat to call their own. Lefeyhdie had not provided any particular prey or plant for them to eat. These fleshy, naked beings were doomed to die of attrition. Curiously, these beings never stopped Doing, or Thinking. Breeding to strengthen their numbers. Sharpening rocks, shaping wood, gathering leaves and sticks for clothing and shelter. Eventually they had settlements of great number, crude but effective tools of war. Ancient forces began to pay attention to the growing incursion, plaguing them, slaying stragglers at night. But still the humans held on to the edge of the precipice, knuckles white with effort'.

But these things that Rome had to give, are they not good things?” Marcus demanded. “Justice, and order, and good roads; worth having, surely?” “These be all good things,” Esca agreed. “But the price is too high.” “The price? Freedom?” “Yes—and other things than freedom.” “What other things? Tell me, Esca; I want to know. I want to understand.” Esca thought for a while, staring straight before him. “Look at the pattern embossed here on your dagger-sheath,” he said at last. “See, here is a tight curve, and here is another facing the other way to balance it, and here between them is a little round stiff flower; and then it is all repeated here, and here, and here again. It is beautiful, yes, but to me it is as meaningless as an unlit lamp.” Marcus nodded as the other glanced up at him. “Go on.” Esca took up the shield which had been laid aside at Cottia’s coming. “Look now at this shield-boss. See the bulging curves that flow from each other as water flows from water and wind from wind, as the stars turn in the heaven and blown sand drifts into dunes. These are the curves of life; and the man who traced them had in him knowledge of things that your people have lost the key to—if they ever had it.” He looked up at Marcus again very earnestly. “You cannot expect the man who made this shield to live easily under the rule of the man who worked the sheath of this dagger.” “The sheath was made by a British craftsman,” Marcus said stubbornly. “I bought it at Anderida when I first landed.” “By a British craftsman, yes, making a Roman pattern. One who had lived so long under the wings of Rome—he and his fathers before him—that he had forgotten the ways and the spirit of his own people.” He laid the shield down again. “You are the builders of coursed stone walls, the makers of straight roads and ordered justice and disciplined troops. We know that, we know it all too well. We know that your justice is more sure than ours, and when we rise against you, we see our hosts break against the discipline of your troops, as the sea breaks against a rock. And we do not understand, because all these things are of the ordered pattern, and only the free curves of the shield-boss are real to us. We do not understand. And when the time comes that we begin to understand your world, too often we lose the understanding of our own.” For a while they were silent, watching Cub at his beetle-hunting. Then Marcus said, “When I came out from home, a year and a half ago, it all seemed so simple.” His gaze dropped again to the buckler on the bench beside him, seeing the strange, swelling curves of the boss with new eyes. Esca had chosen his symbol well, he thought: between the formal pattern on his dagger-sheath and the formless yet potent beauty of the shield-boss lay all the distance that could lie between two worlds. And yet between individual people, people like Esca, and Marcus, and Cottia, the distance narrowed so that you could reach across it, one to another, so that it ceased to matter.

Stop it,” came Eustace’s voice, squeaky with fright and bad temper. “It’s some silly trick you two are playing. Stop it. I’ll tell Alberta--Ow!” The other two were much more accustomed to adventures, but, just exactly as Eustace Clarence said “Ow,” they both said “Ow” too. The reason was that a great cold, salt splash had broken right out of the frame and they were breathless from the smack of it, besides being wet through. “I’ll smash the rotten thing,” cried Eustace; and then several things happened at the same time. Eustace rushed toward the picture. Edmund, who knew something about magic, sprang after him, warning him to look out and not to be a fool. Lucy grabbed at him from the other side and was dragged forward. And by this time either they had grown much smaller or the picture had grown bigger. Eustace jumped to try to pull it off the wall and found himself standing on the frame; in front of him was not glass but real sea, and wind and waves rushing up to the frame as they might to a rock. He lost his head and clutched at the other two who had jumped up beside him. There was a second of struggling and shouting, and just as they thought they had got their balance a great blue roller surged up round them, swept them off their feet, and drew them down into the sea. Eustace’s despairing cry suddenly ended as the water got into his mouth. Lucy thanked her stars that she had worked hard at her swimming last summer term. It is true that she would have got on much better if she had used a slower stroke, and also that the water felt a great deal colder than it had looked while it was only a picture. Still, she kept her head and kicked her shoes off, as everyone ought to do who falls into deep water in their clothes. She even kept her mouth shut and her eyes open. They were still quite near the ship; she saw its green side towering high above them, and people looking at her from the deck. Then, as one might have expected, Eustace clutched at her in a panic and down they both went.

Fallin" I got the feelin I'm fallin' Like a star up in the blue Like I was fallin' off Niagara In a paddle boat canoe I got the feelin' I'm a fallin' And it's all because of you Like I was walkin' on a tight rope Swingin' in the breeze And though I tried to keep my balance When I weaken in my knees I got the feelin' I'm a fallin' Lover, help me please Like a leaf falls from the branch Like a rock from an avalanche Like the rain on a stormy day I never thought I'd fall this way I thought that love could never touch me Yeah, I was ridin' high And then my ivory tower toppled And I tumbled from the sky I got the feelin' that I'm fallin' And you're the reason why Like a life that he married for Like the walls of Jericho Like Delilah's holy town And Samson tore it down I thought that love could never touch me Yeah, I was ridin' high And then my ivory tower toppled And I tumbled from the sky I got the feelin' that I'm fallin' And you're the reason why And you're the reason why And you're the reason why And you're the reason why

Out of the fog that shrouded the countryside, softening the outlines of people and things, demonstrators emerged, flags waved and speakers rose spontaneously to address spontaneous gatherings. Mostly they were people who had not been allowed to speak for years. They clambered on to piles of rock, balanced on the rims of fountains and on pedestals of statues whose removal they demanded, just as they demanded the removal of those who had bowed down before these statues. They spun visions of how everyone's life, including Pavel's own, would quickly be transformed and rise above the poverty in which it had for so long been mired. Others, who preferred actions to words, climbed onto rooftops to remove the snow-covered symbols of yesterday's power. They pulled down street signs and fastened in their place new plaques scrawled with names that until recently had been unmentionable, and they sometimes gathered threateningly under the windows of abandoned Party secretariats, ready to break in and begin, or rather complete, the purging. In every face he saw a kind of ecstasy that looked almost sexual.

At half-past two o'clock of a moonlit morning in March, I was awakened by a tremendous earthquake, and though I had never before enjoyed a storm of this sort, the strange thrilling motion could not be mistaken, and I ran out of my cabin, both glad and frightened, shouting, "A noble earthquake! A noble earthquake!" feeling sure I was going to learn something. The shocks were so violent and varied, and succeeded one another so closely, that I had to balance myself carefully in walking as if on the deck of a ship among waves, and it seemed impossible that the high cliffs of the Valley could escape being shattered. In particular, I feared that the sheer-fronted Sentinel Rock, towering above my cabin, would be shaken down, and I took shelter back of a large yellow pine, hoping that it might protect me from at least the smaller outbounding boulders. For a minute or two the shocks became more and more violent--flashing horizontal thrusts mixed with a few twists and battering, explosive, upheaving jolts--as if Nature were wrecking her Yosemite temple, and getting ready to build a still better one.

we should take what is of value in knowledge, and leave the dross. Intellectual gymnastics are necessary at first. We must not go blindly into anything. The Yogi has passed the argumentative state, and has come to a conclusion, which is, like the rocks, immovable. The only thing he now seeks to do is to intensify that conclusion. Do not argue, he says; if one forces arguments upon you, be silent. Do not answer any argument, but go away calmly, because arguments only disturb the mind. The only thing necessary is to train the intellect, what is the use of disturbing it for nothing? The intellect is but a weak instrument, and can give us only knowledge limited by the senses. The Yogi wants to go beyond the senses, therefore intellect is of no use to him. He is certain of this and, therefore, is silent, and does not argue. Every argument throws his mind out of balance, creates a disturbance in the Chitta, and a disturbance is a drawback. Argumentations and searchings of the reason are only by the way. There are much higher things beyond them. The whole of life is not for schoolboy fights and debating societies.

In 1969, NASA scientist James Lovelock noticed something unusual happening in the earth’s atmosphere: inexplicably, its balance of oxygen and other gases was regulating itself like a thermostat. But what was doing the regulating? He looked at other planetary processes—including the stable concentration of ocean salinity and the cycling of nutrients—and came to a startling conclusion: the earth is alive. He proposed that the earth is a superorganism—one giant living system that includes not just animals and plants but rocks, gases, and soil—acting together as if the planet was a single living being. Its bodily systems, such as the water cycle and nitrogen cycle, are balanced to maintain life on earth. The throb of the tides was the systole and diastole of the earth, and water coursed like blood through its veins. We proud humans may simply be microbes on the surface of a superbeing whose entirety we cannot fully comprehend. Like the bacteria in our body, is it possible that we, too, are part of a larger living earth, a speck on the eyeball of the universe? Tree roots break the sidewalk. Dandelions spring through the cracks. Insects grow resistant to pesticides

Do the gentlemen know what times we are living in? An epoch has commenced that has long been foretold: the Church is rocking, rocking so heavily that it is doubtful whether it can regain its balance: for faith has gone missing... The number of those whom a certain degree and breadth of knowledge has rendered incapable of faith has swelled considerably. This attests to the universal dissemination of coarse rationalism, whose bulldog features are growing more and more widespread. It is quite calmly preparing to measure with its tailor's yardstick the profound mysteries of Christianity over which the centuries have brooded and quarrelled, and imagines itself to be marvellously clever. Above all the central Christian dogma, the doctrine of original sin, has become a risible plaything for the level-headed rationalists ; that is because they think that nothing is clearer and surer than that each man's existence begins at his birth, hence he cannot possibly have entered the world in a state of guilt. How acute of them! — And just as wolves will start to prowl when poverty and neglect take hold of a village, so an ever-lurking materialism will raise its head in these conditions and assume control along with its companion, bestiality (which certain people call humanism).

I want to return to the theme of pleasure and the epicurean life. For centuries, Epicurus's philosophy of pleasure has been repudiated by moralists, but occasionally his central themes break through and are given at least momentary consideration—sensuality, pleasure, friendship, moderation—I think he has been neglected, because there is so much soul in his philosophy, and it is not insignificant that his classes were held in an Athenian garden, a place where the soul is most at home. The garden of Epicurus invites us to reflect on the epicurean aspects of gardens, especially the sensual pleasures they provide. In a disenchanted world, it's important to get somewhere and accomplish something, but the time spent in a garden gets us nowhere....The garden reconciles human art and wild nature, hard work and deep pleasure, spiritual practice and the material world. It is a magical place because it is not divided. The many divisions and polarizations that terrorize a disenchanted world find peaceful accord among mossy rock walls, rough stone paths, and trimmed bushes. Maybe a garden sometimes seems fragile, for all its earth and labor, because it achieves such an extraordinary balance of nature and human life, naturalness and artificiality. It has its own liminality, its point of balance between great extremes.

Have you ever been swept away by a toxic lover who sucked you dry? I have. Bad men used to light me up like a Christmas tree. If I had a choice between the rebel without a cause and a nice guy in a sweater and outdoorsy shoes, you can imagine who got my phone number. Rebels and rogues are smooth (and somewhat untamed); they know the headwaiters at the best steak houses, ride fast European motorcycles, and start bar fights in your honor. In short, the rebel makes you feel really alive! It’s all fun and games until he screws your best friend or embezzles your life’s savings. You may be asking yourself how my pathetic dating track record relates to your diet. Simple. The acid—alkaline balance, which relates to the chemistry of your body’s fluids and tissues as measured by pH. The rebel/rogue = acid. The nice solid guy = alkaline. The solid guy gives you energy; he’s reliable and trustworthy. The solid guy calls you back when he says he will. He helps you clean your garage and does yoga with you. He’s even polite to your family no matter how whacked they are, and has the sexual stamina to rock your world. While the rebel can help you let your hair down, too much rebel will sap your energy. In time, a steady rebellious diet burns you out. But when we’re addicted to bad boys (junk food, fat, sugar, and booze), nice men (veggies and whole grains) seem boring. Give them a chance!

The thin woman in the green sari stood on the slippery rocks and gazed at the dark waters around her. The warm wind loosened strands of her scanty hair, pulling them out of her bun. Behind her, the sounds of the city were muted, shushed into silence by the steady lapping of the water around her bare feet. Other than the crabs that she heard and felt scuttling around the rocks, she was all alone here—alone with the murmuring sea and the distant moon, stretched thin as a smile in the nighttime sky. Even her hands were empty, now that she had unclenched them and released her helium-filled cargo, watching until the last of the balloons had been swallowed up by the darkness of the Bombay night. Her hands were empty now, as empty as her heart, which itself was a coconut shell with its meat scooped out. Balancing gingerly on the rocks, feeling the rising water tonguing her feet, the woman raised her face to the inky sky for an answer. Behind her was the lost city and a life that at this very moment felt fictitious and unreal. Ahead of her was the barely visible seam where the sea met the sky. She could scramble over these rocks, climb over the cement wall, and reenter the world; partake again of the mad, throbbing, erratic pulse of the city. Or she could walk into the waiting sea, let it seduce her, overwhelm her with its intimate whisperings. She looked to the sky again, searching for an answer. But the only thing she could hear was the habitual beating of her own dutiful heart…

The Master Hand looked at the jewel that glittered on Ged's palm, bright as the prize of a dragon's hoard. The old Master murmured one word, "Tolk," and there lay the pebble, no jewel but a rough grey bit of rock. The Master took it and held it out on his own hand. "This is a rock; tolk in the True Speech," he said, looking mildly up at Ged now. "A bit of the stone of which Roke Isle is made, a little bit of the dry land on which men live. It is itself. It is part of the world. By the Illusion-Change you can make it look like a diamond – or a flower or a fly or an eye or a flame – " The rock flickered from shape to shape as he named them, and returned to rock. "But that is mere seeming. Illusion fools the beholder's senses; it makes him see and hear and feel that the thing is changed. But it does not change the thing. To change this rock into a jewel, you must change its true name. And to do that, my son, even to so small a scrap of the world, is to change the world. It can be done. Indeed it can be done. It is the art of the Master Changer, and you will learn it, when you are ready to learn it. But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow..." He looked down at the pebble again. "A rock is a good thing, too, you know," he said, speaking less gravely. "If the Isles of Eartbsea were all made of diamond, we'd lead a hard life here. Enjoy illusions, lad, and let the rocks be rocks.

Taking the catcher’s place, he sank to his haunches and gestured to Arthur. “Throw some easy ones to begin with,” he called, and Arthur nodded, seeming to lose his apprehensiveness. “Yes, milord!” Arthur wound up and released a relaxed, straight pitch. Squinting in determination, Lilian gripped the bat hard, stepped into the swing, and turned her hips to lend more impetus to the motion. To her disgust, she missed the ball completely. Turning around, she gave Westcliff a pointed glance. “Well, your advice certainly helped,” she muttered sarcastically. “Elbows,” came his succinct reminder, and he tossed the ball to Arthur. “Try again.” Heaving a sigh, Lillian raised the bat and faced the pitcher once more. Arthur drew his arm back, and lunged forward as he delivered another fast ball. Lillian brought the bat around with a grunt of effort, finding an unexpected ease in adjusting the swing to just the right angle, and she received a jolt of visceral delight as she felt the solid connection between the bat and the leather ball. With a loud crack the ball was catapulted high into the air, over Arthur’s head, beyond the reach of those in the back field. Shrieking in triumph, Lillian dropped the bat and ran headlong toward the first sanctuary post, rounding it and heading toward second. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daisy hurtling across the field to scoop up the ball, and in nearly the same motion, throwing it to the nearest boy. Increasing her pace, her feet flying beneath her skirts, Lillian rounded third, while the ball was tossed to Arthur. Before her disbelieving eyes, she saw Westcliff standing at the last post, Castle Rock, with his hands held up in readiness to catch the ball. How could he? After showing her how to hit the ball, he was now going to tag her out? “Get out of my way!” Lillian shouted, running pellmell toward the post, determined to reach it before he caught the ball. “I’m not going to stop!” “Oh, I’ll stop you,” Westcliff assured her with a grin, standing right in front of the post. He called to the pitcher. “Throw it home, Arthur!” She would go through him, if necessary. Letting out a warlike cry, Lillian slammed full-length into him, causing him to stagger backward just as his fingers closed over the ball. Though he could have fought for balance, he chose not to, collapsing backward onto the soft earth with Lillian tumbling on top of him, burying him in a heap of skirts and wayward limbs. A cloud of fine beige dust enveloped them upon their descent. Lillian lifted herself on his chest and glared down at him. At first she thought that he had been winded, but it immediately became apparent that he was choking with laughter. “You cheated!” she accused, which only seemed to make him laugh harder. She struggled for breath, drawing in huge lungfuls of air. “You’re not supposed…to stand in front…of the post…you dirty cheater!” Gasping and snorting, Westcliff handed her the ball with the ginger reverence of someone yielding a priceless artifact to a museum curator. Lillian took the ball and hurled it aside. “I was not out,” she told him, jabbing her finger into his hard chest for emphasis. It felt as if she were poking a hearthstone. “I was safe, do you…hear me?” She heard Arthur’s amused voice as he approached them. “Actually, miss—” “Never argue with a lady, Arthur,” the earl interrupted, having managed to regain his powers of speech, and the boy grinned at him. “Yes, milord.” “Are there ladies here?” Daisy asked cheerfully, coming from the field. “I don’t see any.” Still smiling, the earl looked up at Lillian.

Although thrilled that the era of the personal computer had arrived, he was afraid that he was going to miss the party. Slapping down seventy-five cents, he grabbed the issue and trotted through the slushy snow to the Harvard dorm room of Bill Gates, his high school buddy and fellow computer fanatic from Seattle, who had convinced him to drop out of college and move to Cambridge. “Hey, this thing is happening without us,” Allen declared. Gates began to rock back and forth, as he often did during moments of intensity. When he finished the article, he realized that Allen was right. For the next eight weeks, the two of them embarked on a frenzy of code writing that would change the nature of the computer business.1 Unlike the computer pioneers before him, Gates, who was born in 1955, had not grown up caring much about the hardware. He had never gotten his thrills by building Heathkit radios or soldering circuit boards. A high school physics teacher, annoyed by the arrogance Gates sometimes displayed while jockeying at the school’s timesharing terminal, had once assigned him the project of assembling a Radio Shack electronics kit. When Gates finally turned it in, the teacher recalled, “solder was dripping all over the back” and it didn’t work.2 For Gates, the magic of computers was not in their hardware circuits but in their software code. “We’re not hardware gurus, Paul,” he repeatedly pronounced whenever Allen proposed building a machine. “What we know is software.” Even his slightly older friend Allen, who had built shortwave radios, knew that the future belonged to the coders. “Hardware,” he admitted, “was not our area of expertise.”3 What Gates and Allen set out to do on that December day in 1974 when they first saw the Popular Electronics cover was to create the software for personal computers. More than that, they wanted to shift the balance in the emerging industry so that the hardware would become an interchangeable commodity, while those who created the operating system and application software would capture most of the profits.

I splash enough water in Chloe's face to put out a small house fire. I don't want to drown her, just exfoliate her eyeballs with sea salt. When she thinks I'm done, she opens her eyes-and her mouth. Big mistake. The next wave rinses off the hangy ball in the back of her throat and makes it to her lungs before she can swallow. She chokes and coughs and rubs her eyes as if she's been maced. "Great, Emma! You got my new hair wet!" she sputters. "Happy now?" "Nope." "I said I was sorry." She blows her nose in her hand, then sets the snot to sea. "Gross. And sorry's not good enough." "Fine. I'll make it up to you. What do you want?" "Let me hold your head underwater until I feel better," I say. I cross my arms, which is tricky when straddling a surfboard being pitched around in the wake of a passing speedboat. Chloe knows I'm nervous being this far out, but holding on would be a sign of weakness. "I'll let you do that because I love you. But it won't make you feel better." "I won't know for sure until I try it." I keep eye contact, sit a little straighter. "Fine. But you'll still look albino when you let me back up." She rocks the board and makes me grab it for balance. "Get your snotty hands off the surfboard. And I'm not albino. Just white." I want to cross my arms again, but we almost tipped over that time. Swallowing my pride is a lot easier than swallowing the Gulf of Mexico. "White than most," she grins. "People would think you're naked if you wore my swimsuit." I glance down at the white string bikini, offset beautifully against her chocolate-milk skin. She catches me and laughs. "Well, maybe I could get a tan while we're here," I say, blushing. I feel myself cracking and I hate it. Just this once, I want to stay mad at Chloe. "Maybe you could get a burn while we're here, you mean. Matterfact, did you put sunblock on?" I shake my head. She shakes her head too, and makes a tsking sound identical to her mother's. "Didn't think so. If you did, you would've slipped right off that guy's chest instead of sticking to it like that." "I know," I groan. "Got to be the hottest guy I've ever seen," she says, fanning herself for emphasis. "Yeah, I know. Smacked into him, remember? Without my helmet, remember?" She laughs. "Hate to break it to you, but he's still staring at you. Him and his mean-ass sister." "Shut up." She snickers. "But seriously, which one of them do you think would win a staring contest? I was gonna tell him to meet us at Baytowne tonight, but he might be one of those clingy stalker types. That's too bad, too. There's a million dark little corners in Baytowne for you two to snuggle-" "Ohmysweetgoodness, Chloe, stop!

The stench of the pigpens made him take shallow breaths. Michael desperately wanted another drink to drown his sorrows…or, more aptly, his angers. He promised himself that once he found the source of the problem, he’d head to Rigsby’s and let alcohol smooth the edge off his ire. Maybe with a few drinks in him, he could better handle Prudence. Nothing else I’ve tried has worked. “Michael!” At the sound of his wife’s voice, he stiffened. Speak of the devil. Is there a word for female devil? He couldn’t think of one. He nodded good-bye to Hong and was stepping away when--- “Michael, I want to talk to you!” Her voice rose until the timbre was almost a shriek. She ploughed pell-mell for him, her face red with anger. Hong ducked into his tent. Out of sight, maybe, but not out of earshot. The Guans’ should stuff cotton in their ears to block out the worst of Prudence’s screeches. “I need a drink,” he said, beginning to turn away. “Oh, dear Lord. Don’t tell me you’re a drunkard like that Obadiah Kettering. Is that another thing you omitted to tell me about your character?” He swung back. She was inches away, arms flung wide. “You omitted telling me I’d be marrying a shrew,” he said. “You should have written the word at the top of your fancy stationary in big block letters.” He sketched the word in the air and stated each letter. “S-H-R-E-W.” “Why…why I never!” Her mouth opened and closed as if she sought just the right words to hurl at him. “As for being a drunkard. Up until today, I only occasionally sought refuge in the bottle. But I think being married to you, my dear wife, will make me a frequent patron of Rigsbys Saloon. In fact, I might as well take up residence in the place.” Stepping forward, she brought up her hand to slap him. He leaped out of the way. Prudence missed, and her hand sailed past, making her off balance. Sure she was going to try again, Michael moved away, putting more space between them. Prudence slipped on a slimy rock and lost her balance, rotating and stepping sideways only to catch her heel in the hem of her skirt. She teetered backward toward the pigpen. Her legs hit the low fence, catching her at knee-height. Oh, no! Michael leaped to catch her. With a horrified expression, Prudence windmilled her arms in an effort to right herself. Michael missed, grabbing only a fold of her skirt. He yanked back, hoping to pull her upright, but instead, with a ripping sound, the fabric tore. The momentum toppled Prudence backwards into the pigpen, where she landed on her rump in the mire. “Grrrrrr!” She scooped up two handfuls of mud and flung them at him. Shocked, Michael didn’t dodge until the last minute, and the stinking mud went splat against his chest and face.

Thirty-Nine Ways to Lower Your Cortisol 1 Meditate. 2 Do yoga. 3 Stretch. 4 Practice tai chi. 5 Take a Pilates class. 6 Go for a labyrinth walk. 7 Get a massage. 8 Garden (lightly). 9 Dance to soothing, positive music. 10 Take up a hobby that is quiet and rewarding. 11 Color for pleasure. 12 Spend five minutes focusing on your breathing. 13 Follow a consistent sleep schedule. 14 Listen to relaxing music. 15 Spend time laughing and having fun with someone. (No food or drink involved.) 16 Interact with a pet. (It also lowers their cortisol level.) 17 Learn to recognize stressful thinking and begin to: Train yourself to be aware of your thoughts, breathing, heart rate, and other signs of tension to recognize stress when it begins. Focus on being aware of your mental and physical states, so that you can become an objective observer of your stressful thoughts instead of a victim of them. Recognize stressful thoughts so that you can formulate a conscious and deliberate reaction to them. A study of forty-three women in a mindfulness-based program showed that the ability to describe and articulate stress was linked to a lower cortisol response.28 18 Develop faith and participate in prayer. 19 Perform acts of kindness. 20 Forgive someone. Even (or especially?) yourself. 21 Practice mindfulness, especially when you eat. 22 Drink black and green tea. 23 Eat probiotic and prebiotic foods. Probiotics are friendly, symbiotic bacteria in foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut, and kimchi. Prebiotics, such as soluble fiber, provide food for these bacteria. (Be sure they are sugar-free!) 24 Take fish or krill oil. 25 Make a gratitude list. 26 Take magnesium. 27 Try ashwagandha, an Asian herbal supplement used in traditional medicine to treat anxiety and help people adapt to stress. 28 Get bright sunlight or exposure to a lightbox within an hour of waking up (great for fighting seasonal affective disorder as well). 29 Avoid blue light at night by wearing orange or amber glasses if using electronics after dark. (Some sunglasses work.) Use lamps with orange bulbs (such as salt lamps) in each room, instead of turning on bright overhead lights, after dark. 30 Maintain healthy relationships. 31 Let go of guilt. 32 Drink water! Stay hydrated! Dehydration increases cortisol. 33 Try emotional freedom technique, a tapping strategy meant to reduce stress and activate the parasympathetic nervous system (our rest-and-digest system). 34 Have an acupuncture treatment. 35 Go forest bathing (shinrin-yoku): visit a forest and breathe its air. 36 Listen to binaural beats. 37 Use a grounding mat, or go out into the garden barefoot. 38 Sit in a rocking chair; the soothing motion is similar to the movement in utero. 39 To make your cortisol fluctuate (which is what you want it to do), end your shower or bath with a minute (or three) under cold water.

The Bible is a rock of diamonds, a chain of pearls, the sword of the Spirit; a chain by which the Christian sails to eternity; the map by which he daily walks; the sundial by which he sets his life; the balance in which he weighs his actions. —THOMAS WATSON

Nothing was going to compromise my freedom to walk the streets whenever, wherever and with whomever I wanted. I saw fame as being akin to living in a high-security prison and I didn’t want to go there. How can you win just enough and then leave the table? Go to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting and you’ll see it’s easier said than done. I’d have to be very careful to not let things get out of control. I resolutely avoided looking at charts, bank balances, reviews, radio or television appearances, and carried on like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Activities to Develop the Vestibular System Rolling—Encourage your child to roll across the floor and down a grassy hill. Swinging—Encourage (but never force) the child to swing. Gentle, linear movement is calming. Fast, high swinging in an arc is more stimulating. If the child has gravitational insecurity, start him on a low swing so his feet can touch the ground, or hold him on your lap. Two adults can swing him in a blanket, too. Spinning—At the playground, let the child spin on the tire swing or merry-go-round. Indoors, offer a swivel chair or Sit ’n Spin. Monitor the spinning, as the child may become easily overstimulated. Don’t spin her without her permission! Sliding—How many ways can a child swoosh down a slide? Sitting up, lying down, frontwards, backwards, holding on to the sides, not holding on, with legs straddling the sides, etc. Riding Vehicles—Trikes, bikes, and scooters help children improve their balance, motor planning, and motor coordination. Walking on Unstable Surfaces—A sandy beach, a playground “clatter bridge,” a grassy meadow, and a waterbed are examples of shaky ground that require children to adjust their bodies as they move. Rocking—Provide a rocking chair for your child to get energized, organized, or tranquilized.

Riding, balancing, and walking on a seesaw. Balancing on a Teeter-Totter—Center a board over a railroad timber. (See The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun for ideas.) Sitting on a T-stool—A T-stool helps improve balance, posture, and attention. (See The Out-of-Sync Child Has Fun for ideas.) Balancing on a Large Therapy Ball—Your child can lie on her stomach, on her back, or sit and bounce. Some balls have handles for bouncing up and lower (hippity-hopping). Tummy Down, Head Up—Have the child lie on her stomach. On the floor, she can rock to and fro to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”; draw on paper while listening to music, using crayons, which require her to bear down to make a mark; and play with small toys. On a swing or therapy ball, she can “draw” on the ground or carpet with a stick; throw sponges into a basket; and bat a suspended ball with a cardboard tube. Jogging—Run around the block together!

Religion is a different matter. Other subjects may lend themselves, in varying degree, to objective study, and in some cases personal commitment serves only to distort what should be a clear and balanced picture. Religion is a different matter for here objectivity only skims the surface, missing the essential. The keys to understanding lie within the observer's own being and experience, and without these keys no door will open. This is particularly true of Islam, a religion which treats the distinction between belief and disbelief as the most fundamental of all possible distinction, comparable only on the physical level to that between the sighted and the blind. Believing and understanding complement and support one other. We do not seek fir an adequate description of a landscape from a blind man, even if he has made a scientific study of its topography, and has analyzed the nature of its rocks and vegetation. In Islam, every aspect of human life, every thought and every action, is shaped by and evaluated in the light of the basic article of faith. Remove this linchpin and the whole structure falls apart.

I can bring a glass of water smoothly to my lips because practice has taught me just how much contractile effort and speed is necessary to lift it and carry it through the air without either dropping it or throwing the water towards the ceiling. This familiar feel for the resistance of the glass of water, and for the appropriate muscular effort to both overcome that resistance and remain in constant control, are functions of the variable settings of the inhibitory response of the Golgi tendon organs. And I use this reflex mechanism every time I use a screwdriver or a wrench, row a boat, push a car, do a push-up or a deep knee bend, pick up an object—in short, every time I need a specific amount of effort delivered in order to accomplish a specific task—any time “too much” is just as mistaken as “too little.” This includes, of course, almost all the controlled uses to which I put my muscles. Now in order to be helpful in all situations, this variable setting of the tension values which trigger the reflex must be capable of both a wide range of adjustment and rapid shifts. Objects that we need to manipulate with carefully controlled efforts may be small or large, light or heavy. Building a rock wall can require just as much finesse and balance as building a house of playing cards, but the levels of tension which require equally sensitive monitoring are very different in each case. Since these relative tension values can be altered rapidly at will, and are refined with practice, it seems evident that they can be controlled by higher brain centers. This is presumably done through descending neural pathways which can generate impulses that either facilitate or inhibit the action of the Golgi/motor neuron synapses. In this way, control signals from higher nervous centers could automatically set the level of tension at which the muscle would be maintained. If the required tension is high, then the muscle tension would be set by the servo-feedback mechanism to this high level of tension. On the other hand, if the desired tension level is low, the muscle tension would be set this level.9

I'd learned enough about grieving to know that other ways of feeling would come back soon enough. But it seemed to me that this was the way we all lived: full to the brim with gratitude and joy one day, wrecked on the rocks the next. Finding the balance between the two was the art and the salvation.

Too much awareness without calm to balance it will result in a wildly over-sensitized state similar to abusing LSD. Too much concentration without a balancing ratio of awareness will result in the 'Stone Buddha' syndrome. The meditator gets so tranquilized that he sits there like a rock. Both of these are to be avoided.

The Force is not a power you have,” Luke said. “It’s not about lifting rocks. It’s the energy between all things—a tension, a balance that binds the universe together.