Born Asleep Quotes

But don’t ever let yourself forget that the person you care about fills an emptiness no one else ever has and that while life with them can seriously suck at times, those moments when it doesn’t are worth all the aggravation of falling into the toilet and getting soaked when you’re half asleep.

I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them.” “Oh,” said Jem. “Well.” “Don’t you oh well me, sir,” Miss Maudie replied, recognizing Jem’s fatalistic noises, “you are not old enough to appreciate what I said.” Jem was staring at his half-eaten cake. “It’s like bein’ a caterpillar in a cocoon, that’s what it is,” he said. “Like somethin’ asleep wrapped up in a warm place. I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world, least that’s what they seemed like.” “We’re the safest folks in the world,” said Miss Maudie. “We’re so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we’ve got men like Atticus to go for us.

There are so many things I want to tell her, so many things she doesn't know; like how I remember when she first came home from the hospital, a big pink blob with a perma-smile, and she used to fall asleep while grabbing on to my pinter finger; how I sued to give her piggyback rides up and down the beach on Cape Cod, and she would tub on my ponytail to direct me one way or the other; how soft and furry her head was when she was first born; that the first time you kiss someone you'll be nervous, and it will be weird, and it won't be as good as you want it to be, and that's okay; how you should only fall in love with people who will fall in love back... I feel an ache in my throat, but i manage to smile. Two conflicting desires go through me at the same time, each as sharp as a razor blade: I want to see you grow up and Don't ever change.

What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad’s voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of “Yellow Submarine,” which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d’être, which is a French expression that I know. Another good thing is that I could train my anus to talk when I farted. If I wanted to be extremely hilarious, I’d train it to say, “Wasn’t me!” every time I made an incredibly bad fart. And if I ever made an incredibly bad fart in the Hall of Mirrors, which is in Versailles, which is outside of Paris, which is in France, obviously, my anus would say, “Ce n’étais pas moi!” What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboard down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.

Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea. It has a dead man as its president, Kim Jong-Il is only head of the party and head of the army. He's not head of the state. That office belongs to his deceased father, Kim Il-Sung. It's a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. It's one short of a trinity I might add. The son is the reincarnation of the father. It is the most revolting and utter and absolute and heartless tyranny the human species has ever evolved. But at least you can f#$%ing die and leave North Korea!

I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasn't born for city life and that I was glad of it. It's nice to be eating ice cream at brilliant restaurants at eleven o'clock at night once in a while; but as a regular thing I'd rather be in east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind of knowing even in my sleep that the stars were shining outside and the wind was blowing in the firs across the brook.

I’m not a guy. I can’t close my eyes and fall asleep in five seconds.

Come back down here, heat supply,” I commanded. “I’m going to close my eyes and you are going to tell me about math so I can fall asleep. Tell me some theorems. Is that what you called them? Tell me how Einstein knew e equals mc squared. And start with once upon a time . . . okay?” “You’re a little bossy, you know that?” “I know. I have to be. It’s to make up for not being born with a calculator. Now share your wisdom, Infinity.” “Once upon a time—” I giggled and Finn immediately shushed me, continuing on with his “story.

Maybe one night I’ll be asleep and I’ll feel a hand like a dove on my cheekbone and feel her breath cool like peppermints and when I open my eyes my mom will be there like an angle, saying in the softest voice, When you are born it is like a long, long dream. Don’t try to wake up. Just go along until it is over. Don’t be afraid. You may not know it all the time but I am with you. I am with you.

Stop it,” I ground out. “Neither of us will get any sleep if you insist on moving around like that all night.” “I can’t help it. My brain is…” She blew out a breath. “I can’t sleep.” “Try.” The sooner she fell asleep, the sooner I could relax. Relatively speaking. “What great advice,” she said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. You should start a Dear Dante column in the local newspaper.” “Were you born with a smart mouth, or did your parents buy it for you after their first million?

How many people eat, drink, and get married; buy, sell, and build; make contracts and attend to their for-tune; have friends and enemies, pleasures and pains, are born, grow up, live and die ― but asleep!

The mind cannot fall asleep as long as it watches itself. Only when the mind moves unwatched and becomes absorbed in images that tug it as it were to one side does self-consciousness dissolve and sleep with its healing, brilliantly detailed fictions pour in upon the jittery spirit. Falling asleep is a study in trust. Likewise, religion tries to put as ease with the world. Being human cannot be borne alone. We need other presences. We need soft night noises-a mother speaking downstairs. We need the little clicks and sighs of a sustaining otherness. We need the gods.

They warn us when we're kids that we're going to have to suffer, but they neglect to mention the indignity. What self-respecting fetus, if shown its future as a proctology patient, boot-camp recruit, or game show contestant, would still elect to be born?

EDMUND *Then with alcoholic talkativeness You've just told me some high spots in your memories. Want to hear mine? They're all connected with the sea. Here's one. When I was on the Squarehead square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and signing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself -- actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way. Then another time, on the American Line, when I was lookout on the crow's nest in the dawn watch. A calm sea, that time. Only a lazy ground swell and a slow drowsy roll of the ship. The passengers asleep and none of the crew in sight. No sound of man. Black smoke pouring from the funnels behind and beneath me. Dreaming, not keeping looking, feeling alone, and above, and apart, watching the dawn creep like a painted dream over the sky and sea which slept together. Then the moment of ecstatic freedom came. the peace, the end of the quest, the last harbor, the joy of belonging to a fulfillment beyond men's lousy, pitiful, greedy fears and hopes and dreams! And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience. Became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like a veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see -- and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason! *He grins wryly. It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a a little in love with death! TYRONE *Stares at him -- impressed. Yes, there's the makings of a poet in you all right. *Then protesting uneasily. But that's morbid craziness about not being wanted and loving death. EDMUND *Sardonically The *makings of a poet. No, I'm afraid I'm like the guy who is always panhandling for a smoke. He hasn't even got the makings. He's got only the habit. I couldn't touch what I tried to tell you just now. I just stammered. That's the best I'll ever do, I mean, if I live. Well, it will be faithful realism, at least. Stammering is the native eloquence of us fog people.

If I’m hunter-born and you’re hunter-born, doesn’t that mean that Father must behunter-born, too?' ... 'the ability isn’t active in him, like it is in me and you. Do you understand?' A thoughtful nod ... 'Like he’s asleep and we’re awake.

It's worth a fellow's while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep

she fell asleep wondering if turning frogs into princes could be learned. Or do you have to be born royalty?

It is impossible to experience the appearance of awareness. We are that awareness to which such an appearance would occur. We have no experience of a beginning to the awareness that is seeing these words. We have no experience of its birth. We have no experience that we, awareness, are born. Likewise, in order to claim legitimately that awareness dies, something would have to be present to experience its disappearance. Have we ever experienced the disappearance of awareness? If we think the answer is, ‘Yes’, then what is it that is present and aware to experience the apparent disappearance of awareness? Whatever that is must be aware and present. It must be awareness. When we are born or when we wake in the morning, we have the experience of the appearance of objects. When we die and when we fall asleep at night, we have the experience of the disappearance of objects. However, we have no experience that we, awareness, appear, are born, disappear or die. That

Lily?' she whispered. Lily didn't move. 'Can I tell you something?' Lily breathed deeply, clearly asleep. 'I think all my life my heart's been broken,' Adri whispered, 'and I didn't even notice. And I don't even know by what.' It wasn't because of any one thing - not losing parents she didn't remember, not growing up in the group home - not the obvious things. It felt more like it had just come from being born, from time existing.

I'm not even sure why I'm crying anymore. Because of what could've happened? Or because I have to start over once again? Maybe it's because no matter how hard I try to get my feet firmly beneath me, they always get kicked out. I just… I can't take this anymore. I don't want to die, but I don't want to exist. And I wish with every ounce of my soul that I was never born. That I had never been brought into a world so cold, violent, and full of heartache. And the worst part is that even though I feel dead inside, I'm painfully aware of how alive I am. I dread every night when I fall asleep because I know I have to wake up again and do this life for another day.

There is nothing more fruitful in wonders than the art of being free; but there is nothing harder than apprenticeship in liberty. It is not the same with despotism. Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the misfortunes suffered; it is the support of legitimate rights, the upholder of the oppressed, and the founder of order. Peoples fall asleep amid the temporary prosperity that it brings forth; and when they awaken, they are miserable. Liberty, in contrast, is usually born amid storms; it is established painfully in the midst of civil discord, and only when it is already old can its benefits be known.

When we die...we fall asleep, and are immersed in a dream state.However,when we are born, the ideal is to come out of the dream state and into full-waking consciousness."-Serena Jade

Damn me, it's worth a fellow's while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think of it, that's about the first thing babies do, and that's a sort of queer, too.Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of 'em. But that's against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth - So here goes again.

being a fan isn’t always about the thing you’re a fan of. okay, well it sort of is, but there is so much more to it than just going online and screaming that you love something. being a fan has given me people to talk to about the things that i like for the last five years. being a fan has made me better friends online than i’ve ever encountered in real life; it has entered me into a community where people are joined in love and passion and hope and joy and escape. being a fan has given me a reason to wake up, something always to look forward to, something to dream about while i’m trying to fall asleep

Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea. It has a dead man as its president, Kim Jong-Il is only head of the party and head of the army. He's not head of the state. That office belongs to his deceased father, Kim Il-Sung. It's a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. It's one short of a trinity I might add. The son is the reincarnation of the father. It is the most revolting and utter and absolute and heartless tyranny the human species has ever evolved. But at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea!

I think that I was born on a day God was fast asleep. And whatever happened after my birth was nothing but dreamless ignorance.

After Marlee was born they rented videos and fell asleep in front of them. Now, like so much else in Jackson's world, videos were obsolete.

To Autumn" Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Immortality: "It is impossible to be conscious of being unconscious." It is not possible to be aware of being unconscious from your own perspective. You cannot be aware of not being aware. You can be less aware/conscious, such as when you are asleep, but not completely unconscious (dead), because time would stand still for you. A billion years could pass, and you would not know it. How do you know you are dead? It is not possible to be aware of any gaps in life; it is continuous and never-ending from your own point of view. Death and birth are a continuous event from your own perspective. You will die physically, but you will be born into a new physical body. Being born happens, or you would not be here now. You were born into this life. It is what we know happens. There is no evidence anything else happens. True or false?

I should have had Rachel write a note or something before we left. But knowing Rachel, she might have already thought of that. In fact, knowing Rachel, she can probably make the absences disappear. Am I really thinking about school when my mom and Galen are in trouble? Yes, yes I am. Because this is the life bequeathed to me. Part human, part fish. Part straight-A student, part possessor of the Gift of Poseidon. Yep, I’m a natural-born overachiever. Fan-flipping-tastic. Behind me, I hear the most obnoxious belch in history. “Excuse me,” Toraf says. I hear him wrestle with his buckle and make a hasty retreat to the bathroom. And I’m officially glad I’m not sitting next to him. Let’s face it. He’s a loud puker. Syrena were not meant to fly. When we land, Toraf is asleep. He doesn’t even wake up despite the wobbly landing and the giggling girls and the announcement of “Aloha” by the captain. When everyone has disembarked I make my way back to Toraf and shake him until he wakes up. His breath smells like slightly microwaved death. “We’re in Hawaii,” I tell him. “Time to swim.

ose if we did choose, but we don't. That's what it means to be unconscious: to be asleep within the dream. We slip into the lives that are laid out for us the way children slip into the clothes their mother lays out for them in the morning. No one decides. We don't live our lives by choice, but by default. We play the roles we are born to. We don't live our lives, we dispose of them. We throw them away because we don't know any better. and the reason we don't know any better is because we never asked. We never questioned or doubted. never stood up. never drew a line. We never walked up to our parents or our spiritual advisers or our teachers or any of the other formative presences in our early lives and asked one simple. honest, straightforward question. the one question that must be answered before any other question can be asked: "What the hell is going on here?

Every moment for all the generations was leading to you here on my lap, your head against your granddaddy’s chest, already four years old. Hair smelling like coconut oil. Something beneath that, though. Little-girl sweat—almost sour, but then just when I think that’s what it is, it turns, sweetens somehow. Makes me want to sit here forever breathing in your scalp. When did your arms get so long? Your feet so big? These footie pajamas with reindeer all over them remind me of the ones your mama used to wear. She used to fall asleep on my lap just like this. Back at the other house. Oh time time time time. Where’d you go where’d you go? My legs hurt tonight. Another place too—deep in my back somewhere, there’s a dull, aching pain. I try not to think about it. Old people used to always say, You only as old as you feel. Here I am closer to fifty than forty, but I feel older than that most days. Feel like the world is trying to pull me down back into it. Like God went ahead and said, I’ve changed my mind about you, Po’Boy. A bath with Epsom salts helps some evenings. Ginger tea keeps Sabe’s good cooking in my belly. Sitting here holding you at the end of the day—that’s . . . well, I’m not going to lie and say this isn’t the best thing that ever happened to my life because it is. Look at you laughing in your sleep. Got me wondering what you’re dreaming about. What’s making you laugh like that? Tell your granddaddy what’s playing in your pretty brown head, my little Melody. Name like a song. Like you were born and it was cause for the world to sing. You know how much your old granddaddy loves when you sing him silly songs? Sabe says she’s gonna have to get some earplugs if she has to hear one more verse of “Elmo’s World” or that song about how to grow a garden. But me, I can listen to your voice forever. Can’t hear you singing enough.

I pray that the world never runs out of dragons. I say that in all sincerity, though I have played a part in the death of one great wyrm. For the dragon is the quintessential enemy, the greatest foe, the unconquerable epitome of devastation. The dragon, above all other creatures, even the demons and the devils, evokes images of dark grandeur, of the greatest beast curled asleep on the greatest treasure hoard. They are the ultimate test of the hero and the ultimate fright of the child. They are older than the elves and more akin to the earth than the dwarves. The great dragons are the preternatural beast, the basic element of the beast, that darkest part of our imagination. The wizards cannot tell you of their origin, though they believe that a great wizard, a god of wizards, must have played some role in the first spawning of the beast. The elves, with their long fables explaining the creation of every aspect of the world, have many ancient tales concerning the origin of the dragons, but they admit, privately, that they really have no idea of how the dragons came to be. My own belief is more simple, and yet, more complicated by far. I believe that dragons appeared in the world immediately after the spawning of the first reasoning race. I do not credit any god of wizards with their creation, but rather, the most basic imagination wrought of unseen fears, of those first reasoning mortals. We make the dragons as we make the gods, because we need them, because, somewhere deep in our hearts, we recognize that a world without them is a world not worth living in. There are so many people in the land who want an answer, a definitive answer, for everything in life, and even for everything after life. They study and they test, and because those few find the answers for some simple questions, they assume that there are answers to be had for every question. What was the world like before there were people? Was there nothing but darkness before the sun and the stars? Was there anything at all? What were we, each of us, before we were born? And what, most importantly of all, shall we be after we die? Out of compassion, I hope that those questioners never find that which they seek. One self-proclaimed prophet came through Ten-Towns denying the possibility of an afterlife, claiming that those people who had died and were raised by priests, had, in fact, never died, and that their claims of experiences beyond the grave were an elaborate trick played on them by their own hearts, a ruse to ease the path to nothingness. For that is all there was, he said, an emptiness, a nothingness. Never in my life have I ever heard one begging so desperately for someone to prove him wrong. This is kind of what I believe right now… although, I do not want to be proved wrong… For what are we left with if there remains no mystery? What hope might we find if we know all of the answers? What is it within us, then, that so desperately wants to deny magic and to unravel mystery? Fear, I presume, based on the many uncertainties of life and the greatest uncertainty of death. Put those fears aside, I say, and live free of them, for if we just step back and watch the truth of the world, we will find that there is indeed magic all about us, unexplainable by numbers and formulas. What is the passion evoked by the stirring speech of the commander before the desperate battle, if not magic? What is the peace that an infant might know in its mother’s arms, if not magic? What is love, if not magic? No, I would not want to live in a world without dragons, as I would not want to live in a world without magic, for that is a world without mystery, and that is a world without faith. And that, I fear, for any reasoning, conscious being, would be the cruelest trick of all. -Drizzt Do’Urden

One gave oneself time, one lost oneself, one followed the sun, one fell asleep so often on a bed of straw, and now, how fresh is the memory of wind one might say that the rain hissed a long silence and it was as if in the evening gods were born but so small that the birds pecked them like grain.

When you feel the need to escape your problems, to escape from this world, don't make the mistake of resorting to suicide Don't do it! You will hear the empty advice of many scholars in the matter of life and death, who will tell you, "just do it" there is nothing after this, you will only extinguish the light that surrounds you and become part of nothingness itself, so when you hear these words remember this brief review of suicide: When you leave this body after committing one of the worst acts of cowardice that a human being can carry out, you turn off the light, the sound and the sense of reality, you become nothing waiting for the programmers of this game to pick you up from the darkness, subtly erase your memories and enable your return and I emphasize the word subtle because sometimes the intelligence behind this maneuver or automated mechanism is wrong and send human beings wrongly reset to such an extent, that when they fall to earth and are born again, they begin to experience memories of previous lives, in many cases they perceive themselves of the opposite sex, and science attributes this unexplainable phenomenon to genetic and hormonal factors, but you and I know better! And we quickly identified this trigger as a glitch in the Matrix. Then we said! That a higher intelligence or more advanced civilization throws you back into this game for the purpose of experimenting, growing and developing as an advanced consciousness and due to your toxic and destructive behavior you come back again but in another body and another life, but you are still you, then you will carry with you that mark of suicide and cowardice, until you learn not to leave this experience without having learned the lesson of life, without having experienced and surprised by death naturally or by design of destiny. About this first experience you will find very little material associated with this event on the internet, it seems that the public is more reserved, because they perceive themselves and call themselves "awakened" And that is because the system has total control over the algorithm of fame and fortune even over life and death. Now, according to religion and childish fears, which are part of the system's business to keep you asleep, eyes glued to the cellular device all day, it says the following: If you commit this act of sin, you turn off light, sound and sense of reality, and from that moment you begin to experience pain, fear and suffering on alarming scales, and that means they will come for you, a couple of demons and take you to the center of the earth where the weeping and gnashing of teeth is forever, and in that hell tormented by demons you will spend eternity. About this last experience we will find hundreds of millions of people who claim to have escaped from there! And let me tell you that all were captivated by the same deity, one of dubious origin, that feeds on prayers and energetic events, because it is not of our nature, because it knows very well that we are beings of energy, then this deity or empire of darkness receives from the system its food and the system receives from them power, to rule, to administer, to control, to control, to kill, to exclude, to inhibit, to classify, to imprison, to silence, to infect, to contaminate, to depersonalize. So now that you know the two sides of the same coin, which one will your intelligence lean towards! You decide... Heads or tails? From the book Avatars, the system's masterpiece.

[Religious belief] is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you - who must, indeed, subject you - to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life - I say, of your life - before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea. It has a dead man as its president, Kim Jong-Il is only head of the party and head of the army. He's not head of the state. That office belongs to his deceased father, Kim Il-Sung. It's a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. It's one short of a trinity I might add. The son is the reincarnation of the father. It is the most revolting and utter and absolute and heartless tyranny the human species has ever evolved. But at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea!

In the stillest hour of the night, as I lay half asleep, my seven selves sat together and thus conversed in whispers: First Self: Here, in this madman, I have dwelt all these years, with naught to do but renew his pain by day and recreate his sorrow by night. I can bear my fate no longer, and now I rebel. Second Self: Yours is a better lot than mine, brother, for it is given to me to be this madman's joyous self. I laugh his laughter and sing his happy hours, and with thrice winged feet I dance his brighter thoughts. It is I that would rebel against my weary existence. Third Self: And what of me, the love-ridden self, the flaming brand of wild passion and fantastic desires? It is I the love-sick self who would rebel against this madman. Fourth Self: I, amongst you all, am the most miserable, for naught was given me but odious hatred and destructive loathing. It is I, the tempest-like self, the one born in the black caves of Hell, who would protest against serving this madman. Fifth Self: Nay, it is I, the thinking self, the fanciful self, the self of hunger and thirst, the one doomed to wander without rest in search of unknown things and things not yet created; it is I, not you, who would rebel. Sixth Self: And I, the working self, the pitiful labourer, who, with patient hands, and longing eyes, fashion the days into images and give the formless elements new and eternal forms- it is I, the solitary one, who would rebel against this restless madman. Seventh Self: How strange that you all would rebel against this man, because each and every one of you has a preordained fate to fulfil. Ah! could I but be like one of you, a self with a determined lot! But I have none, I am the do-nothing self, the one who sits in the dumb, empty nowhere and nowhen, while you are busy re-creating life. Is it you or I, neighbours, who should rebel? When the seventh self thus spake the other six selves looked with pity upon him but said nothing more; and as the night grew deeper one after the other went to sleep enfolded with a new and happy submission. But the seventh self remained watching and gazing at nothingness, which is behind all things.

And it was, as I remember it, a most exquisite night—a white poem, a frosty, starry lyric of light. It was one of those nights on which one might fall asleep and dream happy dreams of gardens of mirth and song, feeling all the while through one's sleep the soft splendour and radiance of the white moon-world outside, as one hears soft, far-away music sounding through the thoughts and words that are born of it.

It is not known that Litvinoff’s favorite flower was the peony. That his favorite form of punctuation was the question mark. That he had terrible dreams and could only fall asleep, if he could fall asleep at all, with a glass of warm milk. That he often imagined his own death. That he thought the woman who loved him was wrong to. That he was flat-footed. That his favorite food was the potato. That he liked to think of himself as a philosopher. That he questioned all things, even the most simple, to the extent that when someone passing him on the street raised his hat and said, “Good day,” Litvinoff often paused so long to weigh the evidence that by the time he’d settled on an answer the person had gone on his way, leaving him standing alone. These things were lost to oblivion like so much about so many who are born and die without anyone ever taking the time to write it all down.

This was the first time I knelt and with my lips, […] kissed the lit inwardly pink petaled lips. It was like touching a bird’s exposed heart with your tongue. Summer dawn flowing into the room parting the curtains–the lamp dimming–breeze rendered visible. Lightning, and then soft applause from the leaves … Almost children, we lay asleep in love listening to the rain. We didn’t ask to be born. — Franz Wright, “Untitled,” Earlier Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

To awaken each morning is to be born again. To fall asleep each night is to die to the day. Why do we delay doing the good we would like to do? Why do we put off speaking words of kindness, giving encouragement, writing a letter, taking care of ourselves? Why do we delay making decisions, in living our lives? Procrastination is a dreadful and terrible malady. We may say ‘do it now’ but then we wait for the ‘right time.’ There is no need to wait to live your life.” –W. Edward Harris

Dear God, what is this Aethyr I am come upon? What spirits are thee, labouring in what heavenly light? No... No, this is dazzle, but not yet divinity. Nor are these heathen wraiths about me spirits, lacking even that vitality. What, then? Am I, like Saint John the Divine, vouchsafed a glimpse of those last times? Are these the days my death shall spare me? It would seem we are to suffer an apocalypse of cockatoos... Morose, barbaric children playing joylessly with their unfathomable toys. Where comes this dullness in your eyes? How has your century numbed you so? Shall man be given marvels only when he is beyond all wonder? Your days were born in blood and fires, whereof in you I may not see the meanest spark! Your past is pain and iron! Know yourselves! With all your shimmering numbers and your lights, think not to be inured by history. Its black root succours you. It is INSIDE you. Are you asleep to it, that cannot feel its breath upon your neck, nor see what soaks its cuffs? See me! Wake up and look upon me! I am come amongst you. I am with you always! You are the sum of all preceding you, yet seem indifferent to yourselves. A culture grown disinterested, even in its own abysmal wounds. ... How would I seem to you? Some antique fiend or penny dreadful horror, yet YOU frighten ME! You have not souls. With you I am alone. Alone in an Olympus. Though accomplished in the sciences, your slightest mechanisms are beyond my grasp. They HUMBLE me, yet touch you not at all. This disaffection. THIS is Armageddon.

Callie tucked her brother into bed, and once he fell asleep, she left her room in search of her husband. She found him outside her door, leaning against the wall with his sword beside him. "Sin? What are you doing?" "'Twould appear I am sitting." "And why are you sitting there?" "Because it's rather difficult to sleep while standing." Callie faltered as his meaning became clear. "You are sleeping outside my door? Why?" "Because if I slept outside of Simon's door, the innkeeper might think I'm strange." -Callie & Sin

You are not conscious of having grossly violated any moral low. But have you never heard of a gentleman in India who had a tame leopard that went about his house? It was as playful as a cat, and did no one any harm till one day, as he lay asleep, the leopard licked his hand, and licked until it had licked a sore place and tasted blood. After that there was nothing for it but to destroy it; for all the leopard-nature was aroused by that taste of blood. And some of you young people, with all the godly associations that are round about you, will — I am always afraid — get a taste of the devilry outside, of the world’s vice and sin; and then there is the leopard’s nature in you. If you once get the taste and flavor of it, you will be prone to be always thirsting for it. Then, instead of the hope we now cherish, that we shall soon see you at your parents’ side, serving Christ — see you take your father’s place, young man, in after-years — see you, young woman, grow up to be a matron in the Church of God, bringing many others to the Savior — we may have to lament that the children are not as the parents, and cry, “Woe is the day that ever they were born.

But, in Moon Cottage, they are still asleep. I let myself in quietly and make a pot of tea, and take it outside, to sit under the apple tree and feel pleased. In the Buttercup field, one of the newest calves born a couple of nights ago, feeds and nuzzles and then wanders a yard or two away from its mother. It is white as milk, huge-eyed. The wrens are flying in and out of the woodshed and the bluetits in and out of a hole in the wall, by some guttering. Over the fields and farms and rooftops of Barley, the sun climbs and climbs. The dew has almost dried. The best of the day is done.

Being a fan isn't always about the thing you're a fan of. Okay well, it sort of is, but there is much more to it than just going online and screaming that you love something. Being a fan has given me people to talk to about the things that I like for the past five years. Being a fan has made me better friends online than I've ever encountered in real life; it has entered me into a community where people are joined in love and passion and hope and joy and escape. Being a fan has given me a reason to wake up, something always to look forward to, something to dream about while I'm trying to fall asleep. And people sneer. Sure. I get it. Adults especially. They see all these teenage girls and they think it's because we're stupid. They only see the tiny percentage of fans who take it too far – the stalkers – and they think we're all like that. They think we only love the band because of their looks; they think we only like their music because it's relatable. They think all of us are girls. They think all of us are straight. They think we're dumb little girls who spend all our time screaming because we want to marry a musician. They don't understand half of it. Any of it. How could they? Adults don't think teenagers can do anything, anyway. But despite everything in the world being terrible, we choose to stand by The Ark. We choose hope, light, joy, friendship, faith, even when our lives aren't perfect, or exciting, or fun, or special, like the boys from The Ark. I might be a disappointing student, without many close friends, with a life of mediocrity waiting for me back at home – an average degree from an average university, an average job and an average life – but I will always have this. In an otherwise mediocre existence, we choose to feel passion.

The Father and his Troubadour sat down Upon the outer rim of space. "And here, My Singer," said Earthmaker, "is the crown Of all my endless skies-the green, brown sphere Of all my hopes." He reached and took the round New planet down, and held it to his ear. "They're crying, Troubadour," he said. "They cry So hopelessly." He gave the little ball Unto his Son, who also held it by His ear. "Year after weary year they all Keep crying. They seem born to weep then die. Our new man taught them crying in the Fall. "It is a peaceless globe. Some are sincere In desperate desire to see her freed Of her absurdity. But war is here. Men die in conflict, bathed in blood and greed." Then with his nail he scraped the atmosphere And both of them beheld the planet bleed. Earthmaker set earth spinning on its way And said, "Give me your vast infinity My son; I'll wrap it in a bit of clay. Then enter Terra microscopically To love the little souls who weep away Their lives." "I will," I said, "set Terra free." And then I fell asleep and all awareness fled. I felt my very being shrinking down. My vastness ebbed away. In dwindling dread, All size decayed. The universe around Drew back. I woke upon a tiny bed Of straw in one of Terra's smaller towns. And now the great reduction has begun: Earthmaker and his Troubadour are one. And here's the new redeeming melody--The only song that can set Terra free. The

You. What a strange word that is. She thought, I have never laid eyes on you. I am waiting for you. The old man prays for you. He almost can’t believe he has you to pray for. Both of us think about you the whole day long. If I die bearing you, or if you die when you are born, I will still be thinking, Who are you? and there will be only one answer out of all the people in the world, all the people there have ever been or will ever be. If we find each other in heaven, we’ll say, So there you are! We’d be perfect in heaven, no regrets, no grudges, nothing to make you turn a cold eye on me the way you might do someday when you’re old enough to really see me. When I tell you that that knife is the only thing I have to leave you. Then I’d be all hard and proud, like it didn’t even matter what you thought. What else can a person do? And it would be the only thing that mattered, because no one else could say “you” and mean the same thing by it. But there would be years when the child would just want to sit on her lap. He’d favor her over anybody. He’d be crying and she’d pick him up, and then it would take him a minute to be done crying, but that would be all that was left of it, because she had her arms around him. Comfort. That’s strange, too. When she used to lie there almost asleep, with her cheek on the old man’s sweater, the night all around her chirping and whispering, the comfort of it was a thing she’d have promised herself the whole day long.

The actual individual, in whom this myth of the Favourite Son was founded, was indeed remarkable. Born of shepherd parents among the Southern Andes, he had first become famous as the leader of a romantic "youth movement"; and it was this early stage of his career that won him followers. He urged the young to set an example to the old, to live their own life undaunted by conventions, to enjoy, to work hard but briefly, to be loyal comrades. Above all, he preached the religious duty of remaining young in spirit. No one, he said, need grow old, if he willed earnestly not to do so, if he would but keep his soul from falling asleep, his heart open to all rejuvenating influences and shut to every breath of senility. The delight of soul in soul, he said, was the great rejuvenator; it re-created both lover and beloved.

(From Chapter 9: Hearts and Gizzards) I’m lying on the hard and narrow bed, on the mattress made of coarse ticking, which is what they call the covering of a mattress, though why do they call it that as it is not a clock. The mattress is filled with dry straw that crackles like a fire when I turn over, and when I shift it whispers to me, hush hush. It’s dark as a stone in this room, and hot as a roasting heart; if you stare into the darkness with your eyes open you are sure to see something after a time. I hope it will not be flowers. But this is the time they like to grow, the red flowers, the shining red peonies which are like satin, which are like splashes of paint. The soil for them is emptiness, it is empty space and silence. I whisper, Talk to me; because I would rather have talking than the slow gardening that takes place in silence, with the red satin petals dripping down the wall. I think I sleep. [...] I’m outside, at night. There are the trees, there is the pathway, and the snake fence with half a moon shining, and my bare feet on the gravel. But when I come around to the front of the house, the sun is just going down; and the white pillars of the house are pink, and the white peonies are glowing red in the fading light. My hands are numb, I can’t feel the ends of my fingers. There’s the smell of fresh meat, coming up from the ground and all around, although I told the butcher we wanted none. On the palm of my hand there’s a disaster. I must have been born with it. I carry it with me wherever I go. When he touched me, the bad luck came off on him. I think I sleep. I wake up at cock crow and I know where I am. I’m in the parlour. I’m in the scullery. I’m in the cellar. I’m in my cell, under the coarse prison blanket, which I likely hemmed myself. We make everything we wear or use here, awake or asleep; so I have made this bed, and now I am lying in it.

Ven' is the Nain word for 'and.' It was my first word, and so was added to my name at the age of three, when I first spoke it. That is the Nain tradition; each child's first word becomes an official part of his or her name. As a result, three of my brothers are Petar Da-da Polypheme, Osgod No! Polypheme, and Linus Poo-poo Polypheme. Personally, I think the Nain should rethink this tradition. As for my name, I think perhaps there should be a question mark after it - 'and?' - as if life is always posing the question of what I am to do next. I was born with more than my share of curiosity, and it gets me into a frightful amount of trouble. I want to know what comes next from the time I wake up in the morning, wondering what the day will hold, till the moment I fall asleep, imagining where my dreams will take me at night. It's like an itch; my skin or scalp hums with excitement whenever my curiosity starts to take over. And? And? And? Scratching it does nothing to help; the itch doesn't go away, and I just look like I have dandruff or fleas.

Whatever the weather, Bjartur always left the others when the meal was over. He would lie down on a truss of hay with his hat over his face and fall asleep at once. As soon as he moved in his sleep he would roll off the truss, sometimes into a pool, and would be awake immediately, which pleased him greatly. He considered that it was proper for a man to sleep for four minutes during the daytime, and he was always in a bad temper if he slept longer. The womenfolk wormed in under the hay-rick when they had finished eating. Then the shivering would begin, for they were sitting on wet grass, and they would rise with hands benumbed and pins and needles in their legs and go to look for their rakes. And if Bjartur heard them complaining about the damp, he would reply that it was pretty miserable wretches that minded at all whether they were wet or dry. He could not understand why such people had been born. 'It's nothing but damned eccentricity to want to be dry,' he would say. 'I've been wet more than half my life and never been a whit the worse for it.

Two Kittens by Maisie Aletha Smikle Born to a cat called Mitten Were two tiny little kittens Nested in a basket They purred for the warmth of a blanket Coated in short velvet hair of midnight black From whiskers to tail they were beauty black Soft cuddly and adorable They searched uncontrollably Twisting and twirling Their little tails floundering Tiny purrs pleading They comb their little basket for a blanket To feed her little kittens And warm their tiny bodies Mitten must feed her tummy With something very yummy Mitten searched for food She stayed close to her brood With their small eyes still closed Mitten’s little kittens mainly dozed Mitten peered and listen Her bright ocean blue eyes glisten She spots a mouse Coming from a house The mouse had just feasted Groggy from its feast It moved slowly Mitten pounced boldly She knocked her target out Picked it up in her mouth And feasted with delight Then licked her whiskers clean till they glisten bright Mitten returned to her kittens And found them soundly fast asleep She covered her little kittens And soon fell fast asleep

I know women are the only ones who can give birth, but once the baby’s born, why the hell should our roles be so different? Breastfeeding, I get, but what about everything else? Don’t tell me you need more time to figure out how to be a dad. Like, what have you been doing for the last nine months? Don’t just sit there and watch. This isn’t a field trip! You say you’ve got work, but what about me? I’ve got work, too! Well, I did. I know it paid nothing compared to what you make …. Anyway, isn’t that what paternity leave is for? I’m not saying take it right now, but did it occur to you that maybe I could work and you could stay at home? Did it even occur to you? Why should I act so grateful just because you changed your daughter’s diaper one time? Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe I’m worn out? Maybe it has, but, what, you think that’s just part of being a mom? Do you think he knows how it feels, Sheeba? Do you think he gets it? Even though he’s maybe eight inches away, blissfully asleep, he’s more of a stranger than some random politician I’ve never met or some stray dog somewhere in Brazil. I feel more alone with him than I do when I’m on my own.

I Would Like to Describe - 1924-1998 I would like to describe the simplest emotion joy or sadness but not as others do reaching for shafts of rain or sun I would like to describe a light which is being born in me but I know it does not resemble any star for it is not so bright not so pure and is uncertain I would like to describe courage without dragging behind me a dusty lion and also anxiety without shaking a glass full of water to put it another way I would give all metaphors in return for one word drawn out of my breast like a rib for one word contained within the boundaries of my skin but apparently this is not possible and just to say - I love I run around like mad picking up handfuls of birds and my tenderness which after all is not made of water asks the water for a face and anger different from fire borrows from it a loquacious tongue so is blurred so is blurred in me what white-haired gentlemen separated once and for all and said this is the subject and this is the object we fall asleep with one hand under our head and with the other in a mound of planets our feet abandon us and taste the earth with their tiny roots which next morning we tear out painfully

That’s your ghoul, isn’t it?” asked Harry, who had never actually met the creature that sometimes disrupted the nightly silence. “Yeah, it is,” said Ron, climbing the ladder. “Come and have a look at him.” Harry followed Ron up the few short steps into the tiny attic space. His head and shoulders were in the room before he caught sight of the creature curled up a few feet from him, fast asleep in the gloom with its large mouth wide open. “But it . . . it looks . . . do ghouls normally wear pajamas?” “No,” said Ron. “Nor have they usually got red hair or that number of pustules.” Harry contemplated the thing, slightly revolted. It was human in shape and size, and was wearing what, now that Harry’s eyes became used to the darkness, was clearly an old pair of Ron’s pajamas. He was also sure that ghouls were generally rather slimy and bald, rather than distinctly hairy and covered in angry purple blisters. “He’s me, see?” said Ron. “No,” said Harry. “I don’t.” “I’ll explain it back in my room, the smell’s getting to me,” said Ron. They climbed back down the ladder, which Ron returned to the ceiling, and rejoined Hermione, who was still sorting books. “Once we’ve left, the ghoul’s going to come and live down here in my room,” said Ron. “I think he’s really looking forward to it—well, it’s hard to tell, because all he can do is moan and drool—but he nods a lot when you mention it. Anyway, he’s going to be me with spattergroit. Good, eh?” Harry merely looked his confusion. “It is!” said Ron, clearly frustrated that Harry had not grasped the brilliance of the plan. “Look, when we three don’t turn up at Hogwarts again, everyone’s going to think Hermione and I must be with you, right? Which means the Death Eaters will go straight for our families to see if they’ve got information on where you are.” “But hopefully it’ll look like I’ve gone away with Mum and Dad; a lot of Muggle-borns are talking about going into hiding at the moment,” said Hermione. “We can’t hide my whole family, it’ll look too fishy and they can’t all leave their jobs,” said Ron. “So we’re going to put out the story that I’m seriously ill with spattergroit, which is why I can’t go back to school. If anyone comes calling to investigate, Mum or Dad can show them the ghoul in my bed, covered in pustules. Spattergroit’s really contagious, so they’re not going to want to go near him. It won’t matter that he can’t say anything, either, because apparently you can’t once the fungus has spread to your uvula.

He noticed the hole in the wall. “What the hell happened?” “We redecorated.” I kept my voice level. “Where have you been?” “Did they succeed?” “Hell no. Everybody was tired from the hunt and irritable as fuck. They bickered about inheriting the pass, and did their grandstanding, and accused each other of things. Radomil fell asleep. For a few minutes it looked like they might actually agree on something. Then the younger brother—Ignazio—decided it would be a grand idea to jump up and announce that when his nephew was born, at least he would be born smart like his father, so he should inherit the pass and not the other kid, who’s been fathered by a citrullo.” “What’s a citrullo?” “From what I gathered, it’s either a cucumber or a half-wit.” Curran shook his head. “Then the Volkodavi started yelling. The Belve yelled back. Radomil woke up and someone clued him in that he had been insulted but apparently not who’d done it, because Radomil went after Gerardo and called him parazeet and viridok.” “Parasite and bastard,” I translated. Voron was Russian. I spoke it well enough, better now that I had someone in Atlanta to practice with, and I’d hung out enough with Ukrainians to pick up the language. Curses were the second thing you learned, right behind yes, no, help, stop, and where is the bathroom? “Ahh.” Curran nodded. “That explains why Gerardo’s mother went furry.

When our son was born, my wife and I made adjustments to our lives like all parents must. The ideal in our particular family was to keep the little man out of daycare, which meant one of us would care for him in the home. For the first two years, we decided I would be the one to work from home and care for him, until we could figure a plan to have her stay home with him. With all of the crazy nighttime feedings, his need to be cuddled, and other activities, getting a good rest at night was out of the question. I had become accustomed to rising early and having personal devotions. Obviously, that became quite the challenge. My mind was becoming overwhelmed with the difficulty of functioning on very little rest. So, before this went too far, I prayed. I said something like, “Lord! You gave us this boy to nurture and care for. You want us to be the best parents possible. You are the One who taught us balance and temperance. I am feeling out of balance, Lord. I am having difficulty getting up in the mornings. And when I do get up, I can hardly concentrate on the Bible or praying. I know this is not what you intended for us. I am dedicating this certain time in the morning to you. Will you please keep our son asleep during that time so you and I can have the time you want?” Let me tell you, the Lord answered immediately! From the very next morning, even with all of the frenzy of baby activity and my overwhelming weariness, the Most High soothed and kept our son asleep until my worship time was over. And the interesting thing is, he only stayed asleep for that particular time. When the time was done, he always woke up.

there was something else, something more complicated, more secret, and that is that girls in those days, even modern girls, like us, girls who went to school and then to university, were always taught that women are entitled to an education and a place outside the home—but only until the children are born. Your life is your own only for a short time: from when you leave your parents' home to your first pregnancy. From that moment, from the first pregnancy, we had to begin to live our lives only around the children. Just like our mothers. Even to sweep pavements for our children, because your child is the chick and you are—what? When it comes down to it, you are just the yolk of the egg, you are what the chick eats so as to grow big and strong. And when your child grows up—even then you can't go back to being yourself, you simply change from being a mother to being a grandmother, whose task is simply to help her children bring up their children. True, even then there were quite a few women who made careers for themselves and went out into the world. But everybody talked about them behind their backs: look at that selfish woman, she sits in meetings while her poor children grow up in the street and pay the price. Now it's a new world. Now at last women are given more opportunity to live lives of their own. Or is it just an illusion? Maybe in the younger generations too women still cry into their pillows at night, while their husbands are asleep, because they feel they have to make impossible choices? I don't want to be judgmental: it's not my world anymore. To make a comparison I'd have to go from door to door checking how many mothers' tears are wept every night into the pillow when husbands are asleep, and to compare the tears then with the tears now.

Dead?” said Caspian. “I think not, Sire,” said Reepicheep, lifting one of their hands out of its tangle of hair in his two paws. “This one is warm and his pulse beats.” “This one, too, and this,” said Drinian. “Why, they’re only asleep,” said Eustace. “It’s been a long sleep, though,” said Edmund, “to let their hair grow like this.” “It must be an enchanted sleep,” said Lucy. “I felt the moment we landed on this island that it was full of magic. Oh! do you think we have perhaps come here to break it?” “We can try,” said Caspian, and began shaking the nearest of the three sleepers. For a moment everyone thought he was going to be successful, for the man breathed hard and muttered, “I’ll go eastward no more. Out oars for Narnia.” But he sank back almost at once into a yet deeper sleep than before: that is, his heavy head sagged a few inches lower toward the table and all efforts to rouse him again were useless. With the second it was much the same. “Weren’t born to live like animals. Get to the east while you’ve a chance--lands behind the sun,” and sank down. And the third only said, “Mustard, please,” and slept hard. “Out ours for Narnia, eh?” said Drinian. “Yes,” said Caspian, “you are right, Drinian. I think our quest is at an end. Let’s look at their rings. Yes, these are their devices. This is the Lord Revilian. This is the Lord Argoz: and this, the Lord Mavramorn.” “But we can’t wake them,” said Lucy. “What are we to do?” “Begging your Majesties’ pardons all,” said Rhince, “but why not fall to while you’re discussing it? We don’t see a dinner like this every day.” “Not for your life!” said Caspian. “That’s right, that’s right,” said several of the sailors. “Too much magic about here. The sooner we’re back on board the better.” “Depend upon it,” said Reepicheep, “it was from eating this food that these three lords came by a seven years’ sleep.” “I wouldn’t touch it to save my life,” said Drinian.

We had planned to spend Christmas morning with my family, and then head over to Phil and Kay’s for Christmas night. The whole family was there, including all the grandkids. Bella, Willie and Korie’s daughter, was the youngest and still an infant. We opened presents, ate dinner, and the whole evening felt surreal. Tomorrow morning I’ll have a baby in this world, I thought. When Jep and I left that night, I said, “I’m gonna go have a baby. See you all later!” For all the worry and concern and tears and prayers we’d spent on our unborn baby, when it came to her birth, she was no trouble at all. I went to the hospital, got prepped for the C-section, and within thirty minutes she was out. Lily was beautiful and healthy. I was overwhelmed with happiness and joy. I felt God had blessed me. He’d created life inside of me--a real, beautiful, breathing little human being--and brought her into this world through me. It was an unbelievable miracle. And the best part? Jep was in the delivery room. Unlike his dad, he wanted to be there, and he shared it all with me. I’ll never forget the sight of Jep decked out in blue scrubs, with the blue head cover, holding his baby girl for the first time. I’ll never forget how she nestled down in the crook of his arm, his hand wrapped up and around, gently holding her. He stared down at her, and I could see a smile behind his white surgical mask. He was already in love--I knew that look. After we admired the baby together, I fell asleep, and Jep took his newborn daughter out to meet the family. He told me later he bawled like a baby. Later, when she went to the hospital nursery, Jep kept going over there to stare at her. I think he was in shock and overwhelmed and excited. Lily had a light creamy complexion and little pink rosebud lips, and she was born December 26, 2002. Despite the rough pregnancy, she was perfect. God answered our prayers, and now we were a family of three. We’d been married just a little over a year.

David Greene was kind, and he had a sense of humor. He made your mother laugh.” That was all Gran could muster up? “Did you not like him?” “He wasn’t a big believer in Tarot. Humor aside, he was a very practical man. From New England,” she added, as if that explained everything. “I’d been wearing Karen down about the Arcana—until she met him. Before I knew it, your mother was pregnant. Even then, I sensed you were the Empress.” “He didn’t want us to live up north?” “David planned to move there.” Her gaze went distant. “To move you—the great Empress—away from her Haven.” That must have gone over well. “In the end, I convinced them not to go.” ...... I opened up the family albums. As I scrolled through them, her eyes appeared dazed, as if she wasn’t seeing the images. Yet then she stared at a large picture of my father. I said, “I wish I could remember him.” “David used to carry you around the farm on his shoulders,” she said. “He read to you every night and took you to the river to skip stones. He drove you around to pet every baby animal born in a ten-mile radius. Lambs, kittens, puppies.” She drew a labored breath. “He brought you to the crops and the gardens. Even then, you would pet the bark of an oak and kiss a rose bloom. If the cane was sighing that day, you’d fall asleep in his arms.” I imagined it all: the sugarcane, the farm, the majestic oaks, the lazy river that always had fish jumping. My roots were there, but I knew I would never go back. Jack’s dream had been to return and rebuild Haven. A dream we’d shared. I would feel like a traitor going home without him. Plus, it’d be too painful. Everything would remind me of the love I’d lost. “David’s death was so needless,” she said. “Don’t know what he was doing near that cane crusher.” “David’s death was so needless,” she said. “Don’t know what he was doing near that cane crusher.” I snapped my gaze to her. “What do you mean? He disappeared on a fishing trip in the Basin.” She frowned at me. “He did. Of course.” Chills crept up my spine. Was she lying? Why would she, unless . . .

Marple closed her eyes and fell asleep. It felt good. She felt like a kid again. She’d waited a long time to feel like that. It felt like the universe was folding in on itself. It felt like origami birds being born. —from THE IMMORTALS ACT THEIR AGE

Belief in God is the most important thing in the world. When someone has faith they must be a decent person and know how to behave. Every night I greet my God before I fall asleep.

So what’s the story your grandpa told you?” I leaned back against the blanket, propping my head in one hand and looking up at him. “It wasn’t about the pond, I guess. It’s more about the town. I didn’t ever come to Mona when I lived here. I never had reason to - so when I asked my grandpa if there were any good fishing spots around here, and he mentioned this pond, I asked him about the town. He said Burl Ives, the singer, was once thrown in jail here in Mona. It was before his time, but he thought it was a funny story.” “I’ve never heard about that!” “It was the 1940’s, and Burl Ives traveled around singing. I guess the authorities didn’t like one of his songs - they thought it was bawdy, so they put him in jail.” “What was the song?” I snickered. “It was called Foggy, Foggy Dew. My grandpa sang it for me.” “Let’s hear it!” I challenged. “It’s far too lewd.” Samuel pulled his mouth into a serious frown, but his eyes twinkled sardonically. “All right you’ve convinced me,” he said without me begging at all, and we laughed together. He cleared his throat and began to sing, with a touch of an Irish lilt, about a bachelor living all alone whose only sin had been to try to protect a fair young maiden from the foggy, foggy dew. One night she came to my bedside When I was fast asleep. She laid her head upon my bed And she began to weep She sighed, she cried, she damn near died She said what shall I do? So I hauled her into bed and covered up her head Just to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew. “Oh my!” I laughed, covering my mouth. “I don’t think I would have stuck Burl Ives in jail for that, but it is pretty funny,” “Marine’s are the lewdest, crudest, foulest talking bunch you’ll ever find. I’ve heard much, much worse. I’ve sung much, much worse. I tried to remain chaste and virtuous, and I still have the nickname Preacher after all these years - but I have been somewhat corrupted.” He waggled his eyebrows at his ribaldry. “I kind of liked that song…” I mused, half kidding. “Sing something else but without the Irish.” “Without the Irish? That’s the best part.” Samuel smiled crookedly. “I had a member of my platoon whose mom was born and raised in Ireland. This guy could do an authentic Irish accent, and man, could he sing. When he sang Danny Boy everybody cried. All these tough, lethal Marines, bawling like babies

An hour later we were pulling into the hospital parking lot. Sparkly and shiny from my hair and makeup job, I had to stop and bend over six times between the car and the front door of the hospital. I literally couldn’t take a step until each contraction ended. Within an hour after checking in, I was writhing on a hospital bed in all-encompassing pain and wishing once again that I’d gone ahead and moved to Chicago. It had become my default response when things got rough in my life: morning sickness? I should have moved to Chicago. Cow manure in my yard? Chicago would have been a better choice. Contractions less than a minute apart? Windy City, come and get me. Finally, I reached my breaking point. It’s an indescribable feeling, the throes of hard labor--that mind-numbing total body cramp whose origin you can’t even begin to wrap your head around. After trying to be strong and tough in front of Marlboro Man, I finally gave up and gripped the bedsheet and clenched my teeth. I groaned and moaned and pushed the nurse button and whimpered to Marlboro Man, “I can’t do this anymore.” When the nurse came into the room moments later, I begged her to put me out of my misery. My salvation arrived five minutes later in the form of an eight-inch needle, and when the medicine hit I nearly began to cry. The relief was indescribably sweet. I was so blissfully pain-free, I fell asleep. And when I woke up confused and disoriented an hour later, a nurse named Heidi was telling me it was time to push. Almost immediately, Dr. Oliver entered the room, fully scrubbed and wearing a mask. “Are you ready, Mama?” Marlboro Man asked, standing near my shoulders as the nurse draped my legs and adjusted the fetal monitor, which was strapped around my middle. I felt like I’d woken up in the middle of a party. But the weirdest party ever--one where the hostess was putting my feet in stirrups. I ordered Marlboro Man to remain north of my belly button as nurses scurried into place. I’d made it clear beforehand: I didn’t want him down there. I wanted him to continue to get to know me the old-fashioned way--and besides, that’s what we were paying the doctor for. “Go ahead and push once for me,” Dr. Oliver said. I did, but only hard enough to ensure that nothing accidental or embarrassing would slip out. I could think of no greater humiliation. “Okay, that’s not going to work at all,” Dr. Oliver scolded. I pushed again. “Ree,” Dr. Oliver said, looking up at me through the space between my legs. “You can do way better than that.” He’d watched me grow up in the ballet company in our town. He’d watched me contort and leap and spin in everything from The Nutcracker to Swan Lake to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He knew I had the fortitude to will a baby from my loins. That’s when Marlboro Man grabbed my hand, as if to impart to me, his sweaty and slightly weary wife, a measure of his strength and endurance. “Come on, honey,” he said. “You can do it.” A few tense moments later, our baby was born. Except it wasn’t a baby boy. It was a seven-pound, twenty-one-inch baby girl. It was the most important moment of my life. And more ways than one, it was a pivotal moment for Marlboro Man.

A dog. What was it doing, leaping about like that, racing around this strange guy’s feet? Wagging its tail. Barking. The man started talking to it. What was he saying? I couldn’t make it out. I tried once again to say something. But I still couldn’t get a sound out. I tried again. Nothing. The man kept on talking to his dog, in a kind voice. And suddenly, it came to me. People didn’t keep dogs in North Korea. They ate them. This dog was a pet. This wasn’t North Korea. It was China. I’d made it. I couldn’t believe it. It was nothing short of a miracle. Despite my excitement, I was overcome by fatigue. I fell asleep. Born again.

She blinked her eyes, trying to stay awake, but the engines were so lulling and she was so tired … Nykyrian barely caught her before she slumped into his controls. He could hear her even, slow breaths in his helmet. How can you be asleep with a trained assassin sitting behind you? And yet she was completely unconscious in his lap while her soft little snore came through the link in his helmet. The woman was nuts. She had to be. Or suicidal.

It is difficult to know for any particular adult whether you inherited the trait or developed it during your life. The best evidence, though hardly perfect, is whether your parents remember you as sensitive from the time you were born. If it is easy to do so, ask them, or whoever was your caretaker, to tell you all about what you were like in the first six months of life. Probably you will learn more if you do not begin by asking if you were sensitive. Just ask what you were like as a baby. Often the stories about you will tell it all. After a while, ask about some typical signs of highly sensitive babies. Were you difficult about change—about being undressed and put into water at bath time, about trying new foods, about noise? Did you have colic often? Were you slow to fall asleep, hard to keep asleep, or a short sleeper, especially when you were overtired? Remember, if your parents had no experience with other babies, they may not have noticed anything unusual at that age because they had no one to compare you to. Also, given all the blaming of parents for their children’s every difficulty, your parents may need to convince you and themselves that all was perfect in your childhood. If you want, you can reassure them that you know they did their best and that all babies pose a few problems but that you wonder which problems you presented. You might also let them see the questionnaire at the front of this book. Ask them if they or anyone else in your family has this trait. Especially if you find relatives with it on both sides, the odds are very good your trait is inherited. But what if it wasn’t or you aren’t sure? It probably does not matter at all. What does is that it is your trait now.

Being a fan has given me people to talk to about the things that I like for the past five years. Being a fan has made me better friends online than I’ve ever encountered in real life; it has entered me into a community where people are joined in love and passion and hope and joy and escape. Being a fan has given me a reason to wake up, something always to look forward to, something to dream about while I’m trying to fall asleep.

All of us are born in a mother's womb, In mother nature's lap we fall asleep. Why do you bicker over archaic walls, The light in me is the light in thee!

You’ve seen a lot of death, then?” Logen winced. In his youth, he would have loved to answer that very question. He could have bragged, and boasted, and listed the actions he’d been in, the Named Men he’d killed. He couldn’t say now when the pride had dried up. It had happened slowly. As the wars became bloodier, as the causes became excuses, as the friends went back to the mud, one by one. Logen rubbed at his ear, felt the big notch that Tul Duru’s sword had made, long ago. He could have stayed silent. But for some reason, he felt the need to be honest. “I’ve fought in three campaigns,” he began. “In seven pitched battles. In countless raids and skirmishes and desperate defences, and bloody actions of every kind. I’ve fought in the driving snow, the blasting wind, the middle of the night. I’ve been fighting all my life, one enemy or another, one friend or another. I’ve known little else. I’ve seen men killed for a word, for a look, for nothing at all. A woman tried to stab me once for killing her husband, and I threw her down a well. And that’s far from the worst of it. Life used to be cheap as dirt to me. Cheaper. “I’ve fought ten single combats and I won them all, but I fought on the wrong side and for all the wrong reasons. I’ve been ruthless, and brutal, and a coward. I’ve stabbed men in the back, burned them, drowned them, crushed them with rocks, killed them asleep, unarmed, or running away. I’ve run away myself more than once. I’ve pissed myself with fear. I’ve begged for my life. I’ve been wounded, often, and badly, and screamed and cried like a baby whose mother took her tit away. I’ve no doubt the world would be a better place if I’d been killed years ago, but I haven’t been, and I don’t know why.” He looked down at his hands, pink and clean on the stone. “There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and there’s a lot of ’em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. I’ve earned it. I’ve deserved it. I’ve sought it out. Such is my punishment.” And that was all. Logen breathed a deep, ragged sigh and stared out at the lake. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the man beside him, didn’t want to see the expression on his face. Who wants to learn he’s keeping company with the Bloody-Nine? A man who’s wrought more death than the plague, and with less regret. They could never be friends now, not with all those corpses between them. Then he felt Quai’s hand clap him on the shoulder. “Well, there it is,” he said, grinning from ear to ear, “but you saved me, and I’m right grateful for it!” “I’ve saved a man this year, and only killed four. I’m born again.” And they both laughed for a while, and it felt good.

No one is physically or psychologically unable to sleep. In fact, we are all born with the same natural sleeping response. But we also have the ability to fight this instinct to prevent us from falling asleep in times of danger. This means that sleep is a delicate thing and for some, poor sleep habits and negative beliefs are enough to override the falling asleep response.

We lay contentedly together, occasionally kissing, my fingers twined in his hair. I loved the feel of it, its texture, its color, and I brushed it back along the nape of his neck. “You’re tickling me,” he said with a smile. “Are you trying to keep me awake?” “No.” I laughed, pushing up on my elbow to look down at him. “It’s just--” I stopped, staring at the birthmark on his neck, the mark of the Bleeding Moon, as it had been called in the legend, and my hand began to shake. “What is it, Alera?” he asked, alarmed. “Nothing. It’s just…” I struggled to form a cohesive thought, for in all my dreams of a life with him, of having children with him, this question had never before occurred to me. “Just what?” He sat up, placing a hand on his neck where I had been playing with his hair. “When we have a child, what will happen? I mean, the High Priestess told me, when she was our prisoner in the cave, that the powers of the Empress of Cokyri were supposed to pass to her firstborn daughter upon the child’s birth, but that they were split between her and her brother when she was born a twin. The possibility of the powers reuniting and passing into the High Priestess’s firstborn daughter gave us our negotiating leverage with the Overlord.” “Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?” “Well, you have powers, too. I’m wondering…” A shadow fell over his face. “You’re wondering if my powers are unique to me. Or might a child of ours inherit them.” “Yes, or if…” I took a deep breath. “Could they pass from your body and into the child upon birth, like the magic of the Empress of Cokyri?” From the expression on Narian’s face, it was plain this was the first time he had ever considered the question. “I don’t know, Alera. The source of my power derives from an ancient legend and the circumstances surrounding my birth.” He touched my face, then added, “Perhaps it’s time we took another look at the origin of the legend--and we should find out if anything else was ever written about the powers I was destined to have.” I sighed. “I wish London were here. He uncovered the scrolls that foretold your birth, hidden somewhere in Cokyri. He would know what else was written.” Narian nodded, but said nothing more, and I tried to imagine what he must be feeling. Were his powers a blessing or a curse? Would he want them to pass to a child of his? And if a child held them, what manner of life would he or she lead? Then I asked myself the same questions, and an overriding answer became startlingly clear. “It would be good to know, Narian. But it doesn’t matter. I want children with you, and I do not fear the powers you hold, nor would I fear them in the hands of our own child.” He nodded, then settled on his back. I snuggled against him, lost in thought. At some point, I would fall asleep; it did not appear that he intended to do the same.

Who indeed were these people called the dead? she asked herself. They were people who had lived in the same era and experienced the same events as she. People she hadn't known, whom she had brushed past indifferently on a street corner, whose eyes had lightly touched hers. They were people who had risen in the morning and fallen asleep at night, people with whom she had experienced sunlight, wind, snow and rain. She had born at a certain moment in their lifetimes, and at a certain moment in hers they had humbly departed. How awfully fortuitous to have shared the same era with them; yet she hadn't had the slightest premonition or indication of their deaths. (O 1989: 251)

Yawning, he tossed his clothes over a chair, peeled back those luxurious spreads, and, naked as the day he was born, promptly fell asleep in the Pirate Queen’s bed.

How many were there of these homely visionaries, prophetic pythonesses, sententious prophetesses, raving old women, swooning damsels, talking crickets, these convulsionaries haunted by incubi, who ‘dropped down dead with epilepsy,’ how many the matrons desirous of regeneration, and the old women seeking ‘purgation?’ How many the ‘fountains of deceit,’ the ‘amphitheaters of monstrosities,’ how many have tumbled into the ‘cavern of nothingness.’ Collective infatuation, ‘epidemics of the imagination,’ ‘filthy dreams’ born of ‘obscene’ and delirious ‘fantasy,’ ‘nocturnal flights through the air,’ ‘brutal releases of pent-up lust’ by “melancholic women, endowed with vigorous imaginations and ferocious animals spirits, or indeed old women consumed by all manner of filthy and libidinous desires, which they abet with generous quantities of liquor: no wonder, then, that when asleep they are prey to such nefarious deliriums

I fear me that the Christian church is far more likely to lose her integrity in these soft and silken days than in those rougher times. We must be awake now, for we traverse the enchanted ground, and are most likely to fall asleep to our own undoing, unless our faith in Jesus be a reality, and our love to Jesus a vehement flame. Many in these days of easy profession are likely to prove tares, and not wheat; hypocrites with fair masks on their faces, but not the true born children of the living God.

By Thursday the news had leaked out and a group of photographers waited for her outside the hospital. “People thought Diana only came in at the end,” says Angela. “Of course it wasn’t like that at all, we shared it all.” In the early hours of Thursday, August 23 the end came. When Adrian died, Angela went next door to telephone Diana. Before she could speak Diana said: “I’m on my way.” Shortly after she arrived they said the Lord’s Prayer together and then Diana left her friends to be alone for one last time. “I don’t know of anybody else who would have thought of me first,” says Angela. Then the protective side of Diana took over. She made up a bed for her friend, tucked her in and kissed her goodnight. While she was asleep Diana knew that it would be best if Angela joined her family on holiday in France. She packed her suitcase for her and telephoned her husband in Montpellier to tell him that Angela was flying out as soon as she awoke. Then Diana walked upstairs to see the baby ward, the same unit where her own sons were born. She felt that it was important to see life as well as death, to try and balance her profound sense of loss with a feeling of rebirth. In those few months Diana had learned much about herself, reflecting the new start she had made in life. It was all the more satisfying because for once she had not bowed to the royal family’s pressure. She knew that she had left Balmoral without first seeking permission from the Queen and in the last days there was insistence that she return promptly. The family felt that a token visit would have sufficed and seemed uneasy about her display of loyalty and devotion which clearly went far beyond the traditional call of duty. Her husband had never known much regard for her interests and he was less than sympathetic to the amount of time she spent caring for her friend. They failed to appreciate that she had made a commitment to Adrian Ward-Jackson, a commitment she was determined to keep. It mattered not whether he was dying of AIDS, cancer or some other disease, she had given her word to be with him at the end. She was not about to breach his trust. At that critical time she felt that her loyalty to her friends mattered as much as her duty towards the royal family. As she recalled to Angela: “You both need me. It’s a strange feeling being wanted for myself. Why me?” While the Princess was Angela’s guardian angel at Adrian’s funeral, holding her hand throughout the service, it was at his memorial service where she needed her friend’s shoulder to cry on. It didn’t happen. They tried hard to sit together for the service but Buckingham Palace courtiers would not allow it. As the service at St Paul’s Church in Knightsbridge was a formal occasion, the royal family had to sit in pews on the right, the family and friends of the deceased on the left. In grief, as with so much in Diana’s life, the heavy hand of royal protocol prevented the Princess from fulfilling this very private moment in the way she would have wished. During the service Diana’s grief was apparent as she mourned the man whose road to death had given her such faith in herself. The Princess no longer felt that she had to disguise her true feelings from the world. She could be herself rather than hide behind a mask. Those months nurturing Adrian had reordered her priorities in life. As she wrote to Angela shortly afterwards: “I reached a depth inside which I never imagined was possible. My outlook on life has changed its course and become more positive and balanced.

After David had confessed to Nathan that he had " sinned against the Lord," 6 the prophet consoled him by saying: " The Lord hath taken away thy sin, thou shalt not die." 7 But Nathan did not promise David remission of temporal punishment. On the contrary, he continued: " Nevertheless, because thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, ... the child that is born to thee shall surely die." 8 St. Paul mentions weakness, disease, and death among the evil effects of unworthy communion. " Therefore many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few are fallen asleep." 9 He evidently regards sickness and death as temporal punishments for irreverence shown to the Holy Eucharist; for among the afflicted Corinthians many returned to their senses in consequence of such chastise ments. 10 b) The teaching of Tradition on this subject may be gathered partly from the writings of the Fathers and partly from the penitential discipline of the ancient Church. a) Calvin admits that practically all the Fathers held the Catholic doctrine of satisfaction. 11 In view of this admission a few select texts will suffice for our purpose. St. Basil says: " If thy sin is great and grievous, thou

I don't want to die, but I don't want to exist. And I wish with every ounce of my soul that I was never born. That I had never been brought into a world so cold, violent, and full of heartache. And the worst part is that even though I feel dead inside, I'm painfully aware of how alive I am. I dread every night when I fall asleep because I know I have to wake up again and do this life for another day.

Mother is dead. I’m on my way to Vallenia. It’s time to reclaim our kingdom. And as Kiva combed her fingers through Tipp’s hair, the boy still fast asleep on her lap, she glanced up to meet Jaren’s blue-gold eyes once more, his gaze impossibly soft. She smiled shyly back, offering no indication as to who he was leading to his city . . . who he was welcoming into his home. Kiva Meridan. Born as Kiva Corentine. The Rebel Queen may have perished at Zalindov, but her daughter was alive and well, and free of Zalindov after ten long years. The Rebel Princess was finally ready to rise.

I think about Rachel Cusk’s memoir about motherhood, A Life’s Work, which a friend gave me after Nate was born. In the introduction, Cusk writes about childbirth dividing mothers from the rest of the world, dividing women even from themselves. The line I remember verbatim is this: “When she is with them she is not herself; when she is without them she is not herself; and so it is as difficult to leave your children as it is to stay with them.” I feel this to be profoundly true. It seems impossible that the person who just fucked a stranger is the same person who Daniel and Nate call Mom. I don’t even remember how to code-switch. I don’t know how to return to a state of motherhood fast enough to relieve the babysitter and put my children to bed. So I stay motionless on the crumpled bedspread, which Not-Really-Mike and I never bothered to remove, and watch the lights of passing cars animate the blank wall. At nine thirty, it feels safe to leave—the kids should be asleep by now—and so I do.

How free do you think anyone is? You're born with a fixed heredity. Environment molds you like clay. Your society teaches you what and how to think. A million tiny factors, all depending on blind, uncontrollable chance, determine the course of your life—including your love-life....

White supremacy is a system you have been born into. Whether or not you have known it, it is a system that has granted you unearned privileges, protection, and power. It is also a system that has been designed to keep you asleep and unaware of what having that privilege, protection, and power has meant for people who do not look like you. What you receive for your whiteness comes at a steep cost for those who are not white.

You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” —NAVAJO PROVERB

I Would Like to Describe - 1924-1998 I would like to describe the simplest emotion joy or sadness but not as others do reaching for shafts of rain or sun I would like to describe a light which is being born in me but I know it does not resemble any star for it is not so bright not so pure and is uncertain I would like to describe courage without dragging behind me a dusty lion and also anxiety without shaking a glass full of water to put it another way I would give all metaphors in return for one word drawn out of my breast like a rib for one word contained within the boundaries of my skin but apparently this is not possible and just to say - I love I run around like mad picking up handfuls of birds and my tenderness which after all is not made of water asks the water for a face and anger different from fire borrows from it a loquacious tongue so is blurred so is blurred in me what white-haired gentlemen separated once and for all and said this is the subject and this is the object we fall asleep with one hand under our head and with the other in a mound of planets our feet abandon us and taste the earth with their tiny roots which next morning we tear out painfully

It was such an easy, natural, stupid thing to do. The dog was a good dog and they’d taken care of one another. The dog had even taught him things. He remembered when he and Alma had gone to the ASPCA and picked him out of the litter, so small Lee could hold him in the palm of his hand. He’d been born on the street behind a grocery store and you could see the street still terrified him, because they’d sat on Alma’s mother’s couch looking out the window that first day and the dog’s eyes got wide and he’d tremble every time a car drove by. And Lee could relate to that. So he sat there and stroked him, stroked him for hours, getting better and better at it, adjusting his touch to the body weight of the dog and the small fragile bones, trying to make the dog feel good, calming him until he fell asleep across the back of the couch.

Before I fell asleep, I looked at my face in the mirror, I saw that my face looked broken, faint and lifeless, it was so faded that I did not recognize myself—I got into bed, pulled the quilt over my head, turned, faced the wall, curled up my legs, closed my eyes and continued where I had left off with my thoughts—those threads that made up my dark, depressing, horrific and intoxicating destiny—that place where life intertwines with death and distorted images are born—long-extinguished and bygone desires, strangled and buried desires again come to life and scream revenge—At this time I was torn from nature and the illusory world, and was willing to be destroyed and obliterated in the current of eternity—Several times I whispered to myself, “Death . . . death . .

The first steps on the path to the Garden of Truth consist of detachment from the world and surrender to God, which means attachment to Him. The roots of our fallen human soul are sunk deeply in the soil of this world. The first action to take is to pluck these roots out of that which is transient and evanescent and sink them into the Divine Reality. At first this Divine Reality appears as unreal since our soul has become externalized and scattered, depending only on the outer senses for its awareness of what is real and what is illusory. Awakening from the sleep of forgetfulness, which is the necessary condition for following the path, brings about the realization that the world that we usually take as being the sole reality is itself a dream. The Prophet once said, "Man is asleep and when he dies he awakens." Spiritual discipline in Sufism commences with what is called "initiatic death" followed by awakening. Through the rite of initiation into a Sufi order, the disciple is supposed to die to his or her old self to be born anew. It is this transformation that is called initiatic death.

Ghetto of Lost Dreams One certain street, consumed by dust Certain hearts, sorrowful, empty. This is where the lost dreams abide This is where they are abundant. Dreams many decades forgotten. A disappointed love there lies, In the corner noiselessly asleep. A long trampled aspiration Waits patiently in the hallway. Left to lie until the dusk comes To sweep them to their deserved rest, With her gentle golden fingers. Dreams that have yet to awaken; But meant to be dreamt all the same. A spark not caught, not yet a blaze. People not yet born, whose lives are Already planned all the way through

And so it began. The seed had been planted there all along. He was born with it. But it was dormant, fast asleep, deep inside the frontal lobe of his brain's left hemisphere. It woke up when it was ready, not one moment before, and it started to grow. And the wild child would eventually learn his ABC's and how to count to ten. And he would acquire thousands of words and learn how to puzzle them together into meaningful speech. And he would one day come to master, like it was second nature, all the elegant behaviors and customs and protocols and etiquettes separating him from the lower forms of life. Like standing in line and waiting your turn because patience is a virtue. And chewing with your mouth closed because it is rude to let others see the awful mess inside. And watching the clock because they told him he should never be late.

Beyond the possibility of disturbing the monks within the chapel, he said, “It’s a very simple idea. You recall the Bible, and the story of Gethsemane, where Our Lord waited out the hours before his trial and crucifixion, and his friends, who should have borne him company, all fell fast asleep?” “Oh,” I said, understanding all at once. “And he said ‘Can you not watch with me one hour?’ So that’s what you’re doing—watching with him for that hour—to make up for it.” I liked the idea, and the darkness of the chapel suddenly seemed inhabited and comforting. “Oui, madame,” he agreed. “Very simple. We take it in turns to watch, and the Blessed Sacrament on the altar here is never left alone.” “Isn’t it difficult, staying awake?” I asked curiously. “Or do you always watch at night?” He nodded, a light breeze lifting the silky brown hair. The patch of his tonsure needed shaving; short bristly hairs covered it like moss. “Each watcher chooses the time that suits him best. For me, that is two o’clock in the morning.” He glanced at me, hesitating, as though wondering how I would take what he was about to say. “For me, in that moment …” He paused. “It’s as though time has stopped. All the humors of the body, all the blood and bile and vapors that make a man; it’s as though just at once all of them are working in perfect harmony.” He smiled. His teeth were slightly crooked, the only defect in his otherwise perfect appearance. “Or as though they’ve stopped altogether. I often wonder whether that moment is the same as the moment of birth, or of death. I know that its timing is different for each man … or woman, I suppose,” he added, with a courteous nod to me. “But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it’s as though …” He hesitated for a moment, carefully choosing words. “As though, knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.” “But … do you actually do anything?” I asked. “Er, pray, I mean?” “I? Well,” he said slowly, “I sit, and I look at Him.” A wide smile stretched the fine-drawn lips. “And He looks at me.

It’s a very simple idea. You recall the Bible, and the story of Gethsemane, where Our Lord waited out the hours before his trial and crucifixion, and his friends, who should have borne him company, all fell fast asleep?” “Oh,” I said, understanding all at once. “And he said ‘Can you not watch with me one hour?’ So that’s what you’re doing—watching with him for that hour—to make up for it.” I liked the idea, and the darkness of the chapel suddenly seemed inhabited and comforting. “Oui, madame,” he agreed. “Very simple. We take it in turns to watch, and the Blessed Sacrament on the altar here is never left alone.” “Isn’t it difficult, staying awake?” I asked curiously. “Or do you always watch at night?” He nodded, a light breeze lifting the silky brown hair. The patch of his tonsure needed shaving; short bristly hairs covered it like moss. “Each watcher chooses the time that suits him best. For me, that is two o’clock in the morning.” He glanced at me, hesitating, as though wondering how I would take what he was about to say. “For me, in that moment …” He paused. “It’s as though time has stopped. All the humors of the body, all the blood and bile and vapors that make a man; it’s as though just at once all of them are working in perfect harmony.” He smiled. His teeth were slightly crooked, the only defect in his otherwise perfect appearance. “Or as though they’ve stopped altogether. I often wonder whether that moment is the same as the moment of birth, or of death. I know that its timing is different for each man … or woman, I suppose,” he added, with a courteous nod to me. “But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it’s as though …” He hesitated for a moment, carefully choosing words. “As though, knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.” “But … do you actually do anything?” I asked. “Er, pray, I mean?” “I? Well,” he said slowly, “I sit, and I look at Him.” A wide smile stretched the fine-drawn lips. “And He looks at me.

Infinite riches are all around you if you will open your mental eyes and behold the treasure house of infinity within you. There is a gold mine within you from which you can extract everything you need to live life gloriously, joyously, and abundantly. Many are sound asleep because they do not know about this gold mine of infinite intelligence and boundless love within themselves. Whatever you want, you can draw forth. A magnetized piece of steel will lift about twelve times its own weight, and if you demagnetize this same piece of steel, it will not even lift a feather. Similarly, there are two types of men. There is the magnetized man who is full of confidence and faith. He knows that he is born to win and to succeed. Then, there is the type of man who is demagnetized. He is full of fears and doubts. Opportunities come, and he says, “I might fail; I might lose my money; people will laugh at me.” This type of man will not get very far in life because, if he is afraid to go forward, he will simply stay where he is. Become a magnetized man and discover the master secret of the ages.

and I remembered Sami when he was a baby, the way he used to fall asleep with Afra’s nipple in his mouth, his little hand still clutching the material of her scarf. It’s amazing, the way we love people from the day we are born, the way we hold on, as if we are holding on to life itself.

There are whole gaps in your memory that amount to years, and yet you still believe that your sense of who and what you are is unbroken and whole. You acknowledge that you have grown up, have matured, and are still learning. While true, there is no such thing as a continuous “I-ness.” You therefore exist under the delusion that a continuous and unending chain of being, of awareness, and of identity has existed between the moment you were born and the person who is now reading these words. Despite the fact that your chain of consciousness, your sense of “I-ness,” is broken every night when you fall asleep, you still fear death because you fear that it is the end of your sense of self – even though your sense of self dies every night.

You were born from a winking star," he begins. "You're a goddess of devotion and neon light. You see beauty in passion and tragedy, but you romanticize them to a fault. You can't get enough of blueberry lemonade and vanilla gelato--so much that you don't care if either stains your dress or your tongue. You fall asleep to records, and your favorite constellation is Sagittarius. You've made a skateboard into a weapon." He grins to himself. "You're afraid of the dark, but not afraid of your superiors. You play arcade hostess to mortals who can't see you. You have beautiful, fidgety hands covered in fishnet. You talk too much, but when you're silent, the world becomes a desolate place. Your greatest wish isn't to be loved--it's to give love." He bows his head, clasps his hands. "You've put up with a stubborn archer. You've put him in his place. You've given him solace. You've given him a home. You've given him back his heart. And all he wants is to deserve you.

Once when walking – “A French colleague turned to me suddenly and pointed toward the spire of a cathedral which had just come into view: ‘Jetez un coup d’oeil sur cette fléche!’ the glance was painfully exquisite; literally, ‘Throw a blow of eye on top of that spire!’ I could suddenly see my eyeball wrenched from its socket and thrown across the field to be impaled on that pin-sharp point. But my companion was completely laconic. He had just meant ‘look at that spire’ and no such ludicrous sensations were reverberating through his head, because to him the metaphor was almost dead. The signs which were deeply embedded in the French language were partially asleep and inaccessible to him. Whereas to myself suddenly they were awake in that raw state of freshness, even wetness, of the newly born.

By bringing us face to face with our sleep and making us lie down in the corpse pose, yoga nidra also brings us face to face with death. There can be no wakefulness without sleep, no life without death; and it is impossible for us to understand the nature of one state without understanding the nature of the other one. I am born and wake up as I inhale; I die and fall asleep as I exhale, in the pause after exhaling.