Celebration Of Teachers Day Quotes

Now I go alone, my disciples, You too, go now alone. Thus I want it. Go away from me and resist Zarathustra! And even better: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you… One pays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath? You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you. You say that you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? You are my believers – but what matter all believers? You had not yet sought yourselves; and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little. Now I bid you to lose me and find yourselves; and only then when you have all denied me will I return to you… that I may celebrate the great noon with you.

One day might be different from another, but there ain't much difference when they're put together. September 14, 1911: Writer and teacher William Armstrong wrote celebrated children's books including the Newbery Medal-winning Sounder, about an African American sharecropper family with a loud and loyal hound, inspired by Odysseus' dog Argus. Armstrong was born in Virginia 102 years ago today.

I can see that your thoughts are deeper than you yourself are able to express. But since this is so, you know, don't you, that you've never lived what you are thinking and that isn't good. Only the ideas that we actually live are of any value. You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world and you tried to suppress the second half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think." This went straight to my heart. "But there are forbidden and ugly things in the world!" I almost shouted. "You can't deny that. And they are forbidden, and we must renounce them. Of course I know that murder and all kinds of vices exist in the world but should I become a criminal just because they exist?" "We won't be able to find all the answers today," Max soothed me. "Certainly you shouldn't go kill somebody or rape a girl, no! But you haven't reached the point where you can understand the actual meaning of 'permitted' and 'forbidden.' You've only sensed part of the truth. You will feel the other part, too, you can depend on it. For instance, for about a year you have had to struggle with a drive that is stronger than any other and which is considered 'forbidden.' The Greeks and many other peoples, on the other hand, elevated this drive, made it divine and celebrated it in great feasts. What is forbidden, in other words, is not something eternal; it can change. Anyone can sleep with a woman as soon as he's been to a pastor with her and has married her, yet other races do it differently, even nowadays. That is why each of us has to find out for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden -forbidden for him. It's possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. And vice versa. Actually it's only a question of convenience. Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them; things are forbidden to them that every honorable man will do any day in the year and other things are allowed to them that are generally despised. Each person must stand on his own feet.

We are supposed to consume alcohol and enjoy it, but we're not supposed to become alcoholics. Imagine if this were the same with cocaine. Imagine we grew up watching our parents snort lines at dinner, celebrations, sporting events, brunches, and funerals. We'd sometimes (or often) see our parents coked out of our minds the way we sometimes (or often) see them drunk. We'd witness them coming down after a cocaine binge the way we see them recovering from a hangover. Kiosks at Disneyland would see it so our parents could make it through a day of fun, our mom's book club would be one big blow-fest and instead of "mommy juice" it would be called "mommy powder" There'd be coke-tasting parties in Napa and cocaine cellars in fancy people's homes, and everyone we know (including our pastors, nurses, teachers, coaches, bosses) would snort it. The message we'd pick up as kids could be Cocaine is great, and one day you'll get to try it, too! Just don't become addicted to it or take it too far. Try it; use it responsibly. Don't become a cocaine-oholic though. Now, I'm sure you're thinking. That's insane, everyone knows cocaine is far more addicting than alcohol and far more dangerous. Except, it's not...The point is not that alcohol is worse than cocaine. The point is that we have a really clear understanding that cocaine is toxic and addictive. We know there's no safe amount of it, no such thing as "moderate" cocaine use; we know it can hook us and rob us of everything we care about...We know we are better off not tangling with it at all.

Over the years I have read many, many books about the future, my ‘we’re all doomed’ books, as Connie liked to call them. ‘All the books you read are either about how grim the past was or how gruesome the future will be. It might not be that way, Douglas. Things might turn out all right.’ But these were well-researched, plausible studies, their conclusions highly persuasive, and I could become quite voluble on the subject. Take, for instance, the fate of the middle-class, into which Albie and I were born and to which Connie now belongs, albeit with some protest. In book after book I read that the middle-class are doomed. Globalisation and technology have already cut a swathe through previously secure professions, and 3D printing technology will soon wipe out the last of the manufacturing industries. The internet won’t replace those jobs, and what place for the middle-classes if twelve people can run a giant corporation? I’m no communist firebrand, but even the most rabid free-marketeer would concede that market-forces capitalism, instead of spreading wealth and security throughout the population, has grotesquely magnified the gulf between rich and poor, forcing a global workforce into dangerous, unregulated, insecure low-paid labour while rewarding only a tiny elite of businessmen and technocrats. So-called ‘secure’ professions seem less and less so; first it was the miners and the ship- and steel-workers, soon it will be the bank clerks, the librarians, the teachers, the shop-owners, the supermarket check-out staff. The scientists might survive if it’s the right type of science, but where do all the taxi-drivers in the world go when the taxis drive themselves? How do they feed their children or heat their homes and what happens when frustration turns to anger? Throw in terrorism, the seemingly insoluble problem of religious fundamentalism, the rise of the extreme right-wing, under-employed youth and the under-pensioned elderly, fragile and corrupt banking systems, the inadequacy of the health and care systems to cope with vast numbers of the sick and old, the environmental repercussions of unprecedented factory-farming, the battle for finite resources of food, water, gas and oil, the changing course of the Gulf Stream, destruction of the biosphere and the statistical probability of a global pandemic, and there really is no reason why anyone should sleep soundly ever again. By the time Albie is my age I will be long gone, or, best-case scenario, barricaded into my living module with enough rations to see out my days. But outside, I imagine vast, unregulated factories where workers count themselves lucky to toil through eighteen-hour days for less than a living wage before pulling on their gas masks to fight their way through the unemployed masses who are bartering with the mutated chickens and old tin-cans that they use for currency, those lucky workers returning to tiny, overcrowded shacks in a vast megalopolis where a tree is never seen, the air is thick with police drones, where car-bomb explosions, typhoons and freak hailstorms are so commonplace as to barely be remarked upon. Meanwhile, in literally gilded towers miles above the carcinogenic smog, the privileged 1 per cent of businessmen, celebrities and entrepreneurs look down through bullet-proof windows, accept cocktails in strange glasses from the robot waiters hovering nearby and laugh their tinkling laughs and somewhere, down there in that hellish, stewing mess of violence, poverty and desperation, is my son, Albie Petersen, a wandering minstrel with his guitar and his keen interest in photography, still refusing to wear a decent coat.

It was a happy day when I discovered that in the English of Chaucer's day - which was also the time of the Black Death - the word "silly" meant "blessed." I am not sure when we strayed away from its original meaning, when blessedness took on a churchy aura and silliness became the realm of Monty Python and fourth-grade eschatological humor. As hard-working adults we too often lose the gift for letting go, for delight in simply being. We persuade ourselves that every moment must be lived productively; like the busy little bee, we feel a holy obligation to improve each shining hour. We would do well to take very small children or big silly dogs as our teachers. I have learned much about holy uselessness form Perry, the dog...

After Constantine engineered the merger of Christ worshipers with sun worshipers in the fourth century, the creeds solidified and finalized the view of faith we hold today. Not only was this politically expedient, but it gave the church many elements of Mithraism that survive to this day. Christ is depicted in early paintings as the Sun (with rays bursting from his head), Sun-Day is the day of rest, and Christmas was moved from January 6 (still the date for Eastern Orthodox churches) to December 25, the birthday of Mithra. The ornaments of Christian orthodoxy today are nearly identical to those of the Mithraic version: miters, wafers, water baptism, altar, and doxology. Mithra was a traveling teacher with twelve companions who was called the “good shepherd,” “the way, the truth, and the life,” and “redeemer,” “savior,” and “messiah.” He was buried in a tomb, and after three days he rose again. His resurrection was celebrated every year.

I have spent the months since Rick’s death inside a bubble of grief and fear. But in these last eleven days, as I venture outside that protective cocoon, I have met such a hodgepodge of wonderful people: Goodwill Charles, the soldier at Ponderosa, Neal’s wife with the poinsettias, and now the MasterCard lady—every one of them teachers on this new journey I am traveling. They are experts in the art of moving on, forgiving mistakes, and celebrating memories even if they hurt. I still have so much to learn.

Truly, I advise you: depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he has deceived you. The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends. One pays back a teacher badly if one remain merely a scholar. And why will you not pluck at my wreath? You venerate me; but what if your veneration should some day col- lapse? Take heed lest a statue crush you! You say, you believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra! you are my believers: but of what account are all believers! You had not yet sought yourselves: then did you find me. So do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account. Now do I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me, will I return to you. Truly, with other eyes, my brothers, shall I then seek my lost ones; with another love shall I then love you. And once again shall you have become friends to me, and children of one hope: then will I be with you for the third time, to celebrate the great noontide with you. And it is the great noontide, when man is in the middle of his course between animal and overman, and celebrates his advance to the evening as his highest hope: for it is the advance to a new morning. At such time will the down-goer bless himself, that he should be an over-goer; and the sun of his knowledge will be at noontide. "Dead are all the Gods: now do we desire the overman to live." - Let this be our final will at the great noontide! - Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Only millionaires can be alone in America. You know the old saying: Money lost, nothing lost. Hope lost, all is lost. The less money I have, the more I live on hope. And hope is the only reality here on earth. It's hope that makes people build cities and span bridges and send ships from one end of the earth to another. Even dying, man plants his hope on the next world. It says in the Torah, only through a man has a woman an existence. Only through a man can a woman enter Heaven. In America, women don't need men to boss them. For the first time in my life I saw what a luxury it was for a poor girl to want to be alone in a room. Even in our worst poverty we sat around the table, together, like people. I never knew that there were people glad enough of life to celebrate the day they were born. The routine with which I kept clean my precious privacy, my beautiful aloneness, was all sacred to me. I had achieved that marvelous thing, "a place for everything and everything in its place", which the teacher preached to me so hopelessly as a child in Hester Street. I had it ingrained in me from my father, this exalted reverence for the teacher.

Homophobia and the closet are allies. Like an unhealthy co-dependent relationship they need each other to survive. One plays the victim living in fear and shame while the other plays the persecutor policing what is ‘normal’. The only way to dismantle homophobia is for every gay man and lesbian in the world to come out and live authentic lives. Once they realise how normal we are and see themselves in us….the controversy is over. It is interesting to think what would happen though....on a particularly pre-determined day that every single gay man and lesbian came out. Imagine the impact when, on that day, people all around the world suddenly discovered their bosses, mums, dads, daughters, sons, aunts, uncles, cousins, teachers, doctors, neighbours, colleagues, politicians, their favourite actors, celebrities and sports heroes, the people they loved and respected......were indeed gay. All stereotypes would immediately be broken.....just by the same single act of millions of people…..and at last there would no longer be need for secrecy. The closet would become the lounge room. How much healthier would we be emotionally and psychologically when we could all be ourselves doing life without the internal and societal negatives that have been attached to our sexual orientation.

When I was growing up, we took Texas history twice—if I remember correctly, in the fourth and the seventh grades. I cannot say with certainty that slavery was never mentioned. Of course, I didn’t need school to tell me that Blacks had been enslaved in Texas. I heard references to slavery from my parents and grandparents. A common retort when another kid—often a sibling—insisted you do something for them you didn’t want to do was “Slavery time is over.” And we celebrated Juneteenth, which marked the end of the institution. But if slavery was mentioned in the early days of my education, it didn’t figure prominently enough in our lessons to give us a clear and complete picture of the role the institution played in the state’s early development, its days as a Republic, its entry into the Union, and its role in the Civil War and its aftermath. Instead, as with the claim “The American Civil War was not about slavery. It was about states’ rights,” the move when talking about Texas’s rebellion against Mexico was to take similar refuge in concerns about overreaching federal authorities. Anglo-Texans chafed at the centralizing tendencies of the Mexican government and longed to be free. As one could ask about the states’ rights argument—states’ rights to do what?—I don’t recall my teachers giving a complete explanation for why Anglo-Texans felt so threatened by the Mexican government.

I begin this chapter with President Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Speech on January 11, 1989. President Reagan encouraged the rising generation to “let ’em know and nail ’em on it”—that is, to push back against teachers, professors, journalists, politicians, and others in the governing generation who manipulate and deceive them: An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn’t get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties. But now, we’re about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs [protection]. So, we’ve got to teach history based not on what’s in fashion but what’s important—why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, 4 years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who’d fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, “We will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did.” Well, let’s help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are. I’m warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let’s start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual. And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen, I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven’t been teaching you what it means to be an American, let ’em know and nail ’em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.1

In Mississippi, where I lived from 1967 to 1974, people who challenged the system anticipated menace, battery, even murder, every day. In this context, I sometimes felt ashamed that my contributions at the time were not more radical. I taught in two local black colleges, I wrote about the Movement, and I created tiny history booklets which were used to teach the teachers of children enrolled in Head Start. And, of course, I was interracially married, which was illegal. It was perhaps in Mississippi during those years that I understood how the daily news of disaster can become, for the spirit, a numbing assault, and that one's own activism, however modest, fighting against this tide of death, provides at least the possibility of generating a different kind of "news." A "news" that empowers rather that defeats. There is always a moment in any kind of struggle when one feels in full bloom. Vivid. Alive. One might be blown to bits in such a moment and still be at peace. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the mountaintop. Gandhi dying with the name of God on his lips. Sojourner Truth baring her breasts at a women's rights convention in 1851. Harriet Tubman exposing her revolver to some of the slaves she had freed, who, fearing an unknown freedom, looks longingly backward to their captivity, thereby endangering the freedom of all. To be such a person or to witness anyone at this moment of transcendent presence is to know that what is human is linked, by a daring compassion, to what is divine. During my years of being close to people engaged in changing the world I have seen fear turn into courage. Sorrow into joy. Funerals into celebrations. Because whatever the consequences, people, standing side by side, have expressed who they really are, and that ultimately they believe in the love of the world and each other enough *to be that* - which is the foundation of activism. It has become a common feeling, I believe, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward the building of an edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame. This is the tragedy of our world. For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile. In this regard, I have a story to tell.

On the twenty-sixth of January in 1988, Australia was celebrating two hundred years since colonization. I was eight years old at the time and could not begin to comprehend the complexity of the day and what it meant to the long-suffering indigenous people of our country. Back then, it was a day viewed as celebratory; the one narrative pushed by the government and media of the time, parroted by our teachers gushing: What a special day it was! A birthday, they said. That, my eight-year-old self could understand.

The poor child Amal was so hopeful about getting a letter from the king—and I, so hopeful for a word that would free us all from our terrible horror, from the interminable nightmare. I thought about the cemetery where my parents lay. They, too, had flowers over their chests for when they awoke. One day the King would come to see them. He would raise us all up out of our beds, and we would celebrate together with the biggest party in the world. I longed for that with all my heart. It was the only thing left to hope for. Chapter 40

I wondered how it was possible for two people to want to get married in our present circumstances, but that is, after all, what life is about. We must keep believing, fighting, and celebrating. The day we stop, we are as good as dead. Love is the strongest antidote to despair.

Books are the silent guardians of civilization, condensed reservoirs of centuries’ worth of human experience. They serve as our wisest counsellors, our most patient teachers, and our greatest companions on the journey of life. In the pages of fine books, we engage in profound conversations with the finest minds of centuries past, whose words leave indelible footprints on the sands of time. On this World Book Day 2024, let us celebrate the creators across the globe whose contributions have enriched our lives and shaped our collective consciousness. Happy World Book Day 2024

After we all mopped up our eyes, a few nods, smiles, and even a few hugs were exchanged. I told them to head to the kitchen where I brought a cake because sometimes every day needed to be celebrated.

Kindergarten is a big year, Dewayne! I know you’ll do great!” Banicia encouraged, and she wrapped her arm around his shoulder, giving him a hug. “Hey mom,” she yelled towards the kitchen, “who’s his teacher anyways?

has a numerical value of 702 and means to bond. This time of resting is meant to bond with God. You don’t bond with God by worrying or fretting over the pressures and problems of the past week. You bond with God by wandering through the Alphabet. The word shabat is spelled “Shin, Beth, and Taw.” In Hebrew, every word is built upon a three-letter root word. Some words are interrelated when they share the same first two letters. In this case, the first two letters of Shabat are Shin, Beth. All the other words that start with Shin and Beth will in some way related to the Shin Beth Taw or rest. Twelve other words in Hebrew begin with Shin Beth. In other words, we are to take one day a week and rest or cease from our normal activity to do twelve things. When you celebrate the Sabbath next Sunday or Saturday or whichever day you celebrate the Sabbath, remember the twelve other Shin Beth words which tell you what you are to do or what God wishes to accomplish on this seventh day that you cease from your normal activity.

My Top Ten Reasons for Homeschooling: (10) Birthdays become school holidays. I love celebrations! (9) I always get to be the chaperone on field trips. Lucky me. (8) I can sleep in on rainy mornings. (Okay, I wrote that before my last two babies were born- no more sleeping in for Mom now.) (7) My pajamas are sometimes my work uniform until noon. Shhh! (6) The teacher-student ratio can’t be beat! (5) I can kiss the school principal in the faculty lounge. ♥ (4) Integrating God in our school lessons is always encouraged. (3) I do not have to stay up late at night helping my children study for tests and complete homework assignments. (2) I have the opportunity to instill the love of learning. (1) I am the recipient of hugs and kisses all day long.

Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!…” —Matthew 21:8–9 (RSV) PALM SUNDAY: REMAINING FAITHFUL It’s graduation day at the University of Pittsburgh. It’s thrilling, watching the young men and women I’ve taught go forth and do all of the world’s work, but there’s a nagging disquiet. Like many weighty truths, their education is accompanied by an equally weighty lie. I’ve told my students they’re unique and capable of wonderful things (true); I didn’t warn them of the attendant difficulties that lay ahead. I’ve long stopped betting on their futures. Who am I to tell them about the odds of a successful life, the weird dance of hard work and good luck, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? Luckily, today is filled with smiles, flowing robes, hugs, funny hats. In ancient times such celebrations would be marked by palm fronds, like Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. And then is no different from now, where celebration can suddenly turn to trepidation, where young lives quickly discover that speaking the truth may lead to trouble, betrayal, or worse. But today they’ll throw their hats into the air with faith in the future. And when asked, I’ll pose with them for photos. Years from now they’ll wonder about the teacher with the gray hair and wan, anxious smile, who looks as if he might be praying. Lord, we often praise You one day, then betray You the next. Let us overcome our fickle nature and be faithful companions to You and our brothers and sisters. —Mark Collins Digging Deeper: Mt 21:1–11

want to be someone who really celebrates the gift of the people God has given me to love. Here are a few simple ways to celebrate friends. Hold a special tea for your friends and their mothers. Celebrate with a tea for graduates, Mother's Day, or the first day of spring. Put on a birthday tea with special attention on the "big 0" ones. The anniversary of a special event or even a cup of tea to celebrate the end of a bad week or month are also good reasons to commune together. oday why not do a spontaneous act of kindness? Write a note to someone who would never expect it. Put a rose in your hubby's briefcase. Return a shopping cart for someone. Let someone merge into traffic and give him or her a big wave and smile. A thank you note out of the blue to someone who's said something nice about you will bless his or her day. Give another driver your parking spot. Leave a gift of money for someone anonymously. Call your mom or dad for no special reason. Send a letter to a teacher and thank him or her for all they do. Ask an older person to tell you his or her life story. Hebrews 13:2 reminds us to "entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

The quest of the handsome prince was complete. He had found his fair maiden and the world had its fairytale. In her ivory tower, Cinderella was unhappy, locked away from her friends, her family and the outside world. As the public celebrated the Prince’s fortune, the shades of the prison-house closed inexorably around Diana. For all her aristocratic breeding, this innocent young kindergarten teacher felt totally at sea in the deferential hierarchy of Buckingham Palace. There were many tears in those three months and many more to come after that. Weight simply dropped off, her waist shrinking from 29 inches when the engagement was announced down to 23 inches on her wedding day. It was during this turbulent time that her bulimia nervosa, which would take nearly a decade to overcome, began. The note Diana left her friends at Coleherne Court saying: “For God’s sake ring me up--I’m going to need you.” It proved painfully accurate.

That trip was epic. Every day was an adventure. Bindi sat down for her formal schooling at a little table under the big trees by the river, with the kookaburras singing and the occasional lizard or snake cruising through camp. She had the best scientists from the University of Queensland around to answer her questions. I could tell Steve didn’t want it to end. We had been in bush camp for five weeks. Bindi, Robert, and I were now scheduled for a trip to Tasmania. Along with us would be their teacher, Emma (the kids called her “Miss Emma”), and Kate, her sister, who also worked at the zoo. It was a trip I had planned for a long time. Emma would celebrate her thirtieth birthday, and Kate would see her first snow. Steve and I would go our separate ways. He would leave Lakefield on Croc One and go directly to rendezvous with Philippe Cousteau for the filming of Ocean’s Deadliest. We tried to figure out how we could all be together for the shoot, but there just wasn’t enough room on the boat. Still, Steve came to me one morning while I was dressing Robert. “Why don’t you stay for two more days?” he said. “We could change your flight out. It would be worth it.” When I first met Steve, I made a deal with myself. Whenever Steve suggested a trip, activity, or project, I would go for it. I found it all too easy to come up with an excuse not to do something. “Oh, gee, Steve, I don’t feel like climbing that mountain, or fording that river,” I could have said. “I’m a bit tired, and it’s a bit cold, or it’s a bit hot and I’m a bit warm.” There always could be some reason. Instead I decided to be game for whatever Steve proposed. Inevitably, I found myself on the best adventures of my life. For some reason, this time I didn’t say yes. I fell silent. I thought about how it would work and the logistics of it all. A thousand concerns flitted through my mind. While I was mulling it over, I realized Steve had already walked off. It was the first time I hadn’t said, “Yeah, great, let’s go for it.” And I didn’t really know why.

The quest of the handsome prince was complete. He had found his fair maiden and the world had its fairytale. In her ivory tower, Cinderella was unhappy, locked away from her friends, her family and the outside world. As the public celebrated the Prince’s fortune, the shades of the prison-house closed inexorably around Diana. For all her aristocratic breeding, this innocent young kindergarten teacher felt totally at sea in the deferential hierarchy of Buckingham Palace. There were many tears in those three months and many more to come after that. Weight simply dropped off, her waist shrinking from 29 inches when the engagement was announced down to 23 inches on her wedding day. It was during this turbulent time that her bulimia nervosa, which would take nearly a decade to overcome, began. The note Diana left her friends at Coleherne Court saying: “For God’s sake ring me up--I’m going to need you.” It proved painfully accurate. As Carolyn Bartholomew, who watched her waste away during her engagement, recalls: “She went to live at Buckingham Palace and then the tears started. This little thing got so thin. I was so worried about her. She wasn’t happy, she was suddenly plunged into all this pressure and it was a nightmare for her. She was dizzy with it, bombarded from all sides. It was a whirlwind and she was ashen, she was grey.” Her first night at Clarence House, the Queen Mother’s London residence, was the calm before the coming storm. She was left to her own devices when she arrived, no-one from the royal family least of all her future husband, thinking it necessary to welcome her to her new world. The popular myth paints a homely picture of the Queen Mother clucking around Diana as she schooled her in the subtle arts of royal protocol while the Queen’s senior lady-in-waiting, Lady Susan Hussey took the young woman aside for tuition in regal history. In reality, Diana was given less training in her new job than the average supermarket checkout operator.

7. The closer we are to Self-realization, or enlightenment, the more ordinary we become. Only seekers striving for liberation as if it were a trophy glamorize the yogic process and themselves. They want to be extraordinary, whereas liberated beings are perfectly ordinary. They are as happy washing dishes as they are sitting quietly in meditation or teaching their disciples. For this reason, Yoga has from the beginning celebrated not only the path of the world-renouncing ascetic (samnyāsin) but also that of the world-engaging householder (grihastha) who uses the opportunities of daily life to practice the virtues of a yogic lifestyle. 8. In all Yoga practice, there is an element of pleasant “surprise” or favorableness. In the theistic schools of Yoga, this is explained as the grace (prasāda) of the Divine Being; in nontheistic schools, such as Jaina Yoga or certain schools of Buddhist Yoga, help is said to flow from liberated beings (called arhats, buddhas, bodhisattvas, tīrthankaras, or mahā-siddhas). Also, gurus are channels of benevolent energies, or blessings, intended to ripen their disciples. The process by which a guru blesses a disciple is called “transmission” (samcāra). In some schools, it is known as shakti-pāta, meaning “descent of the power.” The power in question is the Energy of Consciousness itself. 9. All Yoga is initiatory. That is, initiation (dīkshā) by a qualified teacher (guru) is essential for ultimate success in Yoga. It is possible to benefit from a good many yogic practices even without initiation. Thus, most exercises of Hatha-Yoga—from postures to breath control to meditation—can be successfully practiced on one’s own, providing the correct format has been learned. But for the higher stages of Yoga, empowerment through initiation is definitely necessary. The habit patterns of the mind are too ingrained for us to make deep-level changes without the benign intervention of a Yoga master. All yogic practices can usefully be viewed as preparation for this moment. 10. Yoga is a gradual process of replacing our unconscious patterns of thought and behavior with new, more benign patterns that are expressive of the higher powers and virtues of enlightenment. It takes time to accomplish this far-reaching work of self-transformation, and therefore practitioners of Yoga must first and foremost practice patience. Enlightenment, or liberation, is not realized in a matter of days, weeks, or months. We must be willing to commit to an entire lifetime of yogic practice. There must be a basic impulse to grow, regardless of whether or not we will achieve liberation in this lifetime. It is one of Yoga’s fundamental tenets that no effort is ever wasted; even the slightest attempt at transforming ourselves makes a difference. It is our patient cumulative effort that flowers into enlightenment sooner or later.

When I tried to talk about my own specific fears and frustrations, I could always feel the distance between us. My friends, like the average rural white person, rarely had to consider how their race influenced their relationship to the world around them and themselves. Sometimes, I would complain about how it felt like everywhere I went, Somewhat-Well-Meaning and Not-At-All-Well-Meaning Adults were constantly bringing up the fact that I was Black. Teachers at school would say things that made it clear they worried that if I slightly wavered, I would be pregnant, or a drug addict, or waste all my potential. Nothing they said about being Black sounded anything like the life I was living. So many days felt like white adults were trying to make me a side character in the movie of their lives.

I was good. My brother was bad. My brother knew that the teachers and school cops treated us differently because of our oversized clothes and natural hair. He defended himself in defied them. They responded with repeated punishment through suspensions. I decided I would prove the teachers wrong by earning good grades and becoming a lawyer one day. After I scored high on gifted and talented tests, everything changed. Our home filled with my laminated citizenship certificates, academic awards, sports trophies, and medals. The celebration of my obedience increased my brother's justifiable defiance and the school's punishment. I wish we would have both known then how to organize. Maybe I would have resisted the urge to be respectable.

when I learned of the festive holiday of Thanksgiving that apparently everybody celebrated. I returned the next day preaching about Native American genocide. “Did you know,” I asked the art teacher, “that Indians to this day are still being driven off of their land? The government took away their forests and meadows and now they want their rocks. For the uranium. So we can make atomic bombs to kill every last woman, man, and child.