Hidden Illnesses Quotes

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.

..for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

What do you want to show me?" "Nothing, really. I just want to be alone with you for a minute." He pulled her to the back of the driveway, where they were almost completely hidden by a line of trees and the RV and the garage. "Seriously?" she said. "That was so lame." "I know," he said, turning to her. "Next time, I'll just say, 'Eleanor, follow me down this dark alley, I want to kiss you.'" She didn't roll her eyes. She took a breath, then closed her mouth. He was learning how to catch her off guard. She pushed her hands deeper in her pockets, so he put his hands on her elbows. "Next time," he said, "I'll just say, 'Eleanor, duck behind these bushes with me, I'm going to lose my mind if I don't kiss you.'" She didn't move, so he thought it was probably okay to touch her face. Her skin was as soft as it looked, white and smooth as freckled porcelain. "I'll just say, 'Eleanor, follow me down this rabbit hole...'" He laid his thumb on her lips to see if she'd pull away. She didn't. He leaned closer. He wanted to close his eyes, but he didn't trust her not to leave him standing there.

At this point, you may be wondering how I felt seeing my son with Nico di Angelo. I’ll admit I did not understand Will’s attraction to a child of Hades, but if the dark foreboding type was what made Will happy… Oh perhaps some of you are wondering how I felt seeing him with a boyfriend rather than a girlfriend. If that’s the case, please. We gods are not hung up about such things.

The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when 'should be' gets crushed by what is. Sometimes I think it would be easier to die than to face that, because 'what could have been' is much more highly regarded than 'what should have been.' Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.

I'm not going to protect you by being your shield or armor, but I'll be the dagger hidden below your pillow.

victim noun \ˈvik-təm\ 1. The moment you tell everyone you have a mental disorder, in order to excuse your behavior.

Perhaps all our troubles - all the violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can't overcome - began when we stopped living as Running People. Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way.

My name isn't Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden. I tell myself it doesn't matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter. I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I'll come back to dig up, one day. I think of this name as buried. This name has an aura around it, like an amulet, some charm that's survived from an unimaginably distant past. I lie in my single bed at night, with my eyes closed, and the name floats there behind my eyes, not quite within reach, shining in the dark.

I'm so exhausted and yet I feel like I'll never sleep again.

While you were busy trying to prove God stands behind you, God was before me lighting the trail, so he could lead us both.

The greatest damage done by neglect, trauma or emotional loss is not the immediate pain they inflict but the long-term distortions they induce in the way a developing child will continue to interpret the world and her situation in it. All too often these ill-conditioned implicit beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives. We create meanings from our unconscious interpretation of early events, and then we forge our present experiences from the meaning we’ve created. Unwittingly, we write the story of our future from narratives based on the past...Mindful awareness can bring into consciousness those hidden, past-based perspectives so that they no longer frame our worldview.’Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present…Until you reach that point, you are unconscious.’ …In present awareness we are liberated from the past.

That pissed me the hell off. I took in a deep breath and blurted out everything without thinking twice. “Fuck you! You want to know who I am, Marcus. Well here it goes! I am temperamental, over-sensitive, and outspoken. I’m honest! I cry at stupid love movies, and I'm a sucker for a romantic novel. I don’t allow people to walk all over me, I have trust issues, and I have insecurities. I’ve slept with four men in my entire life! And the one thing I don’t do is take shit from men who try to act like they’re better than me as if they don’t have any hidden skeletons! I’m not keeping shit hidden, how ‘bout you? You can fuck off. I'll find my own way home. Have a nice fucking life!” - Mia

TF-16 returned to Pearl Harbor on May 26 in good order, with one huge exception: Admiral Halsey, the sixty-year-old commander, arrived back completely exhausted and ill. After six months of intense underway operations, culminating in the fruitless 7000-mile mission across the Pacific to the Coral Sea and back, Halsey had lost twenty pounds and had contracted a serious case of dermatitis. Nimitz took one look at him and sent him straight to the Pearl Harbor hospital. The Navy’s most experienced and highly regarded carrier force commander would sit out the Battle of Midway. The ultimate sea warrior, Halsey would watch from his hospital window as the two task forces departed Pearl Harbor for Midway.

Yield, and I'll eat your little pussy... first.

Enter my lair, said the dragon. I have shiny treasure for you to play with, I’ll keep you warm and safe, and if it suits my purpose, I’ll chain you to the floor and kill your client by throwing quarters at him with my magic. Been there, done that.

I'm afraid to write. It's so dangerous. Anyone who's tried, knows. The danger of stirring up hidden things - and the world is not on the surface, it's hidden in its roots submerged in the depths of the sea. In order to write I must place myself in the void. In this void is where I exist intuitively. But it's a terribly dangerous void: it's where I wring out blood. I'm a writer who fears the snare of words: the words I say hide others - Which? maybe I'll say them. Writing is a stone cast down a deep well.

Oh,you may not think I'm pretty, But don't judge on what you see, I'll eat myself if you can find A smarter hat than me. You can keep your bowlers black, Your tops hats sleek and tall, For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat And I can cap them all. There's nothing hidden in your head The Sorting Hat can't see, So try me on and I will tell you Where you ought to be. Y ou might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell brave of heart, Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart; You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil; Or yet wise old Ravenclaw, If you've a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind; Or perhaps in Slytherin You'll make your real friends, Those cunning folk use any means To achive their ends. So put me on! Don't be afraid! And you won't get in a flap! You're safe in my hands(though I have none) For I'm a Thinking Cap!!

A therapist once said to me, “If you face the choice between feeling guilt and resentment, choose the guilt every time.” It is wisdom I have passed on to many others since. If a refusal saddles you with guilt, while consent leaves resentment in its wake, opt for the guilt. Resentment is soul suicide. Negative thinking allows us to gaze unflinchingly on our own behalf at what does not work. We have seen in study after study that compulsive positive thinkers are more likely to develop disease and less likely to survive. Genuine positive thinking — or, more deeply, positive being — empowers us to know that we have nothing to fear from truth. “Health is not just a matter of thinking happy thoughts,” writes the molecular researcher Candace Pert. “Sometimes the biggest impetus to healing can come from jump-starting the immune system with a burst of long-suppressed anger.” Anger, or the healthy experience of it, is one of the seven A’s of healing. Each of the seven A’s addresses one of the embedded visceral beliefs that predispose to illness and undermine healing.

You can know someone all your life, like your parents or family, but I’ll tell you this, Ned. There’s an expression on their face, or a tone in their voice, or a way they walk, that you’ve never ever seen before. Like they’ve kept it hidden. Until their brother dies. Or their son. I remember those days and they were like these strangers and I wanted to say, Who are you people?

I want to get my invisibility sweatshirt and skullcap out of my bag and put it on. But I don't. I want to believe the red ribbon around my wrist will keep me safe always. But it won't. I want to play How Would You Rather Die? instead of figuring out how to live. But I can't. I'm over being a coward. I'm sick of being on pause, of being buried and hidden, of being petrified, in both senses of the word. I don't want to imagine meadows, I want to run through them.

I shouldn’t ask you to,” he said, devotion in every word, “but I’m going to. Wait for me, Jess. I’ll come back to you.” Naked emotion turned the sea green into hidden emeralds. Pressing her fingers to his lips, she shook her head. “You never have to ask, Galen. Forever, that’s how long I’d wait for you.

I’m a known fugitive who likes to set people on fire. Come away with me so we can have hot sex while the entire city is trying to shoot me in the head. If I get bored, I’ll barbecue you for my amusement. Sure, let me get my shoes.

I expected the illegible and the deeply buried in me to be read as if carved on my forehead, just as I expected the obvious and the ill-concealed to be hidden from view.

It doesn't matter if I'm the first. It only matters that I'll be the last

Oh, wow." "What do you think?" "I tried to imagine, but--I mean...it's so much more--" "Think it's large enough to keep you satisfied for a while?" "It's so much bigger than I expected" He backed away, leaving Beatrice to gaze in wonder at the library that took up half of the second floor. "I think I'll just leave you two alone for a bit," he said with a chuckle.

the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

I`ll kill you and eat your guts while you sream." "Not in that order, you won`t.

I’ll be back with the sandwiches,” she said. “But I had some leftover seven-layer dip.” “Yum.” Percy dug in with a tortilla chip. “She’s kinda famous for this, guys.” Sally ruffled his hair. “There’s guacamole, sour cream, refried beans, salsa—” “Seven layers?” I looked up in wonder. “You knew seven is my sacred number? You invented this for me?” Sally wiped her hands on her apron. “Well, actually, I can’t take credit—” “You are too modest!” I tried some of the dip. It tasted almost as good as ambrosia nachos. “You will have immortal fame for this, Sally Jackson!

When things go dark, we can't see what we have. That doesn't mean that we don't have those things. Those things remain, right in front of us. All we need is to light a candle, or ignite some hope, and we can see that what we thought was lost was merely hidden.

Should I bring my own chains this time? Or do you have bigger plans, and this is some sort of freaky murder foreplay”—why did the word foreplay just come out of my mouth?—“and I’ll end up cut up into small pieces inside some freezer at the end? I can just spray myself with mace and shoot myself in the head now and save you the trouble.

He hung up and glanced at me. "I'm sorry, I have to take care of business. It can't wait, but I'll keep it short." "Not a problem. I'll busy myself with being seen and tossing my hair. Would you like me to twirl it on my finger while biting my lip?" "Could you?" "No, sorry." I grinned at him

Settling for the view that illnesses, mental or physical, are primarily genetic allows us to avoid disturbing questions about the nature of the society in which we live. If “science” enables us to ignore poverty or man-made toxins or a frenetic and stressful social culture as contributors to disease, we can look only to simple answers: pharmacological and biological.

The Pythagoreans, you have to remember, were extremely weird. Their philosophy was a chunky stew of things we’d now call mathematics, things we’d now call religion, and things we’d now call mental illness.

The core belief in having to be strong enough, characteristic of many people who develop chronic illness, is a defence. The child who perceives that her parents cannot support her emotionally had better develop an attitude of “I can handle everything myself.” Otherwise, she may feel rejected. One way not to feel rejected is never to ask for help, never to admit “weakness” — to believe that I am strong enough to withstand all my vicissitudes alone.

I'll tell you what: If I could do it all over again, I'd spend more time helping others. All I've ever done is dig tunnels. Some of them were real beauties too, but they're all hidden underground, where they're no good to anyone but me.

If Jupiter was in the ascendant when you were born, you are of a jovial disposition; and if you're not jovial but miserable and saturnine that's a disaster, because a disaster is a dis-astro, or misplaced planet. Disaster is Latin for ill-starred. The fault, as Shakespeare put it, is not in our stars; but the language is.

One day some other Prime will threaten our House, and when that day comes, I’ll kill him.” What? "I’ll do it quiet and clean, and nobody will ever know.” Leon smiled. “I’m going to be a dark horse, House Baylor’s secret. I’ll be the best assassin. A legend. They’ll never see me coming.” I would kill Kurt. I would strangle him with my bare hands.

People didn't realize it, but they needed myths to survive, just as much now as when their forebears were alive. Perhaps more. Mythology embodied the world's dreams, helped to make sense of the great human problems. Just as the dreams of individuals exist to give subconscious support to their conscious lives, so do myths serve as society's dreams. They uncover the dark, hidden places where mysteries dwell and can turn to nightmare if left untended. They make sense of injustice in archetypal terms. They give men and women a blueprint for how they may respond to success or failure, tragedy or joy.

There's no room for him in your head, Elle. I'm there. I'll always be there and if he tries to come in I'll drive him out until you're strong enough to do it yourself. And there was never room for him in your heart because I was already there. He couldn't touch your soul. It belongs to you and no one else unless you decide to share.

We have a mental health system that is dominated by political and hidden forces that keep us stagnated and unable to see real, lasting change.

You can quit if you want. If you hate it. If it isn't fun anymore. I'll back you with Dad. But you can't quit just because it's hard. Things are hard for most people. Life is hard.

Catalina,” Grandma Frida called out behind me. “When you’re done cutting up the body, call me. I’ll help you hide it.” I turned and looked at her. Grandma flexed her arm. “Ride or die.

All day long you sit and sew, Stitch life down for fear it grow, Stitch life down for fear we guess At the hidden ugliness. Dusty voice that throbs with heat, Hoping with your steel-thin beat To put stitches in my mind, Make it tidy, make it kind, You shall not: I'll keep it free Though you turn earth, sky and sea To a patchwork quilt to keep Your mind snug and warm in sleep!

I’ll drown him in that damn fountain and then I’ll CPR him back and drown him again.

let go of a friend I’ll still miss every day. I’ll go back to work. I’ll get better. I’ll get better slowly. I’ll find all the secret, hidden things.

What's this?" Dan said, pointing to a funny squiggly formation. Uh, an M," said Nellie. "Or if you look at it the other way, a W. Or sideways, kind of S-ish..." Maybe it's palm trees," Dan said. "Like in the movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. You know? No? These guys need to find hidden money, and the only clue they have is it's under a big W? And no one sees what it means-but then, near the end of the movie, there's this grove of four palm trees rising up in the shape of... you-know-what! Classic!" Amy, Alistair, Natalie, Ian and Nellie all looked at him blankly. There is no W in the Korean language," Alistair replied. "Or palm trees in Korea. I might be maple trees..." Mrrp," said Saladin, rubbing his face against Dan's knee. I'll tell you the rest of the plot later," Dan whispered to the Mau.

Emotional competence requires the capacity to feel our emotions, so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress; the ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries; the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past. What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not to unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood. If distinctions between past and present blur, we will perceive loss or the threat of loss where none exists; and the awareness of those genuine needs that do require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others. Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria, and it leads to the disruption of homeostasis. Chronic disruption results in ill health. In each of the individual histories of illness in this book, one or more aspect of emotional competence was significantly compromised, usually in ways entirely unknown to the person involved. Emotional competence is what we need to develop if we are to protect ourselves from the hidden stresses that create a risk to health, and it is what we need to regain if we are to heal. We need to foster emotional competence in our children, as the best preventive medicine.

You dance your lobster quadrille, and I’ll juggle some clams, and we’ll both pretend to be hidden away in a secret sea cave, where we don’t have to think about courtships or royal missions or anything but ourselves.

Superstition is thriving. Pedantry is thriving. Sectarianism is thriving. Belief is dying out. To most of your people the jinn are paranoid fantasies who run around causing epilepsy and mental illness. Find me someone to whom the hidden folk are simply real, as described in the Books. You’ll be searching a long time. Wonder and awe have gone out of your religions. You are prepared to accept the irrational, but not the transcendent. And that, cousin, is why I can’t help you.

You will. You’ll fall asleep fast and sleep soundly until morning, and then you’ll get up and have breakfast with your family because I’ll be prowling in your house tonight. And if anyone tries to interrupt your sleep and end your life, you have my word that they’ll sleep forever.” That

Are you all right? No broken bones, no hidden concussions? No fish swimming around in your lungs?" I smiled at him tiredly. "There might be a minnow or two, but I'm sure I'll cough them up before tomorrow," I said, and he chuckled.

All right." He straightened up and seemed to be true to his promise to let it go. "I will be a man about this." That lasted until he saw the scratches on the hood from the mountain lion and the front fender, Where Abigail had dragged it off the driveway. Wailing, he went to it and sank to his knees. He sprawled over the hood and laid his head on the damaged fender. "I'm so sorry, Bets. I should of hidden the keys. Booted your tires. Something. I had know idea anyone would hurt you so, baby. I swear I'll never let anyone hurt you again. Ayyy, how could they do this to you? How? Oh the humanity!

I found a girl who wasn't the girl I was looking for. I let go of a friend I'll still miss every day. I'll go back to work. I'll get better. I'll get better slowly. I'll find all the secret, hidden things.

Icarus." "Hmm?" "I don't have a hidden agenda. Nor do I intend to use you or mislead you with my charm." Despite herself, she smiled, glancing at him. His face was studiously neutral. "The day you act charming, I'll know something is wrong.

Our choices get taken away from us when we are not given the proper options, information, and truth. There’s a saying, “You always have a choice.” Not when all the options aren’t available to you! If the truth is hidden in a vault that you don’t have access to, or lost in the past and forgotten, how can you make the right choice?

She hated colds. There was nothing romantic about them. Fainting spells were dramatic, life-threatening illnesses were interesting, and a handsome prince could always rescue you in the case of a twisted ankle, but all colds produced were puffy eyes and a red nose.

If a child stays quiet in the context of extroverted friends, or even prefers time alone, a parent may worry and even send her to therapy. She might be thrilled— she’ll finally get to talk about the stuff she cares about, and without interruption! But if the therapist concludes that the child has a social phobia, the treatment of choice is to increasingly expose her to the situations she fears. This behavioral treatment is effective for treating phobias — if that is truly the problem. If it’s not the problem, and the child just likes hanging out inside better than chatting, she’ll have a problem soon. Her “illness” now will be an internalized self-reproach: “Why don’t I enjoy this like everyone else?” The otherwise carefree child learns that something is wrong with her. She not only is pulled away from her home, she is supposed to like it. Now she is anxious and unhappy, confirming the suspicion that she has a problem.

My husband claims I have an unhealthy obsession with secondhand bookshops. That I spend too much time daydreaming altogether. But either you intrinsically understand the attraction of searching for hidden treasure amongst rows of dusty shelves or you don't; it's a passion, bordering on a spiritual illness, which cannot be explained to the unaffected.

True sorrows do not pass like clouds or inclement weather...Sorrows are absorbed over time, and you reshape yourself around them. How you absorb them makes you what you are for good or ill. I think the only true and right way is to take our sorrows into us bravely and wholly, knowing they will hurt, and accepting that sometimes pain is unavoidable. It is when grief is suppressed or hidden that it does harm

Because whatever has happened to humanity, whatever is currently happening to humanity, it is happening to all of us. No matter how hidden the cruelty, no matter how far off the screams of pain and terror, we live in one world. We are one people. My illness proved that. As well as my understanding that Generose's lost daughter belongs to all of us. It is up to all of us to find her; it is up to us to do our best to make her whole again. There is only one daughter, one father, one mother, one son, one aunt or uncle, one dog, one cat, donkey, monkey, or goat in the universe, after all: the one right in front of you.

My husband claims I have an unhealthy obsession with secondhand bookshops. That I spend too much time daydreaming altogether. But either you intrinsically understand the attraction of searching for hidden treasure amongst rows of dusty shelves or you don't; it's a passion, bordering on a spiritual illness, which cannot be explained to the unaffected. True, they're not for the faint of heart. Wild and chaotic, capricious and frustrating, there are certain physical laws that govern secondhand bookstores and like gravity, they're pretty much nonnegotiable. Paperback editions of D. H. Lawrence must constitute no less than 55 percent of all stock in any shop. Natural law also dictates that the remaining 45 percent consist of at least two shelves worth of literary criticism on Paradise Lost and there should always be an entire room in the basement devoted to military history which, by sheer coincidence, will be haunted by a man in his seventies. (Personal studies prove it's the same man. No matter how quickly you move from one bookshop to the next, he's always there. He's forgotten something about the war that no book can contain, but like a figure in Greek mythology, is doomed to spend his days wandering from basement room to basement room, searching through memoirs of the best/worst days of his life.) Modern booksellers can't really compare with these eccentric charms. They keep regular hours, have central heating, and are staffed by freshly scrubbed young people in black T-shirts. They're devoid of both basement rooms and fallen Greek heroes in smelly tweeds. You'll find no dogs or cats curled up next to ancient space heathers like familiars nor the intoxicating smell of mold and mildew that could emanate equally from the unevenly stacked volumes or from the owner himself. People visit Waterstone's and leave. But secondhand bookshops have pilgrims. The words out of print are a call to arms for those who seek a Holy Grail made of paper and ink.

Looks like I'll be sucking your cock for food, but entirely my way." Vadim paused. "No. Food is free. I'll give you money so you can buy food." Dan's head hidden, lowered, Vadim couldn't see his facial expression. Surprise. Astonishment, his Russkie was more decent to him than he'd expected. Had hoped for a scrap to eat, but this treatment was more of a royal one. "You're treating me like I used to treat my pussies." Dan smirked, lifting his head. "You shaved their heads? You weird man." Vadim chuckled while Dan muttered one of his choice obscenities.

His barely there smile warmed me. “You try really hard to hide behind that Ice Queen disguise, but that’s not who I see. I see a girl who had to grow up fast, and a mom who would sacrifice everything for her son. You’re beautiful, Taryn, inside and out, and I want to get to know the woman you keep hidden away.” He lowered his hand and my body ached at the loss. “If you’re willing, I’ll walk through the fire with you.

If you’re going to start coming to my games, I better see Rhodes on your back and I’m not talking about my brother.”  “Is this some athlete kink you got? Need to see a girl in your jersey?” The old flirty side of me that I’ve kept hidden and locked down for the most part since Max came into my life is itching to break free.  I pop my shoulders. “I like to see pretty girls in my jersey. Like to take it off them too.”  Miller’s lips part, a shocked and satisfied grin lifting on the corners. “Well, with that kind of promise, I’ll be sure to wear it next time.

The effect of Dorothea's being on those around her was incalculable diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

I circled the site before I came in. If there's anyone within five kilometers, I'll eat my quiver." Halt regarded him, eyebrow arched once more. "Anyone?" "Anyone other than Crowley," Will amended, making a dismissive gesture. "I saw him watching me from that hide he always uses about two kilometers out. I assumed he'd be back in here by now." Halt cleared his throat loudly. "Oh, you saw him, did you?" he said. "I imagine he'll be overjoyed to hear that." Secretly, he was pleased with his former pupil. In spite of his curiosity and obvious excitement, he hadn't forgotten to take the precautions that had been drilled into him. THat augured well for what lay ahead, Halt thought, a sudden grimness settling onto his manner. Will didn't notice the momentary change of mood. He was loosening Tug saddle girth. As he spoke, his voice was muffled against the horses's flank. "he's becoming too much a creature of habit," he said. "he's used that hide for the last three Gatherings. It's time he tried something new. Everyone must be onto it by now." Rangers constantly competed with each other to see before being seen and each year's Gathering was a time of heightened competition. Halt nodded thoughtfully. Crowley had constructed teh virtually invisible observation post some four years previously. Alone among the younger Rangers, Will had tumbled to it after one year. Halt had never mentioned to him that he was the only one who knew of Crowley's hide. The concealed post was the Ranger Commandant's pride and joy. "Well, perhaps not everyone," he said. Will emerged from behind his horse, grinning at the thought of the head of the Ranger Corps thinking he had remained hidden from sight as he watched Will's approach. "All the same, perhaps he's getting a bit long in the tooth to be skulking around hiding in the bushes, don't you think?" he said cheerfully. Halt considered the question for a moment. "Long in the tooth? Well, that's one opinion. Mind you, his silent movement skills are still as good as ever," he said meaningfully. The grin on Will's face slowly faded. He resisted the temptation to look over his shoulder. "He's standing behind me, isn't he?" he asked Halt. THe older Ranger nodded. "He's standing behind me, isn't he?" Will continued and Halt nodded once more. "Is he...close enough to have heard what I said?" Will finally managed to ask, fearin teh worst. This time, Halt didn't have to answer. "Oh, good grief no," came a familiar voice from behind him. "he's so old and decrepit these days he's as deaf as a post." Will's shoulders sagged and he turned to see the sandy-haired Commandant standing a few meters away. The younger man's eyes dropped. "Hullo, Crowley," he said, then mumbled, "Ahhh...I'm sorry about that." Crowley glared at teh young Ranger for a few more seconds, then he couldn't help teh grin breaking out on his face. "No harm done," he said, adding with a small note of triumph, "It's not often these days I amange to get the better of one of you young ones." Secretly, he was impressed at teh news that Will had spotted his hiding place. Only the sarpest eyes could have picked it. Crowley had been in the business of seeing without being seen for thirty years or more, and despite what Will believed, he was still an absolute master of camouflage and unseen movement.

Altogether bad,' the host concluded. 'As you will, but there's something not nice hidden in men who avoid wine, games, the society of charming women, table talk. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly hate everybody around them. True, there may be exceptions. Among persons sitting down with me at the banqueting table, there have been on occasion some extraordinary scoundrels! . . . And so, let me hear your business.

She’s my salvation. I burn, she’s water; I suffocate, she’s air – I can just imagine, when I am one with her, how light will flood my eyes, how the night will part and let me out into the day. When I break her, the light she has inside will come out, like a seal breaks to reveal the hidden message – and she’ll have to share that light with me. I’ll be saved, and she’ll be the one who falls. I’ll burn her down; I’ll kill her and give her life again. I’ll be true to her. I’ll never leave her, never.

thoughts hidden there? If she can, what will she do? Call the cops? Send me to the nuthouse? Do I want her to? I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won’t. I’ll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head. Maybe I should wait until David Petrakis is a doctor, let him do it.

No matter what accomplishments you achieve, somebody helped you. —ALTHEA GIBSON • A mentor is someone who allows you to see the higher part of yourself when sometimes it becomes hidden to your own view. —OPRAH WINFREY • Show me a successful individual and I’ll show you someone who had positive influences in his or her life…. A mentor. —DENZEL WASHINGTON

Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which have no great name on earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

He surveyed me, his eyes half closed, as if wondering if I were a delicious snack. I had an image of a massive dragon circling me slowly, eyes full of magic fixed on me as he moved, considering if he should bite me in half. “Dragons.” Rogan snapped his fingers. Oh crap. “I wondered why I kept getting dragons around you.” He leaned forward. His eyes lit up, turning back to their clear sky blue. “You think I’m a dragon.” “Don’t be ridiculous.” My face felt hot. I was probably blushing. Damn it. His smile went from amused to sexual, so charged with promise that carnal was the only way to describe it. I almost bolted out of my chair. “Big powerful scary dragon.” “You have delusions of grandeur.” “Do I have a lair? Did I kidnap you to it from your castle?” I stared straight at him, trying to frost my voice. “You have some strange fantasies, Rogan. You may need professional help.” “Would you like to volunteer?” “No. Besides, dragons kidnap virgins, so I’m out.” And why had I just told him I was not a virgin? Why did I even go there? “It doesn’t matter if I’m the first. It only matters that I’ll be the last.” “You won’t be the first, the last, or anything in between. Not in a million years.” He laughed. “Rogan,” I ground out through my teeth. “I’m on the clock. My client is in the next room mourning his wife. Stop flirting with me.” “Stop? I haven’t even started.

...whenever I hear people say clean food is expensive, I tell them it's actually the cheapest food you can buy. That always gets their attention. Then I explain that with our food all the costs are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illness, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water -- of all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. No thinking person will tell you they don't care about all that. I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food.

Tea is still believed, by English people of all classes, to have miraculous properties. A cup of tea can cure, or at least significantly alleviate, almost all minor physical ailments and indispositions, from a headache to a scraped knee. Tea is also an essential remedy for all social and psychological ills, from a bruised ego to the trauma of a divorce or bereavement. This magical drink can be used equally effectively as a sedative or stimulant, to calm and soothe or to revive and invigorate. Whatever your mental or physical state, what you need is ‘a nice cup of tea’.

In the 17th century, the French statesman Cardinal Richelieu famously said, “Show me six lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find enough therein to hang him.” Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin’s secret police in the old Soviet Union, declared, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” Both were saying the same thing: if you have enough data about someone, you can find sufficient evidence to find him guilty of something.

...the exorcist should not believe too readily that a person is possessed by an evil spirit; but he aught to ascertain by the signs by which a person possessed can be distinguished from one who is suffering from some illness; especially one of a psychological nature. Signs of possession may be the following: ability to speak with some facility in a strange language or to understand it when spoken by another; the facility of divulging future and hidden events; display of powers which are beyond the subject's age and natural condition; and various other conditions which, when taken together as a whole, build up the evidence.

Harry - I'm flying north immediately. This news about your scar is the latest in a series of strange rumors that have reached me here. If it hurts again, go straight to Dumbledore - they're saying he's got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means he's reading the signs, even if no one else is. I'll be in touch soon. My best to Ron and Hermione. Keep your eyes open,Harry. Sirius Dear Sirius, I reckon I just imagined my scar hurting, I was half asleep when I wrote to you last time. There's no point coming back, everything's fine here. Don't worry about me, my head feels completely normal. Harry Nice try, Harry. I'm back in the country and well hidden. I want you to keep me posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts. Don't use Hedwig, keep changing owls,and don't worry about me, just watch out for yourself Don't forget what I said about your scar. Sirius

Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know. Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Her true heart, however, was buried so far inside her, so gone beneath the vast blanket of her lies and deceptions and whims. Like her jewels now beneath the snow, it lay hidden until some thaw might some to it. She had no way of knowing, of course, whether this heart she imagined herself to have was, in fact, real in any way. Perhaps it was like the soldier's severed arm that keeps throbbing for years, or like a broken bone that aches at the approach of a storm. Perhaps the heart she imagined was one she had never really had at all. But how did they do it, those women she saw on the street, laughing with their charming or their ill-tempered children in restaurants, in train stations, everywhere around her? Any why was she left out of the whole sentimental panorama she felt eddying around her every day of her life?

Ill treatment by opponents Is a catalyst for your meditation; Insulting reproaches you don’t deserve Spur your practice onward; Those who do you harm are teachers Challenging your attachment and aversion— How could you ever repay their kindness? Indeed, you are unlikely to make much spiritual progress if you lack the courage to face your own hidden faults. Any person or situation that helps you to see those faults, however uncomfortable and humiliating it may be, is doing you a great service.

She made a face and looked up at him. “I wish you would do it. Couldn’t I hire you? Indefinitely? How expensive are you?” His mouth quirked, his eyes suddenly hard and humorless. “At face value, I’m cheap. But I come with hidden costs.” Drawing closer, Phoebe hugged herself to him and laid her head against his chest. Eventually his arms lifted around her, and the pressure of his cheek came to her hair. “I’ll help you,” he said. “I’ll make sure you have whatever you need.” You’re what I need, she thought.

Ill tell you the one that I think will: when a mans in love he wants to keep the one he loves- and cherish her. He wants to build a picket fence twixt them and the world. He doesn't want it temporary, a secret, hidden. He wants the world to know. The one he loves is somebody to him, not a thing to be taken, used and tossed aside. Hell, I'm not saying he shouldn't be interested in your pretty ankles and what a nice sway your bustles got. That's part of it too; but only a part. The rest of it is the long years ahead, the laughing together, and the crying, bringing up your kids, nodding together under the lamplight when your heads have turned white, and finally lying together forever in the long dark...

Fine,” he said. “You had no idea it could be this good. Nobody in your past was ever that good and you know that nobody in your future will ever be this good. You’ve had a taste and you want more. You want sex. Dirty, naked hot sex. It’s floating through your head as we speak. You think you can imagine what it would be like. Trust me, you have no idea. I haven’t even started. So run from it, think it over, pretend it didn’t happen, it doesn’t matter. I’ll allow it for now. The more you fight, the more irresistible it will become, until one day I’ll motion with my hand and you’ll come running.” My

Eroan Ilanea, you’re my everything. I don’t need a dragon, I’m all-dragon with you. I’m not going anywhere, because I have everything I need right here. I love you now, I loved you yesterday, and I’ll love you a hundred years from now, until you’re as old as that ancient Order elf in Ashford and I’m so old I’ll frighten all the little elflings with inappropriate war stories.” “You already do that,” Eroan said, but smiling again. Lysander touched his nose to Eroan’s. “I’ll love you until all the other dragons are gone and the world is as it was, with billions of humans and hidden elves and houses and cities, and it’s just you and me, wondering when we got old. I’ll love you until your Ashford tree is as tall as the highest mountain. I’m never going to stop loving you because you’re my heart and my soul and my reason for living.” Eroan sighed against Lysander’s mouth, and it was all he could do not to ravish him right there. “Did you doubt it?” he asked. “Not you,” Eroan said, a touch of heat in his face. “I doubted myself.” “Well, don’t.

Falling for him would be like cliff diving. It would be either the most exhilarating thing that ever happened to me or the stupidest mistake I’d ever make. It would make my life worth living or it would crush me against stony rocks and break me utterly. Perhaps the wise thing to do would be to slow things down. Being friends would be so much simpler. Ren came back, picked up my empty dinner packet, and stowed it in the backpack. Sitting down across from me, he asked, “What are you thinking about?” I kept staring glassily at the fire. “Nothing much.” He tilted his head and considered me for a moment. He didn’t press me, for which I was grateful-another characteristic I could add to the pro relationship side of my mental list. Pressing his hands together palm to palm, he rubbed them slowly, mechanically, as if cleaning them of dust. I watched them move, mesmerized. “I’ll take the first watch, even though I really don’t think it’ll be necessary. I still have my tiger senses, you know. I’ll be able to hear or smell the Kappa if they decide to emerge from the water. “Fine.” “Are you alright?” I mentally shook myself. Sheesh! I needed a cold shower! He was like a drug, and what did you do with drugs? You pushed them as far away as possible. “I’m fine,” I said brusquely, then got up to dig through the backpack. “You let me know when your spidey-senses start to tingle.” “What?” I put my hand on my hip. “Can you also leap tall buildings in a single bound?” “Well, I still have my tiger strength, if that’s what you mean.” I grunted, “Fabulous. I’ll add superhero to your list of pros.” He frowned. “I’m no superhero, Kells. The most important consideration right now is that you get some rest. I’ll keep an eye out for a few hours. Then, if nothing happens,” he said with a grin, “I’ll join you.” I froze and suddenly became very nervous. Surely, he didn’t mean what that sounded like. I searched his face for a clue, but he didn’t seem to have any hidden agenda or be planning anything.

A critical analysis of the present global constellation-one which offers no clear solution, no “practical” advice on what to do, and provides no light at the end of the tunnel, since one is well aware that this light might belong to a train crashing towards us-usually meets with reproach: “Do you mean we should do nothing? Just sit and wait?” One should gather the courage to answer: “YES, precisely that!” There are situations when the only true “practical” thing to do is to resist the temptation to engage immediately and to “wait and see” by means of a patient, critical analysis. Engagement seems to exert its pressure on us from all directions. In a well-known passage from his ‘Existentialism and Humanism’, Sartre deployed the dilemma of a young man in France in 1942, torn between the duty to help his lone, ill mother and the duty to enter the war and fight the Germans; Sartre’s point is, of course, that there is no a priori answer to this dilemma. The young man needs to make a decision grounded only in his own abyssal freedom and assume full responsibility for it. An obscene third way out of this dilemma would have been to advise the young man to tell his mother that he will join the Resistance, and to tell his Resistance friends that he will take care of his mother, while, in reality, withdrawing to a secluded place and studying. There is more than cheap cynicism in this advice. It brings to mind a well-known Soviet joke about Lenin. Under socialism; Lenin’s advice to young people, his answer to what they should do, was “Learn, learn, and learn.” This was evoked all the time and displayed on the school walls. The joke goes: Marx, Engels, and Lenin are asked whether they would prefer to have a wife or a mistress. As expected, Marx, rather conservative in private matters, answers, “A wife!” while Engels, more of a bon vivant, opts for a mistress. To everyone’s surprise, Lenin says, “I’d like to have both!” Why? Is there a hidden stripe of decadent jouisseur behind his austere revolutionary image? No-he explains: “So that I can tell my wife that I am going to my mistress and my mistress that I am going to my wife. . .” “And then, what do you do?” “I go to a solitary place to learn, learn, and learn!” Is this not exactly what Lenin did after the catastrophe in 1914? He withdrew to a lonely place in Switzerland, where he “learned, learned, and learned,” reading Hegel’s logic. And this is what we should do today when we find ourselves bombarded with mediatic images of violence. We need to “learn, learn, and learn” what causes this violence.

Some of us fall through the unseen cracks in the world of health on a bright summer’s day through a run-in with machine or microbe, like Alice down the rabbit hole. Some of us were born this way. And some find out that our genes have hidden within them a ticking time bomb. Waiting. Silently. However we got here, we are now inhabitants of the state of sickness. Our papers for the world of health have been rescinded without notice. Our body-world has been colonised by patriarchs, and we, the natives, should know our place: small folded patient, compliant, silent, not defiant. They seem to believe that our bodies are just an errant version of theirs. That our souls are not woman-shaped on the inside. That it’s not our place to take our space and insist on our inner difference. Their gospel is scribbled down on prescription pads in spider scrawl. They are not to be questioned, especially not with our own heresy.

I have to go," I said, resting my head against Archer's chest. It occurred to me that my cheek was probably right over his tattoo. Without thinking, I lifted my face and tugged at the neckline of his T-shirt. This time, the stark black-and-gold mark wasn't hidden. No need for that spell anymore, I guess. Still, I covered it with my palm. Archer's hands clutched reflexively on my waist. Our eyes met. "It doesn't burn this time," I whispered. His breathing was ragged. "Beg to differ, Mercer." Magic was rushing through me, and when Archer covered my hand with his own, there was a little blue spark. Slowly, he moved my hand off his chest, then gripped both my shoulders. I thought he was going to kiss me again-and with the way we were feeling, there was a chance we might set the whole mill on fire-but instead, he gingerly pushed me away. "Okay," he said, closing his eyes. "If you don't go now, we're...You should go now." Once we were several feet apart, he lust-fog cleared a little. "We still have no idea what we're going to go." Archer opened his eyes and took a couple of steps backward. "Right now, you're going to go back to Thorne and check in with your dad. I'm going to go back to my people and do the same. Then tomorrow night, we'll meet here. You'll stand over there"-he pointed at a corner-"and I'll stand over there"-the complete opposite corner-"and there will be no physical contact until we've figured something out. Deal?" I smiled,even as I shoved my hands in my pockets to keep from grabbing him again. "Deal.Midnight?" "Perfect.So." That grin again. "See ya, Mercer." Happiness flooded through me as warm and bright as sunlight. "See ya, Cross.

Trick-cyclist or assuager of discontents, whatever his title, the psychiatrist had now passed into history, joining the necromancers, sorcerers and other practitioners of the black sciences. The Mental Freedom legislation enacted ten years earlier by the ultraconservative UW government had banned the profession outright and enshrined the individual’s freedom to be insane if he wanted to, provided he paid the full civil consequences for any infringements of the law. That was the catch, the hidden object of the MF laws. What had begun as a popular reaction against ‘subliminal living’ and the uncontrolled extension of techniques of mass manipulation for political and economic ends had quickly developed into a systematic attack on the psychological sciences. Over-permissive courts of law with their condoning of delinquency, pseudo-enlightened penal reformers, ‘Victims of society’, the psychologist and his patient all came under fierce attack. Discharging their self-hate and anxiety onto a convenient scapegoat, the new rulers, and the great majority electing them, outlawed all forms of psychic control, from the innocent market survey to lobotomy. The mentally ill were on their own, spared pity and consideration, made to pay to the hilt for their failings. The sacred cow of the community was the psychotic, free to wander where he wanted, drooling on the doorsteps, sleeping on sidewalks, and woe betide anyone who tried to help him.

My cell phone rang on the table. I never went far without it, even in the house. I picked it up. An unlisted number. Oh goodie. “Nevada Baylor.” “I need to talk to you,” Mad Rogan said into the phone. “Meet me for lunch.” My pulse jumped, my body snapped to attention, and my brain shut down for a second to come to terms with the impact of his voice. I’d slap myself except my mother and grandmother already thought I was nuts, and hurting myself would get me committed for sure. “Sure, let me get right on that.” Hey, my voice still worked. “Should I bring my own chains this time? Or do you have bigger plans, and this is some freaky murder foreplay”—why did the word foreplay just come out of my mouth?—“and I’ll end up cut up into small pieces inside some freezer at the end? I can just spray myself with mace and shoot myself in the head now and save you some trouble?” “Are you done?” he asked. “Just getting started.” I was so brave over the phone. “Lunch, Ms. Baylor. Concentrate. Pick a place.” “You seem to be under the impression that I work for you and you can give me orders. Let me fix that.” I hung up. Grandma looked at my mom. “Did she just hang up on Mad Rogan?” “Yes, she did.

So coming back from a journey, or after an illness, before habits had spun themselves across the surface, one felt that same unreality, which was so startling; felt something emerge. Life was most vivid then. One could be at one’s ease. Mercifully one need not say, very briskly, crossing the lawn to great old Mrs. Beckwith, who would be coming out to find a corner to sit in, “Oh, good-morning, Mrs. Beckwith! What a lovely day! Are you going to be so bold as to sit in the sun? Jasper’s hidden the chairs. Do let me find you one!” and all the rest of the usual chatter. One need not speak at all. One glided, one shook one’s sails (there was a good deal of movement in the bay, boats were starting off) between things, beyond things. Empty it was not, but full to the brim. She seemed to be standing up to the lips in some substance, to move and float and sink in it, yes, for these waters were unfathomably deep. Into them had spilled so many lives. The Ramsays’; the children’s; and all sorts of waifs and strays of things besides. A washerwoman with her basket; a rook; a red-hot poker; the purples and grey-greens of flowers: some common feeling held the whole.

Nature’s ultimate goal is to foster the growth of the individual from absolute dependence to independence — or, more exactly, to the interdependence of mature adults living in community. Development is a process of moving from complete external regulation to self-regulation, as far as our genetic programming allows. Well-self-regulated people are the most capable of interacting fruitfully with others in a community and of nurturing children who will also grow into self-regulated adults. Anything that interferes with that natural agenda threatens the organism’s chances for long-term survival. Almost from the beginning of life we see a tension between the complementary needs for security and for autonomy. Development requires a gradual and ageappropriate shift from security needs toward the drive for autonomy, from attachment to individuation. Neither is ever completely lost, and neither is meant to predominate at the expense of the other. With an increased capacity for self-regulation in adulthood comes also a heightened need for autonomy — for the freedom to make genuine choices. Whatever undermines autonomy will be experienced as a source of stress. Stress is magnified whenever the power to respond effectively to the social or physical environment is lacking or when the tested animal or human being feels helpless, without meaningful choices — in other words, when autonomy is undermined. Autonomy, however, needs to be exercised in a way that does not disrupt the social relationships on which survival also depends, whether with emotional intimates or with important others—employers, fellow workers, social authority figures. The less the emotional capacity for self-regulation develops during infancy and childhood, the more the adult depends on relationships to maintain homeostasis. The greater the dependence, the greater the threat when those relationships are lost or become insecure. Thus, the vulnerability to subjective and physiological stress will be proportionate to the degree of emotional dependence. To minimize the stress from threatened relationships, a person may give up some part of his autonomy. However, this is not a formula for health, since the loss of autonomy is itself a cause of stress. The surrender of autonomy raises the stress level, even if on the surface it appears to be necessary for the sake of “security” in a relationship, and even if we subjectively feel relief when we gain “security” in this manner. If I chronically repress my emotional needs in order to make myself “acceptable” to other people, I increase my risks of having to pay the price in the form of illness. The other way of protecting oneself from the stress of threatened relationships is emotional shutdown. To feel safe, the vulnerable person withdraws from others and closes against intimacy. This coping style may avoid anxiety and block the subjective experience of stress but not the physiology of it. Emotional intimacy is a psychological and biological necessity. Those who build walls against intimacy are not self-regulated, just emotionally frozen. Their stress from having unmet needs will be high.

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings. Along the roads, laurel, viburnum, and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler's eye through much of the year. Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people traveled from great distances to observe them. Others came to fish the streams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their homes, sank their wells, and built their barns. Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens, the cattle, and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but even among children whoe would be stricken suddently while at play and die within a few hours. There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example--where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh. On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigs--the litters were small and the young survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit. The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were not lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died. In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and streams. No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of life in this stricken world. The people had done it to themselves.

BOWLS OF FOOD Moon and evening star do their slow tambourine dance to praise this universe. The purpose of every gathering is discovered: to recognize beauty and love what’s beautiful. “Once it was like that, now it’s like this,” the saying goes around town, and serious consequences too. Men and women turn their faces to the wall in grief. They lose appetite. Then they start eating the fire of pleasure, as camels chew pungent grass for the sake of their souls. Winter blocks the road. Flowers are taken prisoner underground. Then green justice tenders a spear. Go outside to the orchard. These visitors came a long way, past all the houses of the zodiac, learning Something new at each stop. And they’re here for such a short time, sitting at these tables set on the prow of the wind. Bowls of food are brought out as answers, but still no one knows the answer. Food for the soul stays secret. Body food gets put out in the open like us. Those who work at a bakery don’t know the taste of bread like the hungry beggars do. Because the beloved wants to know, unseen things become manifest. Hiding is the hidden purpose of creation: bury your seed and wait. After you die, All the thoughts you had will throng around like children. The heart is the secret inside the secret. Call the secret language, and never be sure what you conceal. It’s unsure people who get the blessing. Climbing cypress, opening rose, Nightingale song, fruit, these are inside the chill November wind. They are its secret. We climb and fall so often. Plants have an inner Being, and separate ways of talking and feeling. An ear of corn bends in thought. Tulip, so embarrassed. Pink rose deciding to open a competing store. A bunch of grapes sits with its feet stuck out. Narcissus gossiping about iris. Willow, what do you learn from running water? Humility. Red apple, what has the Friend taught you? To be sour. Peach tree, why so low? To let you reach. Look at the poplar, tall but without fruit or flower. Yes, if I had those, I’d be self-absorbed like you. I gave up self to watch the enlightened ones. Pomegranate questions quince, Why so pale? For the pearl you hid inside me. How did you discover my secret? Your laugh. The core of the seen and unseen universes smiles, but remember, smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter. Dark earth receives that clear and grows a trunk. Melon and cucumber come dragging along on pilgrimage. You have to be to be blessed! Pumpkin begins climbing a rope! Where did he learn that? Grass, thorns, a hundred thousand ants and snakes, everything is looking for food. Don’t you hear the noise? Every herb cures some illness. Camels delight to eat thorns. We prefer the inside of a walnut, not the shell. The inside of an egg, the outside of a date. What about your inside and outside? The same way a branch draws water up many feet, God is pulling your soul along. Wind carries pollen from blossom to ground. Wings and Arabian stallions gallop toward the warmth of spring. They visit; they sing and tell what they think they know: so-and-so will travel to such-and-such. The hoopoe carries a letter to Solomon. The wise stork says lek-lek. Please translate. It’s time to go to the high plain, to leave the winter house. Be your own watchman as birds are. Let the remembering beads encircle you. I make promises to myself and break them. Words are coins: the vein of ore and the mine shaft, what they speak of. Now consider the sun. It’s neither oriental nor occidental. Only the soul knows what love is. This moment in time and space is an eggshell with an embryo crumpled inside, soaked in belief-yolk, under the wing of grace, until it breaks free of mind to become the song of an actual bird, and God.

Most of the time, we have to be strong, we must not show our fragility. We’ve known that since the schoolyard. There is always a fragile bit of us, but we keep it very hidden. Yet Venetian glass doesn’t apologise for its weakness. It admits its delicacy; it is confident enough to demand careful treatment; it makes the world understand it could easily be damaged. It’s not fragile because of a deficiency, or by mistake. It's not as if its maker was trying to make it tough and hardy and then - stupidly - ended up with something a child could snap, or that would be shattered by clumsy mishandling. It is fragile and easily harmed as the consequence of its search for transparency and refinement and its desire to welcome sunlight and candle light into its depths. Glass can achieve wonderful effects but the necessary price is fragility. Some good things things have to be delicate - the dish says: ‘I am delightful, but if you knock me about I’ll break, and that’s not my fault.’ It is the duty of civilisation to allow the more delicate forms of human activity to thrive; to create environments where it is OK to be fragile. And we know, really, that it is not glass which most needs this care, it is ourselves. It’s obvious the glass could easily be smashed, so it makes you use your fingers tenderly; you have to be careful how you grasp the stem. It teaches us that moderation is admirable, and elegant, not just a tedious demand. It tells us that being careful is glamorous and exciting - even fashionable. It is a moral tale about gentleness, told by means of a drinking vessel. This is training for the more important moments in life when moderation will make a real difference to other people. Being mature - and civilised - means being aware of the effect of one’s strength on others.

Physiological stress, then, is the link between personality traits and disease. Certain traits — otherwise known as coping styles — magnify the risk for illness by increasing the likelihood of chronic stress. Common to them all is a diminished capacity for emotional communication. Emotional experiences are translated into potentially damaging biological events when human beings are prevented from learning how to express their feelings effectively. That learning occurs — or fails to occur — during childhood. The way people grow up shapes their relationship with their own bodies and psyches. The emotional contexts of childhood interact with inborn temperament to give rise to personality traits. Much of what we call personality is not a fixed set of traits, only coping mechanisms a person acquired in childhood. There is an important distinction between an inherent characteristic, rooted in an individual without regard to his environment, and a response to the environment, a pattern of behaviours developed to ensure survival. What we see as indelible traits may be no more than habitual defensive techniques, unconsciously adopted. People often identify with these habituated patterns, believing them to be an indispensable part of the self. They may even harbour self-loathing for certain traits — for example, when a person describes herself as “a control freak.” In reality, there is no innate human inclination to be controlling. What there is in a “controlling” personality is deep anxiety. The infant and child who perceives that his needs are unmet may develop an obsessive coping style, anxious about each detail. When such a person fears that he is unable to control events, he experiences great stress. Unconsciously he believes that only by controlling every aspect of his life and environment will he be able to ensure the satisfaction of his needs. As he grows older, others will resent him and he will come to dislike himself for what was originally a desperate response to emotional deprivation. The drive to control is not an innate trait but a coping style. Emotional repression is also a coping style rather than a personality trait set in stone. Not one of the many adults interviewed for this book could answer in the affirmative when asked the following: When, as a child, you felt sad, upset or angry, was there anyone you could talk to — even when he or she was the one who had triggered your negative emotions? In a quarter century of clinical practice, including a decade of palliative work, I have never heard anyone with cancer or with any chronic illness or condition say yes to that question. Many children are conditioned in this manner not because of any intended harm or abuse, but because the parents themselves are too threatened by the anxiety, anger or sadness they sense in their child — or are simply too busy or too harassed themselves to pay attention. “My mother or father needed me to be happy” is the simple formula that trained many a child — later a stressed and depressed or physically ill adult — into lifelong patterns of repression.

You’d better marry her before she reaches eighteen and the spell wears off,” I said. “Spell?” “Yes. The one that’s hiding her fangs and pincers from plain sight.” “I don’t find them especially hidden,” he said mildly. “Then perhaps you’re a pair.” His brows lifted. “Now, that’s the cruelest thing you’ve said so far.” Mrs. Fredericks cleared off, and Chloe took her place before the piano. A beam of sunlight was just beginning its slide into the chamber, capturing her in light. She was a glowing girl with a glowing face, and Joplin at her fingertips. “Give me time,” I muttered, dropping my gaze to my plate. “I’ll come up with something worse.” “No doubt.” Armand pulled a flask from his jacket and shook it in front of my nose. “Whiskey. Conveniently the same color as tea. Are you game, waif?” I glanced around, but no one was looking. I lifted my cup, drained it to the dregs, and set it before him. He was right. It did look like tea. But it tasted like vile burning fire, all the way down my throat. “Sip it,” he hissed, as I began to cough. His voice lifted over my sputtering. “Dear me, Miss Jones, I do beg your pardon. The tea’s rather hot; I should have mentioned it.” “Quite all right,” I gasped, as the whiskey swirled an evil amber in my teacup. Chloe’s song grew bouncier, with lyrics about a girl with strawberries in a wagon. Several of the men had begun to cluster near, drawn to her soprano or perchance her bosom. Two were vying to turn the pages of her music. She had to crane her head to keep Armand in view. He sent her another smile from his chair, lifting his cup in salute. “I’m going to kiss you, Eleanore,” he said quietly, still looking at her. “Not now. Later.” His eyes cut back to mine. “I thought it fair to tell you first.” I stilled. “If you think you can do so without me biting your lip, feel free to try.” His gaze shone wicked blue. “I don’t mind if you bite.” “Biting your lip off, I should have said.” “Ah. Let’s see how it goes, shall we?

I soon saw, however, that Creed's obsession with death was typical of most of the children. This came out in their play. "Let's play funeral" was a favorite game at recess. To me, it seemed bizarre and mawkish play. All that saved it was the spontaneous creativity of the children and the fact that, unerringly, they caught the incongruities and absurdities of their elders. One child would be elected to be "dead" and would lay himself out on the ground, eyes closed, hands dutifully crossed across his chest. Another would be chosen to be the "preacher," all the rest, "mourners." I remember one day when Sam Houston Holcomb was the "corpse" and Creed Allen, always the class clown of the group, was elected "preacher." Creed, already at ten an accomplished mimic, was turning in an outstanding performance. I stood watching, half-hidden in the shado of the doorway. Creed (bellowing in stentorian tones): "You-all had better stop your meanness and I'll tell you for why. Praise the Lord! If you'uns don't stop being so defend ornery, you ain't never goin' gift to see Brother Holcomb on them streets paved with rubies and such-like, to give him the time of day, 'cause you'uns are goin' to be laid out on the coolin' board and then roasted in hellfire." The "congregation" shivered with delight, as if they were hearing a deliciously scary ghost story. The corpse opened one eye to see how his mourners were taking this blast; he sighed contentedly at their palpitations; wriggled right leg where a fly was tickling; adjusted grubby hands more comfortably across chest. Creed then grasped his right ear with his right hand and spat. Only there wasn't enough to make the stream impressive. So preacher paused, working his mouth vigorously, trying to collect more spit. Another pucker and heave. Ah! Better! Sermon now resumed: "Friends and neighbors, we air lookin' on Brother Holcombe's face for the last time." (Impressive pause.). "Praise the Lord! We ain't never goin' see him again in this life." (Impressive pause.). "Praise the Lord!" Small preacher was now really getting warmed up. He remembered something he must have heard at the last real funeral. Hearty spit first, more pulling of ear: "You air enjoyin' life now, folks. Me, I used to git pleasured and enjoy life too. But now that I've got religion, I don't enjoy life no more." At this point I retreated behind the door lest I betray my presence by laughing aloud.