Highest Climb Quotes

In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses.

He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.

Deciding whether or not to trust a person is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree because you might get a wonderful view from the highest branch or you might simply get covered in sap and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors where it is harder to get a splinter.

The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up and down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there's no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness.

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.

The best word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words. They were the ones who could climb the highest. One such word shaker was a small, skinny girl. She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words.

She. Spoke. To. Him. First. It was like winning the lottery, getting laid, and climbing the highest cliff all rolled into one. But he needed to play it cool, becase he was trending into lame-o land at a quick pace.

Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.

You know what I'd really like to do the most right now? Climb up to the top of some high place like the pyramids. The highest place I can find. Where you can see forever. Stand on the very top, look all around the world, see all the scenery, and see with my own eyes what's been lost from the world.

The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.

O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,— Nature’s observatory—whence the dell, Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep ’Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell. But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee, Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind, Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d, Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

If you can't climb the highest mountain any more, go to the closest hill. It is better than staying at the bottom thinking you can't do it.

[NINA] When I was a child I stayed wide awake Climbed to the highest place On every fire escape Restless to climb I got every scholarship Saved every dollar The first to go to college How do I tell them why I’m coming back home?

This is my greatest obstacle, the biggest of all the boulders littering my path. In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, it all collapses.

Time to cash in your chips put your ideas and beliefs on the table. See who has the bigger hand you or the Mystery that pervades you. Time to scrape the mind's shit off your shoes undo the laces that hold your prison together and dangle your toes into emptiness. Once you've put everything on the table once all of your currency is gone and your pockets are full of air all you've got left to gamble with is yourself. Go ahead, climb up onto the velvet top of the highest stakes table. Place yourself as the bet. Look God in the eyes and finally for once in your life lose.

Mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

To aim for the highest point is not the only way to climb a mountain.

Fear is one of the greatest problems in life. A mind that is caught in fear lives in confusion, in conflict, and therefore must be violent, distorted and aggressive. It dare not move away from its own patterns of thinking, and this breeds hypocrisy. Until we are free from fear, climb the highest mountain, invent every kind of God, we will always remain in darkness. Living in such a corrupt, stupid society as we do, with the competitive education we receive which engenders fear, we are all burdened with fears of some kind, and fear is a dreadful thing which warps, twists and dulls our days.

Once Everest was determined to be the highest summit on earth, it was only a matter of time before people decided that Everest needed to be climbed.

I crossed oceans for you, Turned over every rock, Climbed the highest mountains, Holding on to the words you said, Reliving your touch inside my head, The taste of you on the tip of my tongue, Only to be left with you as only a fantasy inside my head.

The law presides over things of this world, finally. The world where shadow is shadow and light is light, yin is yin and yang is yang, I'm me and he's him. 'I am me and / He is him/ Autumn eve.' But you don't belong to that world, sonny. The world you belong to is above that or below that." Which is better?" I asked, out of simple curiosity. "Above or below?" It's not that either one is better," he said. After a brief coughing fit, he spat a glob of phlegm onto a tissue and studied it closely before crumpling the tissue and throwing it into a wastebasket. "It's not a question of better or worse. The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up and down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there is no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness. 'I am he and/ He is me:/ Spring nightfall.' Abandon the self, and there you are.

If one should ask me what "use" there was in climbing, or attempting to climb the world's highest peak, I would be compelled to answer "none." There is no scientific end to be served; simply the gratification of the impulse of achievement, the indomitable desire to see what lies beyond the heart of man.

In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, it all collapses. So far my personal record is four rolling syllables before some...thing...jams. And I may be the most loquacious zombie in the airport.

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn.

Dreams are not made to put us to sleep, but to awaken us.

Many people view leadership the same way they view success, hoping to go as far as they can, to climb the ladder, to achieve the highest position possible for their talent. But contrary to conventional thinking, I believe the bottom line in leadership isn't how far we advance ourselves but how far we advance others. That is achieved by serving others and adding value to their lives.

Each era has the fatal hubris to believe that it has once and for all climbed to the top of the mountain and can see everything as it is, from the highest and most objective vantage point possible.

I have climbed highest mountains I have run through the fields Only to be with you I have run I have crawled I have scaled these city walls These city walls Only to be with you But I still haven't found what I'm kooking for

I try to think of things to say but nothing comes, and if something did come I probably couldn’t say it. This is my great obstacle, the biggest of all the boulders littering my path. In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses.

Remember, your highest goal is learning, and only in action does true, experiential learning occur. This is what you climb for.

A fourth group of people climbs from ignorance and pretends to possess the rational faculty. They suppose that the highest felicity is the expansion of honor and fame, the spread of reputation, a multiplicity of followers, and the influence of the command that is obeyed. Hence, you see that their only concern is eye service and cultivation of the things upon which observers cast their glance. One of them may go hungry in his house and suffer harm so that he can spend his wealth on clothes with which to adorn himself so that no one will look at him with the eye of contempt when he goes out. The types of these people are beyond count. All of them are veiled from Allah by the sheer darkness that is their own dark souls.

Begin. Keep on beginning. Nibble on everything. Take a hike. Teach yourself to whistle. Lie. The older you get the more they'll want your stories. Make them up. Talk to stones. Short-out electric fences. Swim with the sea turtle into the moon. Learn how to die. Eat moonshine pie. Drink wild geranium tea. Run naked in the rain. Everything that happens will happen and none of us will be safe from it. Pull up anchors. Sit close to the god of night. Lie still in a stream and breathe water. Climb to the top of the highest tree until you come to the branch where the blue heron sleeps. Eat poems for breakfast. Wear them on your forehead. Lick the mountain's bare shoulder. Measure the color of days around your mother's death. Put your hands over your face and listen to what they tell you.

They say that each night, when the duties of state permit, she climbs, on foot, and limps, alone, to the highest peak of the palace, where she stands for hour after hour, seeming not to notice the cold peak winds. She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.

Sometimes you've got to start at the lowest valleys to climb to the highest mountain tops.

Stand up; Grow up and Climb up. The reason why you can’t see farther and further is because you didn’t climb higher. Be willing to explore and be informed!

The best friends of the highest mountains are only the clouds and the adventurer mountaineers!

I could run farther than a hare! I could fight the fiercest fox that ever lived...I could climb the highest mountain faster than an eagle could fly.

The acrobat practices: He steps on the edge of a chair and leaps to the floor, feeling the rush as the air flares up his face as he falls. Then he sets himself on something higher, like a table then jumps. He scales a ladder to the ceiling, climbs a tree, pole, watchtower. He keeps increasing the height until no one sees him and the fear to jump leaves him completely, layer by layer [. . .] The acrobat imagines there is a highest possible point in the sky where if he were to fall from it the fall would never end.

Could I climb the highest place in Athens, I would lift up my voice and proclaim, "Fellow citizens, why do you burn and scrape every stone to gather wealth, and talk so little care of your children to whom you must one day relinquish all?

If life's journey was intended to be easy, we would have been given directions. However, since we have no road map, we must climb the highest mountain and forge the deepest streams with love in our souls, in the hope that our own journey will give us peace within...

By the way our society lives, if you climb the tallest building in the world so you can say you've seen the highest view in the world, by the time you get to the top, there will be a taller building standing right next to you.

He admonished them never to think of themselves as the strongest or smartest. Even the highest mountain had animals that step on it, he warned. When the animals climb to the top of the mountain, they are even higher than it is.

In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, it all collapses.

there is nothing else in life like getting to the summit. What’s more, I’ve always felt that the greater the challenge, the greater the reward.

Only you could climb the highest mountain in the Empire, hunt down a fallen star, and escape the Fifth Army without a trace. - Tem, to Kamzin

But then suddenly there was no place higher to go. I felt my cracked lips stretch into a painful grin. I was on top of the Devil's Thumb. Fittingly, the summit was a surreal, malevolent place, an improbably slender wedge of rock and rime no wider than a file cabinet. It did not encourage loitering. As I straddled the highest point, the south face fell away beneath my right boot for twenty-five hundred feet; beneath my left boot the north face dropped twice that distance.

I try to think of things to say but nothing comes, and if something did come I probably couldn't say it. This is my great obstacle, the biggest of all the boulders littering my path. In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, it all collapses.

THE BEST word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words. They are the ones who could climb the highest.

Your instincts are telling you something. Trust them and listen to them.

For Her, I can travel to the farthest of destinations I can dive into the deepest of oceans I can climb the highest of mountains

No matter what the future holds in store, I can say now—out loud, without hesitation—something that, sadly, all too few men and women can ever say: I have lived my dream.

Climb a mountain, see the world from its highest point and a new man will climb down

Once upon a time, [the guru] said, when God had finished making the world, he wanted to leave behind Him for man a piece of His own divinity, a spark of His essence, a promise to man of what he could become, with effort. He looked for a place to hide this Godhead because, he explained, what man could find too easily would never be valued by him. "Then you must hide the Godhead on the highest mountain peak on earth," said one of His councilors. God shook His head. "No, for man is an adventuresome creature and he will soon enough learn to climb the highest mountain peaks." "Hide it then, O Great One, in the depths of the earth!" "I think not," said God, "for man will one day discover that he can dig into the deepest parts of the earth." "In the middle of the ocean then, Master?" God shook His head. "I've given man a brain, you see, and one day he'll learn to build ships and cross the mightiest oceans." "Where then, Master?" cried His councilors. God smiled. "I'll hide it in the most inaccessible place of all, and the one place that man will never think to look for it. I'll hide it deep inside of man himself.

The real flight of this hawk is impending. Still,this bird is yet to be tested for real. Though I have leaped over the seas, well,the entire sky is still remaining to fly. And make sure that ,i am gonna do it with all my heart and all my soul. #loveyoourlife #liveyourlife #hvFUN

but that is the whole point: I have to push my limits to the max. Sitting tight, waiting it out and living in the past, has never been my thing. I want to be at the world’s highest point again, knowing it might slip out from underneath me at any moment. Because that is the only way to live

Mountains are both journey and destination. They summon us to climb their slopes, explore their canyons, and attempt their summits. The summit, despite months of preparation and toil, is never guaranteed though tastes of sweet nectar when reached. If my only goal as a teacher and mountaineer is the summit, I risk cruel failure if I do not reach the highest apex. Instead, if I accept the mountain’s invitation to journey and create meaning in each step, success is manifest in every moment.

Roland searched for a place that would be safe to climb, and found a staircase on the exposed inner wall of a house. The top step was the highest part of the house: everything above it, including the bedroom floor, had been knocked down. Roland tested his weight, but the wood was firm, so he went up.

President Kennedy made his speech at Rice University that confirmed his commitment. This time I was more attuned to his words. On a makeshift stage erected on the fifty-yard line at Rice Stadium, Kennedy repeated the question that many had raised: “Some have asked, why go to the Moon? One might as well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why sail the widest ocean?

Fear is one of the greatest problems in life. A mind that is caught in fear lives in confusion, in conflict, and therefore must be violent, distorted, and aggressive. It dare not move away from its own patterns of thinking, and this breeds hypocrisy. Until we are free from fear, we may climb the highest mountain, invent every kind of God, but we will remain in darkness.

My friend Dick Bass (now in his 70s) has travelled far and wide and had many adventures. His achievements include being the first person to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents, as well as being the oldest person (by five years) to climb Mount Everest (at the age of 55.) He once told me a story of a plane ride, on which he sat next to a nice man who listened to him go on about the treacherous peaks of Everest and McKinley, the time he almost died in the Himalayas, and his upcoming plan to reclimb Everest. Just before the plane landed, Bass turned to the man sitting next to him and said, ‘After all this, I don’t think I’ve introduced myself. My name is Dick Bass.’ The man shook his hand, and responded, ‘Hi, I’m Neil Armstrong.

I crossed oceans for you, Turned over every rock, Climbed the highest mountains, Holding on to the words you said, Reliving your touch inside my head, The taste of you on the tip of my tongue, Only to be left with you as only a fantasy inside my head.

With Kit, Age Seven, at the Beach We would climb the highest dune, from there to gaze and come down: the ocean was performing; we contributed our climb. Waves leapfrogged and came straight out of the storm. What should our gaze mean? Kit waited for me to decide. Standing on such a hill, what would you tell your child? That was an absolute vista. Those waves raced far, and cold. "How far could you swim, Daddy, in such a storm?" "As far as was needed," I said, and as I talked, I swam.

Every person has his or her own Annapurna.” I go on to explain that there were many Annapurnas in my life—challenges I wasn’t sure I could meet—but that “the real Annapurna was my last one.” For each of you out there, your Annapurna might be a tough project at work, a bad illness, or the breakup of a marriage, but the trick is to find a way of converting adversity into something positive, a challenge to look forward to.

Deciding whether or not to trust a person is like deciding whether or not to climb a tree, because you might get a wonderful view from the highest brand, or you might simply get covered in sap, and for this reason many people choose to spend their time alone and indoors, where it is harder to get a splinter.

To live a life of excellence, you will have to take risks. You will have to step into new territory and climb new mountains. If you’re up to something that’s as big as you are, it’s going to be scary. If it feels perfectly safe, you are probably underachieving. To leave your mark in the world, you will have to stand someplace you’ve never been willing to stand before. And you will have to have the courage to aspire to excellence. To create an extraordinary life you will have to be present in each moment and give 100 percent of yourself. You will have to commit each day to being the best you can be, and aspire to perform your daily tasks in the most conscious way possible. Living your best year requires you to take a moment each time you’re about to make a move—whether you are about to deliver a communication, make a decision, or put something into your body—and make sure that move reflects the very highest choice you could make. 

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after. One

The Hermit I’d gladly climb the highest steeple To escape those middle minded people Jet Set Wedding I wake up screaming clutching my wedding band The garnet ring is still a constant companion on my finger But what happened to the marriage? Fruitland Ave He taught her not to love nor hate And he my friend was double gate The Closing (On Death and Acceptance) When he died the funeral took place at her bank And sadly enough she’s down to her very last frank The Misogynist He sits on his throne a hilltop alone For women’s neurosis cause men’s psychosis Home Sweet Home The neurotic builds the dreamhouse The psychotic becomes his spouse Monogamy I’d rather be someone’s concubine, smell the honeysuckle Taste the wine, than end up being a clinging vine The Gour Maid I like champagne, and french brie, and camembert And men that don’t get in my hair

He wanted to run through the stacks, pick at the books, sample them one after the other, climb the stacks to their highest reaches and see what treasures were hidden there.

Don't stop climbing once you've made it your highest peak. You still have the heavens to reach.

Just one thing can go down the deepest ocean,climb the highest mountain,walk the longest way and that is LOVE

[Robert's eulogy at his brother, Ebon C. Ingersoll's grave. Even the great orator Robert Ingersoll was choked up with tears at the memory of his beloved brother] The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower. Dear Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me. The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west. He had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point; but, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. For whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning, of the grander day. He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts. He was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: 'For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer!' He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers. Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, 'I am better now.' Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. And now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier man.

Learning from experience means, in practice, learning from suffering; the only schoolmaster. Everyone knows that this is so, even though they try to persuade themselves and their fellows otherwise. Only so is it possible to understand how it came about that, through all the Christian centuries, people have been prepared to accept the Cross, ostensibly a symbol of suffering, as the true image and guarantee of their creator's love and concern for them. To climb the highest, stoniest mountain to set it on its peak, to carry it to the remotest, darkest, most forbidding corners of the earth; to build great cathedrals to glorify it; to find in it the inspiration for the most sublime achievements and noblest lives over the last two thousand years.

The fact that I am still alive, when so many friends and others climbing the 8000ers have died is humbling. ... It is only death that has stopped many mountaineers from achieving the full tally of 14.

We are not at the pinnacle of our power, of our existence. We have scrambled to the top of an ant-hill at the bottom of the world’s highest mountain. We have long way still to climb.” - The Blue Mountain

Antarctica is the highest, driest, coldest, and windiest place on the planet. The South Pole averages sixty below zero, has hurricane-strength winds, and sits at an altitude of ten thousand feet. In other words, those original explorers didn’t have to just get there, but had to climb serious mountains to do so. (Side note: Down here, you’re either an Amundsen guy, a Shackleton guy, or a Scott guy. Amundsen was the first to reach the Pole, but he did it by feeding dogs to dogs, which makes Amundsen the Michael Vick of polar explorers: you can like him, but keep it to yourself, or you’ll end up getting into arguments with a bunch of fanatics. Shackleton is the Charles Barkley of the bunch: he’s a legend, all-star personality, but there’s the asterisk that he never reached the Pole, i.e., won a championship. How this turned into a sports analogy, I don’t know. Finally, there’s Captain Scott, canonized for his failure, and to this day never fully embraced because he was terrible with people. He has my vote, you understand.)

Everything I’ve previously attempted in my life was child’s play compared to this. The pathway I’m walking is not just riddled with all manner of uncertainty; it’s also excruciatingly difficult to follow through! How do I know this is the right path for me, when it’s been costing me every ounce of willpower just to stay on track? How do I tell what my purpose is?’ ‘THIS is how you know it, Mario. This moment right here!’ Amanita had told him. ‘If the path you are walking feels back-breaking and steep, know you are climbing the Mountain of Purpose. The more you sacrifice on your journey, the more valuable its end reward.

Disappointed Englishman. Several Englishmen who were inveigled by a mountain guide in eastern Tyrol into climbing the Drei Zinnen with him were so disappointed, after reaching the highest of the three peaks, with what Nature had to offer them on this highest peak that then and there they killed the guide, a family man with three children and, it seems, a deaf wife. When, however, they realized what they had actually done, they threw themselves off the peak, one after the other. After this, a newspaper in Birmingham wrote that Birmingham had lost its most outstanding newspaper publisher, its most extraordinary bank director, and its most able undertaker.

And the journey on the spiritual path is the greatest journey - no man has climbed a mountain peak higher than this, no man has ever dived into a deeper ocean. The depth of the self is the deepest, and the height is the highest.

In Jerusalem, belief as a form of aggression achieved near perfection. Whether you went deep in the earth or climbed the highest hill, someone's faith would track you down, catch you in its sights, and demand that you choose sides.

It’s not a question of better or worse. The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you’re supposed to go up and down when you’re supposed to go down. When you’re supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you’re supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there’s no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness. ‘I am he and / He is me: / Spring nightfall.’ Abandon the self, and there you are.

My lieutenants and I arrive at the battle in time to see Tactus climbing the highest tower, a knife in his teeth. There, standing on the edge of the hundred-meter parapet like some careless Greek champion, he pulls down his pants and pisses on the banner of House Apollo.

What drives my life is not the desire to get along with other people or make friends so much as a moral obligation to give back as much as—no, more than—I take. That’s karma. It’s really not so far from the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Some

For Her, I Can: > travel to the farthest of destinations > marathon across the globe > hike through the lengthiest of trails > dive into the deepest of oceans > climb the highest of mountains > fly to the edges of the sky and beyond > standstill patiently for eons > g̶o̶ s̶h̶o̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ w̶i̶t̶h̶ h̶e̶r̶

Removing the thought about the rotten feather, for now, Yuan calms his core, inhaling prana—the source energy from air. The animal’s wound healing. All the rabbits turn their necks now, watching him. At last, he deserves attention. They run to the Monk; jumping; climbing along the layered folds of his dark shawl; settling on his lap, thighs, and shoulders; competing with one another for the healing energy; seeking a share of the purity coming from the highest possible evolution in the universe. A monk’s purity procured through strict abstention won’t stain. Even a dead bird’s foul feather can’t tinge it.

My grandmother caught me climbing the highest tree in her yard, the one we were all forbidden to attempt. All five feet of her stood tall as she tilted her head back and squinted up at me. "Well, don't stop now," she said. "If you're going to fall no use doing it from the halfway point. Keep climbing and let's see just how high you can go.

I try to think of things to say but nothing comes, and if something did come I probably couldn't say it. This is my great obstacle, the biggest of all the boulders littering my path. In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thought. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses.

THE BEST word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words. They were the ones who could climb the highest. One such word shaker was a small, skinny girl. She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words. That’s why she could climb higher than anyone else. She had desire. She was hungry for them.

But at some point in my midtwenties I abandoned my boyhood fantasy of climbing Everest. By then it had become fashionable among alpine cognoscenti to denigrate Everest as a “slag heap”—a peak lacking sufficient technical challenges or aesthetic appeal to be a worthy objective for a “serious” climber, which I desperately aspired to be. I began to look down my nose at the world’s highest mountain.

It’s like when you climb a ladder. When you get to the fourth rung, you may think you are on the highest step and cannot go higher, so you hold on to the fourth rung. But in fact there is a fifth rung; if you want to get to it, you have to be willing to abandon the fourth rung. Ideas and perceptions should be abandoned all the time, to make room for better ideas and truer perceptions. This is why we must always ask ourselves, “Am I sure?

It’s not a question of better or worse. The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you’re supposed to go up and down when you’re supposed to go down. When you’re supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you’re supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there’s no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness.

There is a Hindu legend that tells us that there was once a time when all men were gods, but they abused their divinity. Brahma, the god of creation, concluded that people had lost the right to their divinity and decided to take it away from them. Wanting to hide it somewhere where they wouldn’t be able to find it, he called a council of all the gods to advise him. Some suggested that they bury it deep in the earth, others that they sink it in the ocean, others still suggested it be placed on top of the highest mountain, but Brahma said that mankind was ingenious and would dig down far into the earth, trawl the deepest oceans and climb every mountain in an effort to find it again. ‘The gods were on the point of giving up when Brahma said, “I know where we will hide man’s divinity, we will hide it inside him. He will search the whole world but never look inside and find what is already within.”’ Viola

Welcome to the Church of the Serpent. The universe is the Tree of Knowledge. At the top of the tree is the Golden Bough with which we attain Golden Knowledge, the Apex Knowledge of the cosmos. So, we must climb. All the way to the highest consciousness. The Church of the Serpent is devoted to knowledge – ultimate knowledge, the knowledge of existence itself. We must have Absolute Knowledge. Nothing else will suffice. Completion, or nothing. From the top of the Tree of Knowledge, we shall command all knowledge. Like Faust, we will make a pact with any force to reach our goal. Like Prometheus, we will steal from the gods and risk any punishment to secure our ends. Like the Cimmerians, we will travel from the deepest darkness, where the sun never shines, to the brightest light. Like the Hyperboreans, we seek the perfect land where the sun always shines, yet we Hyperborean Apollonians must be able to return to Dionysian Cimmeria to enjoy the intoxication of the dark.

As the number of deaths climbed to the highest in the world, America—and those looking to it for leadership—had to come to terms with the untested fragilities of its social ecosystem. “To a watching world,” wrote The Guardian, “the absence of a fair, affordable US healthcare system, the cut-throat contest between American states for scarce medical supplies, the disproportionate death toll among ethnic minorities, chaotic social distancing rules, and a lack of centralised coordination are reminiscent of a poor, developing country, not the most powerful, influential nation on earth.

Let us grant courage and the love of pure adventure their own justification, even if we cannot produce any material support for them. Mankind has developed an ugly habit of only allowing true courage to the killers. Great credits accrue to the one who bests another; little is given to the man who recognises in his comrade on the rope a part of himself, who for long hours of extreme peril faces no opponent to be shot or struck down, but whose battle is solely against his own weakness and insufficiency. Is the man who, at moments when his own life is in the balance, has not only to safeguard it but, at the same time, his friend's- even to the extent of mutual self-sacrifice- to receive less recognition than a boxer n the ring, simply because the nature of what he is doing is not properly understood? In his book about the Dachstein, Kurt Maix writes: "Climbing is th emost royl irrationality out of which Man, in his creative imagination, has been able to fashion the highest personal values." Those personal values, which we gain from our approach to the mountains, are great enough to enrich our life. Is not the irrationality of its very lack of purpose the deepest argument for climbing? But we had better leave philosophical niceties and unsuitable psychoanalisis out of this.

This was a far different conversation than the one I'd had earlier with Papa. He clearly believed that colonel Hamilton would in fact be mine for the taking, like an apple that dropped from the tree into my hand of its own accord. Aunt Gertrude, however, expected me to climb to the highest branches of the apple tree, reach for the fruit, and tug it free if I wanted it. And yet I found that I preferred Aunt Gertrude's perspective. Fed only by memory and an impression, I had come this far through snow and ice. I needed to learn if colonel was not only special for for this country, but special for me. If he proved he was, if love grew between us, then I would do whatever I must for the sake of that love. In a land full of soldiers, this would be my battle. And I would win. I. Eliza Hamilton.

One in four black men in their twenties is either in jail, on parole, or on probation.4 This is approximately ten times the rate for whites of the same age.5 Though they are only 12 percent of the population, blacks commit more than half of all rapes and robberies and 60 percent of the murders in America.6 Other measures are just as grim. From 1985 to 1990, while syphilis rates for whites continued their long-running decline, they rose 126 percent for black men and 231 percent for black women. Blacks are now fifty times more likely to have syphilis than whites.7 Blacks have the highest infant mortality rates for any American racial group and are twice as likely as whites to die in their first year.8 Black children are four times as likely as whites to be living in poverty,9 and less than half as likely to be living with two parents.10 Illegitimacy rates for blacks have climbed steadily, and now more than 66 percent of all black children are born out of wedlock. The rate for whites is 19 percent.11 Young

t is discovered an extraordinary similarity between Nietzsche and the Hindu-Aryan Rishi, visionary poets of the Vedas. They also thought the ideas from outside to inside: they 'appeared' to them. Rishi means 'he who sees'. See an Idea, express it, or try to express it. The job of the Rishis has been fulfilled for millennia and the vision of the Vedas was revised, elaborated, in subsequent visions, in scholastics, in doctrinal buildings and sophisticated verifications, through centuries. In any case, he, who preached not to subtract anything that life offers as Will of Power, as possession, increasing its power, lived chaste, like a yogi, always looking for the highest tensions of the soul, climbing always, more and more lonely, to be able to open up to that style of thinking, where the ideas could possess him as the most authentic expression of life, as his 'pulse', hitting him in the center of the personal being, or of the existence there accumulated, and that he called, long before Jung and any other psychologist, the Self, to differentiate it from the conscious and limited self, from the rational self. Let's clarify, then. What Nietzsche called thinking is something else, Nietzsche did not think with his head (because 'synchronistically' it hurt) but with the Self, with all of life and, especially, 'with the feet'. 'I think with my feet,' he said, 'because I think walking, climbing.' That is, when the effort and exhaustion caused the conscious mind to enter a kind of drowsiness or semi-sleep, there it took possession of the work of thinking that 'other thing', the Self, opening up to the dazzling penetration of the Idea, or that expression of the Original Power of Life, of Being, of the Will of Power, which crosses man from part to part, as in a yoga samadhi, or in a kaivalya, from an ancient rishi, or Tantric Siddha. Also like those rays that pierced the Etruscan 'fulgurators', to change them, and that they were able to resist thanks to a purified technique of concentration and initiation preparation. That this is a deep Aryan, Hyperborean, that is, Nordic-polar, Germanic style of origins ('let's face ourselves, we are Hyperborean'), and that he knew it, is proved in the name he gave his more beautiful, bigger work: 'Thus spoke Zarathustra'. Zarathustra is the Aryan Magician-reformer of ancient Persia.

(from Lady of the Lake) The western waves of ebbing day Rolled o’er the glen their level way; Each purple peak, each flinty spire, Was bathed in floods of living fire. But not a setting beam could glow Within the dark ravines below, Where twined the path in shadow hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splintered pinnacle; Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the tower which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar’s plain. The rocky summits, split and rent, Formed turret, dome, or battlement, Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as pagod ever decked, Or mosque of Eastern architect. Nor were these earth-born castles bare, Nor lacked they many a banner fair; For, from their shivered brows displayed, Far o’er the unfathomable glade, All twinkling with the dewdrop sheen, The brier-rose fell in streamers green, And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes, Waved in the west-wind’s summer sighs. Boon nature scattered, free and wild, Each plant or flower, the mountain’s child. Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Fox-glove and night-shade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain. With boughs that quaked at every breath, Gray birch and aspen wept beneath; Aloft, the ash and warrior oak Cast anchor in the rifted rock; And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung His shattered trunk, and frequent flung, Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high, His boughs athwart the narrowed sky. Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glist’ning streamers waved and danced, The wanderer’s eye could barely view The summer heaven’s delicious blue; So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream. Onward, amid the copse ’gan peep A narrow inlet, still and deep, Affording scarce such breadth of brim As served the wild duck’s brood to swim. Lost for a space, through thickets veering, But broader when again appearing, Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face Could on the dark-blue mirror trace; And farther as the hunter strayed, Still broader sweep its channels made. The shaggy mounds no longer stood, Emerging from entangled wood, But, wave-encircled, seemed to float, Like castle girdled with its moat; Yet broader floods extending still Divide them from their parent hill, Till each, retiring, claims to be An islet in an inland sea. And now, to issue from the glen, No pathway meets the wanderer’s ken, Unless he climb, with footing nice A far projecting precipice. The broom’s tough roots his ladder made, The hazel saplings lent their aid; And thus an airy point he won, Where, gleaming with the setting sun, One burnished sheet of living gold, Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled, In all her length far winding lay, With promontory, creek, and bay, And islands that, empurpled bright, Floated amid the livelier light, And mountains, that like giants stand, To sentinel enchanted land. High on the south, huge Benvenue Down to the lake in masses threw Crags, knolls, and mountains, confusedly hurled, The fragments of an earlier world; A wildering forest feathered o’er His ruined sides and summit hoar, While on the north, through middle air, Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

1. You most want your friends and family to see you as someone who …     a. Is willing to make sacrifices and help anyone in need.     b. Is liked by everyone.     c. Is trustworthy.     d. Will protect them no matter what happens.     e. Offers wise advice. 2. When you are faced with a difficult problem, you react by …     a. Doing whatever will be the best thing for the greatest number of people.     b. Creating a work of art that expresses your feelings about the situation.     c. Debating the issue with your friends.     d. Facing it head-on. What else would you do?     e. Making a list of pros and cons, and then choosing the option that the evidence best supports. 3. What activity would you most likely find yourself doing on the weekend or on an unexpected day off?     a. Volunteering     b. Painting, dancing, or writing poetry     c. Sharing opinions with your friends     d. Rock-climbing or skydiving!     e. Catching up on your homework or reading for pleasure 4. If you had to select one of the following options as a profession, which would you choose?     a. Humanitarian     b. Farmer     c. Judge     d. Firefighter     e. Scientist 5. When choosing your outfit for the day, you select …     a. Whatever will attract the least amount of attention.     b. Something comfortable, but interesting to look at.     c. Something that’s simple, but still expresses your personality.     d. Whatever will attract the most attention.     e. Something that will not distract or inhibit you from what you have to do that day. 6. If you discovered that a friend’s significant other was being unfaithful, you would …     a. Tell your friend because you feel that it would be unhealthy for him or her to continue in a relationship where such selfish behavior is present.     b. Sit them both down so that you can act as a mediator when they talk it over.     c. Tell your friend as soon as possible. You can’t imagine keeping that knowledge a secret.     d. Confront the cheater! You might also take action by slashing the cheater’s tires or egging his or her house—all in the name of protecting your friend, of course.     e. Keep it to yourself. Statistics prove that your friend will find out eventually. 7. What would you say is your highest priority in life right now?     a. Serving those around you     b. Finding peace and happiness for yourself     c. Seeking truth in all things     d. Developing your strength of character     e. Success in work or school

Between concentric pavement ripples glide errant echoes originating from beyond the Puddled Metropolis. Windowless blocks and pickle-shaped monuments demarcate the boundaries of patternistic cycles from those wilds kissed neither by starlight nor moonlight. Lethal underbrush of razor-like excrescence pierces at the skins of night, crawls with hyperactive sprouts and verminous vines that howl with contempt for the wicked fortunes of Marshland Organizers armed with scythes and hoes and flaming torches who have only succeeded in crafting their own folly where once stood something of glorious and generous integrity. There are familiar whispers under leaves perched upon by flapping moths. They implore the spirit again to heed the warnings of the vines and to not be swayed by the hubris of these organizing opportunists. One is to stop moving at frantic zigzags through gridlocked streets, stop climbing ladders altogether, stop relying on drainage pipes where floods should prevail, stop tapping one’s feet in waiting rooms expecting to be seen and examined and acknowledged. Rather, one is to eschew unseemly fabrications and conceal oneself beneath the surface of leaves—perhaps even inside the droplets of dew—one is, after all, to feel shameful of the form, of all forms, and seek instead to merge with whispers which do not shun or excoriate, for they are otherwise occupied in the act of designating meaning. Yet, what meaning stands beyond the rectitude of angles and symmetry, but rather in wilds among agitated insects and resplendent bogs and malicious spiders and rippling mosses pronouncing doom upon their surroundings? One is said to find only the same degree of opportunism, and nothing greatly edifying that could serve to extend beyond the banalities of self-preservation. But no, surely there is something more than this—there absolutely must be something more, and it is to be found! Forget what is said about ‘opportunism’—this is just a word and, thusly, a distraction. The key issue is that there are many such campaigns of contrivance mounted by the taxonomic self-interest of categories and frameworks ‘who’ only seek primacy and authority over their consumers. The ascription of ‘this’ may thusly be ascribed also with that of ‘this other’ and so it cannot be ‘that precisely’ because ‘this’ contradicts another ‘that other’ with which ‘this other’ surely claims affiliation. Certainly, in view of such limiting factors, there is a frustration that one is bound to feel that the answers available are constrained and formulaic and insufficient and that one is simply to accept the way of things as though they are defined by the highest of mathematics and do not beget anything higher. One is, thusly, to cease in one’s quest for unexplored possibility. The lines have been drawn, the contradictions defined and so one cannot expect to go very far with these mathematical rules and boundaries in place. There are ways out: one might assume the value of an imaginary unit and bounce out of any restrictive quadrant as with the errant echoes against the rippling pavement of this Puddled Metropolis. One will then experience something akin to a bounding and rebounding leap—iterative, but with all subleaps constituting a more sweeping trajectory—outward to other landscapes and null landscapes, inward through corridors and toward the centroid of circumcentric chamber clusters, into crevices and trenches between paradigms and over those mountain peaks of abstruse calculation.