Holding Space For Someone Quotes

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete... Remember, to spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side. Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent. Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person might not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

Somewhere someone thinks they love someone else exactly like I love you. Somewhere someone shakes from the ripple of a thousand butterflies inside a single stomach. Somewhere someone is packing their bags to see the world with someone else. Somewhere someone is reaching through the most terrifying few feet of space to hold the hand of someone else. Somewhere someone is watching someone else’s chest rise and fall with the breath of slumber. Somewhere someone is pouring ink like blood onto pages fighting to say the truth that has no words. Somewhere someone is waiting patient but exhausted to just be with someone else. Somewhere someone is opening their eyes to a sunrise in someplace they have never seen. Somewhere someone is pulling out the petals twisting the apple stem picking up the heads up penny rubbing the rabbits foot knocking on wood throwing coins into fountains hunting for the only clover with only 4 leaves skipping over the cracks snapping the wishbone crossing their fingers blowing out the candles sending dandelion seeds into the air ushering eyelashes off their thumbs finding the first star and waiting for 11:11 on their clock to spend their wishes on someone else. Somewhere someone is saying goodbye but somewhere someone else is saying hello. Somewhere someone is sharing their first or their last kiss with their or no longer their someone else. Somewhere someone is wondering if how they feel is how the other they feels about them and if both theys could ever become a they together. Somewhere someone is the decoder ring to all of the great mysteries of life for someone else. Somewhere someone is the treasure map. Somewhere someone thinks they love someone else exactly like I love you. Somewhere someone is wrong.

There’s power in the touch of another person’s hand. We acknowledge it in little ways, all the time. There’s a reason human beings shake hands, hold hands, slap hands, bump hands. “It comes from our very earliest memories, when we all come into the world blinded by light and color, deafened by riotous sound, flailing in a suddenly cavernous space without any way of orienting ourselves, shuddering with cold, emptied with hunger, and justifiably frightened and confused. And what changes that first horror, that original state of terror? “The touch of another person’s hands. “Hands that wrap us in warmth, that hold us close. Hands that guide us to shelter, to comfort, to food. Hands that hold and touch and reassure us through our very first crisis, and guide us into our very first shelter from pain. The first thing we ever learn is that the touch of someone else’s hand can ease pain and make things better. “That’s power. That’s power so fundamental that most people never even realize it exists.

It's not all gone. She loved someone before and so did I. The Society and the Rising and the world are all still out there, pressing against us. But Lei holds them away. She's made enough space for two people to stand up together, whether or not any Society or Rising says that they can. She's done it before. The amazing thing is that she's not afraid to do it again. When we fall in love the first time, we don't know anything. We risk a lot less than we do if we choose to love again. There is something extraordinary about the first time falling. But if feels even better to find myself standing on solid ground, with someone holding on to me, pulling me back, and know that I'm doing the same for her.

Empty Spaces I wanted to feel less. To not be burdened by emotion, To not feel sadness, To not know loss. I envied the inanimate, The trees that stand proudly in winter, Not missing their leaves. I wanted to be weightless, To not experience limitation. I didn’t want time to pass, The blur of days, months, years. It moved too quickly, I wanted to grasp on, Hold it. It eluded me, Intangible, Like light. I wanted to preserve life before you were gone. I didn’t want to know grief. But the pain kept me connected. It meant that I loved you, It meant that I would always be a little broken, It meant that our love filled all of the empty spaces. It meant that you would be with me... forever.

Respect has nothing to do with who is right and who is wrong. It has to do with allowing space for someone else's opinion.

...I missed even the idea of home. But it seems to me that if you are someone who leaves, then you must always be leaving, because to stop leaving is to stay, which holds its own consequences. The space between staying and leaving, I think, is called longing.

Life is like a train ride. The passengers on the train are seemingly going to the same destination as you, but based on their belief in you or their belief that the train will get them to their desired destination they will stay on the ride or they will get off somewhere during the trip. People can and will get off at any stop. Just know that where people get off is more of an reflection on them, than it is on you. There will be a few people in your life that will make the whole trip with you, who believe in you, accept that you are human and that mistakes will be made along the way, and that you will get to your desired destination - together, no matter what. Be very grateful of these people. They are rare and when you find one, don't let go of them - ever. Be blessed for the ones who get on at the worst stops when no one is there. Remember those people, they are special. Always hold them dear to your heart. Be very wary of people sneaking on at certain stops when things are going good and acting like they have been there for the whole ride. For they will be the first to depart. There will be ones who secretly try to get off the ride and there will be those that very publicly will jump off. Don't pay any heed to the defectors. Pay heed to the passengers that are still on the trip. They are the important ones. If someone tries to get back on the train - don't be angry or hold a grudge, let them. Just see where they are around the next hard turn. If they are buckled in - accept them. If they are pulling the hand rail alarm again - then let them off the train freely and waste no space in your head for them again, ever. There will be times that the train will be moving slow, at almost a crawls pace. Appreciate that you can take in the view. There will be times where the train is going so fast that everything is a blur. Enjoy the sense of speed in your life, as it is exhilarating but unsustainable. There will also be the chance that the train derails. If that does happen, it will hurt, a lot, for a long time. But there will be people who will appear out of no where who will get you back on track. Those will be the people that will matter most in your life. Love them forever. For you can never repay these people. The thing is, that even if you could repay them, they wouldn't accept it anyway. Just pay it forward. Eventually your train will get to its final stop and you will need to deboard. At that time you will realize that life is about the journey AND the destination. Know and have faith that at the end of your ride your train will have the right passengers on board and all the passengers that were on board at one time or another were there for a distinct purpose. Enjoy the ride.

If nothing else there's a comfort in knowing someone's holding space in their own life for what's hurting you. That's the thing that makes life bearable sometimes, I think: that you can feel more than one thing at a time, that it floods into you from so many directions at once.

Jeremy will take her like the Angel itself, in his joyless weasel-worded come-along, and Roger will be forgotten, an amusing maniac, but with no place in the rationalized power-ritual that will be the coming peace. She will take her husband's orders, she will become a domestic bureaucrat, a junior partner, and remember Roger, if at all, as a mistake thank God she didn't make…. Oh, he feels a raving fit coming on—how the bloody hell can he survive without her? She is the British warm that protects his stooping shoulders, and the wintering sparrow he holds inside his hands. She is his deepest innocence in spaces of bough and hay before wishes were given a separate name to warn that they might not come true, and his lithe Parisian daughter of joy, beneath the eternal mirror, forswearing perfumes, capeskin to the armpits, all that is too easy, for his impoverishment and more worthy love. You go from dream to dream inside me. You have passage to my last shabby corner, and there, among the debris, you've found life. I'm no longer sure which of all the words, images, dreams or ghosts are 'yours' and which are 'mine.' It's past sorting out. We're both being someone new now, someone incredible….

Saint Bartleby's School for Young Gentlemen Annual Report Student: Artemis Fowl II Year: First Fees: Paid Tutor: Dr Po Language Arts As far as I can tell, Artemis has made absolutely no progress since the beginning of the year. This is because his abilities are beyond the scope of my experience. He memorizes and understands Shakespeare after a single reading. He finds mistakes in every exercise I administer, and has taken to chuckling gently when I attempt to explain some of the more complex texts. Next year I intend to grant his request and give him a library pass during my class. Mathematics Artemis is an infuriating boy. One day he answers all my questions correctly, and the next every answer is wrong. He calls this an example of the chaos theory, and says that he is only trying to prepare me for the real world. He says the notion of infinity is ridiculous. Frankly, I am not trained to deal with a boy like Artemis. Most of my pupils have trouble counting without the aid of their fingers. I am sorry to say, there is nothing I can teach Artemis about mathematics, but someone should teach him some manners. Social Studies Artemis distrusts all history texts, because he says history was written by the victors. He prefers living history, where survivors of certain events can actually be interviewed. Obviously this makes studying the Middle Ages somewhat difficult. Artemis has asked for permission to build a time machine next year during double periods so that the entire class may view Medieval Ireland for ourselves. I have granted his wish and would not be at all surprised if he succeeded in his goal. Science Artemis does not see himself as a student, rather as a foil for the theories of science. He insists that the periodic table is a few elements short and that the theory of relativity is all very well on paper but would not hold up in the real world, because space will disintegrate before lime. I made the mistake of arguing once, and young Artemis reduced me to near tears in seconds. Artemis has asked for permission to conduct failure analysis tests on the school next term. I must grant his request, as I fear there is nothing he can learn from me. Social & Personal Development Artemis is quite perceptive and extremely intellectual. He can answer the questions on any psychological profile perfectly, but this is only because he knows the perfect answer. I fear that Artemis feels that the other boys are too childish. He refuses to socialize, preferring to work on his various projects during free periods. The more he works alone, the more isolated he becomes, and if he does not change his habits soon, he may isolate himself completely from anyone wishing to be his friend, and, ultimately, his family. Must try harder.

I used to think I couldn't go a day without your smile. Without telling you things and hearing your voice back. Then, that day arrived and it was so damn hard but the next was harder. I knew with a sinking feeling it was going to get worse, and I wasn't going to be okay for a very long time. Because losing someone isn't an occasion or an event. It doesn't just happen once. It happens over and over again. I lose you every time I pick up your favorite coffee mug; whenever that one song plays on the radio, or when I discover your old t-shirt at the bottom of my laundry pile. I lose you every time I think of kissing you, holding you, or wanting you. I go to bed at night and lose you, when I wish could tell you about my day. And in the morning, when I wake and reach for the empty space across the sheets, begin to lose you all over again.

You might make people uncomfortable, even those you love them most and it will hurt. The masses will likely misunderstand you and as a result they will judge you and even lash out at you and you may have to walk alone sometimes. Your joy, your freedom and your magic will infuriate those who feel trapped in a life they secretly hate. When your truth threatens someones belief system, they will come at you like a storm and you will have to stand and let them roar all around you. If you're creating change, the people benefiting from the current system will likely try to stop you. Be brave. Stand. Hold space for change. Keep writing. Keep dancing. Keep singing. Keep shining your light on the world. We need your beauty and your truth. We need you- the real you!

FOR THE DYING May death come gently toward you, Leaving you time to make your way Through the cold embrace of fear To the place of inner tranquillity. May death arrive only after a long life To find you at home among your own With every comfort and care you require. May your leave-taking be gracious, Enabling you to hold dignity Through awkwardness and illness. May you see the reflection Of your life’s kindness and beauty In all the tears that fall for you. As your eyes focus on each face, May your soul take its imprint, Drawing each image within As companions for the journey. May you find for each one you love A different locket of jeweled words To be worn around the heart To warm your absence. May someone who knows and loves The complex village of your heart Be there to echo you back to yourself And create a sure word-raft To carry you to the further shore. May your spirit feel The surge of true delight When the veil of the visible Is raised, and you glimpse again The living faces Of departed family and friends. May there be some beautiful surprise Waiting for you inside death, Something you never knew or felt, Which with one simple touch, Absolves you of all loneliness and loss, As you quicken within the embrace For which your soul was eternally made. May your heart be speechless At the sight of the truth Of all belief had hoped, Your heart breathless In the light and lightness Where each and everything Is at last its true self Within that serene belonging That dwells beside us On the other side Of what we see.

It would be a great exercise for someone thinks they want to move to New York: Sit in an enclosed space full of fumes and hold hands with a stranger for twenty minutes while everyone around you speaks a language you don't understand, If you enjoy this, you will enjoy the 6 train.

The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost; a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. Yet this destination cannot any longer be personal: the reader is without history, biography, psychology; he is simply that someone who holds together in a single field all the traces by which the written text is constituted…Classic criticism has never paid any attention to the reader; for it, the writer is the only person in literature…we know that to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author. [Final passage in "The Death of the Author," in Image-Music-Text, by Roland Barthes, Trans. Stephen Heath (1977)]

That's my window. This minute So gently did I alight From sleep--was still floating in it. Where has my life its limit And where begins the night? I could fancy all things around me Were nothing but I as yet; Like a crystal's depth, profoundly Mute, translucent, unlit. I have space to spare inside me For the stars, too: so full of room Feels my heart; so lightly Would it let go of him, whom For all I know I have started To love, it may be to hold. Strange, as if never charted, Stares my fortune untold. Why is it I am bedded Beneath this infinitude, Fragrant like a meadow, Hither and thither moved, Calling out, yet fearing Someone might hear the cry, Destined to disappearing Within another I.

With all respect to the Buddha and to the early Christian celibates, I sometimes wonder if all this teaching about nonattachment and the spiritual importance of monastic solitude might be denying us something quite vital. Maybe all that renunciation of intimacy denies us the opportunity to ever experience that very earthbound, domesticated, dirt-under-the-fingernails gift of the difficult, long-term, daily forgiveness {...} Maybe creating a big enough space within your consciousness to hold and accept someone's contradictions - someone's idiocies, even - is a kind of divine act. Perhaps transcendence can be found not only on solitary mountaintops or in monastic settings, but also at your own kitchen table, in the daily acceptance of your partner's most tiresome, irritating faults.

Don't be their friend, be their parent!", they say. Hmm...yea, fuck that advice. To each their own, but I pretty much think that's the worst advice you could offer. I know far too many teens who come talk to me about their REAL life because they can't talk to their parents. We are headed into preteen years and I want my girls to be able to talk to me about what's really going on with them. I don't want them to be scared to talk to me for fear that I will be angry or disappointed. People tell me that I'll regret this and that it will bite me in the ass someday. I'll take my chances. The way I see it is: You can't scare someone into changing, you'll just scare them enough that they learn how to pretend. They will put on a mask and they may never find the courage to take it off. I've been telling them they could trust me since they were born; not with my words, but with my actions. One reaction at a time, letting them know that I'm not scared of who they are. I share my opinions and I give advice when the time is right, but mostly I'm here to hold space for them while they find their way in this world. I'm not worried about my kids appearing perfect, I'm worried about them being one person in front of me and an entirely different person when I'm not around. I choose to be their friend and get to know them as they are, not as I want them to be.

Those of us who have been violated or around violence or cruelty—and really those of us who have simply grown up in a racist, sexist, homophobic world—knew how far we could go, how loud we could get, how big we could become, how much space or attention we could occupy. We learned the price we had to pay for our bigness, our desire, and our ambition. We were practiced at the dance. We cherished the walls of our confines because they gave definition to our lives, boundaries. We wrongly believed this was safety, protection. We made sure someone was assigned to bring us down a notch, remind us who we really are, hold the truth of our badness.

Because the dead don’t want you to die with them,” Winnie stated. “Love transcends space and time. It holds no bounds or limits. Dear girl, love is stronger than death because if you love someone, they can never truly die.

You can't tell that the coffin holds the body of a boy. He wasn't even sixteen but his coffin's the same size as a man's would be. It's not just that he was young, but because it was so sudden. No one should die the way he did; that's what the faces here say. I think about him, in there, with all that space, and I want to stop them. I want to open the box and climb in with him. To wrap him up in a duvet. I can't bear the thought of him being cold. And all the time the same question flails around my head, like a hawkmoth round a light-bulb: Is it possible to keep loving somebody when they kill someone you love?

Hospitality is holding space for another person to be seen and heard and loved. It’s giving someone a place to be when they’d otherwise be alone. It’s, as my friend Sibyl says, when someone leaves your home feeling better about themselves, not better about you.

Sometimes there is so much that needs to be said that we must get really quiet in the hopes that someone out there is listening hard enough to the silence to hear every last word.

Every time I access unconditional love for another, I am blessed. Every time I hug someone, I am blessed. Every time I unconditionally hold space for another’s suffering, I am blessed.

It’s okay to experience the flow of all emotions; however, if we get caught up in feeling pity for others and take on the responsibility of being their ‘savior’, we often take away their power to ‘save’ themselves. If I see someone as ‘messed up’ then I am projecting my ‘messed up’ vibration onto them, so I am unable to hold space. Yet, if I already view them as whole, well, and beautiful – then I am able to be a vibrational key (vessel of Spirit) that uplifts their energy so that it may come into alignment with being whole, well, and beautiful. It’s not that I do any of the healing; I’m simply a mirror reflecting acceptance and loving them for exactly who they are, right where they are. That is all that is ever truly asked of us, to accept and to love.

There can be no question that Musk has mastered the art of getting the most out of his employees. Interview three dozen SpaceX engineers and each one of them will have picked up on a managerial nuance that Musk has used to get people to meet his deadlines. One example from Brogan: Where a typical manager may set the deadline for the employee, Musk guides his engineers into taking ownership of their own delivery dates. “He doesn’t say, ‘You have to do this by Friday at two P.M.,’” Brogan said. “He says, ‘I need the impossible done by Friday at two P.M. Can you do it?’ Then, when you say yes, you are not working hard because he told you to. You’re working hard for yourself. It’s a distinction you can feel. You have signed up to do your own work.” And by recruiting hundreds of bright, self-motivated people, SpaceX has maximized the power of the individual. One person putting in a sixteen-hour day ends up being much more effective than two people working eight-hour days together. The individual doesn’t have to hold meetings, reach a consensus, or bring other people up to speed on a project. He just keeps working and working and working. The ideal SpaceX employee is someone like Steve Davis, the director of advanced projects at SpaceX. “He’s been working sixteen hours a day every day for years,” Brogan said. “He gets more done than eleven people working together.

There’s power in the touch of another person’s hand. We acknowledge it in little ways, all the time. There’s a reason human beings shake hands, hold hands, slap hands, bump hands. It comes from our very earliest memories, when we all come into the world blinded by light and color, deafened by riotous sound, flailing in a suddenly cavernous space without any way of orienting ourselves, shuddering with cold, emptied with hunger, and justifiably frightened and confused. And what changes that first horror, that original state of terror? The touch of another person’s hands. Hands that wrap us in warmth, that hold us close. Hands that guide us to shelter, to comfort, to food. Hands that hold and touch and reassure us through our very first crisis, and guide us into our very first shelter from pain. The first thing we ever learn is that the touch of someone else’s hand can ease pain and make things better. That’s power. That’s power so fundamental that most people never even realize it exists.

Holding onto a grudge is the equivalent of intending to poison someone, but ending up drinking the poison yourself. Just like physical junk has been clogging up your wallet and your money spaces, the mental junk is clogging up your precious heart.  Even if you think you let go of past negative situations, they may still live within you in your precious heart space. The way to release it all is to forgive it all.

Don’t worry. I’m going to give you a balloon, Grandpa. So you can have it in space.”   “A balloon won’t stop me from disappearing, Noahnoah.” Grandpa sighs.   “I know. But you’ll get it on your birthday. As a present.”   “That sounds unnecessary.” Grandpa smiles.   The boy nods.   “If you keep hold of it you’ll know that right before you went into space someone gave you a balloon. And it’s the most unnecessary present anyone can get because there’s absolutely no need for a balloon in space. And that’ll make you laugh.”   Grandpa closes his eyes. Breathes in the boy’s hair.   “That’s the best present I’ve never been given.

It seems to me that if you are someone who leaves, then you must always be leaving, because to stop leaving is to stay, which holds its own consequences. The space between leaving and staying, I think, is called longing.

And suddenly I realize that all those books and movies had gotten it wrong. When you find your souls reflection in another, you shouldn’t be aware of anything other than their body, yours, and the space between. You shouldn’t be looking for someone whose kiss causes you to escape reality by transporting you to another time and place. Look for the person whose kiss grounds you firmly in the moment, whose arms hold you safely in the now.

I've never had anyone here like this with me after a loss. Obviously, I've been with girls after bad games before, but it was more about forgetting via fucking. Having someone hold space for you is different. It feels deeper.

Do not settle for living a version of your life designed by another. You are not meant to be gatekeeper or the holder of secrets and shame. You are here to live free and clear and into your own wide open truth. If you are spending too much time around people who expect otherwise you will begin to notice a feeling of constriction. Sometimes the life we create can be come a cage of our own making. Sometimes we stifle our truths to make others comfortable. Do not sacrifice your own comfort and freedom for that of another. The price you pay for this is too high. Define your own space. Remember your own divinity. You have a responsibility to this existence to live in fullness of your truth and art and purpose. Do not be diminished by circumstance or opinion or judgement. Your story is your own; nobody can write it but you. You hold the paper, you choose the pen, and you write your life story the way only you can. So, if someone tries to build you a box, rip that fucker apart and use the wood to build yourself a stage, then ditch your indoor voice and sing it loud. People are not meant to live quietly in small containers no matter how beautiful. A gilded cage is still confinement. You are a wild child – only the open air of freedom will do.

I sense you need space to sort your head out. The thing is, I don’t. I need you. I’ve needed you since that day I first saw you. I need you to ask. I need to talk things through with you. I need to lay shit on you. And you can’t hold back, thinking I need space. Thinking I need what you need. I’ve been shouldering everyone else’s shit for a long time, honey. I don’t want that. I want someone with me to help me carry the load.

The lobby of the Fanny Briggs Memorial Building was almost finished when she arrived. As if to distract from the minuscule and cramped philosophy of what would transpire on the floors above, the city offered visitors the spacial bounty of the lobby. The ersatz marble was firm underfoot like real marble, sheer, and produced trembling echoes effortlessly. The circle of Doric columns braced the weight above without complaint. The mural, however, was not complete. It started out jauntily enough to Lila Mae’s left. Cheerless Indians holding up a deerskin in front of a fire. The original tenants, sure. A galleon negotiating the tricky channels around the island. Two beaming Indians trading beads to a gang of white men—the infamous sale of the Island. Big moment, have to include that, the first of many dubious transactions in the city’s history. (They didn’t have elevators yet. That’s why the scenes look so flat to Lila Mae: the city is dimensionless.) The mural jumped to the Revolution then, she noticed, skipped over a lot of stuff. The painter seemed to be making it up as he went along, like the men who shaped the city. The Revolution scene was a nice setpiece—the colonists pulling down the statue of King George III. They melted it down for ammunition, if she remembers correctly. It’s always nice when a good mob comes together. The painting ended there. (Someone knocks at the door of her room in 117 Second Avenue, but she doesn’t open her eyes.) Judging from the amount of wall space that remained to Lila Mae’s right, the mural would have to get even more brief in its chronicle of the city’s greatest hits. Either the painter had misjudged how much space he had or the intervening years weren’t that compelling to him. Just the broad strokes, please.

During this hour in the waking streets I felt at ease, at peace; my body, which I despised, operated like a machine. I was spaced out, the catchphrase my friends at school used to describe their first experiments with marijuana and booze. This buzzword perfectly described a picture in my mind of me, Alice, hovering just below the ceiling like a balloon and looking down at my own small bed where a big man lay heavily on a little girl I couldn’t quite see or recognize. It wasn’t me. I was spaced out on the ceiling. I had that same spacey feeling when I cooked for my father, which I still did, though less often. I made omelettes, of course. I cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl, and as I reached for the butter dish, I always had an odd sensation in my hands and arms. My fingers prickled; it didn’t feel like me but someone else cutting off a great chunk of greasy butter and putting it into the pan. I’d add a large amount of salt — I knew what it did to your blood pressure, and I mumbled curses as I whisked the brew. When I poured the slop into the hot butter and shuffled the frying pan over the burner, it didn’t look like my hand holding the frying-pan handle and I am sure it was someone else’s eyes that watched the eggs bubble and brown. As I dropped two slices of wholemeal bread in the toaster, I would observe myself as if from across the room and, with tingling hands gripping the spatula, folded the omelette so it looked like an apple envelope. My alien hands would flip the omelette on to a plate and I’d spread the remainder of the butter on the toast when the two slices of bread leapt from the toaster. ‘Delicious,’ he’d say, commenting on the food before even trying it.

Until all men cease to believe that someone other than themselves is required to respond to their sexual needs demanding sexual subordination of partners will continue. A truly liberatory feminist sexual politic will always make the assertion of female sexual agency central. That agency cannot come into being when females believe their sexual bodies must always stand in the service of something else. Often professional prostitutes and women in everyday life hold up their free exchange of pussy for goods or services as an indication that they are liberated. They refuse to acknowledge the fact that whenever a woman prostitutes her body because she cannot satisfy material needs in other ways she risks forfeiting that space of sexual integrity where she controls her body. Masses of heterosexual women remain unable to let go the sexist assumption that their sexuality must always be sought after by men to have meaning and value...Aging females, many of whom once advocated feminist change, often find that they must subscribe to sexist notions of femininity and sexual desirability in order to have any sexual contact with men whom they fear will trade them in for a younger model.

Yeah sex is cool, but it's easily accessible. At this age I'm looking for something deeper. Chemistry i can't find on a resume, passion i can't ignore. Mind connection that allows conversation without words, a gaze that makes me forget which planet I'm on, and a depth that makes me want to stay. I want to dive deep into someone's soul and feel like I belong there. Face the world separately but intertwined in each others presence. A home that carries a heartbeat. All these years of riding solo, has helped me tend to my heart space and what a glorious little beat it now holds. An auric field re-awakened. A self-love journey, just for myself.

I don’t like stories. I like moments. I like night better than day, moon better than sun, and here-and-now better than any sometime-later. I also like birds, mushrooms, the blues, peacock feathers, black cats, blue-eyed people, heraldry, astrology, criminal stories with lots of blood, and ancient epic poems where human heads can hold conversations with former friends and generally have a great time for years after they’ve been cut off. I like good food and good drink, sitting in a hot bath and lounging in a snowbank, wearing everything I own at once, and having everything I need close at hand. I like speed and that special ache in the pit of the stomach when you accelerate to the point of no return. I like to frighten and to be frightened, to amuse and to confound. I like writing on the walls so that no one can guess who did it, and drawing so that no one can guess what it is. I like doing my writing using a ladder or not using it, with a spray can or squeezing the paint from a tube. I like painting with a brush, with a sponge, and with my fingers. I like drawing the outline first and then filling it in completely, so that there’s no empty space left. I like letters as big as myself, but I like very small ones as well. I like directing those who read them here and there by means of arrows, to other places where I also wrote something, but I also like to leave false trails and false signs. I like to tell fortunes with runes, bones, beans, lentils, and I Ching. Hot climates I like in the books and movies; in real life, rain and wind. Generally rain is what I like most of all. Spring rain, summer rain, autumn rain. Any rain, anytime. I like rereading things I’ve read a hundred times over. I like the sound of the harmonica, provided I’m the one playing it. I like lots of pockets, and clothes so worn that they become a kind of second skin instead of something that can be taken off. I like guardian amulets, but specific ones, so that each is responsible for something separate, not the all-inclusive kind. I like drying nettles and garlic and then adding them to anything and everything. I like covering my fingers with rubber cement and then peeling it off in front of everybody. I like sunglasses. Masks, umbrellas, old carved furniture, copper basins, checkered tablecloths, walnut shells, walnuts themselves, wicker chairs, yellowed postcards, gramophones, beads, the faces on triceratopses, yellow dandelions that are orange in the middle, melting snowmen whose carrot noses have fallen off, secret passages, fire-evacuation-route placards; I like fretting when in line at the doctor’s office, and screaming all of a sudden so that everyone around feels bad, and putting my arm or leg on someone when asleep, and scratching mosquito bites, and predicting the weather, keeping small objects behind my ears, receiving letters, playing solitaire, smoking someone else’s cigarettes, and rummaging in old papers and photographs. I like finding something lost so long ago that I’ve forgotten why I needed it in the first place. I like being really loved and being everyone’s last hope, I like my own hands—they are beautiful, I like driving somewhere in the dark using a flashlight, and turning something into something completely different, gluing and attaching things to each other and then being amazed that it actually worked. I like preparing things both edible and not, mixing drinks, tastes, and scents, curing friends of the hiccups by scaring them. There’s an awful lot of stuff I like.

Remember that once we were all the children of tomorrow's light and hope. Someone, somewhere dreamed of you even before you were born. We have already met in a thousand wishes or more. As the nights pass and the days turn into sand, Let us remember our gentleness and the beauty of our soul. Never forget that our faces have been kissed by a hundred Angels welcoming us into this world. A thousand moments have flown past our eyes and with each caress of the wind, it carries a prayer, whispering... Oh how I miss you. Many of our tears have fallen and we have all stood with regret holding our hand and loneliness laying beside us. Even when the distant memories come and knock at the doors of our heart, Each one remind us of the embraces we shared with those we love. But do not fear dear ones, True love never dies, it lives beyond time and space, it lives forever. Our souls will always be connected, We now have to rise to the frequency of a higher Divine love calling our name. And one day soon we will all be reunited in a far more beautiful and magnificent way that we could only have ever dreamed about. So my beloved ones, take a deep breath, put your hand on your heart and embrace this moment, with courage and faith. Turn your gaze towards the horizon of hope. We can do this magnificent journey together with love beneath our wings. Let us embrace love like never before and before you know it we will have flown towards each other realising that we had our wings of freedom all along. Until we meet again...We walk in dreams.

And one cold Tuesday in December, when Marie-Laure has been blind for over a year, her father walks her up rue Cuvier to the edge of the Jardin des Plantes. "Here, ma chérie, is the path we take every morning. Through the cedars up ahead is the Grand Gallery." "I know, Papa." He picks her up and spins her around three times. "Now," he says, "you're going to take us home." Her mouth drops open. "I want you to think of the model, Marie." "But I can't possibly!" "I'm one step behind you. I won't let anything happen. You have your cane. You know where you are." "I do not!" "You do." Exasperation. She cannot even say if the gardens are ahead or behind. "Calm yourself, Marie. One centimeter at a time." "I'm far, Papa. Six blocks, at least." "Six blocks is exactly right. Use logic. Which way should we go first?" The world pivots and rumbles. Crows shout, brakes hiss, someone to her left bangs something metal with what might be a hammer. She shuffles forward until the tip of her cane floats in space. The edge of a curb? A pond, a staircase, a cliff? She turns ninety degrees. Three steps forward. Now her cane finds the base of a wall. "Papa?" "I'm here." Six paces seven paces eight. A roar of noise - an exterminator just leaving a house, pump bellowing - overtakes them. Twelve paces farther on, the bell tied around the handle of a shop door rings, and two women came out, jostling her as they pass. Marie-Laure drops her cane; she begins to cry. Her father lifts her, holds her to his narrow chest. "It's so big," she whispers. "You can do this, Marie." She cannot.

In this sense, we can all start with this question for ourselves and our local church communities: Are we safe for people with mental health struggles? Do our relationships and programs provide low-barrier and consistent care for people? If your church has a program for unhoused folks, do you expel or ban people who exhibit erratic behavior? Knowing that these behaviors may not be willful, how can your program adjust to offer safety for all while also including those who require greater care and intention? If your programs are frequented by people with mental illness, are there any partnerships you can form with local nonprofits that work with this population? Is your Sunday service a place that would welcome and hold space for someone with unregulated mental illness? If not, what would need to change?

There’s power in the touch of another person’s hand. We acknowledge it in little ways, all the time. There’s a reason human beings shake hands, hold hands, slap hands, bump hands. It comes from our very earliest memories, when we all come into the world blinded by light and color, deafened by riotous sound, flailing in a suddenly cavernous space without any way of orienting ourselves, shuddering with cold, emptied with hunger, and justifiably frightened and confused. And what changes that first horror, that original state of terror? The touch of another person’s hands. Hands that wrap us in warmth, that hold us close. Hands that guide us to shelter, to comfort, to food. Hands that hold and touch and reassure us through our very first crisis, and guide us into our very first shelter from pain. The first thing we ever learn is that the touch of someone else’s hand can ease pain and make things better.

You have to let go. You have to let go because when you hold on, when you keep something alive inside of you, you are allowing for your past to take up the space in your heart and in your mind that is meant for your future. You have to let go because at the end of the day, if you are going to find the human being who is going to bring you the deepest kind of joy, if you are going to find the person who is going to help you experience the kind of love you have always deserved — you have to make sure that you are ready for it. You have to make sure that you will be open to it, and you cannot make a home within your heart for the person who will someday care for you in the softest of ways if someone else’s memory is still living there. You have to let go. You have to accept that sometimes beautiful things end, that sometimes people leave, that sometimes two human beings don’t beat the odds, and you have to find closure in that.

Erin. “No matter what else has happened, you’re water and your element is welcome in our circle, but we don’t need any negative energy here—this is too important.” I nodded to the spiders. Erin’s gaze followed mine and she gasped. “What the hell is that?” I opened my mouth to evade her question, but my gut stopped me. I met Erin’s blue eyes. “I think it’s what’s left of Neferet. I know it’s evil and it doesn’t belong at our school. Will you help us kick it out?” “Spiders are disgusting,” she began, but her voice faltered as she glanced at Shaunee. She lifted her chin and cleared her throat. “Disgusting things should go.” Resolutely, she walked to Shaunee and paused. “This is my school, too.” I thought Erin’s voice sounded weird and kinda raspy. I hoped that meant that her emotions were unfreezing and that, maybe, she was coming back around to being the kid we used to know. Shaunee held out her hand. Erin took it. “I’m glad you’re here,” I heard Shaunee whisper. Erin said nothing. “Be discreet,” I told her. Erin nodded tightly. “Water, come to me.” I could smell the sea and spring rains. “Make them wet,” she continued. Water beaded the cages and a puddle began to form under them. A fist-sized clump of spiders lost their hold on the metal and splashed into the waiting wetness. “Stevie Rae.” I held my hand out to her. She took mine, then Erin’s, completing the circle. “Earth, come to me,” she said. The scents and sounds of a meadow surrounded us. “Don’t let this pollute our campus.” Ever so slightly, the earth beneath us trembled. More spiders tumbled from the cages and fell into the pooling water, making it churn. Finally, it was my turn. “Spirit, come to me. Support the elements in expelling this Darkness that does not belong at our school.” There was a whooshing sound and all of the spiders dropped from the cages, falling into the waiting pool of water. The water quivered and began to change form, elongating—expanding. I focused, feeling the indwelling of spirit, the element for which I had the greatest affinity, and in my mind I pictured the pool of spiders being thrown out of our campus, like someone had emptied a pot of disgusting toilet water. Keeping that image in mind, I commanded: “Now get out!” “Out!” Damien echoed. “Go!” Shaunee said. “Leave!” Erin said. “Bye-bye now!” Stevie Rae said. Then, just like in my imagination, the pool of spiders lifted up, like they were going to be hurled from the earth. But in the space of a single breath the dark image reformed again into a familiar silhouette—curvaceous, beautiful, deadly. Neferet! Her features weren’t fully formed, but I recognized her and the malicious energy she radiated. “No!” I shouted. “Spirit! Strengthen each of the elements with the power of our love and loyalty! Air! Fire! Water! Earth! I call on thee, so mote it be!” There was a terrible shriek, and the Neferet apparition rushed forward. It surged from our circle, breaking over Erin

Music centers you,” I whispered to an empty car, staring at his front door. “You listened to your iPod between classes and while you sat on the bleachers before school every morning.” I smiled, letting more tears run down my cheeks and thinking back to him and his black hoodies, looking so dark. “You love popcorn. Almost every kind and flavor but especially with Tabasco sauce,” I said, remembering the times he would come into the theater where I worked. “You hold the door open for women—students, teachers, and even old ladies coming out of Baskin-Robbins. You love movies about natural disasters, but they have to have some comedy in them. Your favorite one is Armageddon.” I swallowed and thought about how little I’d ever seen Jax truly smile. “And while you love computers, it’s not your passion,” I concluded. “You love being outdoors. You love having space.” My whole face hurt, the last words barely audible. “And you deserve someone who makes you happy. I’m just not that person.

Your life's greatest heartbreaks are so often your friends: dating isn't always built for permanence, but friendship often is. You lose a lot of friends after university, more if you take an active stance against someone who used to be in the group. Worse is when those friendships are the ones you make when you move somewhere new and try on a new identity for a while, something that you think will fit better, will make people like you, and it still doesn't work. After you shoot out into the world and build a community, and people leave, you feel the loneliest you've ever been in your life. The formula doesn't work, and the people you think you'll love forever when you're eighteen and when you've had too much to drink are rarely around when you need them. The University Friend exists in only one ecosystem, a relationship that requires the confines of a school, of a space in time where you are lost and digging for belonging, where your identity is so scattered you're just happy to be loved. Drinking is fun, but it's also the glue that holds you and your most tenuous connections together.

Come with me. Don’t look at me like that. I know it’s ridiculous and that’s why. We’re dead here. If you still want us, we’ll have to go find it, but it isn’t here. I know two certainties. I love you and good things take work. Life is that thing we create when we already have what we need. I don’t need another yesterday. What’s the point? It’s no coincidence the things that I worked for were the only things that ever made me happy. In trying, I feel like a human again. In that space before the reward. Finally, I am. The men I met before you are as good as dust. I don’t even remember their names. All it took was looking at each other for us to meet. Nothing needed to be earned. It’s why most relationships are secretly unhappy. They were built on a neutral convenience. They don’t know each other. But the sex will be nice and the arms of holding someone in the holidays and hating being lonely will make us stay forever. Perfectly tame. Whatever happened to walking up to a stranger on the street and slaying the dragon of Fear? Marriages built on endeavor. Giving someone your whole day. Identity from hermitting. Life is achievement, honey. Death is saying okay. The best fruit is the one you have to climb for. You have to march through the fire. Make the jump. Drive across the country. Effort in love. Effort in fashion. Food. Work. Give thought to how we chew. How we move. Even speak. To make day and night things our own. It’s our only job. Indecision is criminal. When we try, we exist again. And I have to exist. I have to, I have to. So I’m leaving. And you can come if you want. I’m going either way, but you’d be my favorite. Flight’s at 5

I work as fast as I can. Binah will come soon looking for me. It’s Mother, however, who descends the back steps into the yard. Binah and the other house slaves are clumped behind her, moving with cautious, synchronized steps as if they’re a single creature, a centipede crossing an unprotected space. I sense the shadow that hovers over them in the air, some devouring dread, and I crawl back into the green-black gloom of the tree. The slaves stare at Mother’s back, which is straight and without give. She turns and admonishes them. “You are lagging. Quickly now, let us be done with this.” As she speaks, an older slave, Rosetta, is dragged from the cow house, dragged by a man, a yard slave. She fights, clawing at his face. Mother watches, impassive. He ties Rosetta’s hands to the corner column of the kitchen house porch. She looks over her shoulder and begs. Missus, please. Missus. Missus. Please. She begs even as the man lashes her with his whip. Her dress is cotton, a pale yellow color. I stare transfixed as the back of it sprouts blood, blooms of red that open like petals. I cannot reconcile the savagery of the blows with the mellifluous way she keens or the beauty of the roses coiling along the trellis of her spine. Someone counts the lashes—is it Mother? Six, seven. The scourging continues, but Rosetta stops wailing and sinks against the porch rail. Nine, ten. My eyes look away. They follow a black ant traveling the far reaches beneath the tree—the mountainous roots and forested mosses, the endless perils—and in my head I say the words I fashioned earlier. Boy Run. Girl Jump. Sarah Go. Thirteen. Fourteen . . . I bolt from the shadows, past the man who now coils his whip, job well done, past Rosetta hanging by her hands in a heap. As I bound up the back steps into the house, Mother calls to me, and Binah reaches to scoop me up, but I escape them, thrashing along the main passage, out the front door, where I break blindly for the wharves. I don’t remember the rest with clarity, only that I find myself wandering across the gangplank of a sailing vessel, sobbing, stumbling over a turban of rope. A kind man with a beard and a dark cap asks what I want. I plead with him, Sarah Go. Binah chases me, though I’m unaware of her until she pulls me into her arms and coos, “Poor Miss Sarah, poor Miss Sarah.” Like a decree, a proclamation, a prophecy. When I arrive home, I am a muss of snot, tears, yard dirt, and harbor filth. Mother holds me against her, rears back and gives me an incensed shake, then clasps me again. “You must promise never to run away again. Promise me.” I want to. I try to. The words are on my tongue—the rounded lumps of them, shining like the marbles beneath the tree. “Sarah!” she demands. Nothing comes. Not a sound. I remained mute for a week. My words seemed sucked into the cleft between my collar bones. I rescued them by degrees, by praying, bullying and wooing. I came to speak again, but with an odd and mercurial form of stammer. I’d never been a fluid speaker, even my first spoken words had possessed a certain belligerent quality, but now there were ugly, halting gaps between my sentences, endless seconds when the words cowered against my lips and people averted their eyes. Eventually, these horrid pauses began to come and go according to their own mysterious whims. They might plague me for weeks and then remain away months, only to return again as abruptly as they left.

Well,that was fun," she said lightly as he maneuvered out of the lot. "I'm really glad you talked me into going out. My day was a blank page until seven." That long, quiet moment lingered in his mind even as it lingered in Shelby's. Alan shifted, hoping to ease the thudding in the pit of his stomach. "Always happy to help someone fill in a few empty spaces." Alan controlled the speed of the car through force of will. Holding her hadn't soothed him but rather had only served to remind him how much time had passed since he had last held her. "Actually you're an easy man to be with, Alan, for a politician." Easy? Shelby repeated to herself as she pressed the button to lower her window. Her blood was still throbbing from a meeting of eyes that had lasted less than ten seconds. If he was any easier, she'd be head over heels in love with him and headed for disaster. "I mean,you're not really pompous." He shot her a look, long and cool, that boosted her confidence. "No?" he murmured after a humming silence. "Hardly at all." Shelby sent him a smile. "Why,I'd probably vote for you myself." Alan paused at a red light, studying it thoughtfully before he turned to her. "Your insults aren't as subtle today, Shelby." "Insults?" Shelby gave him a bland stare. "Odd,I thought it was more flattery.Isn't a vote what it all comes down to? Votes, and that all-encompassing need to win." The light stayed green for five full seconds before he cruised through it. "Be careful." A nerve,she thought,hating herself more than a little. "You're a little touchy. That's all right." She brushed at the thigh of her jeans. "I don't mind a little oversensitivity." "The subject of my sensitivity isn't the issue,but you're succeeding in being obnoxious." "My,my,aren't we all Capitol Hill all of a sudden.

1. His back is full of knives. Notes are brittle around the blades. 2. He sleeps face down every night in a chalk outline of himself. 3. He has difficulties with metal detectors. 4. At birthday parties, someone might politely ask, may I borrow one of those knives to slice this chocolate cake? 5. He likes to stand with his back to walls. At restaurants, he likes the corner tables. 6. There is a detective who calls to ask him about the brittle notes. Also: a biographer, a woman who'd like to film a documentary, a curator of a museum, his mother. I can't read them, he says. They're on my back. 7. It would be a mistake for anyone to assume he wants the knives removed. 8. Most of the brittle notes are illegible. One of them, even, is written in French. 9. Every Halloween, he goes as a victim of a brutal stabbing. Once he tried going as a whale, but it was a hassle explaining away the knives. 10. He always wears the same bloody suit. 11. When he walks, he sounds like a tree still full of dead leaves holding on. 12. It is ok for children to count on his knives, but not to climb on them. 13. He saw his own shadow in a park. He moved his body to make the knives reach other people's shadows. He did it all evening. In the shadows, his knives looked like soft outstretched arms. 14. His back is running out of space. 15. On a trip to Paris, he fell in love and ended up staying for a few years. He got a job performing on the street with the country's best mimes. 16. The knives are what hold him together. It is the notes that are slowly killing him. 17. He is difficult to hold when he cries. 18. He will be very old when he dies and the Doctor will say, he was obviously stabbed, brutally and repeatedly. I'm sorry, the Doctor will say to a person in the room, but he's not going to make it.

Life is pretty short yet magnanimous if we know just how to live right. It isn't that easy, it takes a lot of our soul, sometimes too many broken pieces to finally come together in binding a masterpiece that smiles like a solitary star forever gazing around at the music of an eternal cosmos. The most brutal yet beautiful truth about Life is that It is marked, marked with Time where every moment takes us closer to death, it doesn't have to sound or feel bad or scary because death is the most inevitable truth in this mortal world. While the knowledge of death jolts our mind with the uncertainty of Life, clutches us in the emotion of fear to think of pain or the loss of bonds, when we acknowledge that as a part of our souls' journey and take every moment as our precious gift, a blessing to experience this Life with its beautiful garden of emotions blossoming with wonderful smiles that we can paint on others, then we make our Life magnanimous, then we make even the very face of death as that of an angel coming to take us to a different voyage, soaked in a lot of memories and experiences beautifully binding our soul. I have realised that when we live each day as if it's the last day of our life, we become more loving and gentle to everyone around and especially to our own selves. We forgive and love more openly, we grace and embrace every opportunity we get to be kind, to stay in touch with everything that truly matters. I have realised that when we rise every morning with gratitude knowing that the breath of air still passes through our body, just in the mere understanding that we have one more day to experience Life once again, we stay more compassionate towards everything and everyone around and invest more of our selves into everything and everyone that truly connect and resonate with our soul. I have realised that when we consciously try to be good and kind, no matter however bad or suffocating a situation is we always end up taking everything at its best holding on to the firm grip of goodness, accepting everything as a part of our souls' lesson or just a turn of Time or Fate and that shapes into our strength and roots our core with the truest understanding of Life, the simple act of going on and letting go. Letting go of anything and everything that chains our Soul while going on with a Heart open to Love and a Soul ready to absorb all that falls along the pathway of this adventure called Life. I have realised that when we are kind and do anything good for another person, that gives us the most special happiness, something so pure that even our hearts don't know how deep that joy permeates inside our soul. I have realised that at the end of the day we do good not because of others but because of our own selves, for if tomorrow death comes to grace me I hope to smile and say I have Lived, loved unconditionally and embraced forgiveness, kindness and goodness and all the other colours of Love with every breath I caught, I have lived a Life magnanimous. So each time someone's unkind towards you, hold back and smile, and try to give your warmth to that person. Because Kindness is not a declaration of who deserves it, it's a statement of who you are. So each time some pieces of your heart lay scattered, hold them up and embrace everyone of them with Love. Because Love is not a magic potion that is spilled from a hollow space, it's a breath of eternity that flows through the tunnel of your soul. So each time Life puts up a question of your Happiness, answer back with a Smile of Peace. Because Happiness is not what you look for in others, it's what you create in every passing moment, with the power of Life, that is pretty short when we see how counted it stands in days but actually turns out absolutely incredibly magnanimous when loved and lived in moments.

Naval’s Laws The below is Naval’s response to the question “Are there any quotes you live by or think of often?” These are gold. Take the time necessary to digest them. “These aren’t all quotes from others. Many are maxims that I’ve carved for myself.” Be present above all else. Desire is suffering (Buddha). Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at someone else (Buddhist saying). If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day. Reading (learning) is the ultimate meta-skill and can be traded for anything else. All the real benefits in life come from compound interest. Earn with your mind, not your time. 99% of all effort is wasted. Total honesty at all times. It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive. Praise specifically, criticize generally (Warren Buffett). Truth is that which has predictive power. Watch every thought. (Always ask, “Why am I having this thought?”) All greatness comes from suffering. Love is given, not received. Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts (Eckhart Tolle). Mathematics is the language of nature. Every moment has to be complete in and of itself. A Few of Naval’s Tweets that are Too Good to Leave Out “What you choose to work on, and who you choose to work with, are far more important than how hard you work.” “Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.” “If you eat, invest, and think according to what the ‘news’ advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt.” “We waste our time with short-term thinking and busywork. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.” “The guns aren’t new. The violence isn’t new. The connected cameras are new, and that changes everything.” “You get paid for being right first, and to be first, you can’t wait for consensus.” “My one repeated learning in life: ‘There are no adults.’ Everyone’s making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it.” “A busy mind accelerates the passage of subjective time.

What the hell are you doing here?” Brad glared meanly. “Nice to see you, too, Jack,” he said. “You don’t belong here,” Jack said too loudly. “You left her. You’re done with her.” “Hey,” he said, bristling. “I never stopped caring about Brie. Never will. I’m going to see her.” “I don’t think so,” Jack said. “She’s in no shape to have to deal with you right now.” “You’re not in charge of the guest list, Jack. That’s up to Brie.” “Come on,” Mike said sternly. “Let’s not do this here.” “Ask him if he wants to take it outside,” Jack snapped back. “Yeah, I’ll—” “Whoa,” Mike said yet again, widening the space between the two men. “This isn’t happening here!” Brad moved closer, pushing up against Mike, but lowered his voice cautiously. “I know you’re angry, Jack. In general and at me. I don’t blame you. But if you get tough with me, it’s going to be worse for Brie. And this officer is just going to hook you up.” Jack ground his teeth, pushing up against the other side of Mike. Mike was having some trouble holding them apart. “I really want to hit someone,” Jack said through clenched teeth. “Right now, you’d do as well as anyone. You walked out on your marriage. You left her while she was building a case against that son of a bitch. Do you have any idea what you did to her?” Oh, boy, Mike thought. It was going to happen between these two any second, right in the hospital hallway. Mike was a good six feet and pretty strong, but Brad and Jack were both taller, broader, angrier and not a shoulder injury between them. Mike was going to get hammered when they lost it and started pummeling each other. “Yeah,” Brad said. “Yeah, I do! And I want her to know that I still care about what happens to her. We’re divorced, but we have history. A lot of it good history. If I can do anything now…” “Hey!” Mike said to the cop. “Hey! Come on!” The police officer finally got in it, putting himself between Brad and Jack along with Mike. “All right, gentlemen,” the cop said. “I have my orders. No scuffling outside Ms. Sheridan’s door. If you want to talk this over calmly, I’d like you to move down the hall.” Oh, that was not a good suggestion, Mike thought. If they moved down the hall, they wouldn’t be talking. Mike cautiously backed Jack up a few steps. “Take a breath,” he said quietly. “You don’t want to do this.” Jack glowered at Mike. “You sure about that?” “Back

So it needs saying from the outset that it’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is. Especially if you have other people you’re trying to be a reasonably good human being for. Because there’s such an unbelievable amount that we’re all supposed to be able to cope with these days. You’re supposed to have a job, and somewhere to live, and a family, and you’re supposed to pay taxes and have clean underwear and remember the password to your damn Wi-Fi. Some of us never manage to get the chaos under control, so our lives simply carry on, the world spinning through space at two million miles an hour while we bounce about on its surface like so many lost socks. Our hearts are bars of soap that we keep losing hold of; the moment we relax, they drift off and fall in love and get broken, all in the wink of an eye. We’re not in control. So we learn to pretend, all the time, about our jobs and our marriages and our children and everything else. We pretend we’re normal, that we’re reasonably well educated, that we understand “amortization levels” and “inflation rates.” That we know how sex works. In truth, we know as much about sex as we do about USB leads, and it always takes us four tries to get those little buggers in. (Wrong way round, wrong way round, wrong way round, there! In!) We pretend to be good parents when all we really do is provide our kids with food and clothing and tell them off when they put chewing gum they find on the ground in their mouths. We tried keeping tropical fish once and they all died. And we really don’t know more about children than tropical fish, so the responsibility frightens the life out of us each morning. We don’t have a plan, we just do our best to get through the day, because there’ll be another one coming along tomorrow. Sometimes it hurts, it really hurts, for no other reason than the fact that our skin doesn’t feel like it’s ours. Sometimes we panic, because the bills need paying and we have to be grown-up and we don’t know how, because it’s so horribly, desperately easy to fail at being grown-up. Because everyone loves someone, and anyone who loves someone has had those desperate nights where we lie awake trying to figure out how we can afford to carry on being human beings. Sometimes that makes us do things that seem ridiculous in hindsight, but which felt like the only way out at the time.

He finds a basket and lays fish inside it. Charcoal is in a wooden bucket. Enrique lifts it, basket in his other hand, and moves through shadow toward daylight. A presence makes him turn his head. He sees no one, yet someone is there. He sets down fish and charcoal. Straightening up, Enrique slips his Bowie knife clear of its sheath. He listens, tries to sense the man’s place. This intruder lies low. Is concealed. Behind those barrels? In that corner, crouched down? Enrique shuts his eyes, holds his breath a moment and exhales, his breath’s movement the only sound, trying to feel on his skin some heat from another body. Where? Enrique sends his mind among barrels and sacks, under shelves, behind posts and dangling utensils. It finds no one. He is hiding. Wants not to be found. Is afraid. If he lies under a tarpaulin, he cannot see. To shoot blind would be foolish: likely to miss, certain to alert the others. Enrique steps around barrels, his boots silent on packed sand. Tarps lie parallel in ten-foot lengths, their wheaten hue making them visible in the shadowed space. They are dry and hold dust. All but one lies flat. There. Enrique imagines how it will be. To strike through the tarp risks confusion. Its heavy canvas can deflect his blade. But his opponent will have difficulty using his weapon. He might fire point-blank into Enrique’s weight above him, bearing down. To pull the tarpaulin clear is to lose his advantage; he will see the intruder who will see him. An El Norte mercenary with automatic rifle or handheld laser can cut a man in half. Knife in his teeth, its ivory handle smooth against lips and tongue, Enrique crouches low. Pushing hard with his legs, he dives onto the hidden shape. The man spins free as Enrique grasps, boots slipping on waxed canvas. His opponent feels slight, yet wiry strength defeats Enrique’s hold. He takes his knife in hand and rips a slit long enough to plunge an arm into his adversary’s shrouded panic. Enrique thrusts the blade’s point where he believes a throat must be. Two strong hands clamp his arm and twist against each other rapidly and hard. Pain flares across his skin. Enrique wrests his arm free and his knife flies from his grasp and disappears behind him. He clenches-up and, pivoting on his other hand, turns hard into a blind punch that smashes the hidden face. The dust of their struggle rasps in Enrique’s throat. His intended killer sucks in a hard breath and Enrique hits him again, then again, each time turning his shoulder into the blow. The man coughs out, “Do not kill me.” Enrique knows this voice. It is Omar the Turk. [pp. 60-61]

With the relief of knowing I had passed through a crisis, I sighed because there was nothing to hold me back. It was no time for fear or pretense, because it could never be this way with anyone else. All the barriers were gone. I had unwound the string she had given me, and found my way out of the labyrinth to where she was waiting. I loved her with more than my body. I don’t pretend to understand the mystery of love, but this time it was more than sex, more than using a woman’s body. It was being lifted off the earth, outside fear and torment, being part of something greater than myself. I was lifted out of the dark cell of my own mind, to become part of someone else—just as I had experienced it that day on the couch in therapy. It was the first step outward to the universe—beyond the universe—because in it and with it we merged to recreate and perpetuate the human spirit. Expanding and bursting outward, and contracting and forming inward, it was the rhythm of being—of breathing, of heartbeat, of day and night—and the rhythm of our bodies set off an echo in my mind. It was the way it had been back there in that strange vision. The gray murk lifted from my mind, and through it the light pierced into my brain (how strange that light should blind!), and my body was absorbed back into a great sea of space, washed under in a strange baptism. My body shuddered with giving, and her body shuddered its acceptance. This was the way we loved, until the night became a silent day. And as I lay there with her I could see how important physical love was, how necessary it was for us to be in each other’s arms, giving and taking. The universe was exploding, each particle away from the next, hurtling us into dark and lonely space, eternally tearing us away from each other—child out of the womb, friend away from friend, moving from each other, each through his own pathway toward the goal-box of solitary death. But this was the counterweight, the act of binding and holding. As when men to keep from being swept overboard in the storm clutch at each other’s hands to resist being torn apart, so our bodies fused a link in the human chain that kept us from being swept into nothing. And in the moment before I fell off into sleep, I remembered the way it had been between Fay and myself, and I smiled. No wonder that had been easy. It had been only physical. This with Alice was a mystery. I leaned over and kissed her eyes. Alice knows everything about me now, and accepts the fact that we can be together for only a short while. She has agreed to go away when I tell her to go. It’s painful to think about that, but what we have, I suspect, is more than most people find in a lifetime.

Jackaby was still engrossed in his examination when I came back inside. “Books. Books. Just books,” he was muttering. Jenny was hovering by the window. I joined her. “How did you manage it, by the way?” I asked. “All those Bibles, all across town? It is a remarkable feat.” “It looks more impressive than it is,” she said, still not meeting my eyes. “I borrowed Jackaby’s special satchel, the one that holds anything. The whole pile took just one trip. The real trick was keeping myself solid all the way home. That’s the bit I’m really proud of—” She turned to face me. “Oh, Abigail, it was amazing. People saw me!” “People saw you?” “I was in disguise, of course. I wore my long coat and gloves, and I had that floppy white hat on, so they didn’t see much, but still—people saw me and they didn’t gasp or make a scene. Someone even mumbled Good day to me as I was crossing the footbridge! It was exhilarating! I have never been so excited to have somebody see me—actually see me—and not care at all!” She glanced at Jackaby. “Although you would think I would be used to it by now.” “Jenny, that is absolutely amazing!” I said. “It is, isn’t it?” she said wistfully. “Just a little bit, at least? Oh, Abigail, I’m exhausted, I’m not ashamed to tell you. I had planned on setting my spoils out in nice triumphant rows when I got back, but it was all I could do to hold myself intact by then. Solidity is sort of like flexing a muscle, except the muscle is in your mind, and your mind is really just an abstract concept. I was basically flexing my entire body into existence the whole way home. But did it merit so much as a Good job, Jenny from that infuriating man?” Jackaby surfaced from his perusal and looked up at last. His cloud gray eyes found focus on Jenny. From his expression, I couldn’t tell if he had been following our conversation or not. “Completely unexceptional,” he said. “Nothing at all in this batch. We will need to scrutinize them more closely, of course, just to be sure. Oh, and Miss Cavanaugh . . .” She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You performed . . . quite adequately,” he said, “despite expectations.” Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but then closed it again. Her face fluttered through a series of potential reactions. Finally she just threw up her hands and vanished from sight with a muffled whuph of air closing into the space where she suddenly wasn’t. “What in heaven’s name was all that?” said Jackaby. “Exquisite frustration, I believe, sir.” “Ah. Right.” He slumped into the desk chair and began to fidget absently with the spine of one of the Bibles. “Miss Cavanaugh is a singular and exceptional spirit, you know.” “Only a suggestion, sir, but that is precisely the sort of thing you might consider saying when she is still present and corporeal.

One: A Book Is A Universe and the Universe is a Book. Inside a book, any Physiks or Magical Laws or Manners or Histories may hold sway. A book is its own universe and while in it, you must play by their rules. More or less. Some of the more modern novels are lenient on this point and have very few policemen to spare. This is why sometimes, when you finish a book, you feel strange and woozy, as though you have just woken up. Your body is getting used to the rules and your own universe again. And your own universe is just the biggest and longest and most complicated book ever written—except for all the other ones. This is also why books along the walls make a place feel different—all those universes, crammed into one spot! Things are bound to shift and warp and hatch schemes! Two: Books Are People. Some are easy to get along with and some are shy, some are full of things to say and some are quiet, some are fanciful and some are plainspoken, some you will feel as though you've known forever the moment you open the cover, and some will take years to grow into. Just like people, you must be introduced properly and sit down together with a cup of something so that you can sniff at each other like tomcats but lately acquainted. Listen to their troubles and share their joys. They will have their tempers and you will have yours, and sometimes you will not understand a book, nor will it understand you—you can't love all books any more than you can love every stranger you meet. But you can love a lot of them. And the love of a book is a precious, subtle, strange thing, well worth earning, And just like people, you are never really done with a book—some part of it will stay with you, gently changing the way you see and speak and know. Three: People Are Books. This has two meanings. The first is: Every person is a story. They have a beginning and a middle and an end (though some may have sequels and series).They have motifs and narrative tricks and plot twists and daring escapes and love lost and love won. The rules of books are the rules of life because a book must be written by a person alive, and an alive person will usually try to tell the truth about the world, even if they dress it up in spangles and feathers. The other meaning is: When you read a book, it is not only a story. It is never only a story. Exciting plots may occur, characters suffer and triumph, yes, It is a story. But it is also a person speaking to you, directly to you. A person far away, perhaps in time, perhaps in space, perhaps both. A person who wanted to say something so loud that everyone could hear it. A book is a time-travelling teleportation machine. And there's millions and millions of them! When you read a book, you have a conversation with the person who wrote it. And that conversation is never quite the same twice. Every single reader has a different chat, because they are different people with different histories and ideas in their heads. Why, you cannot even have the same conversation with the same book twice! If you read a book as a child, and again as a Grown-Up, it will be something altogether other. New things will have happened to you, new folk will have come into your life and taught you wild and wonderful notions you never thought of before. You will not be the same person—and neither will the book. When you read, know that someone somewhere wrote those very words just for you, in hopes that you would find something there to take with you in your own travels through time and space.

Fuck, she was even hotter when she was furious. I seriously wouldn't have minded her taking that anger out on my body all night long. I'd be more than happy to angry fuck her until her body bent and bowed and finally gave in to the power play between us. I'd force her beneath me physically as well as with my power and maybe she'd find she liked it there just fine. Or maybe she'd stab me to death and cut my cock off for good measure because the look she was aiming my way said that was a whole lot more likely than me getting to spend the night ruining her. But it was a damn nice fantasy to indulge in for a few moments. ... She gave me a look of utter contempt and it made my cock throb as her nearness just compounded the desire I was already feeling for her and made me get all kinds of insane ideas about what I'd like to do with this little princess if I got her to myself for long enough. She made no attempt to cover herself, no sign of shame in her frosty features as she stalked forward to claim her key, a sneer touching those edible lips of hers. Her jaw was tight with rage which she was doing nothing to hide and as she reached out to snatch the key from my hand, I couldn't help but ache to bring her closer, draw her nearer, see just how far she'd go in this denial of my power over her. Her fingers curled around the brass key, but I didn't release it, instead using my hold on it to tug her a step closer so that only a breath of space divided our bodies. I looked down at her from my imposing height, dominating her space with the bulk of my body and making sure she took in every last inch of height I had over her. “Of course, if you’d rather just come on up to my room, I can give you a real welcome to the House of Fire,” I suggested my gaze dropping down to her body, the noticeable bulge in my pants making it clear enough how much I meant that offer. I probably shouldn't have been making it at all, but the beast in me couldn't help myself. Dragons saw something they wanted and they took it. And I hadn't seen something I wanted as much as this girl in as long as I could remember. Our gazes collided and the heat there was almost strong enough to burn, the tension between us crackling so loudly I was surprised the whole room couldn't hear it. But then her gaze shuttered and her lips pursed, her eyes dropping down to take me in, my skin buzzing everywhere they landed as I could feel the want in her while she assessed me. But as those deep green eyes met mine again and I gave her a knowing smirk, I couldn't tell what she was thinking. I didn't know if she was going to bow to this heat between us or just stoke the flames, and the fact that I didn't know had my heart thumping in anticipation deep in my chest. She shifted an inch closer to me, tilting her mouth towards my ear and making my flesh spark with the need to take her, own her, destroy her in all the best ways. But just as my cock began to get overexcited at the prospect of all the ways I could make her scream for me given enough time, she spoke and it wasn't in the sultry purr I'd been expecting, her voice coming out loud enough for everyone to hear instead. “I wouldn’t come near you even if someone held a knife to my heart and told me that the world would end if I didn’t,” she snarled, snatching the key out of my hand as my surprise at her words made me forget to keep my grip tight enough to keep it. “So why don’t you take a long, hard look while you can. Because I can promise you, you won’t be seeing this again.”(Darius POV)

Reasons to keep books: To read them one day! If you hope to read the book one day, definitely keep it. It’s fine to be aspirational; no one else will keep score on what you have actually read. It’s great to dream and hope that one day you do have the time to read all your books. To tell your story. Some people give away every book they’ve read explaining, “What’s the point in keeping a book after I’ve read it if I’m not going to read it again? It’s someone else’s turn to read my copy now.” If that works for you, then only keep books on your shelves that you haven’t read yet. However you can probably understand that the books that you haven’t yet read only tell the story of your future, they don’t say much about where you’ve been and what made you who you are today. To make people think you’ve read the book! This one may be hard or easy for you to admit, but we don’t think there is any shame in it. Sometimes we hold on to books because they represent our aspirational selves, supporting the perception of how well read or intelligent we are. They are certainly the books our ideal selves would read, but in reality—if we had to admit it—we probably never will. We would argue that you should still have these books around. They are part of your story and who you want to be. To inspire someone else in your household to read those books one day. Perhaps it’s your kids or maybe your guests. Keeping books for the benefit of others is thoughtful and generous. At the very least, anyone who comes into your home will know that these are important books and will be exposed to the subjects and authors that you feel are important. Whether they actually read Charles Dickens or just know that he existed and was a prolific writer after seeing your books: mission accomplished! To retain sentimental value. People keep a lot of things that have sentimental value: photographs, concert ticket stubs, travel knickknacks. Books, we would argue, have deeper meaning as sentimental objects. That childhood book of your grandmother's— she may have spent hours and hours with it and perhaps it was instrumental in her education. That is much more impactful than a photograph or a ceramic figurine. You are holding in your hands what she held in her hands. This brings her into the present and into your home, taking up space on your shelves and acknowledging the thread of family and history that unites you. Books can do that in ways that other objects cannot. To prove to someone that you still have it! This may be a book that you are otherwise ready to give away, but because a friend gifted it, you want to make sure you have it on display when they visit. This I’ve found happens a lot with coffee table books. It can be a little frustrating when the biggest books are the ones you want to get rid of the most, yet, you are beholden to keeping them. This dilemma is probably better suited to “Dear Abby” than to our guidance here. You will know if it’s time to part ways with a book if you notice it frequently and agonize over the need to keep it to stay friends with your friend. You should probably donate it to a good organization and then tell your friend you spilled coffee all over it and had to give it away! To make your shelves look good! There is no shame in keeping books just because they look good. It’s great if your books all belong on your shelves for multiple reasons, but if it’s only one reason and that it is that it looks good, that is good enough for us. When you need room for new acquisitions, maybe cull some books that only look good and aren’t serving other purposes.

I’m first up, love,” Arion says as he starts invading my space again. “I thought the only thing holding you back was your fear. Clearly the fear is absent if you’re willing to turn yourself over to the very darkest part of me. It’s amazing you’re in one piece, so clearly you played submissive very well, Violet. It’s because you were ready for me to save you and overcame your fear of me. Now we can be together.” When I say nothing and simply stare at him like he’s forever losing his mind more and more when we speak, he frowns like he’s genuinely perplexed. “Arion, no matter what you did, I couldn’t have endured another second of those cries. And you were at Abby’s mercy while in that state. You ripped my throat out and told me to put on some healing potion so you could sit down and watch the fight.” Apparently, I guess right, because his pupils widen marginally. “I held your hand when you finished,” he says like he’s defending himself. “So you could watch the fight.” “Vance was focused. It’s been ages since he focused. Thing of beauty while it happens,” he says as if that’s important information. I gesture between us. “That’s sort of the problem. I feel like the conduit for your feelings for them because you have heterosexual body parts with a homosexual mentality. I’m not sure I’m okay with simply being a conduit,” I carefully explain, causing his eyes to widen a little more, as several muffled sounds of amusement spring from somewhere else in the room. “I’m sorry, love, but you’ve really lost me,” Arion says very seriously, brow crinkling. “You want this to be a thing between you and me, even though Idun is returning, because you want them back. It looks like you’re getting that without me, so we can be friends,” I suggest, completely rambling. I don’t think I’m explaining this very well, since they’re all muffling laughter down the hall. Even Vance makes a choked sound of amusement. Or they’re just really immature about these things… That’s definitely possible. Arion scrubs a hand over his face, as someone struggles to cover a surprise laugh with a cough. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be having this conversation right now. It’s inappropriate to do with an audience,” I babble. “But you’re really intense. And I’ve just survived an apocalyptic wolf storm with your mostly naked beta, whose threads are still in my bra because one set of clothes ended up being enough.” The look of frustrated confusion on his face doubles. “I could use a small break before we discuss curses, some really confusing relationship statuses, and the somewhat terrifying woman you’ve all loved rising very soon. And those wolves stole my oranges, so I need to go back and get all of them.” “I’ve already returned them to your cellar,” Emit says from somewhere behind Arion. “Then I need to go start using them while they’re useable,” I say as I quickly disentangle myself from Arion and attempt to escape. “I’ll return the shirt.” “Keep it,” he says quietly from behind me, as I finally take in the other three all standing somewhat close together, smirking at me. “I’ll drive you home,” Damien says with a slow grin. “I’m not talking to you, and if you’re a smart man, you’ll figure out why,” I state firmly. “Only when you figure it out will we discuss it.” “I’ll take you—” “I don’t want to talk to you right now, because I need to get my cool back,” I tell Emit, whose eyes immediately flick away, as his jaw tics. He’s had multiple opportunities to explain to me why he told Damien I was a monster, and yet didn’t even bother telling me what I was. All this time, I’ve been patiently waiting, refusing to get too angry. Now…I’m getting sort of freaking angry, because he still hasn’t said one word about it. “Guess that just leaves me,” Vance says as he puts his hand at the small of my back and starts guiding me out.

Lies are never hidden. No one ever gets away with a lie even if someone “bought” the lie. The lie lingers in the body just as a software program holds space on a computer. How does the lie manifest pain in the body? Anxiety.

real love wasn’t that first punch in the gut when you think you just have to have somebody. It was companionship and laughter. It was bringing someone chicken soup when they were sick, and comforting them when they were hurt. It was whipped cream fights and singing to the radio. It was holding hands and dancing under the stars. It had been in front of me all this time, and I hadn’t even seen it. Maybe, because I’d made it complicated, when at the end of the day it was all so simple.

I heard someone explain once why people buy books. They said when people buy a book, they are not just buying that book, they are also visualising that they are buying the time to read it. So when you hold that thing in your hand you are not only anticipating the story between the covers, you are picturing the kind of life that allows space for you to lie about and read. Those unread volumes on your shelves represent a glorious future moment when you will spend time with them.

Rolling to his side, he stretched lazily. His hand encountered empty space. Had Poppy shared the bed with him? A frown gathered on his forehead. Had he slept all night with someone for the first time and missed it? Turning to his stomach, he levered himself to the other side of the bed, hunting for her scent. Yes . . . there was a flowery hint of her on the pillow, and the sheets carried a whiff of her skin, a lavender-tinged sweetness that aroused him with every breath. He wanted to hold Poppy, to reassure himself that the previous night hadn’t been a dream.

Physical Invasion The normative principle I am suggesting for the law is simply this: No action should be considered illicit or illegal unless it invades, or aggresses against, the person or just property of another. Only invasive actions should be declared illegal, and combated with the full power of the law. The invasion must be concrete and physical. There are degrees of seriousness of such invasion, and hence, different proper degrees of restitution or punishment. "Burglary," simple invasion of property for purposes of theft, is less serious than "robbery," where armed force is likely to be used against the victim. Here, however, we are not concerned with the questions of degrees of invasion or punishment, but simply with invasion per se. If no man may invade another person's "just" property, what is our criterion of justice to be? There is no space here to elaborate on a theory of justice in property titles. Suffice it to say that the basic axiom of libertarian political theory holds that every man is a selfowner, having absolute jurisdiction over his own body. In effect, this means that no one else may justly invade, or aggress against, another's person. It follows then that each person justly owns whatever previously unowned resources he appropriates or "mixes his labor with." From these twin axioms — self-ownership and "homesteading" — stem the justification for the entire system of property rights titles in a free-market society. This system establishes the right of every man to his own person, the right of donation, of bequest (and, concomitantly, the right to receive the bequest or inheritance), and the right of contractual exchange of property titles. Legal and political theory have committed much mischief by failing to pinpoint physical invasion as the only human action that should be illegal and that justifies the use of physical violence to combat it. The vague concept of "harm" is substituted for the precise one of physical violence. Consider the following two examples. Jim is courting Susan and is just about to win her hand in marriage, when suddenly Bob appears on the scene and wins her away. Surely Bob has done great "harm" to Jim. Once a nonphysical-invasion sense of harm is adopted, almost any outlaw act might be justified. Should Jim be able to "enjoin" Bob's very existence? Similarly, A is a successful seller of razor blades. But then B comes along and sells a better blade, teflon-coated to prevent shaving cuts. The value of A's property is greatly affected. Should he be able to collect damages from B, or, better yet, to enjoin B's sale of a better blade? The correct answer is not that consumers would be hurt if they were forced to buy the inferior blade, although that is surely the case. Rather, no one has the right to legally prevent or retaliate against "harms" to his property unless it is an act of physical invasion. Everyone has the right to have the physical integrity of his property inviolate; no one has the right to protect the value of his property, for that value is purely the reflection of what people are willing to pay for it. That willingness solely depends on how they decide to use their money. No one can have a right to someone else's money, unless that other person had previously contracted to transfer it to him. "Legal and political theory have committed much mischief by failing to pinpoint physical invasion as the only human action that should be illegal and that justifies the use of physical violence to combat it.

But on days like today, when the world felt a little too loud, a little too close, a little too much, I had to admit it: I longed for someone I could throw everything I was at, who would receive it. Gather it from the space between us with the sheer power of their hands and their insight and their care, and contain it like a devastating blast. Hold the jagged and shaggy pieces of my explosion suspended, relieved of their weight, quiet. At peace.

Before I climbed Everest, I saved up to make an attempt on a peak called Ama Dablam, one of the classic and more technically difficult climbs in the higher Himalayas. For many of the weeks I was there, I climbed alone, plugged into my headphones and utterly absorbed in each step, each grip. I was in tune with myself. I was in tune with the mountain. It was just the mountain and me. During those times, I really had the chance to push my own boundaries a little. I found myself probing, being willing to push the risk envelope a bit. I started to reach a little further for each hold, finely balanced on my crampons, taking a few extra risks - and I made swift, efficient progress. I was exploring my climbing limits and loving it. When I reached the summit and watched in awe as the distant peak of Everest came into view, ten miles to the north, I knew I had the skills to scale that mountain, too. William Blake said: Great things are done when men and mountains meet. This is not done by jostling in the street. He was right. We need time and space and adversity to really get to know ourselves. And you don’t always find that in the grind, when your head is down and you are living someone else’s dreams. Wherever you are in your life, it is possible to find your own challenge and space. You don’t have to go to the jungle or the Himalayas - it is much more a state of mind than a physical location. Mountains of the mind are around us all everywhere. And it is when we test ourselves that we begin to know ourselves.

Holding a powerful healing space for clients is a sacred spiritual experience. I’ve heard so many horror stories of vulnerable souls being thoroughly let down by the practitioner/therapist/coach in who they have invested to facilitate their healing. In these situations, what happens is quite devastating for the client. *They feel that they need to minimalise their trauma to make those around them feel more comfortable. *They don’t feel safe expressing the depths of their experience in case they upset those around them. *They bury their experience which is so detrimental to their evolution and healing. *They feel the need to comfort the person who is supposed to be holding and healing them. *Please go to someone who has been recommended. *Go to someone who is qualified in academics, experience, and results. *Go to someone who puts the duty of care for the client above all else, even if that means referring them on. *Go to someone who understands generational trauma and who is equipped to be fully present with you and who is dedicated to your healing. Finding the right people is essential to your healing. You deserve it all. ♥️

By the end of a week, she was thinking constantly about where her body stopped and the air began, about the exact point in space and time that was the difference between Maria and other. She had the sense that if she could get that in her mind and hold it for even one micro-second, she would have what she had come to get. As if she had fever, her skin burned and crackled with a pinpoint sensitivity. She could feel smoke against her skin. She could feel voice waves. She was beginning to feel color, light intensities, and she imagined that she could be put blindfolded in front of the signs at the Thunderbird and the Flamingo and know which was which. “Maria,” she felt someone whisper one night, but when she turned there was nobody.

Maybe creating a big enough space within your consciousness to hold and accept someone’s contradictions—someone’s idiocies, even—is a kind of divine act. Perhaps transcendence can be found not only on solitary mountaintops or in monastic settings, but also at your own kitchen table, in the daily acceptance of your partner’s most tiresome, irritating faults.

my father told me, never call someone crazy if they’re holding a gun. I think that’s good advice.

The thirty-day no-contact rule Recovering from a breakup on a more practical basis can be likened to getting over an addiction. You go through periods of major withdrawal where you become overwhelmed by a cocktail of emotions, including guilt, fear, randomly missing him, and suddenly feeling like what he did to you ‘wasn’t that bad’. You start to play the mental showreel of all your good times (even if you only had a few), and suddenly you can’t remember why you left. Feeling this cluster of imbalanced emotions can be very confusing and irritating, but all hope is not lost. Contrary to popular belief, breakups don’t actually have to be hard. We assign so much spiritual and emotional value to these men, that by the time we finally distance ourselves from them, we feel distant from ourselves. And that’s really heartbreaking, because no man is worth losing yourself over. Ever. They say it takes about thirty days to break a habit. Texting your ex, stalking his profile from your second account, deliberately asking your mutual friends certain questions to get updates on his life and his new girl – it all needs to stop. So right now, go cold turkey, block his number on whatever messaging app you use, remove him from all your social media. Maintaining little corridors of access to him means he’s still on a pedestal. It also means your value system when it comes to men is warped, because naturally you’re going to keep comparing new guys to him as long as he holds this much space in your head. You want to evict him from that space so that someone new can blow you away when the time is right! This guy is not the be-all and end-all of your experiences with men, and the outcome of your situation with him really doesn’t have to define your future relationships. This thirty-day period of making yourself the centre of your world has a 100 per cent success rate, because by the time you get to day thirty, if it’s done honestly and correctly, you will have either a) met a new guy or b) found a whole heap of new reasons to love your healing self. But the thirty-day no-contact rule must be adhered to strictly, and if you break the pact with yourself, you must start all the way from the beginning – which might feel like torture.

Sofia just stared at me and I shook my head, turning back towards my door as Roxy mumbled something against my chest. “Forget it,” I muttered, my gut twisting as I failed him again. “You know,” Sofia said softly behind me. “Everyone says Darius Acrux is heartless and cold blooded just like the Dragon he turns into. But you’re not, are you?” I gave her a flat look over my shoulder but she carried on anyway. “You actually give a shit about other people, don’t you? You want to protect them, look after them…” Her gaze fell on the unconscious girl in my arms like that was proof and I growled at her. “Is there a point to your inaccurate analysis?” Sofia had the nerve to roll her fucking eyes at me. “I’ll message you my number. You can tell Phillip to message me whenever he likes.” I raised an eyebrow at her in surprise and she threw a final look at Roxy in my arms before turning and heading away from us. I unlocked my door awkwardly while still holding her and headed inside, kicking it closed behind me as I dropped her bag and crossed the wide space towards the bed. Roxy’s head lolled back against my shoulder and her hair hung over my arm. She was still soaking wet and I hadn’t realised how much she’d been shivering as I’d walked here but now I could feel the tremors of her body where it was pressed to mine. I quickly used my water magic to pull every bit of moisture from her clothes and hair then pushed some warmth from my body into hers. She drifted near to consciousness as she stopped shivering and shifted in my arms, mumbling something incoherent as she pressed her cheek to my chest. My heart thumped a little harder than usual and I cleared my throat uncomfortably as I lowered her down onto the bed. Her brows pinched and she started mumbling something again as I released her. I pulled her shoes off and tossed them on the floor and she kicked out at me, forcing me to step back. “I can do it myself, Darcy,” she muttered, still slurring. “You shouldn’t have to look after me like this.” Before I could stop her, she lifted her hips up, pulled her skirt off and threw it at me. She still hadn’t opened her eyes and I didn’t think she was really awake at all. The gold panties she wore matched the bra which I could still see as her buttonless shirt had fallen open. I tried not to stare at her, I really tried but I couldn’t stop looking at her bronze skin, her narrow waist, the swell of her breasts as they rose and fell in time with her deep breaths... Fuck it’s like someone picked apart my deepest desires and brought every fantasy I’ve ever had to life. Why did it have to be her? Why did I have to lust after one of the only people in the whole of Solaria who I could never have? I knew I was going to have to marry a Dragon Shifter one day but that didn’t stop me from having other women. But this one would never be mine in any way. She hated me more viscerally than I thought anyone else ever had. And I couldn’t even blame her. I’d hate me too if I was her. What we’d done to her, what I’d done... it was necessary but I still didn’t like it. I was supposed to be working with the other heirs to get rid of them and instead here I was protecting her like I'd lost my fucking mind. (Darius POV)

Let me kiss you Irma! There in the middle, in the space between the light and dark, Let me love you in the corners bright, Where your heart beat is the mark, To guide me through the mist of time with all my might, Because my love it is you that spreads like brightness in my world, Where your memories cast everlasting light, On the darkest and desolate corners of my world, And then fills me with the spirit to fight, All my demons and my fears, Your simple look offers me endless joy, As my existence the drapery of your brightness wears, And I begin to foil life’s every ploy, To oust me from my dominion, that is mine, But little does it know one can never steal the scent from the rose, And your memories that enrich me, become my goldmine, Granting me courage that before the brightest flash of life, I may put up my best pose, So come let me bear you in my arms, Let me kiss you like the night kisses everything beyond those shadows, And as my heart with these beautiful feelings warms, Let me offer smiles to the life’s marooned widows, Who have moaned enough and grieved a lot, Let me kiss you and then wage the war, Between the right and the evil in the reality’s merciless plot, It may happen that then stars that seem too far, Would tumble from the skies, To bury the evil in the star dust, But let us tread with caution for haste is only good when catching flies, For lovers always do what they must, It is the destiny of love and maybe the price of the kiss, That we all pay for with our heart beats, So let me hold you in my arms and feel my real bliss, Before my fate confronts the destiny and my courage both of them meets, In the open playground of life and chance, Where the truthful and the valiant always wins, Because it is a well coordinated dance, Where one always has to win though it is a competition between the twins, So kiss me and wish for my victory, Because through me you shall win too, As we are cast in the life’s endless trajectory, Where there shall always be one constant Irma, that, I love you, So, let the stars bear witness to valour of love, And as you kiss me, let the stars tumble from the skies, Then let no one seek the Heavens above, Because for our love, our passions and joys, here is where a lover dies, And this is where Christ died, This is where crusades were waged, This is where goodness was promoted and this is where Judas lied, And this is where lovers are caged, So let our battles of love be fought here, For a kiss, for a warm embrace, for a sweet memory’s sake, Then as I see you and your beauty everywhere, Let me love you forever for love’s and my own sake, Tonight when the sky shall be lit with many a twinkling star, I shall wait under the open sky and the moonlight, And as my eyes behold their darling most star, We shall then be the shadows in the darkness secretly kissing our heart beats in the cover of the night. To cast particles of darkness and cover the moonlight, And make it a part of our own shadows, Then we shall create a romantic night, As we freely fleet across the night’s endless love meadows.

The lost. Not you. No, not with that loving heart of yours. Not with those kind eyes that see the greatness in others. With that resilient soul that refuses to quit, and that has the tenacity to love during the most trying times and the darkest days. Not with your pure character that holds firm to good values. That refuses to follow society's path of anger and hate. Not with your energy that invigorates every individual you encounter. They lost. But you didn't. You're gaining an opportunity to take your heart, your inner light, and your vibrant soul to someone who will cherish it and recognize it for the divine blessing that it is . And that's why you can't surrender. That's why you can't give up.

sets of four equal counts. Eventually, stop counting and just feel the breath. 9. At the end of the exercise, take a few breaths and notice how the exhalation is longer, smoother, more even. A Note from Katrina I practice this breath whenever I feel I am being judged. And the more I do it, the less frequently those situations seem to occur. With Alan’s help, I am ridding myself at last of those automatic responses to what I think, mistakenly or not, is criticism. We learn as children that being criticized means we are bad. But we are not bad. It is all conditioning, and we must decondition ourselves. We only need to remember what Alan told me: There is no right. There is no wrong. There is only being. If you feel a crisis approaching, focus on your exhalations in order to release any unhealthy thoughts that are bubbling up. Even doing this for a minute can make a big difference. I also find this breath helpful whenever I feel myself on the point of overreacting to irritating everyday situations: sitting in a traffic jam, holding for customer service, waiting in line to pay at the supermarket, et cetera. Any time I feel like biting someone’s head off for no honest reason. As a result, little problems no longer take up so much of my energy. You can use this technique anywhere, anytime, even with your eyes open. During any difficult interaction, simply turn your attention to your breath and notice how bad thoughts are instantly dismissed. There is no one to disturb your peace. You can walk freely for as long as you desire.

Holding on to someone who doesn't love me is akin to clutching fragile petals in the wind, yearning for a love that remains elusive. In the quiet strength of letting go, I find the courage to embrace my own worth, like a delicate blossom unfurling beneath the sun. For in releasing what cannot be, I discover the space for a love that echoes my own heartbeat— a love that blooms authentically, rooted in the fertile turf of self-respect.

The slanting rays of the autumn sun, the coldness of spring water, the towering trees, the birds, the aquatic creatures, the reptiles, and the flow of life! In a moment, I surrendered myself to the icy water that burned to the bone! I loved the cold, but feared it at the same time. When the air is cold, when your being is frozen, you will experience a kind of coma that enforces justice. When in life, pleasure has been withheld from you, the cold also takes away the joy of expressing your pain. I looked at the sky, my wandering mind and free spirit fled to the Arctic and Antarctic! It’s cold and frozen there too. Always cold, and sometimes dark for long periods! I wanted to surrender my whole being to the frost, to let complete suppression and endless cold dominate me! I was overwhelmed. If awareness is a match, then doctrines, religions, every group, sect, country, and ideology, are other matches to ignite hell for you! Awareness, spirituality, humanity, or simply put, absolute perfection and beauty, I imagine as being seven layers deep in hell, while compounded ignorance feels like a clear and moderate sky. The middle ground wasn’t for me, so I found the only solution was to seal hell and bury it under thousands upon thousands of icy stones! At that moment, as my body shivered in the spring water, my soul hovered around the Arctic and Antarctic. Ah, another spark, another thought of winter creeping into my mind! My mind said, the Arctic and Antarctic, over time, through the sun’s rays or human filth, will eventually fall and melt, what if someone arrives with unconditional love and pulls you back to that same hell? I was tired of empty words and impossible thoughts, but my mind was right! I remembered the sky, the sky always holds an answer! Mars! That was it, Mars! Mars, which billions of years ago was a cradle of life! What did it do? It lost its atmosphere due to its cold core, and the sun’s kindness wiped life away into space. The remaining water froze somewhere inside it, and never flowed again. Oh, my Mars, you are my role model. First, I must destroy awareness and render it useless, then I’ll seek out love to cleanse what remains of my emotions and let it go. But Mars, what should I do with the flowing waters of love that will freeze inside me? What if one day a madman from nowhere comes and gets the idea to revive me, seeking refuge in me? #Arash_Ghadir #ArashGhadir

More than anything I know we need each other. We need community and connection. We need to show up, in real time and in flesh and bone, and love on each other. We need hands on hearts and someone to sleep next to us and hold us on the darkest nights. We need to dismantle the division and heal the wounds. We need to show our children a different way and create for them a different world. I know so much and I know so little. I don't actually know anything at all. And I know sometimes, it still won't be enough. I return again and again to my simple promise, my most important commitment: to stay with myself. To fight for my own return. To whisper, "I am here now. I will not leave you." And to mean it.

I am grappling with fullness and emptiness and the unnameable something that could change everything. I am thinking of spells chosen, not cast, of polarity, of clear mirrors. I wonder at how the body can brace itself and choose surrender all at once. I contemplate the way Ink bleeds through from one page to the next, and how all the stories do this really, the way the lines of my tattoo soften into my skin over time. The way all lines blur in the end. I hold the language and complexity and sovereignty of my yes. I imagine the spaces where sacred and tender and profane and primal meet and dance. The intimacy that exists between us and how it takes me by surprise every single time. I dream of the way a future want can also feel like a memory lived, where the body inexplicably knows what it has not yet experienced. Of the way that the doing and the undoing of me are sometimes the very same thing. Of the hunger of my skin and my holy pleasure and the turning inward and the space where they collide. Of lighting seeking ground. Of the first taste of coffee in the morning and the way my body unfolds into it. Of the infinities of her and how and where I might one day find and taste them. How sometimes, when I dive into the root of what my lonely feels like, it is just that the light is so beautiful here, and I want someone else to feel it with me. Do you feel it? Tell me you do. Please. Tell me you do.

You know what you were and it wasn’t a job.” His words taunted me, offering a glimmer of hope. Yet, his words on the driveway less than two months ago lingered in my thoughts. “Why are you bothering me?” “You’re not to go around Mac again. Do you understand?” “I don’t have to listen to you.” Judd narrowed his eyes at me. “Fine. I’ll tell him to stay away from you. He’ll listen if he wants to keep both eyes.” “Whatever. He’s one guy and the college is full of them. Bailey and I are going to a frat party this weekend. Can’t take all of those guys’ eyes.” “Is that a challenge?” “You got me here safe,” I said, trying to look away, but unable to. “You did your job and I’m sure you got paid. What more do you want?” Judd glanced at approaching Harleys then focused on me. When he erased the space between us again, I shivered at the feel of his breath on my cheek. “You know what I want.” “To fuck me because I’m hot.” Judd stared in my eyes and I saw the walls come down. Even staring into those pained baby blues, I remembered how coldly he discarded me. Over a month passed with no word from him. Yet, one guy sniffed around me and Judd was suddenly interested. “Is your birthday present to me to make me a woman?” I whispered, holding his gaze. “You have to know I’m not a virgin and you’d do nothing someone hasn’t done before. There’s no prize between my legs. Maybe you outta stop threatening random men and go find yourself a real woman.” Judd opened his mouth to speak until he heard Cooper’s voice from inside the house. When the arriving guests called back to their boss, Judd stepped away from me. Sighing, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his brown leather jacket. “I see a prize when I look at you,” he said softly as he walked past, “but it’s not between your legs.” He pressed a little wrapped box into my hand. “Happy birthday, angel.” Appearing on the porch, Cooper lost his smile when he saw Judd and me. The men gave each other a little nod before Judd stepped off the porch and past the men who also did their male hello gestures. The men disappeared inside, but Cooper remained next to me as I watched Judd drive away on a black Harley.

Crazy, or perfect? I get great sex from an amazing man, while maintaining my personal space and freedom. What more could I want?” She lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t know, love? Companionship? Someone to hold you at night?” “Who says I don’t get that?” Nubia laughed as she dropped her hands from my shoulders. “Oh, I’m sure you get all of that. From Tariq. Because that’s your damned man!

Wriggling out of his grasp she braced herself on his shoulders and tried to stand. Next thing she knew, he had her around the legs and took her down to the mattress in some sort of super-fast ninja move. She screamed and laughed, and he was laughing every bit as hard as he came down on top of her. And, oh God, his laughter was a sweet and sexy rumble that lit her up inside. “You fight dirty, Easy,” she said around her chuckles. “I haven’t had this much fun in so long.” She caressed his face with her fingers. “Me neither. Between overloading on classes and my epilepsy, I often feel like a little old lady trapped in the body of a twenty-year-old. All I need is some cats.” “Cats are awesome,” he said. “When I was a kid, I used to sneak stray cats into the house, just for a night or two. I’d keep them in my room and bring up bowls of milk and cans of tuna for them.” “Aw, you were a sweet little boy, weren’t you?” she asked, loving how he was opening up to her. The closeness, the sharing, the way his big body was lying on her legs and hips, leading him to prop his head up on her lower stomach—both her heart and her body reacted. “Maybe for about five minutes.” He winked. “Mostly, I was a hell-raiser. Growing up, we didn’t live in the best neighborhood. Drug dealers on the corner, gang activity trying to pull in even the younger kids, crack house one block over. All that. Trouble wasn’t hard to find.” He shrugged. “Army straightened me out, though.” “Well, we lived in a nice neighborhood growing up and here my father was the freaking drug dealer on the corner. Or close enough, anyway.” Jenna stared at the ceiling and shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get serious.” His thumb stroked along her side, sliding the cotton of her borrowed shirt against her skin in a way that almost tickled. “Don’t apologize. Our histories are what they are, you know?” She nodded and gave him a little smile. “Yeah.” Shifting off her, Easy stretched out alongside her and propped his head up on his arm. “I’m thirty, Jenna,” he said out of nowhere. And he was telling her this because? He thought their age difference was too great? He thought she was too young? He was worried she would think he was too old? Probably D) all of the above. Thing was, all she saw when she looked at Easy was a guy she really freaking liked. One who’d saved her life, helped make her sister safe, and gave her a sense of security she hadn’t felt in years. He was hot as hell, easy to talk to, and one of the kindest guys she’d ever known. Maybe some of that was because he was older. Who knew? “And I need to know this because?” she asked, resting her head on her arm. The muscles of his shoulders lifted into a shrug, but his face was contemplative. “Because there’s clearly something going on between us.” Heat rushed across her body. She held up a hand, and he laced his fingers between hers. “When I look at you, I don’t see a bunch of differences, Easy.” “What do you see then?” Warmth flooded into Jenna’s cheeks, and she chuckled. He’d said that she was beautiful, after all, so why couldn’t she give him a compliment in return? “A really hot guy I’d like to get to know more.” A smug smile slipped onto his face, and she might’ve rolled her eyes if it weren’t so damn sexy. “Really hot, huh?” “Well, kinda hot, anyway.” “Nuh-uh,” he said, tugging her hand to his chest. “Can’t take it back now.” Cheeks burning and big smile threatening, she rolled onto her side to face him. They lay there, side by side, her chest almost touching his, looking at each other. Tension and desire and anticipation crackled in the space between them, making it hard to breathe. “What do you see when you look at me?” she whispered, half-afraid to ask but even more curious to hear what he’d say. Did he mostly see someone who was too young for him? Or a needy girl he had to save and babysit?

Now we were standing around holding hands and not much was going on. I began to think of words I had known, just for fun, to fill up the blank space in my head. Couch, I thought. Cuisinart, I thought. The words felt different right now than they had before. They meant a little less, held a little less, but seemed somehow fuller: I had never really noticed how much sound there was in a word. The way it filled your mouth up with emptiness, a sort of loosened emptiness that you could tongue, an emptiness you could suck on like a stone. Stomach, I thought. Variety, I thought. Expectation. Intimation. Infiltration. Infiltration: I tongued that one further. I knew it had a hostile aspect, like someone breaking into your house or posing as someone you should trust. But it also had a lovely sound, a kind of tapered point and a gently ruffled edge, and as I repeated it over and over in my mouth it took on a really great flavor and I thought of water filtering in and out of a piece of fabric, back and forth, moving between, soaking it and washing out, soaking in and taking with it pale tremors of color, memory, resistance, all that stuff, until I felt like one of those pieces of cloth on the television commercials that got washed with the name-brand cleanser and is now not only white, but silky and mountain-scented.

The full-figured form which she recognized as her own was lying on one of the floating stretchers the Kindred kept for transporting the sick or wounded. The stretcher itself had been crammed into the back of a space shuttle and there was someone sitting beside her, holding her limp white hand. But it wasn’t Sophie or Liv. Lock, she thought with dismay, watching the large male who was carefully cupping her hand in his. And sitting in the front of the shuttle, at the controls, was his brother, Deep. Though

Hal—come sit!” Rachel is looking back. She motions toward a sliver of space between Jonah and Madison. “There’s room.” “No. There’s not.” Luke says it without even turning around. “How do you and Hallie know each other, anyway?” “We met in the bathroom. Earlier tonight. She seems cool.” Rachel smiles at Hallelujah. Hallelujah can’t bring herself to smile back. “Sure, if you like the strong, silent type. I don’t. No offense.” Luke laughs, and Brad laughs, and the girls from Knoxville take that as their cue to laugh too. Like it was actually funny. Rachel doesn’t laugh. She’s still smiling, but now it’s like she’s not sure whether she should be. “Come on, Hal,” she says. “We’ll make room.” But Luke’s shaking his head. “Sorry. Guess I’m not being clear. There might be room for someone. But there’s not room for Hallie. Hal. Whatever you wanna call her. Besides. She has to get back. Curfew.” Rachel looks from Luke to Hallelujah, confused. “We’re all breaking curfew.” “Yeah, but it’s Hallie’s fault we have early curfew in the first place. And it’s her fault we have so many chaperones to deal with.” Luke’s counting on his fingers, holding them in the air. “Plus, they’ll probably be checking up on her. So she can’t stay.” “How is all of that her fault?” Rachel asks. “What’d she do?” “Yeah, Luke. What’d she do?” It’s Jonah. Hallelujah is kind of shocked to hear his voice. It’s low, with a dark undercurrent that’s unfamiliar to her. Then again, it’s been months since they talked. And a lot has changed. “If I remember it right,” Jonah goes on, still staring into the fire, “she wasn’t the only one.” Luke looks over at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Nothing,” Jonah says. “Just making an observation.” “An observation,” Luke repeats. “Yeah.” There’s a moment of silence. It’s uncomfortable. Hallelujah feels like the night sounds get louder to compensate. The wind rustling tree branches. The hum of cicadas. Birdcalls. They’re suffocating her. Then Luke shakes his head and laughs. “Whatever. Hallie still has to go.” He swings around to look at her directly. “What are you waiting for?” Hallelujah blinks, wishing that small movement could make her vanish. Everyone in the circle is staring. Waiting for her to leave. Their eyes cut into her. She takes two steps backward, tears clouding her vision. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. She turns and starts walking away. Walking, not running. She doesn’t want to give Luke that satisfaction.

ahead. He urged the horse a little faster and when he was within her hearing, he whistled. The piercing sound cut through the air and Vanni turned her mount toward him. She took one look at him, turned and kicked Chico’s flank, taking off. “Goddammit!” he swore. So, this was how it would be—not easy. He was going to have to take off the gloves. He risked being thrown by giving Liberty a snap with the end of his rein. The stallion reared. Paul hung on, then leaned low in the saddle while Liberty closed the space between them. By God, he was going to catch her, make her listen, get through to her. There was no one within shouting distance to distract them. For once in his life, he was going to finish! Even if he had to cover Vanessa’s mouth with his hand! It only took him a few minutes to catch up to her, thanks to Liberty, the champion of the stable. Pulling alongside Vanni he reached out over her hands and grabbed her reins, pulling Chico to a stop. The expression she turned on him was fierce. “What?” she demanded. “Listen to me!” he retorted. “Make it quick!” “Fine. Here’s quick. I love you. I’ve always loved you.I loved you before Matt saw you, but I didn’t have hisguts and I hung back. I’ve regretted that forever. Now I have—” “A baby coming,” she interrupted, lifting her chin. “Listen! I don’t know much about being a father! Just what I watched when I was growing up! And you know what I saw? I saw my parents with their arms around each other all the time! I saw them look at each other with all kinds of emotions—love and trust and commitment and—Vanni, here’s the ugly truth—if I made a baby, I’m not angry about that. It wasn’t on purpose, but I’m not angry. I’ll do my damn best, and I’m real sorry that I’m not in love with the baby’s mother. I’ll still take care of them—and not just by writing a check. I’ll be involved—take care of the child like a real father, support the mother the best I can. What that child is not going to see is his parents looking at each other like they’ve made a terrible mistake. I want him to see his dad with his arms around his wife and—” “Did you try?” she asked. “Did you give the woman who’s got your baby in her a chance?” “Is that what you want for her? She’s a decent person, Vanessa—she didn’t get pregnant on purpose. You want her stuck with a man who’s got another woman on his mind? I didn’t want this to happen to her—I’m not sticking her with half a husband! She deserves a chance to find someone who can give her the real thing.” “But she loves you. She does, doesn’t she? She wanted to get married.” “Vanessa, she’s scared and alone. It’s what comes to mind. She’ll be all right when she realizes I’m not going to let her down. And I’m not going to—” “All this because you couldn’t open your mouth and say how you felt, what you wanted,” she said hotly. “I wanted so little from you—just a word or gesture—some hint that you had feelings for me. Instead, you took your wounded little heart to another woman and—” She stopped her tirade as she saw his eyes narrow and his frown deepen. He glared at her for a long moment, then he jumped off the stallion, her mount’s reins still in his hands. He led the horses the short distance to the river’s edge, to a bank of trees. “What are you doing?” she asked, hanging on to the pommel. He secured the horses at a fallen tree, then reached up to her, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her none too gently out of the saddle. He whirled her around and pressed her up against a tree, holding her wrists over her head and pinioning her there with the whole length of his body. His face was close to hers. “You never opened your mouth, either,” he said. She was stunned speechless. She couldn’t remember a time Paul had ever behaved like this—aggressive, commanding. He leaned closer. “Open it now,” he demanded of her just before he covered her mouth with his.

He urged the horse a little faster and when he was within her hearing, he whistled. The piercing sound cut through the air and Vanni turned her mount toward him. She took one look at him, turned and kicked Chico’s flank, taking off. “Goddammit!” he swore. So, this was how it would be—not easy. He was going to have to take off the gloves. He risked being thrown by giving Liberty a snap with the end of his rein. The stallion reared. Paul hung on, then leaned low in the saddle while Liberty closed the space between them. By God, he was going to catch her, make her listen, get through to her. There was no one within shouting distance to distract them. For once in his life, he was going to finish! Even if he had to cover Vanessa’s mouth with his hand! It only took him a few minutes to catch up to her, thanks to Liberty, the champion of the stable. Pulling alongside Vanni he reached out over her hands and grabbed her reins, pulling Chico to a stop. The expression she turned on him was fierce. “What?” she demanded. “Listen to me!” he retorted. “Make it quick!” “Fine. Here’s quick. I love you. I’ve always loved you.I loved you before Matt saw you, but I didn’t have hisguts and I hung back. I’ve regretted that forever. Now I have—” “A baby coming,” she interrupted, lifting her chin. “Listen! I don’t know much about being a father! Just what I watched when I was growing up! And you know what I saw? I saw my parents with their arms around each other all the time! I saw them look at each other with all kinds of emotions—love and trust and commitment and—Vanni, here’s the ugly truth—if I made a baby, I’m not angry about that. It wasn’t on purpose, but I’m not angry. I’ll do my damn best, and I’m real sorry that I’m not in love with the baby’s mother. I’ll still take care of them—and not just by writing a check. I’ll be involved—take care of the child like a real father, support the mother the best I can. What that child is not going to see is his parents looking at each other like they’ve made a terrible mistake. I want him to see his dad with his arms around his wife and—” “Did you try?” she asked. “Did you give the woman who’s got your baby in her a chance?” “Is that what you want for her? She’s a decent person, Vanessa—she didn’t get pregnant on purpose. You want her stuck with a man who’s got another woman on his mind? I didn’t want this to happen to her—I’m not sticking her with half a husband! She deserves a chance to find someone who can give her the real thing.” “But she loves you. She does, doesn’t she? She wanted to get married.” “Vanessa, she’s scared and alone. It’s what comes to mind. She’ll be all right when she realizes I’m not going to let her down. And I’m not going to—” “All this because you couldn’t open your mouth and say how you felt, what you wanted,” she said hotly. “I wanted so little from you—just a word or gesture—some hint that you had feelings for me. Instead, you took your wounded little heart to another woman and—” She stopped her tirade as she saw his eyes narrow and his frown deepen. He glared at her for a long moment, then he jumped off the stallion, her mount’s reins still in his hands. He led the horses the short distance to the river’s edge, to a bank of trees. “What are you doing?” she asked, hanging on to the pommel. He secured the horses at a fallen tree, then reached up to her, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her none too gently out of the saddle. He whirled her around and pressed her up against a tree, holding her wrists over her head and pinioning her there with the whole length of his body. His face was close to hers. “You never opened your mouth, either,” he said. She was stunned speechless. She couldn’t remember a time Paul had ever behaved like this—aggressive, commanding. He leaned closer. “Open it now,” he demanded of her just before he covered her mouth with his.

What’s up, Sam?” “What birthday?” he panted. “What?” “What birthday, Anna?” It took a while for her to absorb his fear. It took a while for the reason for his fear to dawn on her. “Fifteen,” Anna said in a whisper. “What’s the matter?” Emma asked, sensing her twin’s mood. “It doesn’t mean anything.” “It doesn’t,” Anna whispered. “You’re probably right,” Sam said. “Oh, my God,” Anna said. “Are we going to disappear?” “When were you born?” Sam asked. “What time of day?” The twins exchanged scared looks. “We don’t know.” “You know what, no one has blinked out since that first day, so it’s probably—” Emma disappeared. Anna screamed. The other older kids took notice, the littles, too. “Oh, my God!” Anna cried. “Emma. Emma. Oh, God!” She grabbed Sam’s hands and he held her tight. The prees, some of them, caught the fear. Mother Mary came over. “What’s going on? You’re scaring the kids. Where’s Emma?” Anna just kept saying, “Oh, my God,” and calling her sister’s name. “Where’s Emma?” Mary demanded again. “What’s going on?” Sam didn’t want to explain. Anna was hurting him with the pressure of her fingers digging into the backs of his hands. Anna’s eyes were huge, staring holes in him. “How far apart were you born?” Sam asked. Anna just stared in blank horror. Sam lowered his voice to an urgent whisper. “How far apart were you born, Anna?” “Six minutes,” she whispered. “Hold my hands, Sam,” she said. “Don’t let me go, Sam,” she said. “I won’t, Anna, I won’t let you go,” Sam said. “What’s going to happen, Sam?” “I don’t know, Anna.” “Will we go to where our mom and dad are?” “I don’t know, Anna." “Am I going to die?” “No, Anna. You’re not going to die.” “Don’t let go of me, Sam.” Mary was there now, a baby on her hip. John was there. The prees, some of them, watched with serious, worried looks on their faces. “I don’t want to die,” Anna repeated. “I…I don’t know what it’s like.” “It’s okay, Anna.” Anna smiled. “That was a nice date. When we went out.” “It was.” For a split second it was like Anna blurred. Too fast to be real. She blurred, and Sam could almost swear that she had smiled at him. And his fingers squeezed on nothing. For a terribly long time no one moved or said anything. The littles didn’t cry out. The older kids just stared. Sam’s fingertips still remembered the feel of Anna’s hands. He stared at the place where her face had been. He could still see her pleading eyes. Unable to stop himself, he reached a hand into the space she had occupied. Reaching for a face that was no longer there. Someone sobbed. Someone cried out, other voices then, the prees started crying. Sam felt sick. When his teacher had disappeared he hadn’t been expecting it. This time he had seen it coming, like a monster in a slow-motion nightmare. This time he had seen it coming, like standing rooted on the railroad tracks, unable to jump aside.

The moment it was over I knew I shouldn’t have done it. It was fucked up on so many levels that it didn’t even feel right to hold Dan close to me in what had been our bed less than a month earlier. Dan loved me, I knew he did. It wasn’t fair of me to lead him on, even if I had broken up with him just before fucking him. But it wasn’t just that, the rest of it wasn’t right either. The knowledge of what I no longer was in my family’s view but forever, for whoever looked upon me, marked on my body, a lack so fundamental and obvious that some would refuse to call me a man. And what would happen to me because of that, the way my body was even in that moment changing to accommodate someone else’s desires, the way I was becoming what Brennan had decided I needed to be. For the first time, it wasn’t a mere omission but an outright lie. To be in that bed next to Dan was taking up the space that belonged to someone else, someone we had both loved and who was now gone. That life was over, done.

By looking at our actions critically and dispassionately, as if we were observing someone else, we stand a chance of breaking out of the cycle of action followed by self-justification, followed by more committed action. We can learn to put a little space between what we feel and how we respond, insert a moment of reflection, and think about whether we really want to buy that canoe in January, really want to send good money after bad, really want to hold on to a belief that is unfettered by facts. We might even change our minds before our brains freeze our thoughts into consistent patterns.

An accurate budget must be built on a base of thorough research. You must do research on your community to find out what it will cost to get a church off the ground. You need to solidly answer questions such as:, What will the cost of living in this community be?, What will my salary be? How about salaries for additional staff?, How much will it cost to rent space for the church to meet in?, How much will it cost to operate a business in this city (office rent, phones, computer equipment, copy equipment, and so on)? Talk with other pastors in the community. Find out what their start-up costs were and what they are currently spending to maintain and operate the church. Other pastors can be a valuable resource for you on many levels. The worst mistake you can make is to start the budget process by viewing economic realities through a rose-colored lens. If you speculate too much or cut corners in this area, you’ll end up paying dearly down the road. Remember, God never intended for you to go it alone. There are people and resources out there to help you prepare. Ask others for help. God receives no glory when you are scraping the bottom to do His work. So don’t think too small. Church planting is an all or nothing venture. You can’t just partially commit. You have to fully commit, and often that means with your wallet. Don’t underestimate the importance of having a base of prayer partners. You need prayers as desperately as you need money. You need prayers as desperately as you need money. An unhealthy launch may occur when a new church begins as the result of a church split, when a planter is disobedient in following God, or when there is a lack of funding or solid strategy. Finding the right teammates to help you on this journey is serious business. The people you bring on to your staff will either propel you down the road toward fulfilling the vision for your church or serve as speed bumps along the way. You should never be afraid to ask potential staff members to join you—even if it means a salary cut, a drastic position change or a significant new challenge for them. When you ask someone to join your staff, you are not asking that person to make a sacrifice. (If you have that mentality, you need to work to change it.) Instead, you are offering that person the opportunity of a lifetime. There are three things that every new church must have before it can be a real church: (1) a lead pastor, (2) a start date, and (3) a worship leader. Hire a person at the part-time level before bringing him or her on full time. When hiring a new staff person, make sure he or she possesses the three C's: Character, Chemistry & Competency Hiring staff precedes growth, not vice versa. Hire slow, fire fast. Never hire staff when you can find a volunteer. Launch as publicly as possible, with as many people as possible. There are two things you are looking for in a start date: (1) a date on which you have the potential to reach as many people as possible, and (2) a date that precedes a period of time in which people, in general, are unlikely to be traveling out of town. You need steppingstones to get you from where you are to your launch date. Monthly services are real services that you begin holding three to six months prior to your launch date. They are the absolute best strategic precursor to your launch. Monthly services give you the invaluable opportunity to test-drive your systems, your staff and, to an extent, even your service style. At the same time, you are doing real ministry with the people in attendance. These services should mirror as closely as possible what your service will look like on the launch date. Let your target demographic group be the strongest deciding factor in settling on a location: Hotel ballrooms, Movie theaters, Comedy clubs, Public-school auditoriums, Performing-arts theaters, Available church meeting spaces, College auditoriums, Corporate conference space.

But they are good hands,” he said, holding them up in the space between them, palms toward her. Slim hands, slender fingers, gold rings on four of them. Three of those fingertips had felled a man and left him gasping for survival. “They will protect you all the rest of my life and never hurt you. They will hold you and bring you comfort when you need it. They will hold our children. They will caress you and bring you pleasure. Come. Lie down on the bed.” Our

Same time as every day, Fyl..." she fussed, the rest of the bridge crew seeming to hold their breaths. "TWELVE THIRTY!" came the chorus. The next hour dragged by, in about the same way as the hour before that. At twelve twenty-five, Commander Ortez found himself stepping out of an elevator into an equally mundane grey steel corridor on his way to the mess hall. Turning a corner, he met with a stream of crewmen milling around between shifts. Some off-duty personnel were lounging around in civvies, which consisted mostly of re-revamped 60's hippy fashions. Of all the places on the ship, the mess was the most spacious, (i.e.: it was a big mess.) The command officer’s balcony overhung the rest of the crew dining area. Ortez sat at his usual place, wincing as he remembered to get someone to fix the springs in his chair. An ensign, 3rd class dressed in chef’s white, served him with a plate of what either ended up feeding the chefs latest pet - or strangling it. Marnetti, Barnum and the sciences officer Commander Jaris Skotchdopole filed in, not necessarily in that order, and found seats. After a few bites, Marnetti -- who was the first officer and navigator, put up a hand and signalled a waiter. The lad approached fearfully, appreciating the highlight of his day.

What Musk had done that the rival automakers missed or didn’t have the means to combat was turn Tesla into a lifestyle. It did not just sell someone a car. It sold them an image, a feeling they were tapping into the future, a relationship. Apple did the same thing decades ago with the Mac and then again with the iPod and iPhone. Even those who were not religious about their affiliation to Apple were sucked into its universe once they bought the hardware and downloaded software like iTunes. This sort of relationship is hard to pull off if you don’t control as much of the lifestyle as possible. PC makers that farmed their software out to Microsoft, their chips to Intel, and their design to Asia could never make machines as beautiful and as complete as Apple’s. They also could not respond in time as Apple took this expertise to new areas and hooked people on its applications. You can see Musk’s embrace of the car as lifestyle in Tesla’s abandonment of model years. Tesla does not designate cars as being 2014s or 2015s, and it also doesn’t have “all the 2014s in stock must go, go, go and make room for the new cars” sales. It produces the best Model S it can at the time, and that’s what the customer receives. This means that Tesla does not develop and hold on to a bunch of new features over the course of the year and then unleash them in a new model all at once. It adds features one by one to the manufacturing line when they’re ready. Some customers may be frustrated to miss out on a feature here and there. Tesla, however, manages to deliver most of the upgrades as software updates that everyone gets, providing current Model S owners with pleasant surprises.

The normative principle I am suggesting for the law is simply this: No action should be considered illicit or illegal unless it invades, or aggresses against, the person or just property of another. Only invasive actions should be declared illegal, and combated with the full power of the law. The invasion must be concrete and physical. There are degrees of seriousness of such invasion, and hence, different proper degrees of restitution or punishment. "Burglary," simple invasion of property for purposes of theft, is less serious than "robbery," where armed force is likely to be used against the victim. Here, however, we are not concerned with the questions of degrees of invasion or punishment, but simply with invasion per se. If no man may invade another person's "just" property, what is our criterion of justice to be? There is no space here to elaborate on a theory of justice in property titles. Suffice it to say that the basic axiom of libertarian political theory holds that every man is a selfowner, having absolute jurisdiction over his own body. In effect, this means that no one else may justly invade, or aggress against, another's person. It follows then that each person justly owns whatever previously unowned resources he appropriates or "mixes his labor with." From these twin axioms — self-ownership and "homesteading" — stem the justification for the entire system of property rights titles in a free-market society. This system establishes the right of every man to his own person, the right of donation, of bequest (and, concomitantly, the right to receive the bequest or inheritance), and the right of contractual exchange of property titles. Legal and political theory have committed much mischief by failing to pinpoint physical invasion as the only human action that should be illegal and that justifies the use of physical violence to combat it. The vague concept of "harm" is substituted for the precise one of physical violence. Consider the following two examples. Jim is courting Susan and is just about to win her hand in marriage, when suddenly Bob appears on the scene and wins her away. Surely Bob has done great "harm" to Jim. Once a nonphysical-invasion sense of harm is adopted, almost any outlaw act might be justified. Should Jim be able to "enjoin" Bob's very existence? Similarly, A is a successful seller of razor blades. But then B comes along and sells a better blade, teflon-coated to prevent shaving cuts. The value of A's property is greatly affected. Should he be able to collect damages from B, or, better yet, to enjoin B's sale of a better blade? The correct answer is not that consumers would be hurt if they were forced to buy the inferior blade, although that is surely the case. Rather, no one has the right to legally prevent or retaliate against "harms" to his property unless it is an act of physical invasion. Everyone has the right to have the physical integrity of his property inviolate; no one has the right to protect the value of his property, for that value is purely the reflection of what people are willing to pay for it. That willingness solely depends on how they decide to use their money. No one can have a right to someone else's money, unless that other person had previously contracted to transfer it to him. Legal and political theory have committed much mischief by failing to pinpoint physical invasion as the only human action that should be illegal and that justifies the use of physical violence to combat it. (1/2)

NAVAL’S RULES (2016) → Be present above all else. → Desire is suffering. (Buddha) → Anger is a hot coal you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at someone else. (Buddha) → If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day. → Reading (learning) is the ultimate meta-skill and can be traded for anything else. → All the real benefits in life come from compound interest. → Earn with your mind, not your time. → 99 percent of all effort is wasted. → Total honesty at all times. It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive. → Praise specifically, criticize generally. (Warren Buffett) → Truth is that which has predictive power. → Watch every thought. (Ask “Why am I having this thought?”) → All greatness comes from suffering. → Love is given, not received. → Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts. (Eck-hart Tolle) → Mathematics is the language of nature. → Every moment has to be complete in and of itself. [5] Health, love, and your mission, in that order. Nothing else matters.