Honour Your Body Quotes

1. Accept everything just the way it is. 2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake. 3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling. 4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world. 5. Be detached from desire your whole life long. 6. Do not regret what you have done. 7. Never be jealous. 8. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation. 9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others. 10. Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love. 11. In all things have no preferences. 12. Be indifferent to where you live. 13. Do not pursue the taste of good food. 14. Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need. 15. Do not act following customary beliefs. 16. Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful. 17. Do not fear death. 18. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age. 19. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help. 20. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour. 21. Never stray from the Way.

You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour.

First came bright Spirits, not the Spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers. Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one hand, and girls upon the other. If I could remember their singing and write down the notes, no man who read that score would ever grow sick or old. Between them went musicians: and after these a lady in whose honour all this was being done. I cannot now remember whether she was naked or clothed. If she were naked, then it must have been the almost visible penumbra of her courtesy and joy which produces in my memory the illusion of a great and shining train that followed her across the happy grass. If she were clothed, then the illusion of nakedness is doubtless due to the clarity with which her inmost spirit shone through the clothes. For clothes in that country are not a disguise: the spiritual body lives along each thread and turns them into living organs. A robe or a crown is there as much one of the wearer's features as a lip or an eye. But I have forgotten. And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face. “Is it?...is it?” I whispered to my guide. “Not at all,” said he. “It's someone ye'll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.” “She seems to be...well, a person of particular importance?” “Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.” “And who are these gigantic people...look! They're like emeralds...who are dancing and throwing flowers before here?” “Haven't ye read your Milton? A thousand liveried angels lackey her.” “And who are all these young men and women on each side?” “They are her sons and daughters.” “She must have had a very large family, Sir.” “Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.” “Isn't that a bit hard on their own parents?” “No. There are those that steal other people's children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives.” “And how...but hullo! What are all these animals? A cat-two cats-dozens of cats. And all those dogs...why, I can't count them. And the birds. And the horses.” “They are her beasts.” “Did she keep a sort of zoo? I mean, this is a bit too much.” “Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.” I looked at my Teacher in amazement. “Yes,” he said. “It is like when you throw a stone into a pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough int the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.

You do me proud, Captain. But, dear, I want to say one thing and then I'm done; for you don't need much advice of mine after my good man has spoken. I read somewhere that every inch of rope in the British Navy has a strand of red in it, so wherever a bit of it is found it is known. That is the text of my little sermon to you. Virtue, which means honour, honesty, courage, and all that makes character, is the red thread that marks a good man wherever he is. Keep that always and everywhere, so that even if wrecked by misfortune, that sign shall still be found and recognized. Yours is a rough life, and your mates not all we could wish, but you can be a gentleman in the true sense of the word; and no matter what happens to your body, keep your soul clean, your heart true to those who love you, and do your duty to the end.

Can this be true, this simple obvious message, or am I like those shipwrecked mariners who seize an empty bottle and eagerly read out what isn't there? And yet you are there, here, sprung like a genie to ten times your natural size, towering over me, holding me in your arms like mountain sides. Your red hair blazing and you are saying, "Make three wishes and they shall all come true. Make three hundred and I will honour every one.

I have the honour to be quite of your Lordship's opinion," said Mr. Lovel, looking maliciously at Mrs. Selwyn, "for I have an insuperable aversion to strength, either of body or mind, in a female." "Faith, and so have I," said Mr. Coverley; "for egad I'd as soon see a woman chop wood, as hear her chop logic." "So would every man in his senses," said Lord Merton; "for a woman wants nothing to recommend her but beauty and good nature; in every thing else she is either impertinent or unnatural. For my part, deuce take me if ever I wish to hear a word of sense from a woman as long as I live!" "It has always been agreed," said Mrs. Selwyn, looking round her with the utmost contempt, "that no man ought to be connected with a woman whose understanding is superior to his own. Now I very much fear, that to accommodate all this good company, according to such a rule, would be utterly impracticable, unless we should chuse subjects from Swift's hospital of idiots.

Matter You may not believe in magic, But don't you think it strange, The amount of matter in our universe, Has never slightly changed, That all which makes your body, Was once part of something more, And every breath you ever breathe, Has seen it all before, There are countless scores of beauty, In all the things that you despise, It could once have been a shooting star, That now makes up your thighs, And atoms of forgotten life, Who've long since ceased to roam, May now have the great honour, To call your crooked smile their home, You may not believe in magic, But I thought that you should know, The makings of your heart were born, Fourteen billion years ago, So next time you feel lonely, When this world makes you feel small, Just remember that it's part of you, And you're part of it all.

I come not, Ambrosia for any of the purposes thou hast named," replied Marcela, "but to defend myself and to prove how unreasonable are all those who blame me for their sorrow and for Chrysostom's death; and therefore I ask all of you that are here to give me your attention, for will not take much time or many words to bring the truth home to persons of sense. Heaven has made me, so you say, beautiful, and so much so that in spite of yourselves my beauty leads you to love me; and for the love you show me you say, and even urge, that I am bound to love you. By that natural understanding which God has given me I know that everything beautiful attracts love, but I cannot see how, by reason of being loved, that which is loved for its beauty is bound to love that which loves it; besides, it may happen that the lover of that which is beautiful may be ugly, and ugliness being detestable, it is very absurd to say, "I love thee because thou art beautiful, thou must love me though I be ugly." But supposing the beauty equal on both sides, it does not follow that the inclinations must be therefore alike, for it is not every beauty that excites love, some but pleasing the eye without winning the affection; and if every sort of beauty excited love and won the heart, the will would wander vaguely to and fro unable to make choice of any; for as there is an infinity of beautiful objects there must be an infinity of inclinations, and true love, I have heard it said, is indivisible, and must be voluntary and not compelled. If this be so, as I believe it to be, why do you desire me to bend my will by force, for no other reason but that you say you love me? Nay—tell me—had Heaven made me ugly, as it has made me beautiful, could I with justice complain of you for not loving me? Moreover, you must remember that the beauty I possess was no choice of mine, for, be it what it may, Heaven of its bounty gave it me without my asking or choosing it; and as the viper, though it kills with it, does not deserve to be blamed for the poison it carries, as it is a gift of nature, neither do I deserve reproach for being beautiful; for beauty in a modest woman is like fire at a distance or a sharp sword; the one does not burn, the other does not cut, those who do not come too near. Honour and virtue are the ornaments of the mind, without which the body, though it be so, has no right to pass for beautiful; but if modesty is one of the virtues that specially lend a grace and charm to mind and body, why should she who is loved for her beauty part with it to gratify one who for his pleasure alone strives with all his might and energy to rob her of it?

We have gone sick by following a path of untrammelled rationalism, male dominance, attention to the visible surface of things, practicality, bottom-line-ism. We have gone very, very sick. And the body politic, like any body, when it feels itself to be sick, it begins to produce antibodies, or strategies for overcoming the condition of dis-ease. And the 20th century is an enormous effort at self-healing. Phenomena as diverse as surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture, tattooing, the list is endless. What do all these things have in common? They represent various styles of rejection of linear values. The society is trying to cure itself by an archaic revival, by a reversion to archaic values. So when I see people manifesting sexual ambiguity, or scarifying themselves, or showing a lot of flesh, or dancing to syncopated music, or getting loaded, or violating ordinary canons of sexual behaviour, I applaud all of this; because it's an impulse to return to what is felt by the body -- what is authentic, what is archaic -- and when you tease apart these archaic impulses, at the very centre of all these impulses is the desire to return to a world of magical empowerment of feeling. And at the centre of that impulse is the shaman: stoned, intoxicated on plants, speaking with the spirit helpers, dancing in the moonlight, and vivifying and invoking a world of conscious, living mystery. That's what the world is. The world is not an unsolved problem for scientists or sociologists. The world is a living mystery: our birth, our death, our being in the moment -- these are mysteries. They are doorways opening on to unimaginable vistas of self-exploration, empowerment and hope for the human enterprise. And our culture has killed that, taken it away from us, made us consumers of shoddy products and shoddier ideals. We have to get away from that; and the way to get away from it is by a return to the authentic experience of the body -- and that means sexually empowering ourselves, and it means getting loaded, exploring the mind as a tool for personal and social transformation. The hour is late; the clock is ticking; we will be judged very harshly if we fumble the ball. We are the inheritors of millions and millions of years of successfully lived lives and successful adaptations to changing conditions in the natural world. Now the challenge passes to us, the living, that the yet-to-be-born may have a place to put their feet and a sky to walk under; and that's what the psychedelic experience is about, is caring for, empowering, and building a future that honours the past, honours the planet and honours the power of the human imagination. There is nothing as powerful, as capable of transforming itself and the planet, as the human imagination. Let's not sell it straight. Let's not whore ourselves to nitwit ideologies. Let's not give our control over to the least among us. Rather, you know, claim your place in the sun and go forward into the light. The tools are there; the path is known; you simply have to turn your back on a culture that has gone sterile and dead, and get with the programme of a living world and a re-empowerment of the imagination. Thank you very, very much.

After changing shape several times, the ball eventually turned into a huge face. It floated alongside the air-car. This time, time instead of sending him a mental message, the face spoke out aloud and the whole air-car vibrated with its intensity. “If you are foolish enough to renege on your contract, you will be severely punished. For your sake, I hope you wouldn’t do such a thing.” When Tarmy made no attempt to respond, the face turned and pressed itself against the millipede-free window. A moment later, Tarmy felt the fat slug entering his mind, the sign that the face was attempting to use its powers to obtain his response by other means. But as the slug dug deeper, Samantha’s cover stories began springing out of the corners of his mind. Instead of obtaining Tarmy’s agreement, all that the face saw was a burning army transporter surrounded by bodies. Undeterred, the face continued its assault. Samantha had anticipated that Tarmy might come up against an adept, so the mental images of death and destruction flowed unchecked. After failing to break Tarmy’s defences, the face removed the slug and tried reason. “You can’t win, Mr Tarleton, so why don’t you do yourself a favour and cooperate? It will be better for you in the long run. Now, where is the miniature pulse drive engine?” Tarmy realised why the millipedes hadn’t been allowed to attack. It was obvious that the Great Ones were hoping to retrieve the engine. When Tarmy didn’t respond, the face said, “I am prepared to overlook your desertion if you agree to tell us where the engine is and also honour your contract by showing us how to convert the engine into a bomb.

Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, 'The Cannibals, you will be eaten by cannibals!' John Paton replied to this man 'Mr Dickson, you are advanced in years now and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you that if I can live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.

First I need to do something.’ He pulled me closer towards him until our lips were almost touching. ‘What might that be?’ I managed to stutter, closing my eyes, anticipating the warmth of his lips against mine. But the kiss didn’t come. I opened my eyes. Alex had jumped to his feet. ‘Swim,’ he said, grinning at me. ‘Come on.’ ‘Swim?’ I pouted, unable to hide my disappointment that he wanted to swim rather than make out with me. Alex pulled his T-shirt off in one swift move. My eyes fell straightaway to his chest – which was tanned, smooth and ripped with muscle, and which, when you studied it as I had done, in detail, you discovered wasn’t a six-pack but actually a twelve-pack. My eyes flitted to the shadowed hollows where his hips disappeared into his shorts, causing a flutter in parts of my body that up until three weeks ago had been flutter-dormant. Alex’s hands dropped to his shorts and he started undoing his belt. I reassessed the swimming option. I could definitely do swimming. He shrugged off his shorts, but before I could catch an eyeful of anything, he was off, jogging towards the water. I paused for a nanosecond, weighing up my embarrassment at stripping naked over my desire to follow him. With a deep breath, I tore off my dress then kicked off my underwear and started running towards the sea, praying Nate wasn’t doing a fly-by. The water was warm and flat as a bath. I could see Alex in the distance, his skin gleaming in the now inky moonlight. When I got close to him, his hand snaked under the water, wrapped round my waist and pulled me towards him. I didn’t resist because I’d forgotten in that instant how to swim. And then he kissed me and I prayed silently and fervently that he took my shudder to be the effect of the water. I tried sticking myself onto him like a barnacle, but eventually Alex managed to pull himself free, holding my wrists in his hand so I couldn’t reattach. His resolve was as solid as a nuclear bunker’s walls. Alex had said there were always chinks. But I couldn’t seem to find the one in his armour. He swam two long strokes away from me. I trod water and stayed where I was, feeling confused, glad that the night was dark enough to hide my expression. ‘I’m just trying to protect your honour,’ he said, guessing it anyway. I groaned and rolled my eyes. When was he going to understand that I was happy for him to protect every other part of me, just not my honour?

You have both contested well: the one is forced by his sorrow to lament, the other by the plaintiff’s attack to tell the truth. So plaintiff, yours is the honour! And Death, yours is the victory! Every man is obliged to give his life to Death, his body to the earth, and his soul to Us.

In everything you eat—honour yourself. In every rest you take—honour yourself. In how you spend your time—honour yourself. In the people you spend your time with—honour yourself. In nourishing your body and soul with love and mindful awareness, you learn to truly honour everyone and everything that your life touches.

He nearly groaned out loud. How could he have let his experience with Sana make him so cynical, so judgemental? He loved Aisha, but he hadn’t trusted her. And so, he had lost her. It felt as if his heart was being ripped out of his chest. His jaw clenched. The pain of trusting the wrong person? It was nothing compared to the pain of not trusting the right one. The repercussions of valuing an undeserving woman? They were far less devastating than those of maligning an honourable woman. He recalled the agonised, betrayed expression that had replaced Aisha’s initial shock at his ill-founded accusations, and a shudder tore through him. It felt as if his soul was shrivelling inside his body. No matter how much it hurt to have your trust broken, it hurt a million times more to break someone’s trust in you.

If you want to do his soul good, why do you continually obstruct him? It hardly makes him a better man. Do you never think that, if you had bowed to the king’s wishes years ago, if you had entered a convent and allowed him to remarry, he would never have broken with Rome? There would have been no need. Sufficient doubt was cast upon your marriage for you to retire with a good grace. You would have been honoured by all. But now the titles you cling to are empty. Henry was a good son of Rome. You drove him to this extremity. You, not he, split Christendom. And I expect that you know that, and that you think about it in the silence of the night.

Virtue, which means honour, honesty, courage, and all that makes character, is the red thread that marks a good man wherever he is. Keep that always and everywhere, so that even if wrecked by misfortune, that sign shall still be found and recognized. Yours is a rough life, and your mates not all we could wish, but you can be a gentleman in the true sense of the word; and no matter what happens to your body, keep your soul clean, your heart true to those who love you, and do your duty to the end.

Create Love in Your Body One of the most common things we think when we’re hit by dis-ease is I’m going to fight this. If you’ve ever thought like this, first of all I want to honour your wish to be healed. But the most important thing I can say is that you don’t want to create a ‘war’ in your body by fighting your dis-ease; you want to love it until it’s gone. Love is the only thing that will eradicate fear, and dis-ease is a product of fear, whether conscious or unconscious, so the way to heal is to create love in your body.

It is better to lose health like a spendthrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick-room. By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week. It is not only in finished undertakings that we ought to honour useful labour. A spirit goes out of the man who means execution, which outlives the most untimely ending. All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. And even if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful language, they should be at once tripped up and silenced: is there not something brave and spirited in such a termination? and does not life go down with a better grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than miserably straggling to an end in sandy deltas? When the Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods love die young, I cannot help believing they had this sort of death also in their eye. For surely, at whatever age it overtake the man, this is to die young. Death has not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into the spiritual land.

In your own world you have attained great wisdom concerning bodies and by this you have been able to make a ship that can cross the heaven; but in all other things you have the mind of an animal. When first you came here, I sent for you, meaning you nothing but honour. The darkness in your mind filled you with fear.

Suppose... that you acquit me... Suppose that, in view of this, you said to me 'Socrates, on this occasion we shall disregard Anytus and acquit you, but only on one condition, that you give up spending your time on this quest and stop philosophizing. If we catch you going on in the same way, you shall be put to death.' Well, supposing, as I said, that you should offer to acquit me on these terms, I should reply 'Gentlemen, I am your very grateful and devoted servant, but I owe a greater obedience to God than to you; and so long as I draw breath and have my faculties, I shall never stop practicing philosophy and exhorting you and elucidating the truth for everyone that I meet. I shall go on saying, in my usual way, "My very good friend, you are an Athenian and belong to a city which is the greatest and most famous in the world for its wisdom and strength. Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honour, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?" And if any of you disputes this and professes to care about these things, I shall not at once let him go or leave him; no, I shall question him and examine him and test him; and if it appears that in spite of his profession he has made no real progress towards goodness, I shall reprove him for neglecting what is of supreme importance, and giving his attention to trivialities. I shall do this to everyone that I meet, young or old, foreigner or fellow-citizen; but especially to you my fellow-citizens, inasmuch as you are closer to me in kinship. This, I do assure you, is what my God commands; and it is my belief that no greater good has ever befallen you in this city than my service to my God; for I spend all my time going about trying to persuade you, young and old, to make your first and chief concern not for your bodies nor for your possessions, but for the highest welfare of your souls, proclaiming as I go 'Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the State.' ...And so, gentlemen, I would say, 'You can please yourselves whether you listen to Anytus or not, and whether you acquit me or not; you know that I am not going to alter my conduct, not even if I have to die a hundred deaths.

But wha cookit the parridge for him?” exclaimed the Baillie, “I wad like to ken that;—wha, but your honour’s to command, Duncan Macwheeble? His honour, young Mr Waverley, pat it a’ in my hand frae the beginning—frae the first calling o’ the summons, as I may say. I circumvented them—I played at bogle about the bush wi’ them—I cajolled them; and if I have na gien Inch-Grabbit and Jamie Howie a bonnie begunk, they ken themselves. Him a writer! I did na gae slap-dash to them wi’ our young bra’ bridegroom, to gar them haud up the market; na, na; I scared them wi’ our wild tenantry, and the Mac-Ivors, that are but ill settled yet, till they durst na on ony errand whatsoever gang ower the door-stane after gloaming, for fear John Heatherblutter, or some siccan dare-the-diel, should take a baff at them: then, on the other hand, I beflum’d them wi’ Colonel Talbot—wad they offer to keep up the price again the Duke’s friend? did na they ken wha was master? had na they seen aneuch, by the example of mony a poor misguided unhappy body”—

Anyone Can Sing" Anyone can sing. You just open your mouth, and give shape to a sound. Anyone can sing. What is harder, is to proclaim the soul, to initiate a wild and necessary deepening: to give the voice broad, sonorous wings of solitude, grief, and celebration, to fill the body with the echoes of voices lost long ago to bravery, and silence, to prise the reluctant heart wide open, to witness defeat, to suffer contempt, to shrink, lose face, go down in ignominy, to retreat to the last dark hiding-place where the tattered remnants of your pride still gather themselves around your nakedness, to know these rags as your only protection and yet still open—to face the possibility that your innermost core may hold nothing at all, and to sing from that—to fill the void with every hurt, every harm, every hard-won joy that staves off death yet honours its coming, to sing both full and utterly empty, alone and conjoined, exiled and at home, to sing what people feel most keenly yet never acknowledge until you sing it. Anyone can sing. Yes. Anyone can sing.

Each month our bodies go through a series of changes, many of which we may be unconscious of. These include: shifts in levels of hormones, vitamins and minerals, vaginal temperature and secretions, the structure of the womb lining and cervix, body weight, water retention, heart rate, breast size and texture, attention span, pain threshold... The changes are biological. Measurable. They are most definitely not ‘all in your head’ as many would have us believe. This is why it is so crucial to honour these changes by adapting our lives to them as much as possible.

Then Almitra spoke, saying, "We would ask now of Death." And he said: You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the sheered not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Never esteem aught of advantage which will oblige you to break your faith, or to desert your honour; to hate, to suspect, or to execrate any man; to play a part; or to set your mind on anything that needs to be hidden by wall or curtain. He who to all things prefers the soul, the divinity within him, and the sacred cult of its virtues, makes no tragic groan or gesture. He needs neither solitude nor a crowd of spectators; and, best of all, he will live neither seeking nor shunning death. Whether the soul shall use its surrounding body for a longer or shorter space is to him indifferent. Were he to depart this moment he would go as readily as he would do any other seemly and proper action, holding one thing only in life-long avoidance—to find his soul in any case unbefitting an intelligent social being.

You do me proud, Captain. But, dear, I want to say one thing and then I'm done; for you don't need much advice of mine after my good man has spoken. I read somewhere that every inch of rope in the British Navy has a strand of red in it, so wherever a bit of it is found it is known. That is the text of my little sermon to you. Virtue, which means honour, honesty, courage, and all that makes character, is the red thread that marks a good man wherever he is. Keep that always and everywhere, so that even if wrecked by misfortune, that sign shall still be found and recognized. Yours is a rough life, and your mates not all we could wish, but you can be a gentleman in the true sense of the word; and no matter what happens to your body, keep your soul clean, your heart true to those who love you, and do your duty to the end.

Morrow's rush of disgust, temporary as it might prove, had nothing to do with the truths-turned-insults flung out. No. What riled Morrow ran far deeper - was the sheer perversity of Chess's own nature, that unbreakable wilfulness he'd always revered in himself, as sign and source of his own freedom. His stark refusal ever to be bound, to obey aught but his own whim and want. Because while he could walk free and hold a gun Chess Pargeter answered to no man - no man, no law, no damn body, motherfucker. No ideal, no cause, no force but sheer chaos, bound and determined to move unimpeded and burn for the sake of burning. To never submit himself to ghost or hex or priest or even God, 'less he damn well wanted to. No man except Ash Rook, that was - for a time. And after this last betrayal, from now on... not even him. 'Course not, Morrow's anger spoke back, unimpressed by Chess's well-tuned inner litany. That's 'cause you're nothing but a brat who never grew up - a skillet-hopping little hot-pants who knows everything 'bout killing and nothing at all 'bout living. Who spits on friendship, duty and honour not 'cause he's above them, so much as 'cause he don't know what they even mean - same way you don't really grasp how anything's real, 'cept if you want it, or it hurts you. And that's why you ended up givin' everything you had to a man who skinned you alive, then left you stranded down in Hell - 'cause he was what you wanted, and Christ forbid Chess Pargeter ever admit what he wanted was a goddamn bad idea. You made it easy for him, Chess, you damn fool. 'Cause you couldn't believe you deserved anything better. And me? I'd never do that to you, or anyone. Never.

As you think so you become is a law of life. Thus when you constantly think of, feel for the body you identify with it, you become one with it. You believe you are the body. Thereafter, whatever happens to your body happens to you. So when your body is warm, you say ‘I am warm’. And when your body is cold, you say ‘I am cold’. Similarly, you identify with the mind and become one with it. And when your mind is happy, you say ‘I am happy’. When it is unhappy you say ‘I am unhappy’. Again, identifying with the intellect you say ‘I am brilliant, I am dull’, when your intellect is brilliant or dull. The body is bound to be affected by the heat or cold of the world outside. So is the mind affected by joy or sorrow. The intellect by honour or dishonour. But your Self within is immaculate. It remains ever unaffected by the attraction or repulsion of the changing world.

But unfortunately you get no further by merely wishing class-distinctions away. More exactly, it is necessary to wish them away, but your wish has no efficacy unless you grasp what it involves. The fact that has got to be faced is that to abolish class-distinctions means abolishing a part of yourself. Here am I, a typical member of the middle class. It is easy for me to say that I want to get rid of class-distinctions, but nearly everything I think and do is a result of class-distinctions. All my notions –notions of good and evil, of pleasant and unpleasant, of funny and serious, of ugly and beautiful–are essentially middle-class notions; my taste in books and food and clothes, my sense of honour, my table manners, my turns of speech, my accent, even the characteristic movements of my body, are the products of a special kind of upbringing and a special niche about half-way up the social hierarchy.

My child, this world is a new place, and strange, and often terrible: but be not afraid. All will come right at last. Rest will conquer Restlessness; Faith will conquer Fear; Order will conquer Disorder; Health will conquer Sickness; Joy will conquer Sorrow; Pleasure will conquer Pain; Life will conquer Death; Right will conquer Wrong. All will be well at last. Keep your soul and body pure, humble, busy, pious—in one word, be good: and ere you die, or after you die, you may have some glimpse of Me, the Everlasting Why: and hear with the ears, not of your body but of your spirit, men and all rational beings, plants and animals, ay, the very stones beneath your feet, the clouds above your head, the planets and the suns away in farthest space, singing eternally, ‘Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.

And consider flesh too, if it comes to that. Who could have dreamed up such stuff? It's flabby and it stinks as often as not or it bulges and develops knobs and is covered with horrible hair and blotches. The internal combustion engine is at least more efficient, or take the piston rods on a loco-motive, and it's quite easy to oil them too. While keeping flesh in decent condition is almost impossible even leaving aside the obscene process of ageing and the fact that half the world starves. What a planet. And take eating, if you're lucky enough to do any. Stuffing pieces of dead animals into a hole in your face. Then munch, munch, munch. If there's anybody watching they must be dying of laughter. And the shape of the human body. Who but a thoroughly imcompetent craftsman or else some sort of practical joker could have invented this sort of moon on two sticks? Legs are a bad joke. Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle.

February 13 MORNING “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” — 1 John 3:1, 2 BEHOLD, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.” Consider who we were, and what we feel ourselves to be even now when corruption is powerful in us, and you will wonder at our adoption. Yet we are called “the sons of God.” What a high relationship is that of a son, and what privileges it brings! What care and tenderness the son expects from his father, and what love the father feels towards the son! But all that, and more than that, we now have through Christ. As for the temporary drawback of suffering with the elder brother, this we accept as an honour: “Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.” We are content to be unknown with Him in His humiliation, for we are to be exalted with Him. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” That is easy to read, but it is not so easy to feel. How is it with your heart this morning? Are you in the lowest depths of sorrow? Does corruption rise within your spirit, and grace seem like a poor spark trampled under foot? Does your faith almost fail you? Fear not, it is neither your graces nor feelings on which you are to live: you must live simply by faith on Christ. With all these things against us, now — in the very depths of our sorrow, wherever we may be — now, as much in the valley as on the mountain, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” “Ah, but,” you say, “see how I am arrayed! my graces are not bright; my righteousness does not shine with apparent glory.” But read the next: “It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.” The Holy Spirit shall purify our minds, and divine power shall refine our bodies, then shall we see Him as He is.

He was walking down a narrow street in Beirut, Lebanon, the air thick with the smell of Arabic coffee and grilled chicken. It was midday, and he was sweating badly beneath his flannel shirt. The so-called South Lebanon conflict, the Israeli occupation, which had begun in 1982 and would last until 2000, was in its fifth year. The small white Fiat came screeching around the corner with four masked men inside. His cover was that of an aid worker from Chicago and he wasn’t strapped. But now he wished he had a weapon, if only to have the option of ending it before they took him. He knew what that would mean. The torture first, followed by the years of solitary. Then his corpse would be lifted from the trunk of a car and thrown into a drainage ditch. By the time it was found, the insects would’ve had a feast and his mother would have nightmares, because the authorities would not allow her to see his face when they flew his body home. He didn’t run, because the only place to run was back the way he’d come, and a second vehicle had already stopped halfway through a three-point turn, all but blocking off the street. They exited the Fiat fast. He was fit and trained, but he knew they’d only make it worse for him in the close confines of the car if he fought them. There was a time for that and a time for raising your hands, he’d learned. He took an instep hard in the groin, and a cosh over the back of his head as he doubled over. He blacked out then. The makeshift cell Hezbollah had kept him in in Lebanon was a bare concrete room, three metres square, without windows or artificial light. The door was wooden, reinforced with iron strips. When they first dragged him there, he lay in the filth that other men had made. They left him naked, his wrists and ankles chained. He was gagged with rag and tape. They had broken his nose and split his lips. Each day they fed him on half-rancid scraps like he’d seen people toss to skinny dogs. He drank only tepid water. Occasionally, he heard the muted sound of children laughing, and smelt a faint waft of jasmine. And then he could not say for certain how long he had been there; a month, maybe two. But his muscles had wasted and he ached in every joint. After they had said their morning prayers, they liked to hang him upside down and beat the soles of his feet with sand-filled lengths of rubber hose. His chest was burned with foul-smelling cigarettes. When he was stubborn, they lay him bound in a narrow structure shaped like a grow tunnel in a dusty courtyard. The fierce sun blazed upon the corrugated iron for hours, and he would pass out with the heat. When he woke up, he had blisters on his skin, and was riddled with sand fly and red ant bites. The duo were good at what they did. He guessed the one with the grey beard had honed his skills on Jewish conscripts over many years, the younger one on his own hapless people, perhaps. They looked to him like father and son. They took him to the edge of consciousness before easing off and bringing him back with buckets of fetid water. Then they rubbed jagged salt into the fresh wounds to make him moan with pain. They asked the same question over and over until it sounded like a perverse mantra. “Who is The Mandarin? His name? Who is The Mandarin?” He took to trying to remember what he looked like, the architecture of his own face beneath the scruffy beard that now covered it, and found himself flinching at the slightest sound. They had peeled back his defences with a shrewdness and deliberation that had both surprised and terrified him. By the time they freed him, he was a different man.  

LEICESTER, Jan. 17th, 1793. "DEAR AND HONOURED FATHER,—The importance of spending our time for God alone, is the principal theme of the gospel. I beseech you, brethren, says Paul, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. To be devoted like a sacrifice to holy uses, is the great business of a christian, pursuant to these requisitions. I consider myself as devoted to the service of God alone, and now I am to realise my professions. I am appointed to go to Bengal, in the East Indies, a missionary to the Hindoos. I shall have a colleague who has been there five or six years already, and who understands their language. They are the most mild and inoffensive people in all the world, but are enveloped in the greatest superstition, and in the grossest ignorance...I hope, dear father, you may be enabled to surrender me up to the Lord for the most arduous, honourable, and important work that ever any of the sons of men were called to engage in. I have many sacrifices to make. I must part with a beloved family, and a number of most affectionate friends. Never did I see such sorrow manifested as reigned through our place of worship last Lord's-day. But I have set my hand to the plough.—I remain, your dutiful son, "WILLIAM CAREY.

Of course the no-government ethics will meet with at least as many objections as the no-capital economics. Our minds have been so nurtured in prejudices as to the providential functions of government that anarchist ideas must be received with distrust. Our whole education, from childhood to the grave, nurtures the belief in the necessity of a government and its beneficial effects. Systems of philosophy have been elaborated to support this view; history has been written from this standpoint; theories of law have been circulated and taught for the same purpose. All politics are based on the same principle, each politician saying to people he wants to support him: “Give me the governmental power; I will, I can, relieve you from the hardships of your present life.” All our education is permeated with the same teachings. We may open any book of sociology, history, law, or ethics: everywhere we find government, its organisation, its deeds, playing so prominent a part that we grow accustomed to suppose that the State and the political men are everything; that there is nothing behind the big statesmen. The same teachings are daily repeated in the Press. Whole columns are filled up with minutest records of parliamentary debates, of movements of political persons. And, while reading these columns, we too often forget that besides those few men whose importance has been so swollen up as to overshadow humanity, there is an immense body of men—mankind, in fact—growing and dying, living in happiness or sorrow, labouring and consuming, thinking and creating. And yet, if we revert from the printed matter to our real life, and cast a broad glance on society as it is, we are struck with the infinitesimal part played by government in our life. Millions of human beings live and die without having had anything to do with government. Every day millions of transactions are made without the slightest interference of government; and those who enter into agreements have not the slightest intention of breaking bargains. Nay, those agreements which are not protected by government (those of the exchange, or card debts) am perhaps better kept than any others. The simple habit of keeping one's word, the desire of not losing confidence, are quite sufficient in an overwhelming majority of cases to enforce the keeping of agreements. Of course it may be said that there is still the government which might enforce them if necessary. But without speaking of the numberless cases which could not even be brought before a court, everyone who has the slightest acquaintance with trade will undoubtedly confirm the assertion that, if there were not so strong a feeling of honour in keeping agreements, trade itself would become utterly impossible.

Christ was an Aryan, and St. Paul used his doctrine to mobilise the criminal underworld and thus organise a proto-Bolshevism. This intrusion upon the world marks the end of a long reign, that of the clear Graeco-Latin genius. What is this God who takes pleasure only in seeing men grovel before Him? Try to picture to yourselves the meaning of the following, quite simple story. God creates the conditions for sin. Later on He succeeds, with the help of the Devil, in causing man to sin. Then He employs a virgin to bring into the world a son who, by His death, will redeem humanity! I can imagine people being enthusiastic about the paradise of Mahomet, but as for the insipid paradise of the Christians ! In your lifetime, you used to hear the music of Richard Wagner. After your death, it will be nothing but hallelujahs, the waving of palms, children of an age for the feeding-bottle, and hoary old men. The man of the isles pays homage to the forces of nature. But Christianity is an invention of sick brains : one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery. A negro with his tabus is crushingly superior to the human being who seriously believes in Transubstantiation. I begin to lose all respect for humanity when I think that some people on our side, Ministers or generals, are capable of believing that we cannot triumph without the blessing of the Church. Such a notion is excusable in little children who have learnt nothing else. For thirty years the Germans tore each other to pieces simply in order to know whether or not they should take Communion in both kinds. There's nothing lower than religious notions like that. From that point of view, one can envy the Japanese. They have a religion which is very simple and brings them into contact with nature. They've succeeded even in taking Christianity and turning it into a religion that's less shocking to the intellect. By what would you have me replace the Christians' picture of the Beyond? What comes naturally to mankind is the sense of eternity and that sense is at the bottom of every man. The soul and the mind migrate, just as the body returns to nature. Thus life is eternally reborn from life. As for the "why?" of all that, I feel no need to rack my brains on the subject. The soul is unplumbable. If there is a God, at the same time as He gives man life He gives him intelligence. By regulating my life according to the understanding that is granted me, I may be mistaken, but I act in good faith. The concrete image of the Beyond that religion forces on me does not stand up to examination. Think of those who look down from on high upon what happens on earth: what a martyrdom for them, to see human beings indefatigably repeating the same gestures, and inevitably the same errors ! In my view, H. S. Chamberlain was mistaken in regarding Christianity as a reality upon the spiritual level. Man judges everything in relation to himself. What is bigger than himself is big, what is smaller is small. Only one thing is certain, that one is part of the spectacle. Everyone finds his own rôle. Joy exists for everybody. I dream of a state of affairs in which every man would know that he lives and dies for the preservation of the species. It's our duty to encourage that idea : let the man who distinguishes himself in the service of the species be thought worthy of the highest honours.

In Memory of W. B. Yeats I He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, And snow disfigured the public statues; The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays; By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems. But for him it was his last afternoon as himself, An afternoon of nurses and rumours; The provinces of his body revolted, The squares of his mind were empty, Silence invaded the suburbs, The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers. Now he is scattered among a hundred cities And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections, To find his happiness in another kind of wood And be punished under a foreign code of conscience. The words of a dead man Are modified in the guts of the living. But in the importance and noise of to-morrow When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the bourse, And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom A few thousand will think of this day As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. II You were silly like us; your gift survived it all: The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its making where executives Would never want to tamper, flows on south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth. III Earth, receive an honoured guest: William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry. In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark, And the living nations wait, Each sequestered in its hate; Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye. Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.

In the uncertain hour before the morning Near the ending of interminable night At the recurrent end of the unending After the dark dove with the flickering tongue Had passed below the horizon of his homing While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin Over the asphalt where no other sound was Between three districts whence the smoke arose I met one walking, loitering and hurried As if blown towards me like the metal leaves Before the urban dawn wind unresisting. And as I fixed upon the down-turned face That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge The first-met stranger in the waning dusk I caught the sudden look of some dead master Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled Both one and many; in the brown baked features The eyes of a familiar compound ghost Both intimate and unidentifiable. So I assumed a double part, and cried And heard another's voice cry: 'What! are you here?' Although we were not. I was still the same, Knowing myself yet being someone other— And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed To compel the recognition they preceded. And so, compliant to the common wind, Too strange to each other for misunderstanding, In concord at this intersection time Of meeting nowhere, no before and after, We trod the pavement in a dead patrol. I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy, Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak: I may not comprehend, may not remember.' And he: 'I am not eager to rehearse My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten. These things have served their purpose: let them be. So with your own, and pray they be forgiven By others, as I pray you to forgive Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail. For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. But, as the passage now presents no hindrance To the spirit unappeased and peregrine Between two worlds become much like each other, So I find words I never thought to speak In streets I never thought I should revisit When I left my body on a distant shore. Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us To purify the dialect of the tribe And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight, Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort. First, the cold friction of expiring sense Without enchantment, offering no promise But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit As body and soul begin to fall asunder. Second, the conscious impotence of rage At human folly, and the laceration Of laughter at what ceases to amuse. And last, the rending pain of re-enactment Of all that you have done, and been; the shame Of motives late revealed, and the awareness Of things ill done and done to others' harm Which once you took for exercise of virtue. Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains. From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.' The day was breaking. In the disfigured street He left me, with a kind of valediction, And faded on the blowing of the horn. -T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding

O sacred heart of Christ...you know all my troubles and worries...heal my soul...bring counsel of healing to my heart...touch my life with your Sacred goodness…Sacred heart of Christ, you came for me...you live for my sake...cover my heart with your strength...fight for me...shield me in perfect power...heal my heart from being broken and shattered...shield my heart with your strong might…Sustain my body...protect me from brain damage...be forever living and active in my body...embrace me...shield my heart...safeguard my life...O heart of Christ...impart your sacred love to my body, soul and mind. Keep me safe...you are the source of my life...O heart of Christ be my everlasting lifeline...be in me Sacred heart of Christ...I love you...I honour you...I worship you...O gentle and Sacred heart of Christ...most holy heart of Christ, save my heart, body and soul from perishing...

Ha! little honour to be much believed, And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming! I will proclaim thee, Angelo; look for't: Sign me a present pardon for my brother, Or with an outstretch'd throat I'll tell the world aloud What man thou art. ANGELO Who will believe thee, Isabel? My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i' the state, Will so your accusation overweigh, That you shall stifle in your own report And smell of calumny. I have begun, And now I give my sensual race the rein: Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite; Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes, That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother By yielding up thy body to my will; Or else he must not only die the death, But thy unkindness shall his death draw out To lingering sufferance. Answer me to-morrow, Or, by the affection that now guides me most, I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you, Say what you can, my false o'erweighs your true. Exit ISABELLA To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, Who would believe me? O perilous mouths, That bear in them one and the self-same tongue, Either of condemnation or approof; Bidding the law make court'sy to their will: Hooking both right and wrong to the appetite, To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother: Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood, Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour. That, had he twenty heads to tender down On twenty bloody blocks, he'ld yield them up, Before his sister should her body stoop To such abhorr'd pollution. Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die: More than our brother is our chastity. I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request, And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest. Exit From Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene IV

Tonight, Tam will allow... great and terrible magic to enter his body,' Lucien said, staring at the distant fires. 'The magic will seize control of his mind, his body, his soul, and turn him into the Hunter. It will fill him with his sole purpose; to find the Maiden. From their coupling, magic will be released and spread to the earth, where it will regenerate life for the year to come.' My face became hot, and I fought the urge to fidget. 'Tonight, Tam won't be the faerie you know,' Lucien said. 'He won't even know his name. The magic will consume everything in him but that one basic command- and need.' 'Who... who's the Maiden?' I got out. Lucien snorted. 'No one knows until it's time. After Tam hunts down the white stag and kills it for the sacrificial offering, he'll make his way to that sacred cave, where he'll find the path lined with faerie females waiting to be chosen as his mate for tonight.' 'What?' Lucien laughed. 'Yes- all those female faeries around you were females for Tamlin to pick. It's an honour to be chosen, but it's his instincts that select her.' 'But you were there- and other male faeries.' My face burned so hot that I began sweating. That was why those three horrible faeries had been there- and they'd thought that just by my presence, I was happy to comply with their plans. 'Ah,' Lucien chuckled. 'Well, Tam's not the only one who gets to perform the rite tonight. Once he makes his choice, we're free to mingle. Though it's not the Great Rite, our own dalliances tonight will help the land, too.' He shrugged off that invisible hand a second time, and his eyes fell upon the hills. 'You're lucky I found you when I did, though,' he said. 'Because he would have smelled you, and claimed you, but it wouldn't have been Tamlin who brought you into that cave.' His eyes met mine, and a chill went over me. 'And I don't think you would have liked it. Tonight is not for lovemaking.' I swallowed my nausea. 'I should go,' Lucien said, gazing at the hills. 'I need to return before he arrives at the cave- at least to try to control him when he smells you and can't find you in the crowd.' It made me sick- the thought of Tamlin forcing me, that magic could strip away any sense of self, of right or wrong. But hearing that... that some feral part of him wanted me... My breath was painful. 'Stay in your room tonight, Feyre,' Lucien said. , walking to the garden doors. 'No matter who comes knocking, keep the door locked. Don't come out until morning.

He was starting to change his mind about the old warrior code stuff knights and princes used. Usually when they were drunk and in need of spilling their words, and trying to justify their core behavior. Behave honorably and wish for a good death. He'd always dismissed it as self-serving bullshit frankly. Most of the people he'd been told were his betters were quite vainly dishonorable. Greedy bastards wanted more the more they got. While those that weren't like that were better behaved partly because they could afford to be. Was it more honorable to starve than to steal? People would say yes. Though rarely those who actually experienced an empty belly or a child whimpering with its own hunger. Was it more honorable to starve than to steal when others had the means to feed you but chose not to? Unless, you paid with money you did not have. He thought not. If you chose to starve you became your own oppressor, keeping yourself in line, harming yourself for the temerity of being poor. When by rights that aught to be a constables job. Show any initiative or imagination, then you were called lazy, shifty, crafty, or incorrigible. So he dismissed talk of honor. It was just a way of making the rich and powerful feel better about themselves, and the powerless and poverty-stricken feel worse. But once you weren't living hand to mouth and had some ease, you had the pleasure of contemplating what life was really about and who you really were, and given that you had to die, it made sense to seek a good death. Even these Culture people, bafflingly, chose to die even when they didn't have to. With freedom from fear and wondering where your next meal was coming from or wondering how many mouths you'd have to feed next year, and whether you'd get sacked by your employer, or thrown into jail for some minor indiscretion. With freedom from that you had the choice of living a nice, calm, peaceful, ordinary life and die with your nightshirt on and impatient relatives making lots of noise around you. Or, you could end up doing something like this, however scared your body might feel, your brain could appreciate the experience... Given that you had to die, why want a bad one?

Dualism, as we have noted, comes in many forms: between mind and body, in-group and out-group, and between the higher and lower instincts between which we must constantly choose. It may be that binary opposition is one of the fundamental ways in which we understand the world. But divide humanity into absolute categories of good and evil, in which all the good is on one side and all the evil on the other, and you will see your own side as good, the other as evil. Evil seeks to destroy the good. Therefore your enemies are trying to destroy you. If there is no obvious evidence that they are, this is a sign that they are working in secret. If they deny it, this is proof that the accusation is true, else why would they bother to deny it? And since they are evil and we are good, they are the cause of our present misfortunes and we must eliminate them so that the good to which we are entitled, the honour we once had and the superiority that is our right can be ours again. That is the pathological dualism that leads to altruistic evil with murderous consequences.

The Zentologist went on to say that the Kundalini Shakti or “Serpent Power” also ascends through Sushumna to Sahasrāra when the Brahma-randhra unfurls. He added that immortality is achieved within the Sahasrāra Chakra when it reverses its liberation back into the body to rest at the central base of the physical form. Dubois also explained, “When the Kundalini energy rises to the Sahasrāra Chakra, the illusion of self dissolves, merging with the cosmic principles that govern the universe. The individual is no longer subjected to birth or death, but to immortality. “The prana (breath of life) moves up to the highest point in the Sahasrāra Chakra. The mind then establishes itself in the void of Shunya Mandala - this is the space between the hemispheres. During this manifestation, all feelings and desires (activities of the mind) are dissolved. In this flawless bliss of inactivity, the seeker becomes his or her authentic self, retaining a nondual consciousness. He/she is untroubled by pleasure, pain, honours or humiliations. Samadhi is achieved.” My dearest Andy, I’m keen to know your thoughts. I look forward to your reply.   Yours truly, Young (my love for you never waned) XOXOXO

But unfortunately you get no further by merely wishing class-distinctions away. More exactly, it is necessary to wish them away, but your wish has no efficacy unless you grasp what it involves. The fact that has got to be faced is that to abolish class-distinctions means abolishing a part of yourself. Here am I, a typical member of the middle class. It is easy for me to say that I want to get rid of class-distinctions, but nearly everything I think and do is a result of class-distinctions. All my notions –notions of good and evil, of pleasant and unpleasant, of funny and serious, of ugly and beautiful–are essentially middle-class notions; my taste in books and food and clothes, my sense of honour, my table manners, my turns of speech, my accent, even the characteristic movements of my body, are the products of a special kind of upbringing and a special niche about half-way up the social hierarchy.

January 26 MORNING “Your heavenly Father.” — Matthew 6:26 GOD’S people are doubly His children, they are His offspring by creation, and they are His sons by adoption in Christ. Hence they are privileged to call Him, “Our Father which art in heaven.” Father! Oh, what precious word is that. Here is authority: “If I be a Father, where is mine honour?” If ye be sons, where is your obedience? Here is affection mingled with authority; an authority which does not provoke rebellion; an obedience demanded which is most cheerfully rendered — which would not be withheld even if it might. The obedience which God’s children yield to Him must be loving obedience. Do not go about the service of God as slaves to their taskmaster’s toil, but run in the way of His commands because it is your Father’s way. Yield your bodies as instruments of righteousness, because righteousness is your Father’s will, and His will should be the will of His child. Father! — Here is a kingly attribute so sweetly veiled in love, that the King’s crown is forgotten in the King’s face, and His sceptre becomes, not a rod of iron, but a silver sceptre of mercy — the sceptre indeed seems to be forgotten in the tender hand of Him who wields it. Father! — Here is honour and love. How great is a Father’s love to his children! That which friendship cannot do, and mere benevolence will not attempt, a father’s heart and hand must do for his sons. They are his offspring, he must bless them; they are his children, he must show himself strong in their defence. If an earthly father watches over his children with unceasing love and care, how much more does our heavenly Father? Abba, Father! He who can say this, hath uttered better music than cherubim or seraphim can reach. There is heaven in the depth of that word — Father! There is all I can ask; all my necessities can demand; all my wishes can desire. I have all in all to all eternity when I can say, “Father.

April 22 MORNING “Him hath God exalted.” — Acts 5:31 JESUS, our Lord, once crucified, dead and buried, now sits upon the throne of glory. The highest place that heaven affords is His by undisputed right. It is sweet to remember that the exaltation of Christ in heaven is a representative exaltation. He is exalted at the Father’s right hand, and though as Jehovah He has eminent glories, in which finite creatures cannot share, yet as the Mediator, the honours which Jesus wears in heaven are the heritage of all the saints. It is delightful to reflect how close is Christ’s union with His people. We are actually one with Him; we are members of His body; and His exaltation is our exaltation. He will give us to sit upon His throne, even as He has overcome, and is set down with His Father on His throne; He has a crown, and He gives us crowns too; He has a throne, but He is not content with having a throne to Himself, on His right hand there must be His queen, arrayed in “gold of Ophir.” He cannot be glorified without His bride. Look up, believer, to Jesus now; let the eye of your faith behold Him with many crowns upon His head; and remember that you will one day be like Him, when you shall see Him as He is; you shall not be so great as He is, you shall not be so divine, but still you shall, in a measure, share the same honours, and enjoy the same happiness and the same dignity which He possesses. Be content to live unknown for a little while, and to walk your weary way through the fields of poverty, or up the hills of affliction; for by-and-by you shall reign with Christ, for He has “made us kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign for ever and ever.” Oh!, wonderful thought for the children of God! We have Christ for our glorious representative in heaven’s courts now, and soon He will come and receive us to Himself, to be with Him there, to behold His glory, and to share His joy.

Rather I receive your bullet-riddled body with honour Than news of your cowardice on the battlefield (Traditional Pashto couplet)

The Peacock & The Eagle: Cleopatra's Entry Into Tarsus by Stewart Stafford Cleopatra arrives, regal and mighty, From ocean spray as Aphrodite, Wealthy and waif, yearning for her, Dared all to defy her possessive aura. Mark Antony, struck by her sultry gaze, Lepidus, prisoner in a bureaucrat's maze, Sees power slipping from a friend’s hand, Ensnared by a siren from a scorched land. Lepidus was Caesar's trusted right hand; A granule falling through hourglass sand, Antony, headstrong military provocateur; Funeral orator from bloody crown auteur. Bargain's scorpion pincers; no longer twain: Cleopatra was Ceres, promising Rome grain, Antony was Mars' armed emissary, Business and pleasure's flood tributary. Antony: "Barge of emerald, Elysium's onyx! Beyond counsel words of sage sardonic, Gliding the Cydnus's silken seam, This Nile Helen shall be my queen." Lepidus: "Pleasure vessel of a floating whore, Yours for a sesterce on the Tiber's shore, Honour your oath, noble Roman creed, Lest passion’s shipwreck sets out to sea.” "This Venus virago on her mirage barge; Serpent prow, silver oars, rhythmic charge! What hubris to think she can equal, The bloody talons of our Roman eagle!" Antony: "Feast your eyes past peacock's bower, She speaks Rome's tongue of naked power. Mark it, that obsidian Sphinx stings - Human head, lion's body, eagle wings! "That is the form she takes to the public: I smell a perfumed alliance for the Republic! With Plebeians as her tickled cats, they hum, I crave her beauty and company. Come!" © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.

Air travel has made it possible to travel vast distances in no time at all. We fly so we can get to places more quickly, and waste less time. Yet, we often don't honour the passage of that time or respect the other costs of that rapid transition from one environment to the next. I didn't allow time to "unpack" the tension and stress my body must have carried as a result of the travel, not to mention the terrible stress it put on the environment. I realized so much of my life was driven by a "make it happen" attitude; that belief that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. And yet, my father constantly reminds me, "You can do anything you want. But you can't do everything." There is a cost. It takes energy. Be that fossil fuels, calories or our soul-connection. In some indigenous cultures there is a belief that you need to allow time for your soul to catch up with your physical body after long journeys, so it's important to rest when you arrive and travel more slowly during the journey itself, taking time to pause, wait, rest.

Now you speak your own truths and you will continue to find the scripts that honour your body and experience and history, each of the scripts a gift, and none of them fully adequate to the holy force of you.

Activism is the body of justice. It invites you into embodied declarations of dignity and worth. As you participate in its body, you find yourself increasingly grounded in your own. I think activism is a virtue. To be a person who cares and honours creation is to be a person who acts in favour of its flourishing. I am distrustful of spiritual people who are not roused in their bodies on behalf of justice. We can disagree on what activism should look like, but not on the necessity of its existence or your participation in it.

Aren't you going to say anything?' he said at last. 'I was going to tell you what I'd decided the moment I saw you on the threshold.' Rhys twisted in his seat toward me. 'And now?' Aware of every breath, every movement, I sat in his lap. HIs hands gently braced my hips as I studied his face. 'And now I want you to know, Rhysand, that I love you. I want you to know...' His lips trembled, and I brushed away the tear that escaped down his cheek. 'I want you to know,' I whispered, 'that I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belongs to you. And I am honoured- honoured to be your mate.' His arms wrapped around me and he pressed his forehead to my shoulder, his body shaking. I stroked a hand through his silken hair. 'I love you,' I said again. I hadn't dared say the words in my head. 'And I'd endure every second of it over again so I could find you. And if war comes, we'll face it. Together. I won't let them take me from you. And I won't let them take you from me, either.' Rhys looked up, his face gleaming with tears. He went still as I leaned in, kissing away one tear. Then the other. As he had once kissed away mine. When my lips were wet and salty with them, I pulled back far enough to see his eyes. 'You're mine,' I breathed. His body shuddered with what might have been a sob, but his lips found my own. It was gentle- soft. The kiss he might have given me if we'd been granted time and peace to meet across our two separate worlds. To court each other. I slid my arms around his shoulders, opening my mouth to him, and his tongue slipped in, caressing my own. Mate- my mate.

Whenever you identify a boundaries you’d like to set, remember that there are two steps to the process: communication and action. Verbally communicating your needs is step one. People cannot accurately assume your boundaries based on your body language or unspoken expectations. When you explicitly state what you expect, there is little room for others to misinterpret what works for you. Assertive statements are the most effective way to do this. The process doesn’t end with communication. You must uphold what you communicate through your behaviour. Betting on the other person to read your mind is a recipe for an unhealthy relationship. Action is required. For instance, let’s say you’ve told your friend, “It’s important to me that you honor plans that we set up. If you need to change our plans, please me a text a few hours before.” Because you’ve verbally communicated your boundary, when it’s violated, you need to reinforce it with action. In this case, you would let your friend know that you can’t accommodate the changed plans because they didn’t give you enough notice. You might say gently, “I want to hang out with you, but my schedule won’t allow for the adjustment. Let’s set up a time to get together next week.” It’s hard, I know. But honouring your boundaries through action is the only way most people will understand you’re serious, which will help people in your life become serious about your boundaries, too.

dressed, went down to the bar, ordered champagne, and caught a whiff of a familiar scent. He turned, looked at her, and seemed to be seeing her for the first time. Because on the previous occasion, however often she had lain naked in his arms, she had been an appendage of Erika. Tonight she stood alone, and he realized that she was actually the more lovely of the two women, with her soft yellow hair floating past her shoulders, her crisply handsome features, her slender, long-legged body so entrancingly crowned by the surprisingly large bust, so perfectly delineated by the décolletage of her pale-blue evening gown. ‘It is me,’ she said. ‘Oh, please forgive me. I had forgotten how beautiful you are.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘You forgot what I looked like, in three weeks? But that was a very nice thing to say.’ ‘Drink?’ ‘If it’s from that bottle, yes, please.’ She sipped appreciatively. ‘I had not expected to see you again so soon.’ ‘But you remembered what I look like.’ ‘Oh, yes. I remember every part of you. Or do you not like direct women?’ ‘I like you,’ he said. ‘Shall we dine?’ They ordered. ‘And have you come all the way to Berlin just to see me?’ she asked. ‘I’m sorry, but the answer is no. I came to collect this.’ He touched his Cross. ‘Oh, good lord!’ she said. ‘And I never noticed. The fact is, almost every officer in town nowadays has one of those …’ She paused, her mouth making an O. ‘I have done it again. Would you like to beat me?’ ‘I find that a most attractive idea. But it can keep until after dinner.’ He tasted the wine, nodded. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I suspect the reason so many officers in Berlin sport Iron Crosses is that the men who do not have them are doing the actual fighting. Except that we are not doing any fighting right now, are we? There is no one left to fight.’ ‘There is still the English.’ ‘Ah, yes. The English. But they are hiding behind their water wall.’ ‘They come out from time to time.’ He suddenly felt an intense dislike for this gorgeous creature, who knew so little about anything beyond the narrow limits of her sexual morality. ‘But I did not invite you here to discuss the war. I would like you to spend the night.’ ‘Just like that?’ ‘Isn’t that what you do? Or do you only do it with your girlfriends, and any company they may happen to accumulate?’ She gazed at him for several seconds. ‘In normal circumstances, I would slap your face and throw this glass of wine into it. But I think that in the mood you are in, you might hit me back, and I do not wish there to be a scene. Why do you not tell me why you are in this mood? You should be on top of the world. You have just been decorated – was it by the Fuehrer himself?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, then, you have been honoured above most men. I assume he shook your hand?’ ‘Yes. Have you ever met him?’ ‘Sadly, no.’ ‘Well, maybe the whole thing made me too introspective. I apologize for what I said just now.’ She shrugged, delightfully, and finished her meal. ‘I understand your mood. Erika has often spoken of you.’ He frowned. ‘Regarding what?’ ‘Regarding everything.’ ‘Shit! I beg your pardon. But she really is a … well …’ ‘What you just said.’ ‘It’s her I ought to beat.’ Heidi drank the last of her wine. ‘But I am the one who is here.’ By the time he had locked the bedroom door she had already stepped out of her gown. She wore only

Hiding and protecting the parts of your body, from evil and filthy eyes, means dignified and glorious respect and honour for your body; otherwise, you destine humiliation for yourself and your body shamelessly.

What is honour? Have you ever thought about it? What is honouring? Honour is total attentiveness to the present moment with a tinge of greatfulness. Honour every moment in your life, that is practice. You respect your own body, that is practice, that is asana. Asana is what? Respecting your own body at every moment consciously. Honouring your breath and keeping it up for a period of time - that is pranayam.

In God our Father we will find healing, peace, strength, longevity, salvation and honour…..The mouth of the Lord God Almighty has spoken for today’s age until eternity…No more darkness…No more terminal, rare or chronic illnesses…You have a right to fight against them and defeat them …Take this to your heart, for God will fulfill this declaration….Find and read the Stellah Mupanduki Healing books breathed and written by the finger of God for your healing, salvation and peace benefit…For Sacred Healing…Sacred Writing...For Anointed Readers

The offensive bloke hit the floor with a thud, and nearby couples hastily retreated from the arena of a threatened punch-up. Whatever ideas the bloke had about fighting his corner disappeared when he took in James’s tall, firm-bodied figure and the look on his face. He scrambled to his feet, mouthed the kind of language he hadn’t known during his brief time as an innocent child and lost himself in the crowd. Cathy’s eyes shone like those of a maiden delivered from evil by a white knight. Even in this day and age, many centuries distant from the heroics of King Arthur’s gallant band, a girl delivered from a lout could experience a moment of dreamlike fantasy. ‘James, oh, thanks,’ she said as he took her arm and led her to the refreshment bar where coffee and soft drinks could be bought. ‘Well, I couldn’t take you back to your Aunt Marie looking as if you’d lost a fight for the honour of your bodice,’ said James. ‘My what?’ said Cathy. ‘It happens a lot in modern novels,’ said James. ‘Old Aunt Victoria devours them, but says they shouldn’t be allowed.’ Cathy laughed, gave him an impulsive hug of gratitude for his act of delivery, and said, ‘Yes, they’re called bodice-rippers. Aunt Marie also enjoys them.’ ‘Good reading on a wet day, I should think,’ said James as the band swung into a new number and the dancing feet of a few hundred teenagers gave the floor another drumming. ‘Have a banana.’ ‘Banana?’ ‘I meant coffee or Coke.’ ‘Coffee,

In a now-familiar paradox of punishment it was explained again and again that all these physical attacks were a kindness. The Church persecutes, Augustine said, in the spirit of love. Jerome, the biblical scholar and saint, concurred: it was not cruel to defend God’s honour – in the Bible sinners suffer punishments up to and including death. Chrysostom agreed: if he were to punish your earthly body, he reassured his listeners, it was only to protect your eternal one so that ‘you may be saved, and we may rejoice, and God may be glorified now and always, for ever and ever without end. Amen.’ Those receiving such salvation might, not unreasonably, have felt otherwise. One monk in Shenoute’s care was saved with beatings so savage that he died of his injuries. And what if people, disinclined to rejoice, became frightened by the fact that their neighbours were spying on them, reporting on them, hounding them in their homes? Well, fear too had its benefits. Better to be scared than to sin. ‘Where there is terror,’ said Augustine, ‘there is salvation . . . Oh, merciful savagery!’ The intellectual foundations for a thousand years of theocratic oppression were being laid.