Life's Peaks And Valleys Quotes

Everybody wants to be on the mountaintop, but if you'll remember, mountaintops are rocky and cold. There is no growth on the top of a mountain. Sure, the view is great, but what's a view for? A view just gives us a glimpse of our next destination-our next target. But to hit that target, we must come off the mountain, go through the valley, and begin to climb the next slope. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life's next peak.

A light which lives on what the flames devour, a grey landscape surrounding me with scorch, a crucifixion by a single wound, a sky and earth that darken by each hour, a sob of blood whose red ribbon adorns a lyre without a pulse, and oils the torch, a tide which stuns and strands me on the reef, a scorpion scrambling, stinging in my chest-- this is the wreath of love, this bed of thorns is where I dream of you stealing my rest, haunting these sunken ribs cargoed with grief. I sought the peak of prudence, but I found the hemlock-brimming valley of your heart, and my own thirst for bitter truth and art. - Stigmata of Love

With peaks of joy and valleys of heartache, life is a roller coaster ride, the rise and fall of which defines our journey. It is both scary and exciting at the same time.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, but I chose neither one. Instead, I set sail in my little boat to watch a sunset from a different view that couldn't be seen from shore. Then I climbed the tallest mountain peak to watch the amber sun through the clouds. Finally, I traveled to the darkest part of the valley to see the last glimmering rays of light through the misty fog. It was every perspective I experienced on my journey that left the leaves trodden black, and that has made all the difference.

The key to life," he told me once, "is to avoid the highs and the lows. It's the peaks and valleys that mess you up.

Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self—which is absorbed in the moment—your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole.

I call the high and light aspects of my being SPIRIT and the dark and heavy aspects SOUL. Soul is at home in the deep shaded valleys. Heavy torpid flowes saturated with black grow there. The rivers flow like arm syrup. They empty into huge oceans of soul. Spirit is a land of high,white peaks and glittering jewel-like lakes and flowers. Life is sparse and sound travels great distances. There is soul music, soul food, and soul love. People need to climb the mountain not because it is there But because the soulful divinity need to be mated with the Spirit. Deep down we must have a rel affection for each other, a clear recognition of our shared human status. At the same time we must openly accept all ideologies and systems as means of solving humanity's problems. No matter how strong the wind of evil may blow, the flame of truth cannot be extinguished.

You Change Your Valley Into A Peak When You Find And Use The Good That Is Hidden In The Bad Time.

The summit is believed to be the object of the climb. But its true object—the joy of living—is not in the peak itself, but in the adversities encountered on the way up. There are valleys, cliffs, streams, precipices, and slides, and as he walks these steep paths, the climber may think he cannot go any farther, or even that dying would be better than going on. But then he resumes fighting the difficulties directly in front of him, and when he is finally able to turn and look back at what he has overcome, he finds he has truly experienced the joy of living while on life's very road.

Love must be kind, and it must be a two-way street. Loyalty between two persons in an alliance of true friendship is a noble human endeavor. In true friendship, a human being finds strength. Good times or bad; the highest peak or the lowest valley in one’s life.

Here, are the stiffening hills, here, the rich cargo Congealed in the dark arteries, Old veins That hold Glamorgan's blood. The midnight miner in the secret seams, Limb, life, and bread. - Rhondda Valley

Yet for every peak there is a valley.

Every life, every story, has peaks and valleys. You are walking through a low spot now. Perhaps it's foggy in the valley. And maybe you can't see the path anymore. But it's there. Keep walking on it. You'll find your way. And when you come through the thicket, with little rabbits hopping about, there will be a clearing, and the sun will be shining down on you with rays that will warm you and inspire you again.

All his life Robert Grainier would remember vividly the burned valley at sundown, the most dreamlike business he’d ever witnessed waking—the brilliant pastels of the last light overhead, some clouds high and white, catching daylight from beyond the valley, others ribbed and gray and pink, the lowest of them rubbing the peaks of Bussard and Queen mountains; and beneath this wondrous sky the black valley, utterly still, the train moving through it making a great noise but unable to wake this dead world.

Peaks and valleys. That's what life comes down to, in the end. Fucking geography.

when you get to the peak, remember the valley exists

Maybe there is no such thing as success—a final destination where you arrive once and for all. Maybe existence is a never-ending journey of peaks and valleys and forever chasing dreams.

You Create A Peak When You Truly Follow Your Sensible Vision. Your Fear Fades And You Become More Peaceful And Successful.

Bruised and bleeding, he picked himself up and continued on. Eventually, he found a new path.

Life has its sunshine and its rain, sir... its days and its nights... its peaks and its valleys...

i always love the moment where the desert gives way to the mountains, because it reminds me that the highest peaks are borne of the lowest valleys, that the radical only exists in proximity to the mundane, because life can only be viewed relative to its opposite.

Life, as you know, is a series of cycles, ups and downs. When we reach a peak of any type we have to recognize that you have to descend into the valley to get to the next peak. The valley is what makes us stronger.

In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all of its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self—which is absorbed in the moment—your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole. That is profoundly affected by how things ultimately turn out. Why would a football fan let a few flubbed minutes at the end of the game ruin three hours of bliss? Because a football game is a story. And in stories, endings matter. Yet we also recognize that the experiencing self should not be ignored. The peak and the ending are not the only things that count. In favoring the moment of intense joy over steady happiness, the remembering self is hardly always wise. “An inconsistency is built into the design of our minds,” Kahneman observes. “We have strong preferences about the duration of our experiences of pain and pleasure. We want pain to be brief and pleasure to last. But our memory … has evolved to represent the most intense moment of an episode of pain or pleasure (the peak) and the feelings when the episode was at its end. A memory that neglects duration will not serve our preference for long pleasure and short pains.” When our time is limited and we are uncertain about how best to serve our priorities, we are forced to deal with the fact that both the experiencing self and the remembering self matter. We do not want to endure long pain and short pleasure. Yet certain pleasures can make enduring suffering worthwhile. The peaks are important, and so is the ending.

Your ego can make you arrogant on the Peak, and fearful in the Valley. It keeps you from seeing what is real. Your ego distorts the truth.

The Most Common Reason You Leave A Peak Too Soon Is Arrogance, Masquerading As Confidence. The Most Common Reason You Stay In A Valley Too Long Is Fear, Masquerading As Comfort.

I enjoyed the feeling that comes with becoming a better person.

We get smarter and more creative as we age, research shows. Our brain's anatomy, neural networks, and cognitive abilities can actually improve with age and increased life experiences. Contrary to the mythology of Silicon Valley, older employees may be even more productive, innovative, and collaborative than younger ones... Most people, in fact, have multiple cognitive peaks throughout their lives.

What Ye disliked most was seeing the waves that slowly crawled across the display, a visual record of the meaningless noise Red Coast picked up from space. Ye felt this interminable wave was an abstract view of the universe: one end connected to the endless past, the other to the endless future, and in the middle only the ups and downs of random chance—without life, without pattern, the peaks and valleys at different heights like uneven grains of sand, the whole curve like a one-dimensional desert made of all the grains of sand lined up in a row, lonely, desolate, so long that it was intolerable. You could follow it and go forward or backward as long as you liked, but you’d never find the end. On

When you slip down a mountain of Joy , don't Worry. Instead of living gloomily in the dark valley , look up at the next peak and take one step in that direction .

The Path Out Of The Valley Appears When You Choose To See Things Differently.

It Is Natural For Everyone Everywhere To Have Peaks And Valleys At Work And In Life.

The Most Common Reason You Leave A Peak Too Soon Is Arrogance, Masquerading As Confidence. The Most Common Reason You Stay In A Valley Too Long Is Fear, Masquerading As Comfort.

Avoid Believing Things Are Better Than They Really Are When You Are On A Peak, Or Worse Than They Really Are When You Are In A Valley. Make Reality Your Friend.

Be prepared to stay in a peak longer. Don’t come to the mountain without a jacket.

when you put your ego aside, you are more likely to leave a Valley sooner.

When thinking over one's life, it's the extreme moments that stand out. The peaks and the valleys. He was one of the highest peaks. In some ways looming larger than James. If James was a central mountain in the landscape of my life, then this other was a pinnacle of a different sort. Higher, sharper. You couldn't build upon its fragile precipices. But the view was spectacular.

Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights—then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.

God plants the talent and it grows, sustained by a spirit-given strength to endure, even in the midst of darkness. It thrives in the valleys of life and ignores the peaks. It blooms like a flower when cradled by the warmth of the sun. It remains in a hidden stairwell in a concentration camp. It grows, fed in secret, in the heart of every artist.

What is love? Is it a lightning bolt that instantaneously unites two souls in utter infatuation and admiration through the meeting of a simple innocent stare? Or is it a lustful seed that is sown in a dark dingy bar one sweaty summer's night only to be nurtured with romantic rendezvous as it matures into a beautiful flower? Is it a river springing forth, creating lifelong bonds through experiences, heartaches, and missed opportunities? Or is it a thunderstorm that slowly rolls in, climaxing with an awesome display of unbridled passion, only to succumb to its inevitable fade into the distance? I define love as education.... It teaches us to learn from our opportunities, and made the stupidest of decisions for the rightest of reasons. It gives us a hint of what "it" should be and feel like, but then encourages us to think outside the box and develop our own understanding of what "it" could be. Those that choose to embrace and learn from love's educational peaks and valleys are the ones that will eventually find true love, that one in a million. Those that don't are destined to be consumed with the inevitable ring around the rosy of fake I love you's and failed relationships. I have been lucky enough to have some of the most amazing teachers throughout my romantic evolution and it is to them that I dedicate this book. The lessons in life, passion and love they taught me have helped shape who I am today and who I will be tomorrow. To the love that stains my heart, but defines my soul....I thank you.....

When you are in a peak, your ego makes you see things as better than they really are. And in a valley, it makes you see things worse than they really are. It makes you think a peak will last forever; and it makes you fear a valley will never end. The most common reason you leave a peak too soon is arrogance, masquerading as confidence. The most common reason you stay in a valley too long is fear. Masquerading as comfort.

One night, Ye was working the night shift. This was the loneliest time. In the deep silence of midnight, the universe revealed itself to its listeners as a vast desolation. What Ye disliked most was seeing the waves that slowly crawled across the display, a visual record of the meaningless noise Red Coast picked up from space. Ye felt this interminable wave was an abstract view of the universe: one end connected to the endless past, the other to the endless future, and in the middle only the ups and downs of random chance—without life, without pattern, the peaks and valleys at different heights like uneven grains of sand, the whole curve like a one-dimensional desert made of all the grains of sand lined up in a row, lonely, desolate, so long that it was intolerable. You could follow it and go forward or backward as long as you liked, but you’d never find the end.

Only after I had learned those boundaries and generalities of my grief was I able to venture further into the mountains and valleys, the peaks and troughs of my despair. And as I traversed them-breathing a sigh of relief thinking that I'd conquered the worst of it-only then would I finally arrive at the truth about loss, the part no one ever warns you about: that grief is a city all of its own, built high on a hill and surrounded by stone walls. It is a fortress that you will inhabit for the rest of your life, walking its dead-end roads forever. The trick is to stop trying to escape and, instead, to make yourself at home.

In times of trauma, life unfolds in a chiaroscuro of peaks and valleys. You feel the highs and lows with amplified intensity.

The path out of the valley appears when you choose to see things differently

...life is a series of peaks and valleys, and it is a fool's errand to try to flatten them out...breauty is in the connections we make, to self, to family, to friends, to the Earth.

Sadly, peaks and valleys are a part of life. You are resilient and you will come out of this stronger than you ever thought possible. Trust me—I know. It’s crucial to remain positive and optimistic.

Two of them led the way north into the Mohave Valley, past the Needles, a trio of mountain peaks on the east side of the Colorado. This was where the main body of the tribe resided — including Olive and Mary Ann.

The weeks up there were almost the most beautiful in my life. I breathed the pure, clear air, drank the icy water from streams and watched the herds of goats grazing on the steep slopes, guarded by dark-haired, musing goatherds. At times I heard storms resound through the valley and saw mists and clouds at unusually close quarters. In the clefts of rocks I observed the small, delicate, bright coloured flowers and the many wonderful mosses, and on clear days I used to like to walk uphill for an hour until I could see the clearly outlined distant peaks of high mountains, their blue silhouettes, and white, sparkling snow fields across the other side of the hill.

Life’s journey doesn’t start on the highest mountain peak where a clear view of the trail ahead, obstacles and all, is laid out for us to observe before setting foot on the path. No. Life’s journey begins on a low road, in a valley, or even down inside a pit where the trail beyond can only be seen in short stretches, and any obstacles are met as they come. This makes life trying, even scary at times. Have faith that God gave you this life, and hence it is worth seeing through to the end of the trail.

Think with me here … everybody wants to be on the mountaintop, but if you'll remember, mountaintops are rocky and cold. There is no growth on the top of a mountain. Sure, the view is great, but what's a view for? A view just gives us a glimpse of our next destination — our next target. But to hit that target, we must come off the mountain, go through the valley, and begin to climb the next slope. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life's next peak.

For most of us free-thinking, wild hearts, our relationship with God or the Universe will go through peaks and valleys – transforming into new concepts and beliefs, completely disappearing, at times, only then to instantly explode back into existence by something even as small as a sunset!

The more south we were, the more deep a sky it seemed, till, in the Valley of Mexico, I thought it held back an element too strong for life, and that the flamy brilliance of blue stood off this menace and sometimes, like a sheath or silk membrane, shoed the weight it held in sags. So when later he would fly high over the old craters on the plain, coaly bubbles of the underworld, dangerous red everywhere from the sun, and then coats of snow on the peak of the cones—gliding like a Satan—well, it was here the old priests, before the Spaniards, waited for Aldebaran to come into the middle of heaven to tell them whether or not life would go on for another cycle, and when they received their astronomical sign built their new fire inside the split and emptied chest of a human sacrifice. And also, hereabouts, worshipers disguised as gods and as gods in the disguise of birds, jumped from platforms fixed on long poles, and glided as they spun by the ropes—feathered serpents, and eagles too, the voladores, or fliers. There still are such plummeters, in market places, as there seem to be remnants or conversions or equivalents of all the old things. Instead of racks or pyramids of skulls still in their hair and raining down scraps of flesh there are corpses of dogs, rats, horses, asses, by the roads; the bones dug out of the rented graves are thrown on a pile when the lease is up; and there are the coffins looking like such a rough joke on the female form, sold in the open shops, black, white, gray, and in all sizes, with their heavy death fringes daubed in Sapolio silver on the black. Beggars in dog voices on the church steps enact the last feebleness for you with ancient Church Spanish, and show their old flails of stump and their sores. The burden carriers with the long lines, hemp lines they wind over their foreheads to hold the loads on their backs, lie in the garbage at siesta and give themselves the same exhibited neglect the dead are shown. Which is all to emphasize how openly death is received everywhere, in the beauty of the place, and how it is acknowledged that anyone may be roughly handled—the proudest—pinched, slapped, and set down, thrown down; for death throws even worse in men’s faces and makes it horrible and absurd that one never touched should be roughly dumped under, dumped upon.

JANUARY 30 Fortunately [psycho]analysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist. —Karen Horney The passage of time, coupled with an openness to the messages gleaned from our conversations with others, can provide answers we need for the way out of painful situations. Life is ebb and flow, peaks and valleys, struggles and sweet times. What we fail to realize, all too often, is that the struggles make possible the times that are sweet. Our conflicts are our special lessons in life. We can learn to flow with them, move through them, trust their value to us as growing, changing women. How good it feels to have found security with one another and that power greater than ourselves who can, when we are willing, show us the path to resolution. Life will never be free of conflict—nor should it be. Our lessons move us to higher planes of awareness. We can experience the joy hidden within the conflict. We can help one another remember that the sweetness of a moment is tied to the pain of a former, forgotten moment. All events, all experiences, are connected. The path I travel, alone and with others, is bringing me brighter days. I will trust my path. It’s right for me.

Ye felt this interminable wave was an abstract view of the universe: one end connected to the endless past, the other to the endless future, and in the middle only the ups and downs of random chance—without life, without pattern, the peaks and valleys at different heights like uneven grains of sand, the whole curve like a one-dimensional desert made of all the grains of sand lined up in a row, lonely, desolate, so long that it was intolerable. You

The sea may be your lover, but she is not your friend. You cannot safely turn your back to her. Her loyalty is that of an ex- wife, her characteristics more of a new mistress; she will bring you to your highest peaks, but beware for on the other side of the high ground lie valleys of unspeakable misery. Her mind games are second to none. She will lead you down darker alleys of your mind than you ever knew existed within. She will make you question all that you are.

In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all of its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self—which is absorbed in the moment—your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole.

Consider the fact that we care deeply about what happens to the world after we die. If self-interests were the primary source of meaning in life, then it wouldn’t matter to people if an hour after their death everyone they know were to be wiped from the face of the earth. Yet, it matters greatly to most people. We feel that such an occurrence would make our lives meaningless. The only way death is not meaningless is to see yourself as part of something greater; a family, a community, a society. If you don’t, mortality is only a horror, but if you do, it is not. Loyalty, said Royce, solves the paradox of our ordinary existence, by showing us outside of ourselves the cause which is to be served, and inside of ourselves, the will which delights to do this service, and is not thwarted, but enriched and expressed in such service… Above the level of self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they suggest the existence in people of a transcendent desire to see and help other beings achieve their potential. As our time winds down, we all seek comfort in simple pleasures; companionship, everyday routines, the taste of good food, the warmth of sunlight on our faces. We become less interested in the awards of achieving and accumulating and more interested in the rewards of simply being. Yet, while we may feel less ambitious, we also have become concerned for our legacy, and we have a deep need to identify purposes outside ourselves that make living feel meaningful and worthwhile. In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all of its moments, which after all is mostly nothing much, plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments; the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute by minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self, which is absorbed in the moment, your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery, but also how the story works out as a whole. That is profoundly affected by how things ultimately turn out.

In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all of its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self—which is absorbed in the moment—your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole. That is profoundly affected by how things ultimately turn out.

It was like living half your life in a tiny, scruffy, warm grey box, and being moderately happy in there because you knew no better...and then discovering a little hole in the corner of the box, a tiny opening which you could get your finger into, and tease and pull apart at, so that eventually you created a tear, which led to a greater tear, which led to the box falling apart around you... so that you stepped out of the tiny box's confines into startlingly cool, clear fresh air and found yourself on top of a mountain, surrounded by deep valleys, sighing forests, soaring peaks, glittering lakes, sparkling snow fields and a stunning, breathtakingly blue sky. And that, of course, wasn't even the start of the real story, that was more like the breath that is drawn in before the first syllable of the first word of the first paragraph of the first chapter of the first book of the first volume of the story.

A river moves from the Himalayas; she is not moving towards the sea, she does not know the sea, where it is, she is not bothered about the sea. The very song of moving in the Himalayas is so beautiful, passing through the valleys, to the peaks, passing through the trees, then coming down to the plains, to people... the very movement is beautiful! And every moment the movement is beautiful, because it is life. The river is not even aware there is a goal or there is a sea. That is not the concern. And if a river becomes too much concerned, then she will be just in the same mess as you are. Then she will stop everywhere and ask where to go: Where is the right path? And she will be afraid whether north will lead, or south, or the east or the west – where to go? And remember, the ocean is everywhere. Whether you move north or east or west makes NO difference. The ocean is everywhere, all around is the ocean. It is always in front of you; wherever you move, it makes no difference.

In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all of its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life may be empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. Unlike your experiencing self—which is absorbed in the moment—your remembering self is attempting to recognize not only the peaks of joy and valleys of misery but also how the story works out as a whole. That is profoundly affected by how things ultimately turn out. Why would a football fan let a few flubbed minutes at the end of the game ruin three hours of bliss? Because a football game is a story. And in stories, endings matter.

During those early days, I could merely circle around it, tracing its contours as I tried to familiarize myself with its heft. I learned that just as a map of the world only contains rough outlines of countries—their borders and major cities, as well as the rivers and oceans that dissect and separate them—so too would the cartography of my loss at first be laid out as a broad, abstract concept for me to come to terms with. Only after I had learned those boundaries and generalities of my grief was I able to venture further into the mountains and valleys, the peaks and troughs of my despair. And as I traversed them—breathing a sigh of relief thinking that I’d conquered the worst of it—only then would I finally arrive at the truth about loss, the part that no one ever warns you about: that grief is a city all of its own, built high on a hill and surrounded by stone walls. It is a fortress that you will inhabit for the rest of your life, walking its dead-end roads forever. The trick is to stop trying to escape and, instead, to make yourself at home.

Prayer and Meditation Matthew 14 AND HE WENT UP INTO THE MOUNTAIN APART TO PRAY This was always the practice of Jesus when he would move into the masses, the crowd, afterwards he would go alone into deep prayer and meditation. Why did he do this? If you have been meditating, you will understand. You will understand that once you start meditating, a very fragile and delicate quality of consciousness is born in you. A flower of the unknown, of the beyond, starts opening, which is delicate. And whenever you move into the crowd, you lose something. Whenever you come back from the crowd, you come back lesser than you had gone. Something has been lost, some contact has been lost. The crowd pulls you down, it has a gravitation of it's own. You may not feel it if you live on the same plane of consciousness. Then there is no problem, then you have nothing to lose. In fact, when you live in the crowd, on the same plane, alone you feel very uneasy. When you are with people, you feel good and happy. But alone, you feel sad, your aloneness is not aloneness. It is loneliness, you miss the other. You do not find yourself in the aloneness, you simply miss the other. When you are alone, you are not alone, beacuse you are not there. Only the desire to be with others is there - that is what loneliness is. Always remember the distinction between aloneness and loneliness. Aloneness is a peak experience - loneliness is a valley. Aloneness has light in it, loneliness is dark. Loneliness is when you desire others; aloneness is when you enjoy yourself. When Jesus would move into the masses, into the crowd, he would tell his disciples to got to the other shore of the lake, and he would move into total aloneness. Not even the disciples were allowed to be with him. This was a constant practice with him. Whenever you go into the crowd, you are infected by it. You need a higher altitude to purify yourself, you need to be alone so that you can become fresh again. You need to be alone with yourself, so that you become together again. You need to be alone, so that you become centered and rooted in yourself again. Whenever you move with others, they push you off centre. AND WHEN THE EVENING WAS COME, HE WAS THERE ALONE Nothing is said about his prayer in the Bible, just the word "prayer". Before God or before existence, you simply need to be vulnerable - that is prayer. You are no to say something. So when you go into prayer, don't start saying something. It will all be desires, demands and deep complaints to God. And prayer with complaints is no prayer, a prayer with deep gratitude is prayer. There is no need to say something, you can just be silent. Hence nothing is said about what Jesus did in his aloneness. It simply says "apart to pray". He went apart, he became alone. That is what prayer is, to be alone, where the other is not felt, where the other is not standing between you and existence. When God's breeze can pass througn you, unhindered. It is a cleansing experience. It revejunates your spirit. To be with God simply means to be alone. You can miss the point, if you start thinking about God, then you are not alone. If you start talking to God, then in imagination you have created the other. And then you God is a projection, it will be a projection of your father. A prayer is not to say something. It is to be silent, open, available. And there is no need to believe in God, because that too is a projection. The only need is to be alone, to be capable of being alone - and immediately you are with God. Whenever you are alone, you are with God.

She goes to the window, curious to look out, and her senses awaken. It was only a moment ago (for sleep knows no time) that the flat horizon was a loamy gray swell merging into the fog behind the icy glass. But now rocky, powerful mountains are massing out of the ground (where have they come from?), a vast, strange overwhelming sight. This is her first glimpse of the unimaginable majesty of the Alps, and she sways with surprise. Just now a first ray of sun through the pass to the east is shattering into a million reflections on the ice field covering the highest peak. The white purity of this unfiltered light is so dazzling and sharp that she has to close her eyes for a moment, but now she's wide awake. One push and the window bangs down, to bring this marvel closer, and fresh air - ice-cold, glass-sharp, and with a bracing dash of snow - streams through her lips, parted in astonishment, and into her lungs, the deepest, purest breath of her life. She spreads her arms to take in this first reckless gulp, and immediately, her chest expanding, feels a luxurious warmth rise through her veins - marvelous, marvelous. Inflamed with cold, she takes in the scene to the left and the right; her eyes (thawed out now) follow each of the granite slops up to the icy epaulet at the top, discovering, with growing excitement, new magnificence everywhere - here a white waterfall tumbling headlong into a valley, there neat little stone houses tucked into crevices like birds' nests, farther off an eagle circling proudly over the very highest heights, and above it all a wonderfully pure, sumptuous blue whose lush, exhilarating power she would never have thought possible. Again and again she returns to these Alps sprung overnight from her sleep, an incredible sight to someone leaving her narrow world for the first time. These immense granite mountains must have been here for thousands of years; they'll probably still be here millions and millions of years from now, every one of them immovably where it's always been, and if not for the accident of this journey, she herself would have died, rotted away, and turned to dust with no inkling of their glory, She's been living as though all this didn't exist, never saw it, hardly cared to; like a fool she dozed off in this tiny room, hardly longer than her arm, hardly wide enough for her feet, just a night away, a day away from this infinitude, these manifold immensities! Indifferent and without desires before, now she's beginning to realize what she's been missing. This contact with the overpowering is her first encounter with travel's disconcerting ability to strip the hard shell of habit from the heart, leaving only the bare, fertile kernel.

The Poised Edge of Chaos Sand sifts down, one grain at a time, forming a small hill. When it grows high enough, a tiny avalanche begins. Let sand continue to sift down, and avalanches will occur irregularly, in no predictable order, until there is a tiny mountain range of sand. Peaks will appear, and valleys, and as sand continues to descend, the relentless sand, piling up and slipping down, piling up and slipping down, piling up - eventually a single grain will cause a catastrophe, all the hills and valleys erased, the whole face of the landscape changed in an instant. Walking yesterday, my heels crushed chamomile and released intoxicating memories of home. Earlier this week, I wrote an old love, flooded with need and desire. Last month I planted new flowers in an old garden bed - one grain at a time, a pattern is formed, one grain at a time, a pattern is destroyed, and there is no way to know which grain will build the tiny mountain higher, which grain will tilt the mountain into avalanche, whether the avalanche will be small or catastrophic, enormous or inconsequential. We are always dancing with chaos, even when we think we move too gracefully to disrupt anything in the careful order of our lives, even when we deny the choreography of passion, hoping to avoid earthquakes and avalanches, turbulence and elemental violence and pain. We are always dancing with chaos, for the grains sift down upon the landscape of our lives, one, then another, one, then another, one then another. Today I rose early and walked by the sea, watching the changing patterns of the light and the otters rising and the gulls descending, and the boats steaming off into the dawn, and the smoke drifting up into the sky, and the waves drumming on the dock, and I sang. An old song came upon me, one with no harbour nor dawn nor dock, no woman walking in the mist, no gulls, no boats departing for the salmon shoals. I sang, but not to make order of the sea nor of the dawn, nor of my life. Not to make order at all. Only to sing, clear notes over sand. Only to walk, footsteps in sand. Only to live.

The knowledge of death came to me that night, from the dying that engulfs the world. I saw how we live toward death, how the swaying golden wheat sinks together under the scythe of the reaper, like a smooth wave on the sea-beach. He who abides in common life becomes aware of death with fear. Thus the fear of death drives him towards singleness. He does not live there, but he becomes aware of life and is happy, since in singleness he is one who becomes, and has overcome death. He overcomes death through overcoming common life. He does not live his individual being, since he is not what he is, but what he becomes. One who becomes grows aware of life, whereas one who simply exists never will, since he is in the midst of life. He needs the heights and singleness to become aware of life. But in life he becomes aware of death. And it is good that you become aware of collective death, since then you know why your singleness and your heights are good. Your heights are like the moon that luminously wanders alone and through the night looks eternally clear. Sometimes it covers itself and then your are totally in the darkness of the earth, but time and again it fills itself out with light. The death of the earth is foreign to it. Motionless and clear, it sees the life of the earth from afar, without enveloping haze and streaming oceans. Its unchanging form has been solid from eternity. It is the solitary clear light of the night, the individual being, and the near fragment of eternity. From there you look out, cold, motionless, and radiating. With otherworldly silvery light and green twilights, you pour out into the distant horror. You see it but your gaze is clear and cold. Your hands are red from living blood, but the moonlight of your gaze is motionless. It is the life blood of your brother, yes, it is your own blood, but your gaze remains luminous and embraces the entire horror and the earth’s round. Your gaze rests on silvery seas, on snowy peaks, on blue valleys, and you do not hear the groaning and howling of the human animal. The moon is dead. Your soul went to the moon, to the preserver of souls. Thus the soul moved toward death. I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. And I decided to die outside and to live within. For that reason I turned away and sought the place of the inner life.

The temple was in a field of graves suddenly a pitiful-looking skeleton appeared and said: A melancholy autumn wind Blows through the world; the pampas grass waves As we drift to the moor, Drift to the sea. What can be done With the mind of a man That should be clear But though he is dressed up in a monk's robe, Just lets life pass him by? Such deep musings Made me uneasy, I could not sleep. Towards dawn I dozed off... I found myself surrounded by a group of skeletons, acting as they had when they were still alive. One skeleton came over to me and said: Memories Flee and Are no more. All are empty dreams Devoid of meaning. Violate the reality of things And babble about 'God' and 'the Buddha' And you will never find the true Way. Still breathing, You feel animated, So a corpse in a field Seems to be something Apart from you. If chunks of rock Can serve as a memento To the dead A better headstone Would be a simple tea-mortar. Humans are indeed frightful things. A single moon Bright and clear In an unclouded sky; Yet we still stumble In the world's darkness. This world Is but A fleeting dream So why be alarmed At its evanescence? The vagaries of life, Though painful, Teach us Not to cling To this floating world. Why do people Lavish decoration On this set of bones, Destined to disappear Without a trace? The original body Must return to Its original place. Do not search For what cannot be found. No one really knows The nature of birth Nor the true dwelling place. We return to the source And turn to dust. Many paths lead from The foot of the mountain, But at the peak We all gaze at the Single bright moon. If at the end of our journey There is no final Resting place, Then we need not fear Losing our Way. No beginning. No end. Our mind Is born and dies; The emptiness of emptiness! Relax, And the mind Runs wild; Control the world And you can cast it aside. Rain, hail, snow, and ice: All are different But when they fall They become to same water As the valley stream. The ways of proclaiming The Mind all vary, But the same heavenly truth Can be seen In each and every one. Cover your path With fallen pine needles So no one will be able To locate your True dwelling place. How vain, The endless funderals at the Cremation grounds of Mount Toribe! Don't the mourner realize That they will be next? 'Life is fleeeting!' We think at the sight Of smoke drifting from Mount Toribe, But when will we realize That we are in the same boat? All is in vain! This morning, A healthy friend; This evening, A wisp of cremation smoke. What a pity! Evening smoke from Mount Toribe Blown violently To and fro By the wind. When burned We become ashes, and earth when buried. Is it only our sins That remain behind? All the sins Committed In the Three Worlds Will fade away Together with me.

Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights—then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.

You know, they say life is like being at sea in a very small boat. The wind and the waves will push you all over. Up and down, left and right. Sometimes it gets so bad all you see are giant watery hands falling on top of you, trying to flip you over and drag you to the bottom. Then before you know it, you’re cresting the wave, high above it all, and for a moment you can breathe again. I guess it’s mostly true. Peaks and valleys, you know.” Sven’s head tilted slightly.

Every peak and valley of your life has led you to deeper understanding and, ultimately, growing compassion.

A man once stood on a high peak of the Rocky Mountains watching a raging storm below. As he watched, an eagle came up through the clouds and soared away toward the sun. The water on its wings glistened in the sunlight like diamonds. If not for the storm, the eagle might have remained in the valley. In the same way, the sorrows of life cause us to rise toward God.

So laced and lush is this ecosystem that we walk our several miles through it today without making a footfall, only scuffs. Carol tells me that these Olympic rain forests and the rough coast to their west provide her the greatest calm of any place she has been. That she can walk in this rain forest and only be walking in this rain forest, moving in simple existence. Surprising, that, because neither of us thinks we are at all mystic. Perhaps, efficient dwellers we try to be, we simply admire the deft fit of life systems in the rain forest. The flow of growth out of growth, out of death . . . I do not quite ease off into beingness as she can. Memories and ideas leap to mind. I remember that Callenbach’s young foresters of Ecotopia would stop in the forest to hug a fir and murmur into its bark, brother tree. . . . This Hoh forest is not a gathering of brothers to humankind, but of elders. The dampness in the air, patches of fog snagged in the tree tops above, tells me another story out of memory, of having read of a visitor who rode through the California redwood forest in the first years of this century. He noted to his guide that the sun was dissipating the chilly fog from around them. No, said the guide looking to canyon walls of wood like these, no, “The trees is drinkin’ it. That’s what they live on mostly. When they git done breakfast you’ll git warm enough.” For a time, the river seduces me from the forest. This season, before the glacier melt begins to pour from the Olympic peaks, the water of the Hoh is a painfully lovely slate blue, a moving blade of delicate gloss. The boulder-stropped, the fog-polished Hoh. Question: why must rivers have names? Tentative answer: for the same reason gods do. These Peninsula rivers, their names a tumbled poem of several tongues—Quinault, Quillayute, Hoh, Bogashiel, Soleduck, Elwha, Dungeness, Gray Wolf—are as holy to me as anything I know. Forest again. For comparison’s sake I veer from the trail to take a look at the largest Sitka spruce along this valley bottom. The Park Service has honored it with a sign, giving the tree’s dimensions as sixteen feet four inches in diameter, one hundred eighty feet in height, but now the sign is propped against the prone body of the giant. Toppled, it lies like a huge extracted tunnel bore. Clambering onto its upper surface I find that the Sitka has burls, warts on the wood, bigger around than my body. For all that, I calculate that it is barely larger, if any, than the standard nineteenth-century target that Highpockets and his calendar crew are offhandedly devastating in my writing room. Evening, and west to Kalaloch through portals of sawed-through windfalls, to the campground next to the ocean. In fewer than fifty miles, mountain and ocean, arteried by this pulsing valley.

Embrace the peaks and valleys of life, for within each challenge lies the opportunity to write the extraordinary chapters of your journey." - Jay J.P. Peak, National Best Selling Author

Let’s embark on the journey and experience it, bearing in mind that the journey of real life is always unpredictable, full of peaks and valleys, highs and lows, yet we make it an indelible journey.

you do not learn in a Valley, you can become bitter. If you truly learn something valuable, you can become better. But if that was true, what was it that he needed

found frequently that I climbed in glorious sunshine . . . my face set determinedly for the nearest peak I could see. As I reached it, I revelled in the sense of achievement and victory and in the glorious view. . . . Then, slowly, my imagination would be caught by the next peak ahead . . . and eventually the resolve would form to set off upwards again. . . . As I went down from the present peak into the valley between the mountains, I was often shadowed by the very peak I had been enjoying. This I interpreted in a sense of failure and this often led to despair. . . . I see now that I was wrong. . . . The going down was merely an initial moving for-ward towards the next higher ground, never a going back to base level, so to speak. The shadow was only relative after the brightness of the sun; the valley could provide a period of rest for working out the experiences previously learnt, a time for refreshment preparatory for the next hard climb. Had I understood this meaning of the sunshine and shadow in my life rather than interpreting my various experiences along life’s way as “up” and “down,” I might have saved myself many deep heartaches.246

Morning brought out a deeper sort of white from the changeless snows capping the peaks on either side of the valley, which, later, in the midday sun, would become blinding splinters. A pastoral bell echoed across the sky, dappled with flocks of small solid clouds, while unseen birds found themselves, yet again, unable to break their bondage to their two or four notes. The air was laced with the scent of water, stone, and the long-dead things that, darkly, were finding their way back to life deep under the dew-soaked dirt. During that unpopulated hour, the buildings ceased to be objects of artifice and industry to reveal the nature fossilized in them and come forth in their mineral presence. The breeze dissolved in stiller air; the treetops, so green they were black against the blue, stopped swaying. And for a moment, there was no struggle and all was at rest, because time seemed to have arrived at its destination.

In the twilight of his life, Franklin D. Roosevelt recalled the words of his old Groton School rector, Endicott Peabody, who had told him, “Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights—then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.

All of life is peaks and valleys. Don’t let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low.

Whether you’re at the peak or the valley of any given wave, remember that this too shall pass.

The Bible assures us that a morning will dawn bright and glorious someday. All the sorrow and sadness and difficulty we’ve known in the darkened skies of life will vanish. The Lord will return for us at the daybreak of eternity, and there will be no more weeping, no more pain or suffering, no more broken hearts. There will be no more valleys plunging away from the peaks. He will dry every tear, and there will be joy in that great morning.

It was good for me to be afflicted. (Psalm 119:71) It is a remarkable occurrence of nature that the most brilliant colors of plants are found on the highest mountains, in places that are the most exposed to the fiercest weather. The brightest lichens and mosses, as well as the most beautiful wildflowers, abound high upon the windswept, storm-ravaged peaks. One of the finest arrays of living color I have ever seen was just above the great Saint Bernard Hospice near the ten-thousand-foot summit of Mont Cenis in the French Alps. The entire face of one expansive rock was covered with a strikingly vivid yellow lichen, which shone in the sunshine like a golden wall protecting an enchanted castle. Amid the loneliness and barrenness of that high altitude and exposed to the fiercest winds of the sky, this lichen exhibited glorious color it has never displayed in the shelter of the valley. As I write these words, I have two specimens of the same type of lichen before me. One is from this Saint Bernard area, and the other is from the wall of a Scottish castle, which is surrounded by sycamore trees. The difference in their form and coloring is quite striking. The one grown amid the fierce storms of the mountain peak has a lovely yellow color of a primrose, a smooth texture, and a definite form and shape. But the one cultivated amid the warm air and the soft showers of the lowland valley has a dull, rusty color, a rough texture, and an indistinct and broken shape. Isn’t it the same with a Christian who is afflicted, storm-tossed, and without comfort? Until the storms and difficulties allowed by God’s providence beat upon a believer again and again, his character appears flawed and blurred. Yet the trials actually clear away the clouds and shadows, perfect the form of his character, and bestow brightness and blessing to his life. Amidst my list of blessings infinite Stands this the foremost, that my heart has bled; For all I bless You, most for the severe. Hugh Macmillan

You Cannot Always Control External Events, But You Can Control Your Personal Peaks And Valleys By What You Believe And What You Do.

You Get Out Of A Valley Sooner When You Manage To Get Outside Of Yourself: At Work, By Being Of Greater Service, And In Life, By Being More Loving.

All of life is peaks and valleys. Don’t let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low.”My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters

Read all kinds of stories to your child. Don't be afraid if they don't all have happy endings. Being exposed to peaks and valleys of life encourages empathy, resilience, and feelings of meaningfulness and gratitude for our own lives.

Winter took in her surroundings. There was a tacky disco ball hanging in the center of the room and multicolored strobe lights bouncing off it. Cheap pink and lime-green streamers hung all over the room, as well as sparkling tinsel left over from Christmas. There were remnants of every holiday strewn about and champagne bottles on every table. If this was what getting old looked like, winter might not mind it. Each person in that room had lived such a life. They had had kids and grandkids and heartache and happy times. They probably had seen every peak and every valley the world had to throw at them. If she was going to learn how to make the most of her life, rather than just survive it, it was going to be from them.

you put more emphasis on honesty than on the punishment for bad behavior. If you confront your kids accusingly with anger or threats and are punitive when they misbehave, they might become afraid to tell the truth. If you make it safe for them, they will be honest. Remember, it takes a lot to confess or tell the truth for anyone at any age. It doesn’t always come naturally. It’s up to us to teach them to be courageous enough to be honest and vulnerable and confess when necessary. Be nonjudgmental. This kind of honest relationship, if fostered well, will be paramount during the teenage years. Read stories that encompass all emotions Read all kinds of stories to your child. Don’t be afraid if they don’t all have happy endings. Actively choose stories that have difficult topics too, and stories that don’t conclude in a “storybook” way. Children learn a lot from sadness and tragedy (being age appropriate, of course), and they open up honest communication between you about different aspects of life that are just as important as the prince getting the princess. Being exposed to peaks and valleys of life encourages empathy, resilience, and feelings of meaningfulness and gratitude for our own lives.

Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights—then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.” Roosevelt quoted that observation in his final inaugural address in the winter of 1945, and American power and prosperity soon reached epic heights.

A lot of people don’t realize that without a valley, there is no peak. Without information, there is no joke. You’ve got to set things up.

When writing for other comedians, someone once told me, “I want to make it my own.” I’d say, “Look, the jokes are written. The relationships are written. First, do it as written. Later you can make it your own.” A lot of people don’t realize that without a valley, there is no peak. Without information, there is no joke. You’ve got to set things up.

Morning brought out a deeper sort of white from the changeless snows capping the peaks on either side of the valley, which, later, in the midday sun, would become blinding splinters. A pastoral bell echoed across the sky, dappled with flocks of small solid clouds, while unseen birds found themselves, yet again, unable to break their bondage to their two or four notes. The air was laced with the scent of water, stone, and the long-dead things that, darkly, were finding their way back to life deep under the dew-soaked dirt. During that unpopulated hour, the buildings ceased to be objects of artifice and industry to reveal the nature fossilized in them and come forth in their mineral presence. The breeze dissolved in stiller air; the treetops, so green they were black against the blue, stopped swaying. And for a moment, there was no struggle and all was at rest, because time seemed to have arrived at its destination. Harold Vanner, 'Bonds

But to hit that target, we must come off the mountain, go through the valley, and begin to climb the next slope. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life's next peak.

If you learn from valleys you become better. If you don’t, you become bitter.

Yes, life can be challenging, with a few brilliant peaks, and many dark valleys. But that is why we are here. We are spiritual beings seeking human adventure. We certainly did not sign up to come into this world for a perpetual snooze-fest!

Time disproves the lies depression tells. Time showed me that the things depression imagined for me were fallacies, not prophecies. That doesn’t mean time dissolves all mental health issues. But it does mean our attitudes and approaches to our own mind change and often improve via sticking around long enough to gain the perspective despair and fear refuse to give. People talk of peaks and troughs in relation to mental health. Hills and valleys. You can definitely feel the steep descents and uphill struggles in life. But it is important to remember the bottom of the valley never has the clearest view. And that sometimes all you need in order to rise up again is to keep moving forward.

Love is the greatest adventure of all, a journey that takes us to the highest peaks and the deepest valleys, but ultimately leads us to a place of profound happiness and fulfillment.

Friendship: the celestial force that ignites our souls, guiding us through life's peaks and valleys, reminding us that with a loyal companion by our side, we can conquer any challenge and soar to unimaginable heights.

God invites us into the valley. The question is whether we will accept the invitation. The valley will always be in the shadow of the mountains. The mountains, with their dramatic peaks and pillars to the clouds, will always appear more special to the world around you. Becoming a valley is truly humbling. And yet this is the place where the rain soaks deep and fruit is truly produced. The valley is the place of life. It is the place of kingdom power.

Somewhere between four and five, when the spring afternoon ended and the spring evening began, the people filled with sardines and soda crackers, their dry throats moistened with canned tomatoes and soda pop, began to sing. The day that had begun in peace was ending in war. People had shadows the size and shape of peaked tombstones. Blueness, fold on fold, enveloped the foothills. The stomp of oil wells deep inside the earth was felt. Meadow larks and blackbirds were suddenly quiet, then, as if resisting the oncoming night, sang loudly. Raunce's cow bawled to be milked. Old Saddle Back was rosy above the valley's shadows. The April summer evening, the first of the war, came down with melancholy softness and beauty.