Mary Davis Quotes

We are made whole By books, as by great spaces and the stars

A good dog never dies. He always stays. He walks besides you on crisp autumn days when frost is on the fields and winter's drawing near. His head is within our hand in his old way.

I believe in love Nicholas Davies - Earl of Aberdare

What can we learn from women like Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday that we may not be able to learn from Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, and Mary Church Terrell? If we were beginning to appreciate the blasphemies of fictionalized blues women - especially their outrageous politics of sexuality - and the knowledge that might be gleaned from their lives about the possibilities of transforming gender relations within black communities, perhaps we also could benefit from a look at the artistic contributions of the original blues women.

The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.

Gratitude makes sweet miracles of small moments.

Every act of kindness spreads peace to the world, love to the heart, light to us all.

You said you have issues and, you know, I'm sure you do, because we all have issues and yeah, some are a lot more complicated than others, but at the end of the day, everyone has something in there past that isn't pleasant" "The thing is, you can go on living in the past, never letting yourself heal and move on, or you can accept what happened, painful as that might be, and then realize that you have a life and now and you have something wonderful right in front of you

Tell me something. Why is everyone so determined to believe Wilton is innocent?" Surprised, Davies said, "He's a war hero isn't he? Admired by the King and a friend of the Prince of Wales. He's visited Sandringham, been received by Queen Mary herself! A man like that doesn’t go around killing people!" With a wry downturn of his lips, Rutledge silently asked, How did he win his medals, you fool, if not by being so very damned good at killing?

Sometimes when we just stand still, the grace finds us.

The cry of my body for completeness, that is a cry to you.

Your inner light is what makes you beautiful.

She hands me an ornament of The Virgin Mary. "Pray to the Holy Mary, Mother of God!" I notice she has a gold chain round her neck. It has the holy cross and a shamrock

Look back with joy. Look forward with hope. Be present with peace.

* I am infinitely grateful to be alive. Each breath reminds me of the sacred gift of life.

We all change the world whether we intend to or not. And we always change the world for the better when we plant the seeds of kind thoughts and words.

The angel had said to Mary, "Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!" And this blessing isn't always what we think- the happy ending we wanted and the desires of our hearts fulfilled.

There is a famous study from the 1930s involving a group of orphanage babies who, at mealtimes, were presented with a smorgasbord of thirty-four whole, healthy foods. Nothing was processed or prepared beyond mincing or mashing. Among the more standard offerings—fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, milk, chicken, beef—the researcher, Clara Davis, included liver, kidney, brains, sweetbreads, and bone marrow. The babies shunned liver and kidney (as well as all ten vegetables, haddock, and pineapple), but brains and sweetbreads did not turn up among the low-preference foods she listed. And the most popular item of all? Bone marrow.

And so I sit on the dunes in my carefully mismatched clothes, hour after hour, day after day, frozen in my looking back. 'Do not look behind you...lest you be swept away.' That is what scripture say. Only there is nowhere for me to look but back. No future. No redemption. Like Lot's wife, I am turned to salt, my tired eyes trained on the blue-gray horizon, where sea meets sky, where my yesterday's met my tomorrows, a ragtag eccentric, watching and waiting for something that never comes.

Anticipate beauty. Believe in miracles. Count on grace. Decide on joy. Expect peace.

In a silent morning moment, with a silent voice I pray, to lift a silent sunrise offering on silent wings of grace.

Say 'I love you' out loud and often.

Today I choose calm over chaos, serenity over stress, peace over perfection, grace over grit, faith over fear.

When you’re feeling stressed, count the ways you’re blessed.

Set up some reminders on your phone, in your journal or on sticky notes to help remember throughout the day to ask for blessings and assistance.

A walk in nature walks the soul back home.

The thing in jazz that will get Bix Beiderbecke out of his bed at two o’clock in the morning, pick that cornet up and practice into the pillow for another two or three hours, or that would make Louis Armstrong travel around the world for fifty plus years non stop, just get up out of his sick bed, crawl up on the bandstand and play, the thing that would make Duke Ellington, the thing that would make Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Mary Lou Williams, the thing that would make all of these people give their lives for this, and they did give their lives, is that it gives us a glimpse into what America is going to be when it becomes itself. And this music tells you that it will become itself. And when you get a taste of that, there’s just nothing else you’re going to taste that’s as sweet.

The crickets were rubbing their hind legs together, unrolling that endless band of sound that when combined with the sound of the sycamore trees losing their heads in the heat-thickened breeze could cause even a girl as unsentimental as Mary to feel like she’d just left something behind on the porch stoop she couldn’t bear to live without.

marie Kondo says to tri-fold your underwear. The admiral swears making your bed will change your life. Rachel Hollis thinks the key to success is washing your face and believing in yourself. Capsule wardrobes! Rainbow-colored organization! Bullet journals! How many of these have we tried? How many did we stick with? If you’re like me, the answer is probably none.

Plainly, evil is the antithesis of God, which is the antithesis of love. What we know as original sin is simply our propensity to wallow in shame and fear. Both emotions led me to harm myself and others. I discovered that “sin” was not a checklist of dos and don’ts. Sin was more complex and more simple. I needed to navigate my soul out of this mess and return to true love.

After these walk-ons, she would banter with announcer Ken Niles and perhaps indulge in more stargazing. In her memoir, radio actress Mary Jane Higby recalls working the show. The “underpaid radio actors” soon took to calling themselves “the Gay Ad-Libbers.” They “would circle the microphone, trying to simulate people having a marvelous time. ‘What fun to be here!’ they would cry. ‘My, doesn’t Myrna Loy look gorgeous! Whoops, there’s Bette Davis!

If I had known what trouble you were bearing; What griefs were in the silence of your face; I would have been more gentle, and more caring, And tried to give you gladness for a space. I would have brought more warmth into the place, If I had known. If I had known what thoughts despairing drew you; (Why do we never try to understand?) I would have lent a little friendship to you, And slipped my hand within your hand, And made your stay more pleasant in the land, If I had known.

Even as Trump eagerly asked aides to relay information from newspaper headlines, including whether his name was mentioned, he had never shown much interest in books. A cabinet next to his bedside contained a book that Ivana later said she saw him occasionally leafing through: an anthology of Adolf Hitler’s speeches called My New Order. (“It was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew,” Trump claimed when pressed about it by journalist Marie Brenner.

Unscrupulous vendors turn the situation to their advantage. In China, nouveau-riche status-seekers are spending small fortunes on counterfeit Bordeaux. A related scenario exists here vis-à-vis olive oil. “The United States is a dumping ground for bad olive oil,” Langstaff told me. It’s no secret among European manufacturers that Americans have no palate for olive oils. The Olive Center—a recent addition to the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, on the campus of the University of California at Davis—aims to change that.

Indigenous Lives Holding Our World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkala-Sa A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J. McLeod

The malicious erasure of women’s names from the historical record began two or three thousand years ago and continues into our own period. Women take as great a risk of anonymity when they merge their names with men in literary collaboration as when they merge in matrimony. The Lynds, for example, devoted equal time, thought, and effort to the writing of Middletown, but today it is Robert Lynd’s book. Dr. Mary Leakey made the important paleontological discoveries in Africa, but Dr. Louis Leakey gets all the credit. Mary Beard did a large part of the work on America in Midpassage, yet Charles Beard is the great social historian. The insidious process is now at work on Eve Curie. A recent book written for young people states that radium was discovered by Pierre Curie with the help of his assistant, Eve, who later became his wife. Aspasia wrote the famous oration to the Athenians, as Socrates knew, but in all the history books it is Pericles’ oration. Corinna taught Pindar and polished his poems for posterity; but who ever heard of Corinna? Peter Abelard got his best ideas from Heloise, his acknowledged intellectual superior, yet Abelard is the great medieval scholar and philosopher. Mary Sidney probably wrote Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia; Nausicaa wrote the Odyssey, as Samuel Butler proves in his book The Authoress of the Odyssey, at least to the satisfaction of this writer and of Robert Graves, who comment, “no other alternative makes much sense.

My deepest appreciation to: Everyone at Scholastic Press, especially Marijka Kostiw, Kristina Albertson, Tracy Mack, and Leslie Budnick. Tracey Adams, my wonderful agent. The members of my critique groups, each of whom possess that rare combination of Charlotte the spider: a true friend and a good writer. My retreat-mates who put me on the right track: Franny Billingsley, Toni Buzzeo, Sarah Lamstein, Dana Walrath, Mary Atkinson, Carol Peacock, and Jackie Davies. With special thanks to Amy Butler Greenfield, Nancy Werlin, Amanda Jenkins, Denise Johns, Melissa Wyatt, Lisa Firke, Lisa Harkrader, Laura Weiss, Mary Pearson, Amy McAuley, and Kristina Cliff-Evans. And to my parents, Earl and Elaine Lord, who gave me wings but always left the porch light on to show the way home.

Nartok shows me an example of Arctic “greens”: cutout number 13, Caribou Stomach Contents. Moss and lichen are tough to digest, unless, like caribou, you have a multichambered stomach in which to ferment them. So the Inuit let the caribou have a go at it first. I thought of Pat Moeller and what he’d said about wild dogs and other predators eating the stomachs and stomach contents of their prey first. “And wouldn’t we all,” he’d said, “be better off.” If we could strip away the influences of modern Western culture and media and the high-fructose, high-salt temptations of the junk-food sellers, would we all be eating like Inuit elders, instinctively gravitating to the most healthful, nutrient-diverse foods? Perhaps. It’s hard to say. There is a famous study from the 1930s involving a group of orphanage babies who, at mealtimes, were presented with a smorgasbord of thirty-four whole, healthy foods. Nothing was processed or prepared beyond mincing or mashing. Among the more standard offerings—fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, milk, chicken, beef—the researcher, Clara Davis, included liver, kidney, brains, sweetbreads, and bone marrow. The babies shunned liver and kidney (as well as all ten vegetables, haddock, and pineapple), but brains and sweetbreads did not turn up among the low-preference foods she listed. And the most popular item of all? Bone marrow.

The proximity of Mary filled him with excitement; he had to work to slow his breathing. A drop, another drop – he was flicking his penis dry. It grew long and thin, the corona pointed and cleft like a hoof.

Your dream seed will never grow unless you take action: prepare the ground, protect it, nurture it and allow it flourish. Until a seed is planted it can never fulfill its purpose. Before Jesus could change the course of our lives, he first was planted in Mary’s virgin womb. And the word cannot change your circumstances until you plant it in your heart and believe it by faith. Find the Word (seed) that pertains to your circumstances and sow those Words in your heart. Trust God. Believe Him. And know as long as the earth remains so shall seed time and harvest time.  The more you sow, the more you’ll grow.

In fact, Clinton feels others’ pain to the point that he not infrequently openly weeps for them, and his teary response is so infectious that it can trigger tears in others. This creates the opportunity for powerful political theater, all the more powerful because it is genuinely felt. Leopoulos was with Clinton in New Hampshire, and recalled how Clinton’s empathy routinely triggered an epidemic of tears. “He had to hear everyone’s story. Some of the people were crying, and had terribly sad stories. Clinton started crying, too, and then we were all crying.” Stephanopoulos recalled one such encounter during the New Hampshire primary: “When Mary Annie Davis confessed tearfully that she had to choose each month between buying food or medicine, he knelt down, took her hand, and comforted her with a hug. Even the hardest bitten reporters in the room were wiping tears from their eyes.”27

The only difference between an amazing day, an average day and a disaster day is the way we think of it right in this moment.

Frank Marshall Davis, President Barack Obama’s mentor during Obama’s formative years in Hawaii, was a card-carrying Communist Party USA member (CPUSA member #47544)

You and I both know the truth of it: loving people is hard. It brings us to the very end of ourselves. And as much as we are trained to avoid it, the end of ourselves is such a very sweet place to be. The truth rings as clearly as it does for Mary in that moment at His feet: I am not sufficient. My parenting cannot be sufficient. Only He is sufficient and only He can fill up these holes, for all of us.

Peace is the answer. Joy is the goal. Thanks is the prayer. Love is the road.

Bless me with a calm center in the storms of my life.

Joy is finding the holy in the small and the sacred in the everyday.

The systematic designation of slave men as “boys” by the master was a reflection, according to Elkins, of their inability to execute their fatherly responsibilities. Kenneth Stampp pursues this line of reasoning even further than Elkins: … the typical slave family was matriarchal in form, for the mother’s role was far more important than the father’s. In so far as the family did have significance, it involved responsibilities which traditionally belonged to women, such as cleaning house, preparing food, making clothes, and raising children. The husband was at most his wife’s assistant, her companion and her sex partner. He was often thought of as her possession (Mary’s Tom), as was the cabin in which they lived.39 It is true that domestic life took on an exaggerated importance in the social lives of slaves, for it did indeed provide them with the only space where they could truly experience themselves as human beings. Black women, for this reason—and also because they were workers just like their men—were not debased by their domestic functions in the way that white women came to be. Unlike their white counterparts, they could never be treated as mere “housewives.” But to go further and maintain that they consequently dominated their men is to fundamentally distort the reality of slave life.

Joy is finding the holy in the small and the sacred in the everyday.

Bless my eyes to see goodness. Bless my words to speak kindness. Bless my heart to feel compassion. Bless my soul to radiate love.

I think of the self-proclaimed agrarian farmer and scholar Victor Davis Hanson who in his book Fields Without Dreams, wrote sneeringly but also with grief: 'They [city people] no longer care where or how they get their food, as long as it is firm, fresh, and cheap. They have no interest in preventing the urbanization of their farmland as long as parks, Little League fields and an occasional bike lane are left amid the concrete, stucco, and asphalt. They have no need of someone who they are not, who reminds them of their past and not their future. Their romanticism for the farmer is just that, an artificial and quite transient appreciation of his rough-cut visage against the horizon the stuff of a wine commercial, cigarette ad, or impromptu rock concert.' People in the cities don't see farmers clearly. The farmers are overlooked, and instead of being seen as recognizably real, the farmer is romanticized.

Prayer. There's always something we can do to change the world.

May I judge less and love more.

Angela Davis in particular describes sexual violence as a technique of terror that white slave owners employed to maintain control over their property and thwart resistance. The routine sexual abuse and exploitation of black women and girls was not some well-kept secret. It happened openly, without punishment, for centuries.

Jean H. Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (New York: Norton, 1987); Joan E. Cashin, First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis’s Civil War (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006); Catherine Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln: A Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2009); Daniel Mark Epstein, The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage (New York: Ballantine Books, 2008); Jennifer Fleischner, Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave (New York: Broadway Books, 2003); Ernest B. Furgurson, Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War (New York: Knopf, 2004); Becky Rutberg, Mary Lincoln’s Dressmaker: Elizabeth Keckley’s Remarkable Rise from Slave to White House Confidante (New York: Walker and Company, 1995); Justin G. Turner and Linda Levitt Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters (New York: Knopf, 1972); and John E.

Every human being has had their heart broken, every person you'll ever meet lives on a daily basis with a private pain they work hard to conceal.

We have within us a North Star that always leads back to peace, love and joy.

If we turn our gaze ever so slightly and view our day as saturated in sacred sights and sounds, then this moment right here, right now, where we are, broken and messy, is a holy moment.

Maybe we could just listen and be held. Maybe we could stop and be present to small chances and offerings, knowing that something greater is between the lines, beneath our wings, over our heads, at our backs. Right where we are, on this beautiful, amazing day, every moment is sacred.

For the joy, relief, exhaustion and love of yesterday: inhale gratitude, exhale love.

I create space in my life for contemplation and define for myself what form of giving resonates with joy in my heart.

Notice something beautiful. Appreciate the gift. Give thanks.

May the New Year bless you.

I release the year that is now complete and open to unlimited blessings of the year to come.

For faith and grace to magnify in our hearts and raise us even higher in the coming year: inhale gratitude, exhale love.

May your holidays be filled with the spirit of joy, the wisdom of sight, the heart of love and the soul of light.

Sometimes when we are cornered, we surrender to something bigger. Sometimes when we don’t see a way out, we breathe and wait patiently. Sometimes when we have no answers, we listen for guidance and open to the unexpected. Sometimes when we just stand still, the grace finds us.

I am thankful for the blessings of this day.

Open your soul to grace.

Relax. Breathe. Our minds can remain free of worry as long as our souls are open to grace.

Today may joy bless you. May hope inspire you. May love heal you. May light guide you.

Making space is key to welcoming in the new.

I welcome in the light of the coming year, and make room in my heart and home for the transformation of my mind, body and soul.

Be honest. Be kind. Be brave. Believe. Lead with your heart and follow your dreams.

Live simply. Laugh freely. Give easily. Receive graciously. Think calmly. Grow radically. Pray continuously. Love deeply.

Release addictive or negative behaviors that no longer serve the person you are becoming. Release doubt, fear and negativity. Release any unkindness toward yourself. And make room for beautiful small things.

Just breathe.

Meditation is one of many tools that can lead us toward a calmer, more joyful day.

Be present and grateful for the moment you are in.

Focus your ability to hear your inner voice by meditating daily.

Rewrite fear thoughts with encouraging affirmations. You can do this.

As I walk to the edge of the darkness and take one step over the side, I believe I’ll land on my feet, or I will learn to fly.

Assemble a navigational team of the finest guides in the heavens.

Ask, listen, trust and receive.

Each of us must ask for guidance from a deeply personal place in alignment with our most precious beliefs. There is no one right way, only the right way for you.

Every moment is a sacred moment.

I am strong. I am whole. I am enough.

Just recognizing your truth is a giant step. Naming it is the start of your healing. Many have walked a similar path and survived. The sun is there and will rise for you.

I am strong. I am whole. I am enough. I have faith that my pain is meaningful and will help me grow like nothing else in my life can.

Pray for our world and for all beings. Be a ripple in the water.

Indigenous Lives Holding Our World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkala-Sa A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J. McLeod Indigenous Poetry Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, by Joy Harjo Ghost River (Wakpá Wanági), by Trevino L. Brings Plenty The Book of Medicines, by Linda Hogan The Smoke That Settled, by Jay Thomas Bad Heart Bull The Crooked Beak of Love, by Duane Niatum Whereas, by Layli Long Soldier Little Big Bully, by Heid E. Erdrich A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation, by Eric Gansworth NDN Coping Mechanisms, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Invisible Musician, by Ray A. Young Bear When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, edited by Joy Harjo New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich The Failure of Certain Charms, by Gordon Henry Jr. Indigenous History and Nonfiction Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong, by Paul Chaat Smith Decolonizing Methodologies, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862, edited by Gary Clayton Anderson and Alan R. Woodworth Being Dakota, by Amos E. Oneroad and Alanson B. Skinner Boarding School Blues, edited by Clifford E. Trafzer, Jean A. Keller, and Lorene Sisquoc Masters of Empire, by Michael A. McDonnell Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, by Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior Boarding School Seasons, by Brenda J. Child They Called It Prairie Light, by K. Tsianina Lomawaima To Be a Water Protector, by Winona LaDuke Minneapolis: An Urban Biography, by Tom Weber

Beneath the drift of earthly sound, strong silent soul unbound. Unique as a snowflake, soft as her flight, still as the ground beneath the quiet winter’s night.

Perhaps our purpose is not a grand accomplishment, but a small kindness that we don’t think much of, that changes the life of another. You are here for a reason and someone needs your light today.

You live in my heart. You walk on my road. You breathe of my air. You dance in my soul.

May today bring us simple things in simple packages. Easy-to-use things. Things we can tuck into our hearts and don’t require instructions or batteries. Simple things like love and peace, like comfort and joy.

All is calm. All is bright.

We have within us a North Star that always leads back to peace, love, joy and abundant blessings. When we lead from there, we are the spirit of the season.

May today bring us simple things in simple packages. May the holiday you celebrate bring meaning and peace within. May the love of Christmas expand in your heart today, tomorrow and each day of the year. May there be peace on earth, goodwill toward all.

Rejoice!

Pure, unconditional love and kindness are always healing, always helpful, always welcomed. When in doubt, just be kind.