“
I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
“
Legion, cuneum formate!’ Reyna yelled. ‘Advance!’ Another cheer on Jason’s right as Percy and Annabeth reunited with the forces of Camp Half-Blood.
‘Greeks!’ Percy yelled. ‘Let’s, um, fight stuff!’ They yelled like banshees and charged.
Jason grinned. He loved the Greeks. They had no organization whatsoever, but they made up for it with enthusiasm.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
“
If you rely exclusively on the advice of others, you may make terrible mistakes. Your heart knows what you need. Other people have other agendas.
”
”
Brian L. Weiss (Only Love Is Real: A Story of Soulmates Reunited)
“
Do any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts' deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all. Each time they go from our sight we in our secret hearts count them as dead. Having been given so much, we reason, how could we expect not to be brought as low as Lucifer for the staggering presumption of our love?
”
”
Stephen King
“
When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me-it still sometimes happens-and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. . . . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind. . . . That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time. . . . That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful. . . . The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.
”
”
Ann Druyan
“
Grief reunites you with what you've lost. It's a merging; you go with the loved thing or person that's going away. You follow it a far as you can go.
But finally,the grief goes away and you phase back into the world. Without him.
And you can accept that. What the hell choice is there? You cry, you continue to cry, because you don't ever completely come back from where you went with him -- a fragment broken off your pulsing, pumping heart is there still. A cut that never heals.
And if, when it happens to you over and over again in life, too much of your heart does finally go away, then you can't feel grief any more. And then you yourself are ready to die. You'll walk up the inclined ladder and someone else will remain behind grieving for you.
”
”
Philip K. Dick (Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said)
“
And Chaol was afraid, but not for himself. He was afraid of what would come when Aedion and Aelin were reunited. For he'd seen in her that same glittering ember that made people look and listen. Had seen her stalk into the council with Councilor Mullison's head and smile at the King of Adarlan, every man in that room enthralled and petrified by the dark whirlwind of her spirit. The two of them together, both of them lethal, working to build an army, ignite their people... He was afraid of what they would do to his kingdom.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3))
“
Who wouldn't have gone to the ends of the earth to be reunited with the person they loved more than life itself? Who wouldn't have ripped their own heart out to stop that kind of pain?
”
”
Chris Colfer (The Wishing Spell (The Land of Stories, #1))
“
Apparently you don't have to observe the Rules of Etiquette when reuniting with a muderous spouse.
”
”
Jennifer Rardin (Once Bitten, Twice Shy (Jaz Parks, #1))
“
Ah, two firm friends, reunited at last! There should be sweet violin music playing for us, but I'll settle for the screams of the dying.
”
”
Jonathan Stroud (The Creeping Shadow (Lockwood & Co., #4))
“
The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.
”
”
Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
“
But it's believed the soul can stay on earth for three to forty days after death. It eventually recieves temporary judgment that sends it on from this world to heaven or hell-although no one will truly experience either until the actual Judgment Day, when the soul and body are reunited to live out eternity as one.
”
”
Richelle Mead (Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy, #3))
“
Anxious people may take a very long time to get over a bad attachment, and they don't get to decide how long it will take. Only when every single cell in their body is completely convinced that there is no chance that their partner will change or that they will ever reunite will they be able to deactivate and let go.
”
”
Amir Levine (Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love)
“
Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory)
“
This will mark the third time that an arrow has entered my chest. The first time brought me to Marianne Engel. The second time separated us.
The third time will reunite us.
”
”
Andrew Davidson (The Gargoyle)
“
I've become a collector of stories about unlikely returns: the sudden reappearance of the long-lost son, the father found, the lovers reunited after forty years. Once in awhile, a letter does fall behind a post office desk and lie there for years before it's finally discovered and delivered to the rightful address. The seemingly brain-dead sometimes wake up and start talking. I'm always on the lookout for proof that what is done can sometimes be undone.
”
”
Karen Thompson Walker (The Age of Miracles)
“
Flying across the country to reunite with your true love was always the right move. (Always.) (In every case.)
”
”
Rainbow Rowell (Landline)
“
Do any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts' deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all. Each time they go from our sight we in our secret hearts count them as dead.
”
”
Stephen King (The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7))
“
It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.
”
”
Lewis B. Smedes
“
When a soul arrives in Paradise after a lifetime on earth, it will sometimes pine for the soul mate that was left behind."
"He has that look?"
"No... he has the other look."
"The other look?"
"The look of that soul when it reunites with its soul mate.
”
”
Amy A. Bartol (Incendiary (The Premonition, #4))
“
I like to see people reunited, maybe that's a silly thing, but what an I say, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and they crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone, I sit on the side with a coffee and write in my daybook, I examine the flight schedules that I've already memorized, I observe, I write, I try not to remember the life that I didn't want to lose but lost and have to remember
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
“
Humans were so preoccupied with love. They were all desperate to form an attachment to one person they could refer to as their other half. It seemed from my reading of literature that being in love meant becoming the beloveds entire world. The rest of the universe paled into insignificance compared to the lovers. When they were separated, each fell into a melancholy state, and only when they were reunited did their hearts start beating again. Only when they were together could really see the colors of the world. When they were apart, that color leached away, leaving everything a hazy gray. I lay in bed, wondering about the intensity of this emotion that was so irrational and so irrefutably human. What if a persons face was so sacred to you it was permanently inscribed in your memory? What if their smell and touch were dearer to you than life itself?
”
”
Alexandra Adornetto (Halo (Halo, #1))
“
For Someone Awakening To The Trauma of His or Her Past:
For everything under the sun there is a time.
This is the season of your awkward harvesting,
When the pain takes you where you would rather not go,
Through the white curtain of yesterdays to a place
You had forgotten you knew from the inside out;
And a time when that bitter tree was planted
That has grown always invisibly beside you
And whose branches your awakened hands
Now long to disentangle from your heart.
You are coming to see how your looking often darkened
When you should have felt safe enough to fall toward love,
How deep down your eyes were always owned by something
That faced them through a dark fester of thorns
Converting whoever came into a further figure of the wrong;
You could only see what touched you as already torn.
Now the act of seeing begins your work of mourning.
And your memory is ready to show you everything,
Having waited all these years for you to return and know.
Only you know where the casket of pain is interred.
You will have to scrape through all the layers of covering
And according to your readiness, everything will open.
May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide
Who can accompany you through the fear and grief
Until your heart has wept its way to your true self.
As your tears fall over that wounded place,
May they wash away your hurt and free your heart.
May your forgiveness still the hunger of the wound
So that for the first time you can walk away from that place,
Reunited with your banished heart, now healed and freed,
And feel the clear, free air bless your new face.
”
”
John O'Donohue (To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings)
“
Stories aren't just stories if they've been read through before, for once a cover has been opened they turn into something more. A fingerprint of everyone who's ever turned its pages and a bookmark of the you you were when read at different ages. It's as though with each reread you leave a piece of you behind, a sliver of the past pressed for your future self to find. Until it's no longer the story that makes you pull it from the shelf, but the chance to reunite with younger versions of yourself.
”
”
Erin Hanson
“
He wraps an arm around me, and I swear we were once a single unit, a supercontinent divided millions of years ago - like my fifth grade science project - now reunited into some kaleidoscopic New Pangea. "I'm Madagascar," I say, sleepily. "You're what?" "I'm Madagascar. And you're Africa." He squeezes my shoulder, and - I think he gets it. I bet he does.
”
”
David Arnold (Mosquitoland)
“
And Kurt.
If only he could have seen the joy that his music brought to the world, maybe he could have found his own. My life was forever changed by Kurt, something I never had the chance to say while he was still with us, and not thanking him for that is a regret I will have to live with until we are somehow reunited. Not a day goes by when I don't think of our time together, and when we meet in my dreams there's always a feeling of happiness and calm, almost as if he's just been hiding, waiting to return.
”
”
Dave Grohl (The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music)
“
Maybe we needed to break a little, so we could put ourselves back together more beautifully than before.
”
”
Leah Raeder (Cam Girl)
“
What broken family—no matter how shattered be reunited? What child, no matter how lost or abandoned, does not ache to be loved?
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (Malibu Rising)
“
how could two people who were so in love not end up happily ever after?
It had to work. Didn't it? Reunited with fresh hopes, we'd share a few
deliriously happy days together. Or sometimes even weeks.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert
“
Nicotine and alcohol embraced in my system like long-parted siblings, grateful to me for reuniting them.
”
”
Glen Duncan (The Last Werewolf (The Last Werewolf, #1))
“
You two need to either get the fuck out or get behind closed doors. Don’t need to be seeing that shit this goddamn early. Go reunite somewhere else, serious as fuck right now.
”
”
Harper Sloan (Axel (Corps Security, #1))
“
It is the night sea journey that allows us to free the energy trapped in these cast-off parts—trapped in what Marion would call “the shadow.” The goal of this journey is to reunite us with ourselves. Such a homecoming can be surprisingly painful, even brutal. In order to undertake it, we must first agree to exile nothing.
”
”
Stephen Cope (The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling)
“
If your love is real, it will one day reunite you with your estranged lover despite any circumstances.
”
”
Anamika Mishra
“
He uttered a curse that startled her with its foulness, and gripped her head between his hands, forcing her to stare at him. His voice was savage. "For twelve years I have been in constant torment, wanting you in my arms and believing it would never be possible. I want you for a thousand reasons other than your legs, and...no, damn it, I want you for no reason at all, other than the fact that you're you. I want to shove myself deep inside you and stay for hours...days...weeks. I want morning and noon and nightfall with you. I want your tears, your smiles, your kisses...the smell of your hair, the taste of your skin, the touch of your breath on my face. I want to see you in the final hour of my life...to lie in your arms as I take my last breath.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Again the Magic (Wallflowers, #0))
“
Thought is no longer theoretical. As soon as it functions it offends or reconciles, attracts or repels, breaks, dissociates, unites or reunites; it cannot help but liberate or enslave. Even before prescribing, suggesting a future, saying what must be done, even before exhorting or merely sounding an alarm, thought, at the level of its existence, in its very dawning, is in itself an action-a perilous act.
”
”
Michel Foucault
“
Every long separation is a test: A test to see how powerful or how weak the will of reuniting is!
”
”
Mehmet Murat ildan
“
Anyone else would have probably stayed put---or at least looked deeply uncomfortable, but Frank seemed like he was taking this in stride, like helping to reunite friends was just a normal thing he did.
”
”
Morgan Matson (Since You've Been Gone)
“
Edward reached out with his arms and embraced her, his heart filled with a mix of sadness and hope. He desperately wanted to believe her promise and hold on to her vow that they would be reunited soon. Still, young Edward’s life had been so full of disappointment that it was hard for him to believe his unfortunate circumstances might soon be ending. He clung to her, wishing she would never let him go.
”
”
Steven Decker (One More Life to Live (Edward and the Bricklayer Book 1))
“
Our country is Germany -- one country that should be reunited. We don't belong to Moscow or to the west. We belong to ourselves and I have never betrayed that. This tunnel has taken every ounce of courage we have. We're not cowards.
”
”
Jennifer A. Nielsen (A Night Divided)
“
Do any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts’ deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all. Each time they go from our sight we in our secret hearts count them as dead. Having been given so much, we reason, how could we expect not to be brought as low as Lucifer for the staggering presumption of our love?
”
”
Stephen King (The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7))
“
Whatever happened to 'Hey, how are you?' 'Long time, no see.' Apparently you don't have to observe the rules of etiquette when reuniting with a murderous spouse.
”
”
Jennifer Rardin (Once Bitten, Twice Shy (Jaz Parks, #1))
“
When fall comes to town,
lovers, letters, and leaves
reunite on the sidewalks,
broken, burnt, and brown.
”
”
Akash Mandal
“
Come to my grave someday, and tell me that the North and South are reunited.” It
”
”
Yeonmi Park (In Order To Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom)
“
Good turn to you, gentlefriends. It’s lovely to see you again. I confess, I missed you in our time apart. And now, reunited, would that I could simply greet you with a smile, and let you be about the business of murder and revenge and occasional lashings of tastefully written smut.
”
”
Jay Kristoff (Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicle, #2))
“
Do any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts' deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all.
”
”
Stephen King (The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7))
“
There are many heartfelt reasons for pushing our childhood sexual abuse to the edge of our lives and one amazing reason to embrace a healing journey;
it reunites us with our
shining,
colorful,
joyful spirit.
”
”
Jeanne McElvaney
“
Yeah, but– (Sunshine)
There are no buts, Sunshine. I am the goddess of souls and soulmates. Unlike the other Olympian gods, I know when I see two people who were created for each other. If both you and Talon died tonight and were later reborn at polar ends of the earth, sooner or later the two of you would reunite. That’s the schtick with soulmates. Alone you can survive, hell, you can even be with other people, but neither of you will ever be complete without the other. (Psyche)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Night Embrace (Dark-Hunter, #2))
“
It is through the light that we are born and through the night that we travel. The light is the love of our parents who greet us and welcome us into this world and it is with the love of our partner that we leave it. Wulf and Cassandra have chosen to be with each other, to ease their remaining journey and to comfort one another in the coming nights. And when the final night is upon them, they vow to stand together and ease the one who travels first. Soul to soul we have touched. Flesh to flesh we have breathed. And it is alone that we must leave this existence, until the night comes that the Fates decree we are reunited in Katoteros. (Apollite Marriage Vows)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Kiss of the Night (Dark-Hunter, #4))
“
Despite all my public misconduct, in the past year, I had learned the Elemental spells, the Doppelschläferin, and the preparation and flying of a magic broom; I had survived two months as prisoner of war, saving the life of captain Johanne in the process; I had escaped the dungeons of Fortress Drachensbett, and after an arduous journey successfully reunited with my double, so preserving her, and all Montagne, from Prince Flonian's rapacity, I would somehow master the despicable art of being a princess.
”
”
Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Princess Ben)
“
Dasha!' Rin yelled, 'Dasha!'
A face looked up, then two. They started walking toward her, then running. Dasha was in front, her eyes set on Razo, her face caught in an expression of desperate hope.
'Razo,' she said, .... 'Razo, it had better be you. If it just looks like you, I am going to kill you. It had better-'
He'd reached her by then. They embraced, and he swung her around, her legs lifting in the air, her tunic swirling...Then Dasha was kissing Razo's face and crying and smiling and declaring all his perfections.
'Well, this isn't half-bad,' said Razo, 'I think I'll die more often.'
Dasha embraced him again and squeezed until Razo had to admit he was injured. 'Love the lips, not the ribs,' he said, and pulled her into a long kiss.
”
”
Shannon Hale (Forest Born (The Books of Bayern, #4))
“
The Son symbolizes the hope of humanity, bringing light to the darkness of our material existence, and reuniting us with the divinity of our own higher nature.
”
”
Belsebuub (The Path of the Spiritual Sun)
“
No gods or demons would stop him in his quest of being reunited with her.
”
”
Alan Kinross (Longinus The Vampire: Redemption)
“
My grandfather used to say that if God did not allow a man to be reunited with his dogs in the next life He was no God worth worshipping; that if a dog did not have a soul, then nothing had.
”
”
John Connolly (The Wrath of Angels (Charlie Parker, #11))
“
As long as they could still be moved by a minor chord, or brought to a crisis of tears by scenes of lovers reunited; as long as there was room in their cautious hearts for games of chance, and laughter in the face of God, that must surely be enough to save them, at the last. If not, there was no hope for any living thing.
”
”
Clive Barker (Weaveworld)
“
To hold her, to keep her -- just as she was -- with her cruelty, with her vulgarity, with her blinding blue eyes, with her miserable poetry, with her fat feet, with her impure, dry, sordid, infantile soul. All of a sudden he thought: If people are reunited in Heaven (I don’t believe it, but suppose), then how shall I stop it from creeping upon me, that shriveled, helpless, lame thing, her soul? But this is the earth, and I am, curiously enough, alive, and there is something in me and in life ---
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Pnin)
“
She discovers that it is possible to cry all day and all night. That there are many different ways to cry: the sudden outpouring of tears, the deep, racking sobs, the soundless and endless leaking of water from the eyes. That sore skin around the eyes may be treated with oil infused with a tincture of eyebright and chamomile. That it is possible to comfort your daughters with assurances about places in Heaven and eternal joy and how they may all be reunited after death and how he will be waiting for them, while not believing any of it. That people don’t always know what to say to a woman whose child has died. That some will cross the street to avoid her merely because of this. That people not considered to be good friends will come, without warning, to the fore, will leave bread and cakes on your sill, will say a kind and apt word to you after church, will ruffle Judith’s hair and pinch her wan cheek.
”
”
Maggie O'Farrell (Hamnet)
“
There is a moment after death when things can go one of several ways, when souls can mingle and reunite-or be forever parted. Fate throws the bones, and hearts are mended, or shattered. What tips the balance in one's favor? Is it Mercy, or Grace, or Justice-the names of the three brightest angels? Or is it Love, the name of the One True Being?
”
”
Nancy Holder
“
There are moments in history that seem like a mist, as if what really happens matters less that what should have happened. The mists lift suddenly and there we are, my good parents and their good children, their grateful children who phone for no reason but to talk, say their good-nights with a kiss, and look forward to home on the holidays. I see how, in a family like mine, love doesn't have to be earned and it can't be lost. Just for a moment I see us that way; I see us all. Restored and repaired. Reunited. Refulgent.
”
”
Karen Joy Fowler (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves)
“
Humans have the choice of being reborn, While they have no conscious memory when the're reborn, they tend to reconnect with the souls that meant the most to them, again and again. And then those that reach enlightenment are able to at least reunite with their loved ones, with full knowledge of who they are.
”
”
Joey W. Hill (A Mermaid's Kiss (Daughters of Arianne, #1))
“
But others of us believed that the only true happiness our Sara had ever known in her short life on this earth had been among these people. And we wished for her soul to go to the place the Cheyennes called Seano – the place of the dead – which is reached by following the Hanging Road in the Sky, the Milky Way. Here the Cheyennes believe that all the People who have ever died live with their Creator, He’amaveho’e. In Seano they live in villages just as they did on earth – hunting, working, eating, playing, loving, and making war. And all go to the place of the dead, regardless of whether they were good or bad on earth, virtuous or evil, brave or cowardly – everyone – and eventually in Seano all are reunited with the souls of their loved ones.
”
”
Jim Fergus (One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd (One Thousand White Women, #1))
“
The spectacle is nothing more than the common language of this separation. What binds the spectators together is no more than an irreversible relation at the very center which maintains their isolation. The spectacle reunites the separate, but reunites it as separate.
”
”
Guy Debord (Society Of The Spectacle)
“
Reunions are the first day of school all over again. Time casts away familiarity and replaces it with warm confusion. Seeing how the years have frayed the friends of our youth reminds us that we too have irrevocably changed and can never return to a state of innocence again.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
Vincent gestures toward Gaspard, who steps forward to face us. "We say good-bye to our longtime leader, Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Balthazar Grimod de la Reynière," Gaspard says in a wavering voice. "He died sacrificing his life for another on the battlefield in Borodino, September 7, 1812. Jean-Baptiste was dedicated to the preservation of his kindred, willing to do anything to ensure their survival." Gaspard's face twists with emotion when he says this, but he forces his shoulders back and raises his chin.
He pulls something from his belt, and I recognize Jean-Baptiste's beloved sword-cane topped with its carved wooden falcon's head. Facing the fire, Gaspard says, "My dear Jean-Baptiste. My love. I will mourn your loss until we are reunited in the next life." And he throws the cane onto the fire.
”
”
Amy Plum (If I Should Die (Revenants, #3))
“
Man's only hope lies in "final redemption from the misery of volition and existence into the painlessness of non-being and non-willing." No mortal may quit the task of life, but each must do his part to hasten the time when in the major portion of the human race the activity of the unconscious shall be ruled by intelligence, and this stage reached, in the simultaneous action of many persons volition will resolve upon its own non-continuance, and thus idea and will be once more reunited in the Absolute.
”
”
Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann
“
I just can’t do it anymore. It’s too painful. It doesn't mean I’m over you, it means I’m not going to waste the rest of my life being haunted by your memory.
”
”
Ashleigh Z. (Under The Cypress Tree (Love in Belle Pont#1))
“
ELECTRA: Oh but my love—now that you have travelled back down all those years to meet my heart, over all this grief of mine, do not oh love—
ORESTES: What are you asking?
ELECTRA: Do not turn your face from me. Don't take yourself away.
”
”
Sophocles (Electra)
“
Then what is true love?” she asked audaciously.
Derian leaned forward, his focus powerfully fixed on her. His voice turned delicate and compelling as he spoke.
“Love is so much more than a feeling. True love, Eena, is something that develops over time. It’s not that initial infatuation nor the shivers and butterflies that take your breath away when you’re first attracted to someone. Those things are nice, but they are barely the beginning of what could become true love. The emotions you speak of are temporary and unreliable, elicited when two people come together. The power I speak of grows ever stronger over time until it is steadfast, even in separation. Then, reunited, it solidifies unshakably.”
She shook her head. “I don’t quite follow.”
The captain inched closer, fixing her with the sincerest of gazes. His hands cupped as if he were holding his very heart within them.
“True love is a developed and intense appreciation for someone. It’s that perfect awareness that you are finally whole when she’s with you, and that hollow incompleteness you suffer when she’s gone. True love takes time, Eena. It’s an earned comfort that tells you she’ll be right there beside you no matter what you do, not necessarily happy with your every action, but faithful to you just the same. Love is knowing someone so deeply, understanding her so completely, that you can finish her thoughts without hesitation, confident in reading her face, her body, even her slightest gesture means something to you. Love is years of devotion, sacrifice, commitment, loyalty, trust, faith, and friendship all wrapped up in one. True love does more than cause your heart to flutter, Eena. It upholds your heart when the infatuation no longer makes it flutter.”
“Wow.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich (Eena, The Return of a Queen (The Harrowbethian Saga #2))
“
As an infant, my oldest brother was taken from my parents and they weren’t allowed to raise him. For centuries, my father thought him dead while my mother … well, both of them really, were imprisoned by different gods. When they were finally reunited, long after my oldest brother was grown, they had my brother Ari right away.
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Illusion (Chronicles of Nick, #5))
“
Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting.
”
”
Sean Carroll (The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself)
“
I fear no hell, just as I expect no heaven. Nabokov summed up a nonbeliever’s view of the cosmos, and our place in it, thus: “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” The 19th-century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle put it slightly differently: “One life. A little gleam of Time between two Eternities.” Though I have many memories to cherish, I value the present, my time on earth, those around me now. I miss those who have departed, and recognize, painful as it is, that I will never be reunited with them. There is the here and now – no more. But certainly no less. Being an adult means, as Orwell put it, having the “power of facing unpleasant facts.” True adulthood begins with doing just that, with renouncing comforting fables. There is something liberating in recognizing ourselves as mammals with some fourscore years (if we’re lucky) to make the most of on this earth.
There is also something intrinsically courageous about being an atheist. Atheists confront death without mythology or sugarcoating. That takes courage.
”
”
Jeffrey Tayler
“
Have you heard the love story
of the blue Cloud and Sea?
They were always together as one
until separated by the yellow Sun.
Cloud drifted into the sky slowly.
Sea cried until she became salty.
Cloud grew big enough to block Sun
but nothing could be done.
Sea became enraged and drowned everyone
but still nothing could be done.
Cloud’s heart ached and he became grey,
watching his beloved from far away.
He was too proud and tried to stop his tears
but they fell and fell for what felt like years.
Losing himself drop by drop, he became empty
and was once again reunited with his beloved Sea.
”
”
Kamand Kojouri
“
Forgiveness tears down the ego’s walls of separation and reunites us as one. The anger and fear of the ego’s illusion disappear. There’s no more “he said, she said.” It all just lifts. It feels as though chains have been removed and you’ve been set free from a lifetime of terror. Why continue rehearsing the role of victim when you could be free and happy?
”
”
Gabrielle Bernstein (Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Discovering Self-Love and Miracles)
“
I miss you Annabeth. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t stop thinkin’ about you. I think about you all the damn time.
”
”
Ashleigh Z. (Under The Cypress Tree (Love in Belle Pont #1))
“
[referencing that what bothered her about Hansel and Gretel was the weak willed father who let the evil stepmother send the children into the woods not once but twice, and the unease of children reunited happily with their father] : In many ways that unease has guided me through these stories, that note of trouble that I think many of us hear in familiar tales, because we know - even as children - that impossible tasks are an odd way to choose a spouse, that predators come in many guises, that a prince's whims are often cruel. The more I listened to that note of warning, the more inspiration I found.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic (Grishaverse, #0.5, 2.5, 2.6))
“
Liberty
On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand, on the snow
I write your name
On every page read
On all the white sheets
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name
On the golden images
On the soldier’s weapons
On the crowns of kings
I write your name
On the jungle, the desert
The nests and the bushes
On the echo of childhood
I write your name
On the wonder of nights
On the white bread of days
On the seasons engaged
I write your name
On all my blue rags
On the pond mildewed sun
On the lake living moon
I write your name
On the fields, the horizon
The wings of the birds
On the windmill of shadows
I write your name
On the foam of the clouds
On the sweat of the storm
On dark insipid rain
I write your name
On the glittering forms
On the bells of colour
On physical truth
I write your name
On the wakened paths
On the opened ways
On the scattered places
I write your name
On the lamp that gives light
On the lamp that is drowned
On my house reunited
I write your name
On the bisected fruit
Of my mirror and room
On my bed’s empty shell
I write your name
On my dog greedy tender
On his listening ears
On his awkward paws
I write your name
On the sill of my door
On familiar things
On the fire’s sacred stream
I write your name
On all flesh that’s in tune
On the brows of my friends
On each hand that extends
I write your name
On the glass of surprises
On lips that attend
High over the silence
I write your name
On my ravaged refuges
On my fallen lighthouses
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name
On passionless absence
On naked solitude
On the marches of death
I write your name
On health that’s regained
On danger that’s past
On hope without memories
I write your name
By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you
LIBERTY
”
”
Paul Éluard
“
My ears hurt as if being tugged upon by pliers—yet I welcome the pain, as it heralds the completion of my journey to reunite with my Welsh ancestors. I hear them clearly now:
We be *Tylwyth Teg*, the Fair Folk. We be your kinsfolk. *Mae ein gwaed yn eich gwaed*. Our blood is your blood. We be the Dea-kinsmen. Magick is our way.
”
”
Horton Deakins
“
Hey,Dad, remember earlier this week, when I got stabbed?"
"I have a hazy recollection, yes."
"Is it worth it? Being head of the Council? I mean, if people are always gunning for you, why not hand it over to someone else? You could go on vacation.Have a life.Date."
I waited for Dad to embrace his inner Mr. Darcy again and get all huffy, but if anything,he just looked rueful. "One,I made a solemn vow to use my powers to help the Council. Two, things are turbulent now, but that won't always be the case. And I have faith that you'll make a wonderful head of the Council someday,Sophie."
Yeah,except for that whole sleeping with enemy part,I thought.Wait, not that I would actually be sleeping with...I mean,it's a metaphor. There would only be metaphorical sleeping.
My face must have reflected some of the weirdness happening in my brain, because Dad narrowed his eyes at me before continuing, "As for dating, theres no point."
"Why?"
"Because I'm still in love with your mother."
Whoa.Okay, not exactly the answer I was expecting.
Before I could even process that, Dad rushed on, saying, "Please don't let that get your hopes up. There is no way your mother and I could or will ever reunite."
I held up my hand. "Dad,relax. I'm not twelve, and this isn't The Parent Trap.
”
”
Rachel Hawkins (Demonglass (Hex Hall, #2))
“
This beautiful thought, of 'dying close by that which one loves', expressed in a hundred different ways, was followed by a sonnet in which it was found that the soul, separated, after atrocious torments, from the frail body in which it dwelt for twenty-three years, and impelled by that instinct for happiness natural to all that has once existed, would not reascend to heaven to mingle with angelic choirs as soon as it was set free, and in the event of the awful judgment according it forgiveness for its sins, but, happier after death than it had been in life, it would go a few steps from the prison where it had lamented for so long, to be reunited with all that it had loved in the world. And thus, the sonnet's last line went. I shall have found my paradise on earth.
”
”
Stendhal (The Charterhouse of Parma)
“
Syldrathi believe that people once united can never truly part.” Saedii waves the knife toward the derm patch. “Even were you to perish today, the atoms of your body would remain. Over eons, those particles would break apart and coalesce, become incorporated into other beings, other planetary bodies. Drawn into collapsing stars and scattered again by supernovae. And the last, when the great black hole at the heart of this galaxy draws everything back into its arms, all things shall be reunited. Thus, we do not say goodbye when we part. We say an’la téli saii.” “What’s that mean?” I groan. “I shall see you in the stars.
”
”
Amie Kaufman (Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle, #3))
“
Dodger,” he whispers. “Don’t die. This is an order. This is a command. This is an adjuration. Do whatever you have to do, break whatever you have to break, but don’t you die. This is an order. This is—” This is her eyes opening, pupils reduced to black pinpricks against the gray of her irises, until she looks like she’s suffered a massive opiate overdose. This is gold sparking in the gray, brief and bright, as the Impossible City tries to call her home. He feels the gold in his own bones respond, reaching for the gold in Dodger’s, yearning to reunite.
”
”
Seanan McGuire (Middlegame (Alchemical Journeys, #1))
“
Ave, Praetor Zhang!” Reyna called. “Ave, Praetor Ramírez-Arellano!” Frank said. “Let’s do this. Legion, CLOSE RANKS!” A cheer went up among the Romans as the five cohorts melded into one massive killing machine. Frank pointed his sword forward, and from the golden eagle standard, tendrils of lightning swept across the enemy, turning several hundred monsters to toast. “Legion, cuneum formate!” Reyna yelled. “Advance!” Another cheer on Jason’s right as Percy and Annabeth reunited with the forces of Camp Half-Blood. “Greeks!” Percy yelled. “Let’s, um, fight stuff!” They yelled like banshees and charged. Jason grinned. He loved the Greeks. They had no organization whatsoever, but they made up for it with enthusiasm.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
“
Or had I come with a far more menial purpose? To find him living alone, waiting for me, craving to be taken back to B.? Yes, both our lives on the same artificial respirator, waiting for that time when we'd finally meet and scale our way back to the Piave memorial.
”
”
André Aciman (Call Me by Your Name)
“
Whispers of a forgotten shore
When I die, throw my ashes to the wind…
Let it carry me along as my heart will lead my soul,
to the places that took my breath away.
Let it blow me about to return to those places..
That I swore were so magical I would return,
But have not,
Let those forgotten shores, forgotten places,
Be reunited with my eyes,
The splendour and the overwhelming feeling of sheer happiness,
Etch into my soul as I pass through one heaven into the next
Where I shall live for eternity
Knowing I made a promise and kept it,
I forgot nothing,
I left nothing behind,
My loved ones will greet me or follow me,
My broken promises were fixed,
And the screams in my ears of a conscience I couldn’t escape,
Faded to whispers,
Till one day I shall return to Earth in a new vessel,
Reborn to live and suffer and wish this wish of mine all over again,
Knowing the fulfillment of being forever free….
”
”
Michelle Geaney (Under These Rebel Skies)
“
When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver (mercury), but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. The dragon is probably the oldest pictoral symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence. It appears as the Ouroboros, the tail-eater, in the Codex Marcianus, which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, together with the legend ‘the One, the All’. Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail. For this reason the opus was often called circulare (circular) or else rota (the wheel). Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again in the lapis. He is the play of colours in the cauda pavonis and the division into the four elements. He is the hermaphrodite that was in the beginning, that splits into the classical brother-sister duality and is reunited in the coniunctio, to appear once again at the end in the radiant form of the lumen novum, the stone. He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught - a symbol uniting all the opposites.
”
”
C.G. Jung (Psychology and Alchemy (Collected Works 12))
“
Once upon a time there was a Scottish SAS soldier in Kabul. He met a Soviet Spetsnaz soldier. They were enemies first, then shagged for nine years, fell in love at some stage. Dragons, battles, and damsels in distress in between, until an evil wizard took the Spetsnaz away. The Scot and the damsel battled the vile foes, until the Russian returned, but the evil spell still hat him in its claws. More dragons, battles, knights in not-so shiny armour later, the spell got broken, the Princes got reunited, and our Russian and Scotsman kind of lived happily ever after." (Dan)
”
”
Aleksandr Voinov
“
One of the most frustrating words in the human language, as far as I could tell, was love. So much meaning attached to this one little word. People bandied it about freely, using it to describe their attachments to possessions, pets, vacation destinations, and favorite foods. In the same breath they then applied this word to the person they considered most important in their lives. Wasn’t that insulting? Shouldn’t there be some other term to describe deeper emotion? Humans were so preoccupied with love. They were all desperate to form an attachment to one person they could refer to as their “other half.” It seemed from my reading of literature that being in love meant becoming the beloved’s entire world. The rest of the universe paled into insignificance compared to the lovers. When they were separated, each fell into a melancholy state, and only when they were reunited did their hearts start beating again. Only when they were together could they really see the colors of the world. When they were apart, that color leached away, leaving everything a hazy gray. I lay in bed, wondering about the intensity of this emotion that was so irrational and so irrefutably human. What if a person’s face was so sacred to you it was permanently inscribed in your memory? What if their smell and touch were dearer to you than life itself? Of course, I knew nothing about human love, but the idea had always been intriguing to me. Celestial beings never pretended to understand the intensity of human relationships; but I found it amazing how humans could allow another person to take over their hearts and minds. It was ironic how love could awaken them to the wonders of the universe, while at the same time confine their attention to one another.
”
”
Alexandra Adornetto
“
The case is very plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land — Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes — and yet I shudder.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë
“
It is the Spirit of God that actively sustains every form and force in the universe; yet He is transcendental and aloof in the blissful uncreated void beyond the worlds of vibratory phenomena,” Master explained. “Saints who realize their divinity even while in the flesh know a similar twofold existence. Conscientiously engaging in earthly work, they yet remain immersed in an inward beatitude. The Lord has created all men from the limitless joy of His being. Though they are painfully cramped by the body, God nevertheless expects that souls made in His image shall ultimately rise above all sense identifications and reunite with Him.
”
”
Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi)
“
Let's go back to the train station,' she said. 'Or,
rather, let's come back to this room, to the day when we sat here together for the first time
and you recognised that I existed and gave me a gift. That was your first attempt to enter my
soul, and you weren't sure whether or not you were welcome. But, as you say in your story,
human beings were
once divided and now seek the embrace that will reunite them. That is our instinct. But it is
also our reason for putting
up with all the difficulties we meet in that search.I want you to look at me, but I want you to take care
that I don't notice. Initial desire is important because it is hidden, forbidden, not permitted.
You don't know whether you are looking at your lost half or not; she doesn't know either,
but something is drawing you together, and you must believe that it is true you are each
other's "other half
”
”
Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)
“
It gave him the same vibe he used to get back at the Barns some nights, when he got trapped in one particular train of thought, where he imagined he and Adam had been together for a very long time and then Ronan died of old age or bad choices and Adam found someone else and later they all three were reunited in the afterlife, and rather than getting to spend the rest of eternity together, Adam had to split his time between Ronan and this stupid usurper he'd fallen in love with as a widower, which completely ruined the point of Heaven. And that was before Ronan even got to worrying if Adam made it to the afterlife at all, with his agnostic tendencies.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Mister Impossible (Dreamer Trilogy, #2))
“
Moistening her lips, she asked, "That's what this is all about? Bringing me here?"
His hesitation was so slight she almost missed it. "It could be. Probably is, after all."
"You still want to seduce me."
"I want whatever you can give me," he murmured against her ear. "Where we go from here may depend on what I can give you.
”
”
Jennifer Blake (Luke (Louisiana Gentleman #2))
“
There was a time when it would have made Hennessy feel bad to see how gratefully Ronan’s face was pressed into Adam’s neck. To see how Adam’s face just wore a raw relief, a peace, as he held onto Ronan, his eyes open and gazing up into the blue sky. To see Ronan finally say something into his ear and Adam close his eyes and sigh.
But not now.
Now she said, “When I look at moments like this, two men in love, reunited against all odds,their feelings so pure, their commitment so deep that they’ll literally cross space-time for each other, all I can really think is: I can’t believe how these two blokes will owe Jordan Hennessy for the rest of their fucking lives.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Greywaren (Dreamer Trilogy, #3))
“
Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw, or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling imagination by an indissoluble silence. She may have gone upward, and come in sight of her eternal home, hoping for leave to rest now, and deeming that her painful union with matter was at last dissolved. While she so deemed, an angel may have warned her away from heaven's threshold, and, guiding her weeping down, have bound her, once more, all shuddering and unwilling, to that poor frame, cold and wasted, of whose companionship she was grown more than weary.
I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a moan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a racking sort of struggle.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë
“
SAPPHIRE AND DIAMONDS
When I look up at Heaven,
I see the souls of those who died
Beaming down at me,
Wanting to scream: “I'm still alive!”,
Wishing to scribble across the sapphire sky -
Letters to their loved ones,
But a million dark oceans stand between us,
Between those who passed and the living,
Between those of us still stuck below,
And those who have crossed over the threshold of time -
Where what seems like eternity
Is really only a few minutes.
So you see, there is no reason to weep over the shining ones -
For even though the space that separates us is limitless,
The wall of time that divides us is only paper-thin.
And one day, we shall all reunite with them,
When our souls are released like fish
Back into the vast shimmering sea
To shine together like
Glittering diamonds.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
Once the primary bonds which gave security to the individual are severed, once the individual faces the world outside of himself as a completely separate entity, two courses re-open to him since he has to overcome the unbearable state of powerlessness and aloneness. By one course he can progress to “positive freedom”; he can relate himself spontaneously to the world in love and work, in the genuine expression of his emotional, sensuous and intellectual capacities; he can thus become one again with man, nature, and himself, without giving up the independence and integrity of his individual self. The other course open to him is to fall back, to give up his freedom, and to try to overcome his aloneness by eliminating the gap that has arisen between his individual self and the world. This second course never reunites him with the world in the way he was related to it before he merged as an “individual,” for the fact of his separateness cannot be reversed; it is an escape from an unbearable situation which would make life impossible if it were prolonged. This course of escape, therefore, is characterized by its compulsive character, like every escape from threatening panic; it is also characterized by the more or less complete surrender of individuality and the integrity of the self. Thus it is not a solution which leads to happiness and positive freedom; it is, in principle, a solution which is to be found in all neurotic phenomena. It assuages an unbearable anxiety and makes life possible by avoiding panic; yet it does not solve the underlying problem and is paid for by a kind of life that often consists only of automatic or compulsive activities.
”
”
Erich Fromm (Escape from Freedom)
“
My Princess Layla
I cannot express how much I am looking forward to returning to you tomorrow. My heart feels heavy even as I write this letter and I haven’t even
departed as yet. You left my company only moments ago and yet my body, heart and soul is yearning for you to return.
I’m afraid you have to work today but at least it will distract you from counting the hours, minutes and seconds as I will be doing until I am reunited
with you.
I’m not sure how you will feel about what I say next but I hope that by the time you get this letter our relationship will have moved forward as I so
desperately want it to.
Layla Jennings I’m in love with you. Deeply, truly, madly and endlessly I love you. I want to devote my every breath to making you happy and give you
everything your heart desires.
You’re my sunshine, my rain and my evening stars. I feel as though I was living in the shadows and you have entered my life in a blaze of color and
light which has illuminated my very existence.
As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life -
Napoléon Bonaparte
Until tomorrow….Jared xxxx
”
”
Marie Coulson (Bound Together (Bound Together, #1))
“
I stood back up and looked down at my feces. A lovely snail-shell architecture, still steaming. Borromini. My bowels must be in good shape, because everyone knows you have nothing to worry about unless your feces are to soft or downright liquid.
I was seeing my shit for the first time (in the city you sit on the bowl, then flush right away, without looking). I was now calling it shit, which I think is what people call it. Shit is the most personal and private thing we have. Anyone can get to know the rest - your facial expression, your gaze, your gestures. Even your naked body: at the beach, at the doctor's, making love. Even your thoughts, since usually you express them, or else others guess them from the way you look at them or appear embarrassed. Of course, there are such things as secret thoughts... but in general thoughts too are revealed.
Shit, however, is not. Except for an extremely brief period of your life, when your mother is still changing your diapers, it is all yours. And since my shit at that moment must not have been all that different from what I had produced over the course of my past life, I was in that instant reuniting with my old, forgotten self, undergoing the first experience capable of merging with countless previous experiences, even those from when I did my business in the vineyards as a boy.
Perhaps if I took a god look around, I would find the remains of those shits past, and then, triangulating properly, Clarabelle's treasure.
But I stopped there. Shit was not my linden-blossom tea, of course not, how could I have expected to conduct my recherche with my sphincter? In order to rediscover lost time, one should have not diarrhea but asthma. Asthma is pneumatic, it is the breath (however labored) of the spirit: it is for the rich, who can afford cork-lined rooms. The poor, in the fields, attend less to spiritual than to bodily functions.
And yet I felt not disinherited but content, and I mean truly content, in a way I had not felt since reawakening. The ways of the Lord are infinite, I said to myself, they go even through the butthole.
”
”
Umberto Eco (The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana)
“
One can never call me a quitter
I take something right and see it
through till it’s wrong
Auctioning myself off to the lowest bidder
Going once, going twice
Gone
Sold to the man for the price of disdain
Some are sold for a song
I don’t rate a refrain
I guess it was all going just a little too well
If I wasn’t careful I’d be happy pretty soon
Heaven’s no place for one who thrives on hell,
One who prefers the bit to the silver spoon.
Then just when I’d almost resigned myself to winning
When it seemed my bright future would never dim
When my luck looked as though it was only beginning
I met him.
Sullen and scornful; a real Marlboro man
The type who pours out the beer and eats the can
A tall guy with a cultivated leer
One you can count on to diaprove or disappear
I knew right away that he was a find
Given this, he was the kindest man I’d ever met
Back came my sense of worthlessness
And my long lost pangs of regret
I was my old self again, lost and confused
Reunited with that old feeling
Of being misunderstood and misused.
Sold to the man for the price of disdain
All of this would be interesting
If it weren’t so mundane
”
”
Carrie Fisher (The Princess Diarist)
“
Thanks to suffering and madness, I have had a finer, richer life than any of you, and I wish to go to my death with dignity, as befits the great moment after which all dignity and majesty cease. Let my body be my ark and my death a long floating on the waves of eternity. A nothing amid nothingness. What defense have I against nothingness but this ark in which I have tried to gather everything that was dear to me, people, birds, animals, and plants, everything that I carry in my eye and in my heart, in the triple-decked ark of my body and soul. Like the pharaohs in the majestic peace of their tombs, I wanted to have all those things with me in death, I wanted everything to be as it was before; I wanted the birds to sing for me forever, I wanted to exchange Charon's bark for another, less desolate and less empty; I wanted to ennoble eternity's unconscionable void with the bitter herbs that spring from the heart of man, to ennoble the soundless emptiness of eternity with the cry of the cuckoo and the song of the lark. All I have done is to develop that bitter poetic metaphor, carry it with passionate logic to its ultimate consequence, which transforms sleep into waking (and the converse); lucidity into madness (and the converse); life into death, as though there were no borderline, and the converse; death into eternity, as if they were not one and the same thing. Thus my egoism is only the egoism of human existence, the egoism of life, counterweight to the egoism of death, and, appearances to the contrary, my consciousness resists nothingness with an egoism that has no equal, resists the outrage of death with the passionate metaphor of the wish to reunite the few people and the bit of love that made up my life. I have wanted and still want to depart this life with specimens of people, flora and fauna, to lodge them all in my heart as in an ark, to shut them up behind my eyelids when they close for the last time. I wanted to smuggle this pure abstraction into nothingness, to sneak it across the threshold of that other abstraction, so crushing in its immensity: the threshold of nothingness. I have therefore tried to condense this abstraction, to condense it by force of will, faith, intelligence, madness, and love (self-love), to condense it so drastically that its specific weight will be such as to life it like a balloon and carry it beyond the reach of darkness and oblivion. If nothing else survives, perhaps my material herbarium or my notes or my letters will live on, and what are they but condensed, materialized idea; materialized life: a paltry, pathetic human victory over immense, eternal, divine nothingness. Or perhaps--if all else is drowned in the great flood--my madness and my dream will remain like a northern light and a distant echo. Perhaps someone will see that light or hear that distant echo, the shadow of a sound that was once, and will grasp the meaning of that light, that echo. Perhaps it will be my son who will someday publish my notes and my herbarium of Pannonian plants (unfinished and incomplete, like all things human). But anything that survives death is a paltry, pathetic victory over the eternity of nothingness--a proof of man's greatness and Yahweh's mercy. Non omnis moriar.
”
”
Danilo Kiš (Hourglass)
“
Sant Mat (the path and teachings as taught and practiced by saints) delineates the path of union of soul with the Divine. The teachings of the saints explain the re-uniting as follows:
The individual soul has descended from the higher worlds [the Realm of the Divine] to this city of illusion, bodily existence. It has descended from the Soundless state to the essence of Sound, from that Sound to Light, and finally from the realm of Light to the realm of Darkness. The qualities (dharmas, natural tendencies) of the sense organs draw us downward and away from our true nature.
The nature of the soul (atman) draws us upwards and inwards and establishes us in our own true nature. Returning to our origins involves turning inward: withdrawal of consciousness from the senses and the sense objects in order to go upward from the darkness to the realms of Light and Sound. [We experience this phenomenon of withdrawal as we pass from waking consciousness to deep sleep.] Another way to express this is to go inward from the external sense organs to the depth of the inner self. (Both of these expressions are the metaphors that signify the same movement). The natural tendencies of the soul (atman) are to move from outward to inward. The current of consciousness which is dispersed in the nine gates of the body and the senses, must be collected at the tenth gate.
The tenth gate is the gathering point of consciousness. Therein lies the path for our return. The tenth gate is also known as the sixth chakra, the third eye, bindu, the center located between the two eyebrows. This is the gateway through which we leave the gates of the sense organs and enter in the divine realms and finally become established in the soul. We travel back from the Realm of Darkness to the Realm of Light, from the Light to the Divine Sound, and from the Realm of Sound to the Soundless State. This is called turning back to the Source.
This is what dharma or religion really intends to teach us. This is the essence of dharma.
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Sevi Maharaj