Throwing A Stone In The Ocean Quotes

I've got my own moral compass to steer by A guiding star beats a spirit in the sky And all the preaching voices - Empty vessels ring so loud As they move among the crowd Fools and thieves are well disguised In the temple and market place Like a stone in the river Against the floods of spring I will quietly resist Like the willows in the wind Or the cliffs along the ocean I will quietly resist I don't have faith in faith I don't believe in belief You can call me faithless I still cling to hope And I believe in love And that's faith enough for me I've got my own spirit level for balance To tell if my choice is leaning up or down And all the shouting voices Try to throw me off my course Some by sermon, some by force Fools and thieves are dangerous In the temple and market place Like a forest bows to winter Beneath the deep white silence I will quietly resist Like a flower in the desert That only blooms at night I will quietly resist

If you throw a stone into the ocean, it will reach the bottom; if you throw a word into someone’s heart, it will reach their soul.

On Sunday, a lambent crevice opened up in the street outside my house, By Tuesday birds were flying into it. "I probably won't miss you," my mother said, "I'm only interested in the end of the world," I replied. Many find it difficult to breath without the atmosphere but we knew how. We just stopped breathing. We're at the Moonlite All-Nite Dinner and they're serving up fruit from the plants growing out of the waitress. The CLOSED sign whispers, "Please, don't touch me." We watch bodies fall to the ground outside like deep-sea creatures surfacing. You turn to me and ask, "Do you ever think about suicide?" I look away from you and close my eyes, eat the raspberries to confuse the blood in my mouth. Now you're in the only car in the parking lot at midnight and you're watching me throw stones at the moon, which hangs low in the sky so he can look into your house. Your sister tried to touch him from her bedroom window once, and he flinched; now he and the oceans watch her with a quiet concern. The lilac sky is trying to rest her head on his shoulder, all trees gradually growing through her. A hummingbird whispers to you, "Be careful, under her dress is her skin," and then builds his nest in the middle of the highway, I look back at you, and you close your eyes.

Space is often compared to our oceans. Throw a stone at the water and the density smothers its propulsion. Skim the stone across the surface and the propulsion is mostly preserved with minimal drag. This kind of approach could work for NASA's mission to Mars.

Please Call Me By My True Names Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow— even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am also the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp. My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh shares this Mahayana philosophy of non-dualism. This is clearly demonstrated in one of his most famous poems, “Call Me By My True Names:”1 Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow– even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I am still arriving, in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope, the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of every living creature. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird, that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond, and I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people, dying slowly in a forced-labor camp. My joy is like spring, so warm that it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast that it fills up all four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and open the door of my heart, the door of compassion. (Nhat Hanh, [1993] 1999, pp. 72–3) We

Quality is the response of an organism to its environment’ [he used this example because his chief questioners seemed to see things in terms of stimulus-response behavior theory]. An amoeba, placed on a plate of water with a drip of dilute sulfuric acid placed nearby, will pull away from the acid (I think). If it could speak the amoeba, without knowing anything about sulfuric acid, could say, ‘This environment has poor quality.’ If it had a nervous system it would act in a much more complex way to overcome the poor quality of the environment. It would seek analogues, that is, images and symbols from its previous experience, to define the unpleasant nature of its new environment and thus ‘understand’ it. “In our highly complex organic state we advanced organisms respond to our environment with an invention of many marvelous analogues. We invent earth and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts, language, philosophy, engineering, civilization and science. We call these analogues reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize our children in the name of truth into knowing that they are reality. We throw anyone who does not accept these analogues into an insane asylum. But that which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality. Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it. “Now, to take that which has caused us to create the world, and include it within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That is why Quality cannot be defined. If we do define it we are defining something less than Quality itself.” I remember this fragment more vividly than any of the others, possibly because it is the most important of all. When he wrote it he felt momentary fright and was about to strike out the words “All of it.

It was not like her to lose her senses. The ability to drift was beaten from her long ago. But Sorasa drifted now, pacing the beach. She did not hear the shift of sand, or the heavy scuff of boots over the loose stones. There was only the wind. Until a strand of gold blew across her vision, joined by a warm unyielding palm against her shoulder. Her body jolted as she turned, nose to nose with Domacridhan of Iona. His green eyes glittered, his mouth open as he shouted something again, his voice swallowed up by the droning in her own head. “Sorasa.” It came to her slowly, as if through deep water. Her own name, over and over again. She could only stare back into the verdant green, lost in the fields of his eyes. In her chest, her heart stumbled. She expected her body to follow. Instead, her fist closed and her knuckles met cheekbone. Dom was good enough to turn his head, letting the blow glance off. Begrudgingly, Sorasa knew he had spared her a broken hand on top of everything else. “How dare you,” she forced out, trembling. Whatever concern he wore burned away in an instant. “How dare I what? Save your life?” he snarled, letting her go Sorasa swayed without his support. She clenched her own jaw, fighting to maintain her balance lest she fall to pieces entirely. “Is that another Amhara lesson?” he raged on, throwing up both arms. “When given the choice between death or indignity, choose death?!” Hissing, Sorasa looked back to the spot where she woke up. Heat crept up her face as she realized her body left a trail through the sand when he dragged her up from the tide line. A blind man would have noticed it. But not Sorasa in her fury and grief. “Oh,” was all she could manage. Her mouth flapped open, her mind spinning. Only the truth came, and that was far too embarrassing. “I did not see. I—” Her head throbbed again and she pressed a hand to her temple, wincing away from his stern glare. “I will feel better if you sit,” Dom said stiffly. Despite the pain, Sorasa loosed a growl. She wanted to stand just to spite him, but thought better of it. With a huff, she sank, cross-legged on the cool sand. Dom was quick to follow, almost blurring. It made her head spin again. “So you saved me from the shipwreck just to abandon me here?” Sorasa muttered as Dom opened his mouth to protest. “I don’t blame you. Time is of the essence now. A wounded mortal will only slow you down.” She expected him to bluster and lie. Instead, his brow furrowed, lines creasing between his still vivid eyes. The light off the ocean suited him. “Are you? Wounded?” he asked gently, his gaze raking over her. His focus snagged on her temple, and the gash there. “Anywhere else, I mean?” For the first time since she woke, Sorasa tried to still herself. Her breath slowed as she assessed herself, feeling her own body from toes to scalp. As her awareness traveled, she noted every blooming bruise and cut, every dull ache and shooting pain. Bruises ribs. A sprained wrist. Her tongue flicked in her mouth. Scowling, she spit out a broken tooth. “No, I’m not wounded,” she said aloud. Dom’s desperate smile broke wide. He went slack against the sand for an instant, falling back on his elbows to tip his face to the sky. His eyes fluttered shut only for a moment. Sorasa knew his gods were too far. He had said so himself. The gods of Glorian could not hear their children in this realm. Even so, Sorasa saw it on his face. Dom prayed anyway. In his gratitude or anger, she did not know. “Good,” he finally said, sitting back up.

The sea dragons. Far below, the dragons danced on the surface of the ocean, tiny, glimmering worms on a gray floor. Their voices rang through the air, across the great distance and over the roar of Fingap Falls. The dragon song mingled with Leeli’s, and the music pulsed with joy and then sadness. Janner blinked with wonder when he focused again on the images swirling before him. He no longer saw Nugget but a spray of giant waves, then something red and gold—the dragons. He had only ever seen the creatures from the heights of the cliff, but now he could see them as if he floated just above the surface of the sea, a stone’s throw away. They were as beautiful as they were fearsome. Their bodies shimmered with metallic scales that swirled with color. The dragon closest to him glittered orange and gold, like the strikes of a thousand matchsticks, but its winglike fins cycled between shades of blue. Its head was sleek and graceful, perfect for slicing through the water, and its eyes—big and deep and serene—sent a chill down to Janner’s toes, because it was suddenly clear the dragon knew it was being watched. The eyes rolled back, and translucent lids slid over them as the dragon opened its mouth and sang. Teeth lined its mouth, but not in the crooked, yellow way of the Fangs or the toothy cows; these were straight and bright and sharp as needles. Janner pushed his mind through the image and looked again at his brother and sister. Leeli’s eyes were closed, and though she smiled, tears wet her cheeks while she played. Wind stirred Tink’s hair, and he stared at the empty air before him; his eyes flicked back and forth as if studying a drawing that hung a few feet before his face. The song changed to a gentle hum, and Janner turned his mind again to the floating image. A dragon rose from the waves bearing something

Throwing a stone in the Ocean is easy, But you don't know how much deep it will go. Like the words...