Author Archives: Laura Dobson

First Day of Diwali Festival “Diwali is a time to turn inward and light the lamps of knowledge and truth in our hearts and minds so that we can dispel the forces of darkness and ignorance within us and allow our innate brilliance and goodness to shine forth. Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, isContinue reading “Thought for the day, Sunday 12th November”

Armistice Day “A true friend of mankind whose heart has but once quivered in compassion over the sufferings of the people, will understand and forgive all the impassable alluvial filth in which they are submerged, and will be able to discover the diamonds in the filth.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 – 1881), Russian writer and journalist,Continue reading “Thought for the day, Saturday 11th November”

“What I eat is divineWhat I drink is divineMy bed is also divineThe divine is here, and it is thereThere is nothing empty of divineJani says — Vithabai [Vishnu] has filledeverything from the inside out.” Sant Janābāi, 14th century Hindu poet

“Everything has its season.All is change and decay:In each blossomis contained the russet brownsforetelling the year’s end… Take each day, each hour, each second,the only certainty changeand within each dying minuteour reverent acceptance ofthe harbingers of renewal.” Richard Bober, Unitarian Meditation Fellowship, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

“When psalms surprise me with their musicAnd antiphons turn to rumThe Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soulAnd from the center of my cellar Love, louder than thunderOpens a heave of naked air… The wholeWorld is secretly on fire. The stonesBurn, even the stonesThey burn me. How can a man be still orListenContinue reading “Thought for the day, Wednesday 8th November”

“The Four Conditions of Happiness:Life in the open air,Love for another being,Freedom from ambition,Creation.” Albert Camus, writer, philosopher, dramatist, journalist and political activist (1913 – 1960), born on this day

“Don’t trust in your reputation, money, or position, but in the strength that is yours – namely, your judgments about the things that you control and don’t control. For this alone is what makes us free and unfettered, that picks us up by the neck from the depths and lifts us eye to eye withContinue reading “Thought for the day, Monday 6th November”

“This is the very thing which makes up the virtue of the happy person and a well-flowing life – when the affairs of life are in every way tuned to the harmony between the individual divine spirit and the will of the director of the universe.” Chrysippus, Greek Stoic philosopher (279 – 206 BC)

“This is the workof the Sabbath.All creatures floweringout of themselves, a rose,star pollen galaxy,blue-green eggin a well woven nest,the little earthin its swirl of distances.This the workof the effortless.A prophet does not seeinto the future.A prophet seesdeeplyinto the present moment.” Fred LaMotte

“Drifter, on your feet, get moving!You still have time, go look for the Friend.Make yourself wings, take wing and fly.You still have time, go look for the Friend. Charge your bellows with breathlike the blacksmith taught you.That’s how you turn your iron to gold.You still have time, go look for the Friend… I trapped myContinue reading “Thought for the day, Friday 3rd November”