“Fight the good fight; and always call to mind that it is not you who are mortal, but this body of ours. For your true being is not discerned by perceiving your physical appearance.”

Samuel Pepys, born on this day in 1633

“In the old fairy tales princes were always being turned into frogs, and princesses who wanted husbands were always being asked to kiss them. Maybe this is a Jungian parable about love – how it requires that you accept the animal within people if you want to enjoy their more “civilized” attributes as well.

Perhaps we should consider every frog a prince. Start to think in different terms – deem every dog a duke and every cat a countess, regard every rabbit as royalty and every mosquito a monarch. What if we stopped judging the earth as a place of untidy wildness in need of human dominion – and instead bowed to nature’s nobility?”

Brian Nelson

“Life is short. People are not easy to know. They’re not easy to know, so if you don’t tell them how you feel, you’re not going to get anywhere, I feel.”

Nina Simone, born on this day in 1933

“”If the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infinite.” William Blake

The doors of perception are the senses – not only the physical senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, but also the subtle senses of inner vision, resonance instinct, discrimination, and empathy. Without the cooperation of these two sets of senses, we cannot perceive truly.

To be able to perceive everything as it really is means retraining and exercising senses that we have often neglected. Meditation can hone our subtle senses, as we reach beyond the physical for the unseen reality and its meaning…

When the doors of perception are cleansed, we receive earlier warning of matters that are likely to be dangerous or problematic for us; we are subsequently able to make better decisions, draft more accurate forecasts, and read the character of the universe in an altogether better way.

Practice using your subtle senses in combination with your physical senses today. Your eyes tell you one thing about a person, but what do your ears tell you? Is the message different? What do your deep instinct and discrimination have to say?”

Caitlin Matthews

“Every light has its shadow, and every shadow hath a succeeding morning.”

Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, born on this day in 1473

“The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.”

Solomon Ibn Gabirol

“On this day in 1917, a street in Baltimore was the first anywhere to be lit with gas. This was the beginning of a curse for astronomers, who would come to revile city lights for interfering with their telescopes. Yet it had its advantages as well. It made the night a safer place and helped bring people together from their isolated hearths to a new appreciation of the evening.

Do the lights that we turn on at night separate us from nature or let us enjoy it in a new aspect? The answer will be different for everyone. Tonight, take a step outside and ask yourself how much light you really need. Soon the days will be longer, so savour the night now – by taking your light into your own hands.”

Brian Nelson

“Where, then, is God? In the conclusion of some argument? The final clause of some syllogism? No, the God you can argue yourself into finding is a God you can argue yourself into losing. The living God is in the life itself. God is in the miseries of the world waiting to be ended, in the comprehension that only compassionate hearts can achieve. God is with the helpless and foresaken, with those who are waiting for renewed humanity. God is in the ventures, difficult and dangerous, in the truth that too few speak. God is in the justice that is waiting to be done.”

Unitarian minister A. Powell Davies (1902 – 1957)

“Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, work your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval.”

Susan B. Anthony, suffragette, born on this day in 1820

“There is a candle in your heart,
ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul,
ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you ?
You feel the separation
from the Beloved.
Invite Him to fill you up,
embrace the fire.
Remind those who tell you otherwise that
Love
comes to you of its own accord,
and the yearning for it
cannot be learned in any school.”

Rumi