“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 with the rich and powerful.”

From the Discourses of Epictetus (50 – 135)

“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 work
of the Sabbath.
All creatures flowering
out of themselves, a rose,
star pollen galaxy,
blue-green egg
in a well woven nest,
the little earth
in its swirl of distances.
This the work
of the effortless.
A prophet does not see
into the future.
A prophet sees
deeply
into 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 breath
like the blacksmith taught you.
That’s how you turn your iron to gold.
You still have time, go look for the Friend…

I trapped my breath in the bellows of my throat:
a lamp blazed up inside, showed me who I really was.
I crossed the darkness holding fast to that lamp,
scattering its light-seeds around me as I went.

Wear the robe of wisdom,
brand Lalla’s words on your heart,
lose yourself in the soul’s light,
you too shall be free.”

Lalleshwari, aka Lal Ded, Kashmiri poet mystic (1320 – 1392)

All Souls’ Day

“As we slowly tread towards winter,
let us learn how to befriend darkness.
May we find our way in the night and welcome the shapes we see.
Let us honour the voices of our ancestors,
and the faces of friends lost through death or conflict.
May we hear their whispers of wisdom,
of laughter and of love.
May their courage to live life fully
provide energy for our dance on the edge of fear.”

John Harley, Unitarian minister, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

All Saints’ Day

“My life is made worthwhile by fighting bravely on
for those ideals I hold most great and holy.
Though evil winds may blow, they will not rock the calm
in my soul, which remains both quiet and lowly.
For heaven waits for those whose spirits have won through,
but I am sure that my life was worth living.
And they will find the sun whose minds have let them rise
and stand against the darkness and the mayhem.
I might be disappointed, I might fall in the fight,
but I am sure that my life was worth living.
The life which is to come has been my holy shrine,
I trust that I have lived a life worth giving.”

My Life Is Made Worthwhile: a hymn written by Norbert Fabian Čapek on March 31 1942 at the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany. Norbert was a Unitarian minister who founded the Unitarian church in Prague and was executed by the Nazis for treason.

Samhain / Halloween

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

To Autumn by John Keats, born on this day in 1795

“Wherever we have set our roots, there will we grow. The ability to be flexible and adaptable to different growing conditions determines the nature of our development. Learning to change and adapt with each new circumstance is a human gift that we share with all life. Evolution itself shows us that those species that cannot change die out. Opinions and attitudes can become like carapaces that harden about our shoulders, bringing rigidity to our life-flow. Rigidity of opinion causes us to become approachable, which may increase our sense of isolation or confirm us in our self-contented stasis. We begin to lose opportunities to exchange views, to receive love, to find other sources of nurture. It takes courage to allow children to swarm in our branches, to allow the questions and opinions of those younger than ourselves to bend our trunks in their fresh breeze. The beauty of many-levelled generations alive at one time allows us great opportunities to practice our flexibility and share our wisdom.”

Caitlin Matthews

International Day of Care and Support

“When a mother lives in the street
and sleeps on the pavement
in front of your brownstone
you need many laws
to keep you safe.
They all say the same thing,
“Stay away.”
But when you invite her inside,
you recognize, indeed,
she is your mother,
the one who brings this breath.
She sits down by the hearth
where your grief is burning
and you give her something warm to sip
from the old iron cauldron
you’ve carefully kept from
beating too hard, like your heart.
You notice, indeed,
there are many cracks in it now.
And you remember, it was she
who gave you this bowl,
just as her mother gave it to her.
Then you discover
the only one law is required,
the one that says to every stranger,
“Welcome home.””

One Law by Alfred Lamotte

“To separate between physical needs and spiritual needs is both counterproductive and futile. The spiritual breathes life into the physical and the physical rises to become spiritual in a perpetual chemistry of exchange. Heal the soul and the body is renewed. Heal the body and the soul is empowered.”

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

William Blake