“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.”

Viggo Mortensen, actor and filmmaker, born on this day in 1958

Image: Grooming Horse (1909) by Robert Polhill Bevan (1865 – 1925)

“I lift my eyes to the hills.
From whence will my help come?
My help comes from the creativity of the cosmos
Which is making the heavens and the earth.
It comes also from the core of myself.
It is my guide and hope.
On this path I am safe
Whatever befalls me.”

Psalm 121 The Hills by Christine Robinson

Image: New Mexico Hills by Marsden Hartley (1877 – 1943)

“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention.”

Pico Iyer, travel writer

“It is better to keep quiet about our beliefs, and live them out, than to talk eloquently about what we believe, but fail to live by it.”

Saint Ignatius of Antioch (died c. 107), Feast Day today

“It will be a marvellous thing–the true personality of man–when we see it. It will grow naturally and simply, flowerlike, or as a tree grows. It will not be at discord. It will never argue or dispute. It will not prove things. It will know everything. And yet it will not busy itself about knowledge. It will have wisdom. Its value will not be measured by material things. It will have nothing. And yet it will have everything, and whatever one takes from it, it will still have, so rich will it be. It will not be always meddling with others, or asking them to be like itself. It will love them because they will be different. And yet while it will not meddle with others, it will help all, as a beautiful thing helps us, by being what it is. The personality of man will be very wonderful. It will be as wonderful as the personality of a child.”

From The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891), by Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900), born on this day

“I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we destroy beauty, or whenever we substitute something man-made and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of man’s spiritual growth… As human beings, we are part of the whole stream of life… Our origins are of the earth. And so there is in us a deeply seated response to the natural universe, which is part of our humanity.”

Rachel Carson, marine biologist and conservationist (1907 – 1964)

“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth, and truth be defamed as lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed.”

Hannah Arendt (1906 – 1975), political theorist, born on this day

“I try to open up my heart as much as I can and keep a real keen eye out that I don’t get sentimental. I think we’re all afraid to reveal our hearts. It’s not at all in fashion.”

Paul Simon, singer-songwriter, born on this day in 1941

“The unseen walks with us from birth to death. To some of us it is closer than to others, and those to whom it is closer reveal it to the rest. But to the most earthy of this earth earthy, it is the unseen itself that speaks. It has many voices, many interpreters. The Heavens, the Earth, man join in testimony of that mysterious power, the fashioner of all things, the purifier of all things. The unseen is a presence in every human heart by reason of its humanity. . . . the presence of the unseen within us gives us an ideal of purity and justice, this energy in our pilgrimage comes to us, not because we imagine God sitting in the heavens approving of our work but because we have within us a never tiring undying spiritual energy creating for us dreams and visions of the days that are to be. It is the unseen revealing itself to us in a conviction that the world can be founded on righteousness.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866 – 1937), British Prime Minister and Unitarian preacher, born on this day

Image from Scivias by Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179)

International Day of the Girl Child

“I was told God wore robes and a frown.
That He sat high and heavy on a golden throne
with a finger forever poised over the red button of smite.
I was taught that holiness was male, that mercy came with conditions,
that my softness was sin and my wildness worse.
They offered me judgement in a wine cup, shame dressed up as salvation,
and I drank. For years, I drank.
Until my soul grew thirsty for something truer than fear.
And then one day, barefoot and broken on the forest floor, I met Her.
Not in a church, but in a clearing.
Not with a hymn, but with a howl.
She came to me with moss on her knees and galaxies in her hips.
She came with the scent of milk and blood and moonlight.
She was no one’s Sunday School sweetheart.
She was thunder and lullaby, she was claws dipped in honey,
she was the war drum and the rocking chair.
Holy Mother. Creatrix of All.
The one who gathers what the world tries to scatter.
She did not ask me to be quiet.
She asked me to remember.
That I was born from a sacred scream, and my softness is a weapon
in a world that’s forgotten how to feel.
She pressed her lioness forehead to mine and said:
I was never your shame. I was your shelter.
I was never your punishment. I was your passage.
They gave you a God of thunder. I gave you a storm to dance in.
Come home, daughter. Come home. And so I did.
I turned away from pulpits that made me small
and toward the altar inside my own chest.
And there She was. The Holy of Holies.
The God who bleeds and births and breaks open to bloom.
Not a He to obey, but a She to embody.
Not a cage. But a crown.
And I? I am Her temple now.”

Mother Daughter Holy Muse by Angi Sullins