Be Whimsical

Unknown photographer

You must never stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else responsibility for your life.

— Mary Oliver

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When I was a child, calling me “Sarah Bernhardt” (a dramatic actress) was a running family joke. It was always said when I was deeply upset of course.
It was one way, among many, of telling me I was “too sensitive” and to “just get over it”.

Now that I think about it , Bernhardt (burn heart) was actually pretty damned accurate.

— Mairi Standing Otter

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Solace is found in allowing the body’s innate foundational wisdom to come to the fore, a part of us that already knows it is mortal and must take its leave like everything else, and leads us, when the mind cannot bear what it is seeing or hearing, to the birdsong in the tree above our heads, even as we are being told of a death, each note an essence of morning and of mourning; of the current of a life moving on, but somehow, also, and most beautifully, carrying, bearing, and even celebrating the life we have just lost. — A life we could not see or appreciate until it was taken from us –

To be consoled is to be invited onto the terrible ground of beauty upon which our inevitable disappearance stands, to a voice that does not soothe falsely, but…