The Other Eye

This is one reason why the erotic is so feared, and so often relegated to the bedroom alone, when it is recognized at all. For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with the joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives. And this is a grave responsibility, projected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.

—Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic

(Source: chasingcleats, via youngfolksociety)

I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.

—Frida Kahlo

The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome

—Derek Walcott

(Source: lucifelle, via parkstepp)

In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.

—Robert Lynd

You seek a great fortune,

you three who are now in chains.

You will find a fortune,

though it will not be the fortune you seek.

But first…

first you must travel a long and difficult road,

a road fraught with peril, mm-hmm.

You shall see things…

wonderful to tell.

You shall see a… a cow…

on the roof of a cotton house, ha.

And, oh, so many startlements.

I cannot tell you how long this road shall be,

but fear not the obstacles in your path,

for fate has…

vouchsafed your reward.

Though the road may wind,

yea, your hearts grow weary,

still shall ye follow them,

even unto your salvation.

—