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Sanae Sugimoto aka 杉本さなえ aka Sayaka Sugimoto (Japanese, b. 1975, Tottori, Japan) - 1: いぬのものおもい (Melancholy Of A Dog), 2017  2: In The Morning  3: 星の谷くだる (Down the Star Valley), 2016  Drawings: Sumi Ink

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Salt cod, spreading itself before the drab, hefty shop keepers, making them dream of departure, of travel.

The Belly of Paris by Emile Zola (via wellconstructedsentences)

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What I have witnessed in the last year, more than ever before is that those who greatly suffer, those who are not considered worthy of love by others ask constantly how can I love anyone or anything when I am hated or when I hate myself, or hate what other people are doing? How can I love in such fear and rage? How can I be compassionate? Why must I have compassion when I am suffering so? Why does it seem that the right thing, for some of us, in the midst of suffering is to find a place in our hearts to love it? What is it really we are to do in the realm of great suffering? When we consider compassion many of us are looking to disrupt hatred. The great teachers, sages, medicine folks, and prophets of the past disrupted suffering in such a way because most of them had suffered greatly for who they were in the world. Their compassion like their suffering was intertwined with everything and everyone. Their compassion grew from intimately knowing suffering. Compassion is not something in which you say a few words or take an action and you’re done. Compassion is a lifetime awakening to the nature of suffering. You can’t just do it or be it. This is the reason for many of us our distress, anger and confusion persists when we are trying to be compassionate. What is going on? We make an effort to be compassionate or to experience compassion without the wisdom of one’s own suffering. Without having honed the wisdom from one’s own suffering compassion becomes a shallow place of condolences, apologies, or unwanted sympathy, sorrow or worry on the part of those suffering. I could not just feel sorry for my father and say that I was experiencing compassion. You can’t just feel sorry for Muslims, black and brown people, or even feel sorry for those who hate. The full experience of compassion requires wisdom. What do you know about the nature of life, the nature of being embodied, the nature of being? Do you have transcendent wisdom that you can rely upon in your compassionate action? We can use anger as an indicator that it is time to deepen our understanding of life as it is. To NOT stand outside of life, observe it like a movie, point, become fearful of what is being projected at us. When we say, “Stay woke,” perhaps it means to remain awake to the fact that we share life. If we can understand this, an experience of compassion unfolds right in front of us.

Compassion Is Not Pity by Zenju Earthlynn Manuel (via navigatethestream)

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True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.

This Is What ‘Self-Care’ REALLY Means, Because It’s Not All Salt Baths And Chocolate Cake | Thought Catalog (via discosangfroid)

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We were not lovers, we were love.

Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (via thequotejournals)

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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly NOW. Love mercy NOW. Walk humbly NOW. You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it.

From the Talmud

Pirkei Avos (Ethics/Chapters of the Fathers) 2:16 

(via llleighsmith)

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Do not believe your thoughts, neither when they tell you that you are terrible, nor when they tell you that you are a saint.

Elder Paisios of Mount Athos (via panatmansam)

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My friend told me a story he hadn’t told anyone for years. When he used to tell it years ago people would laugh and say, ‘Who’d believe that? How can that be true? That’s daft.’ So he didn’t tell it again for ages. But for some reason, last night, he knew it would be just the kind of story I would love.   When he was a kid, he said, they didn’t use the word autism, they just said ‘shy’, or ‘isn’t very good at being around strangers or lots of people.’ But that’s what he was, and is, and he doesn’t mind telling anyone. It’s just a matter of fact with him, and sometimes it makes him sound a little and act different, but that’s okay.   Anyway, when he was a kid it was the middle of the 1980s and they were still saying ‘shy’ or ‘withdrawn’ rather than ‘autistic’. He went to London with his mother to see a special screening of a new film he really loved. He must have won a competition or something, I think. Some of the details he can’t quite remember, but he thinks it must have been London they went to, and the film…! Well, the film is one of my all-time favourites, too. It’s a dark, mysterious fantasy movie. Every single frame is crammed with puppets and goblins. There are silly songs and a goblin king who wears clingy silver tights and who kidnaps a baby and this is what kickstarts the whole adventure.   It was ‘Labyrinth’, of course, and the star was David Bowie, and he was there to meet the children who had come to see this special screening.   ‘I met David Bowie once,’ was the thing that my friend said, that caught my attention.   ‘You did? When was this?’ I was amazed, and surprised, too, at the casual way he brought this revelation out. Almost anyone else I know would have told the tale a million times already.   He seemed surprised I would want to know, and he told me the whole thing, all out of order, and I eked the details out of him.   He told the story as if it was he’d been on an adventure back then, and he wasn’t quite allowed to tell the story. Like there was a pact, or a magic spell surrounding it. As if something profound and peculiar would occur if he broke the confidence.   It was thirty years ago and all us kids who’d loved Labyrinth then, and who still love it now, are all middle-aged. Saddest of all, the Goblin King is dead. Does the magic still exist?   I asked him what happened on his adventure.   ‘I was withdrawn, more withdrawn than the other kids. We all got a signed poster. Because I was so shy, they put me in a separate room, to one side, and so I got to meet him alone. He’d heard I was shy and it was his idea. He spent thirty minutes with me.   ‘He gave me this mask. This one. Look.   ‘He said: ‘This is an invisible mask, you see?   ‘He took it off his own face and looked around like he was scared and uncomfortable all of a sudden. He passed me his invisible mask. ‘Put it on,’ he told me. ‘It’s magic.’   ‘And so I did.   ‘Then he told me, ‘I always feel afraid, just the same as you. But I wear this mask every single day. And it doesn’t take the fear away, but it makes it feel a bit better. I feel brave enough then to face the whole world and all the people. And now you will, too.   ‘I sat there in his magic mask, looking through the eyes at David Bowie and it was true, I did feel better.   ‘Then I watched as he made another magic mask. He spun it out of thin air, out of nothing at all. He finished it and smiled and then he put it on. And he looked so relieved and pleased. He smiled at me.   ‘'Now we’ve both got invisible masks. We can both see through them perfectly well and no one would know we’re even wearing them,’ he said.   ‘So, I felt incredibly comfortable. It was the first time I felt safe in my whole life.   ‘It was magic. He was a wizard. He was a goblin king, grinning at me.   ‘I still keep the mask, of course. This is it, now. Look.’   I kept asking my friend questions, amazed by his story. I loved it and wanted all the details. How many other kids? Did they have puppets from the film there, as well? What was David Bowie wearing? I imagined him in his lilac suit from Live Aid. Or maybe he was dressed as the Goblin King in lacy ruffles and cobwebs and glitter.   What was the last thing he said to you, when you had to say goodbye?   ‘David Bowie said, ‘I’m always afraid as well. But this is how you can feel brave in the world.’ And then it was over. I’ve never forgotten it. And years later I cried when I heard he had passed.’   My friend was surprised I was delighted by this tale.   ‘The normal reaction is: that’s just a stupid story. Fancy believing in an invisible mask.’   But I do. I really believe in it.   And it’s the best story I’ve heard all year.

Paul Magrs (via yourfluffiestnightmare)

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“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it. […] The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (via queeranarchism)

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Andy Dixon - Expensive Rug, 2016 

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Ala Ebtekar  Under Every Deep A Lower Deep

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There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud.

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (via wellconstructedsentences)

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I didn’t always think this way, but to me, friendship is: - Knowing we all struggle to feel the deep reservoir of self-love within us.

- Knowing we all try our best, given our skills and resources at the time.

- Knowing it’s okay to be true to our self. Just like it’s okay for others to be true to their self.

- Knowing that love isn’t about rules and expectations but about moment-to-moment kindness.

- Knowing it’s ok to feel alone sometimes.

Credit: Lisa Esile

#AFGO #someone pls give me an award for being a helping professional #i would like 100 American dollars for every day of grad school #i am exhausted #thank dog for fall break #look Kate! #I'm learning how to tag essay!

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We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

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help me, thank you 10/2/17

It has been 138 days since my last gratitude list. I’d like to think I’ve been getting better at making space for gratitude in the quiet, ordinary space of a day, but this weekend I remembered that no practice can take the place of writing. 

- Thank you Atlanta for revealing your beauty and contradiction to me one year ago. I’m grateful to have rested on a porch step across the street from a kudzu patch with an old factory standing with a heart of broken glass. 10 days doesn’t seem big enough to hold all the things I learned in you. 

- Thank you self, ages 14 thru 26, for your curious desire to listen to people different from you. For your willingness to carry their voices in your body. For your bravery and your fear (which was really mostly hope all along). 

- Thank you universe for lowering my living costs the exact amount of my car payment. 

- Thank you A, T, C, M, M, C. Your phone calls and stolen weekend visits are sharing the weight of this transition. Your voices are carrying me. Your insights are good. I don’t know how y’all got so wise, but damn if y’all ain’t speaking truth daily. 

- Thank you P, for going the hard way with me. 

- Thank you Whore Mountain, wherever you are hiding. I’m gonna find you and dig in. 

#gratitude #grad school feels #my friends are magic