What good things do you keep around your home or workspace to inspire, comfort, sustain you? On my desk, are three bits of writing—two quotes and a portion of a long poem—that for many years have served to restore and ground me.
Just as standing among the great Sequoias of California (as we did in 2014) these writings calm me; they set me at peace, although you might think it strange they would, except for maybe the last one.
They remind me of who I am and what’s important to me. To honor their light and truth, I post them here today.
A Trio of Emotional Support
Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922)
“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.”
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
The Divine Comedy – Inferno, Canto I (first four stanzas)
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.
- From “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This poem is in the public domain.
George Herbert (1593–1633)
“By all means use sometimes to be alone.
Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear.
Dare to look in thy chest; for ‘Tis thine own: And tumble up and down what thou findst there.
Who cannot rest till he good fellows find, he breaks up house, turns out of doors his mind.”
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Thanks for reading!
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
Ned Kessler
Thank you for sharing these, Charlene! It was very thoughtful of you.
Steve
All three make sense and do not seem odd to me. 🙂
Linda Goddard
Thank you, Charlene, for sharing a bit of your writing journey!
I remain grateful!