O s Top 10. Live Your Best Life

Transcription

1 O s Top 10 Live Your Best Life

2 PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JULIE SAUL GALLERY. COPYRIGHT 2006 BY LINDA PASTAN. HEAVEN (EXCERPT) FROM QUEEN OF A RAINY COUNTRY TO BE PUBLISHED BY W.W. NORTON OCTOBER P H O T O G R A P H B Y D I D I E R M A S S A R D Are there seasons in heaven? In God s anteroom are there windows that look out on trees like these each leaf a note for the brass ensemble of autumn the dry ones castanets clicking: October, October. Can heaven itself be golden enough to rival all this? Linda Pastan, Heaven 1

3 REPRINTED FROM THE COLLECTED POEMS OF STANLEY KUNITZ, BY STANLEY KUNITZ. COPYRIGHT 2000 BY STANLEY KUNITZ. WITH PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER, W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. Be what you are. Give what is yours to give. Have style. Dare. Stanley Kunitz, from Journal for My Daughter P H O T O G R A P H B Y N O R M A N P A R K I N S O N 2

4 JODIE VICENTA JACOBSON/COURTESY OF YANCEY RICHARDSON GALLERY. EXCERPTED FROM I WILL NOT DIE AN UNLIVED LIFE BY DAWNA MARKOVA. COPYRIGHT 2000 BY DAWNA MARKOVA. PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF RED WHEEL/WEISER AND CONARI PRESS. I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance, to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit. Dawna Markova 3

5 SEAMUS HEANEY, COMMENCEMENT SPEECH AT UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL (MAY 12, 1996). COPYRIGHT 1996 BY SEAMUS HEANEY. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR. In fact, the ability to start out upon your own impulse is fundamental to the gift of keeping going upon your own terms, not to mention the further and more fulfilling gift of getting started all over again never resting upon the oars of success or in the doldrums of disappointment. Getting started, keeping going, getting started again in art and in life, it seems to me this is the essential rhythm. Seamus Heaney P H O T O G R A P H B Y J O H N B E C K E R 4

6 F R O M U N T O L D S T O R I E S, BY A L A N B E N N E T T, P U B L I S H E D BY FA B E R A N D FA B E R, I N C., A N A F F I L I AT E O F FA R R A R, S T R A U S A N D G I R O U X, L L C. C O P Y R I G H T BY F O R E L A K E LT D. A L L R I G H T S R E S E R V E D. The best moments in reading are when you come across something a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things which you had thought unique and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours. Alan Bennett P H O T O G R A P H B Y A B E L A R D O M O R E L L FOR THE JULY CALENDAR, LIFT THIS PAGE. 5

7 THIERRY ARDOUIN/TEDANCE FLOUE. EXCERPT FROM AT LARGE, BY ELLEN GOODMAN. COPYRIGHT 1981 THE WASHINGTON POST COMPANY. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF SIMON & SCHUSTER, INC. We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness. Ellen Goodman 6

8 The great secret... is not having bad manners or good manners... but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in FROM PYGMALION, BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW. Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another. George Bernard Shaw 7

9 DENNIS STOCK/MAGNUM PHOTOS. FROM THE HEART OF THE BUDDHA S TEACHING. COPYRIGHT 1998 BY VIETNAMESE ZEN MASTER THICH NHAT HANH. PRINTED BY PERMISSION OF UNIFIED BUDDHIST CHURCH. If you do not give right attention to the one you love, it is a kind of killing. When you are in the car together, if you are lost in your thoughts, assuming you already know everything about her, she will slowly die. Thich Nhat Hanh 8

10 FROM AFTER THE ECSTASY, THE LAUNDRY, BY JACK KORNFIELD, COPYRIGHT 2000 BY JACK KORNFIELD. USED BY PERMISSION OF BANTAM BOOKS, A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC. We don t know all the reasons that propel us on a spiritual journey, but somehow our life compels us to go. Something in us knows that we are not just here to toil at our work. There is a mysterious pull to remember. Jack Kornfield, from After the Ecstasy, the Laundry P H O T O I L L U S T R A T I O N B Y J O N A T H A N B A R K A T 9

11 R O D N E Y S M I T H. E XC E R P T E D F R O M L O V E, BY C Z E S L AW M I L O S Z. C O P Y R I G H T BY C Z E S L AW M I L O S Z R OYA LT I E S, I N C. R E P R I N T E D BY P E R M I S S I O N O F E C C O P R E S S, A N I M P R I N T O F H A R P E R C O L L I N S P U B L I S H E R S. Love means to learn to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many. And whoever sees that way heals his heart, Without knowing it, from various ills... Czeslaw Milosz, from Love 10 FOR THE JUNE CALENDAR, LIFT THIS PAGE.