John O'Donohue Quotes

an authentic life is a life that is aware of and willing to engage its own oppositions, and honorably inhabits that threshold where the light and darkness, the masculine and feminine and all the beginnings and endings of one’s life engage.

The earth is our origin and destination. The ancient rhythms of the earth have insinuated themselves into the rhythms of the human heart. The earth is not outside us; it is within: the clay from where the tree of the body grows.

As Spring rain softens the Earth with surprise
May your Winter places be kissed by light.

As the ocean dreams to the joy of dance
May the grace of change bring you elegance.

As day anchors a tree in light and wind
May your outer life grow from peace within.

As twilight fills night with bright horizons
May Beauty await you at home beyond.

Music does not touch merely the mind and the senses; it engages that ancient and primal presence we call soul. The soul is never fully at home in the social world that we inhabit. It is too large for our contained, managed lives. Indeed, it is surprising that the soul seems to accommodate us and permit us to continue within the fixed and linear identities we have built for ourselves. Perhaps in our times of confusion and forsakenness the soul is asserting itself, endeavouring to draw us aside in order to speak to our hearts. Upheavals in life are often times when the soul has become too smothered; it needs to push through the layers of surface under which it is buried. In essence, the soul is the force of remembrance within us. It reminds us that we are children of the eternal and that our time on earth is meant to be a pilgrimage of growth and creativity. This is what music does. It evokes a world where that ancient beauty can resonate within us again. The eternal echoing of music reclaims us for a while for our true longing.

We enter the world as strangers who all at once become heirs to a harvest of memory, spirit, and dream that has long preceded us and will now enfold, nourish, and sustain us. The gift of the world is our first blessing.

We put terrible pressure on our minds. When we tighten them or harden our views or beliefs, we lose all the softness and flexibility that makes for real shelter, belonging, and protection.

Imagination is the most reverent mirror of the soul.

Real presence is the ideal of all true individuation. When we yield to helplessness, we strengthen the hand of those who would destroy.

May I live this day compassionate of heart, clear in word, gracious in awareness, courageous in thought and generous in love.

It is as if millions of years before the silence of nature broke, his or her clay and your clay lay side by side.

Beauty cannot be forced. It alone decides when it will come and sometimes it is the last thing we expect and the very last thing to arrive. Creative artists know this well. Great skill and inspiration set the context or scene where beauty might emerge. But it is not the mind of the artist alone that can determine whether beauty will arrive or not.

I don’t believe that death comes at the end of a life. I believe your death was there at your birth with you. It was the unknown presence. Every step of the road of your life that you take, your death is beside you.

A blessing is not a sentiment or a question; it is a gracious invocation where the human heart pleads with the divine heart.

May you have the eyes to see That no visitor arrives without a gift And no guest leaves without a blessing.

...
May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.