posted June 10, 2008 02:17 AM         

Quietly add what you wish...

Kick back, make yourself a cup of coffee out of your single serving coffee maker or a enjoy a simple cup of tea and maybe a cigarette and enjoy the following:

posted June 10, 2008 02:17 AM         

Solitude is a thing we crave. –Rick Bass, The Book of Yaak

I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It’s the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself. –Peter Høeg, Smilla’s Sense of Snow

What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours—that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you were a child… –Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto

We do not require company. The opposite: in varying degrees, it bores us, drains us, makes our eyes glaze over. Overcomes us like a steamroller. Of course, the rest of the world doesn’t understand. –ditto

Being a loner is not about hate, but need: We need what others dread. We dread what others need. –ditto

The mob thinks we are maladjusted. Of course we are adjusted just fine, not to their frequency. They take it personally.
They take offense. Feel hurt. Get angry. They do not blame owls for coming out at night, yet they blame us for being as we are. Because it involves them, or at least they believe it does., they assemble the troops and call us names.
Crazy. Cold. Stuck-up. Standoffish. Aloof. Afraid. Lacking in social skills. Bizarre. Unable to connect. Incapable of love. Freaks. Geeks. Sad. Lonely. Selfish. Secretive. Ungrateful. Unfriendly. Serial killers. –ditto

We are the ones who know how to entertain ourselves. How to learn without taking a class. How to contemplate and how to create. Loners, by virtue of being loners, in celebrating the state of standing alone, have an innate advantage when it comes to being brave—like pioneers, like mountain men, iconoclasts, rebels, and sole survivors. Loners have an advantage when faced with the unknown, the never-done-before, and the unprecedented. An advantage when it comes to being mindful like the Buddhists, spontaneous like the Taoists, crucibles of concentrated prayer like the desert saints, esoteric like the cabalists. Loners, by virtue of being loners, have at their fingertips the undiscovered, the unique, the rarified. Innate advantages when it comes to imagination, concentration, inner discipline. A knack for invention, originality, for finding resources in what others would call vacuums. A knack for visions. –ditto

Alone, we are alive.
Alone does not necessarily mean in solitude: we are not just the lone figure on the far shore. This is a populous world, and we are most often alone in a crowd. It is a state less of body than mind. The word alone should not, for us, ring cold and hollow, but hot. Pulsing with potentiality. Alone as in distinct. Alone as in, Alone in his field. As in, Stand alone. As in, like it or not, Leave me alone. This word wants rescuing, this word wants pride. This word wants to be washed and shined. –ditto

As a minority, we puzzle over nonloners, their strange values. Why do they require constant affirmation, validation, company, support? Are they babies or what? What bothers them about being alone? What are they so afraid of? Why can’t they be more like us?
Well, they cannot, nor can we be like them. –ditto

But just as Homo sapiens no longer need prehensile toes, we no longer all need to be social animals in order to survive as a species. Mandatory social interaction is an evolutionary remnant which those who wish to may discard. –ditto

Civilization will go on whether you attend the block party or not. It will, whether you say hello and talk to anyone today or not. Whether you get married today, or ever, or have kids or not. Its momentum is strong. It will go on. –ditto

If loners are a minority in the world at large, we swell the ranks in the creative world. The creative process lends itself to loners and vice versa. And there is the key. This is why so much of what winds up in art museums, movie houses, music venues, bookshops, theme parks, and on TV has a loner slant. Unlike fine art, popular culture targets the broadest possible audience. But what no one wants to admit is how much of “popular” culture has always been the work of a tiny, maligned subset of the population. The subset what will not join hands. –ditto

Shared time, while not entirely wasted if the sharer is a true friend, must be parceled out with care, like rationed flour. And time shared, even with true friends, often requires loners to put in extra time alone, overtime, to recharge. It is a matter of energy: As a rule, loners have less for the social machinery, the talk and sympathy. Our fuel runs out. This is what nonloners don’t understand about us, what they cannot see. We do not choose to have such tiny fuel tanks. These can be quite inconvenient. They are why we seem rude, when we do, why we seem bored and often are. Spaced-out and often are. Running on empty. –ditto

Meeting anyone at all is not a loner’s long suit. meeting an assembly line of maybes has as much appeal as severe sunburn. Opening lines, small talk, seem repulsive—and we haven’t even mentioned pursuit. Spending any time even with those we know, even with old friends, can grate. For loners, spending time with strangers, again and again, a stream of strangers, not merely to get it over with but to discern whether someday you will put your tongue inside this person’s mouth, is the definition of surreal. –ditto

It has been said before, let’s say it again: “loner” is not a synonym for “misanthrope.” Nor is it one for “hermit,” “celibate,” or “outcast.” It’s just that we are very selective. Verrry selective. –ditto

Loners, if you catch them, are well worth the trouble. Not dulled by excess human contact, nor blasé or focused on your crotch while jabbering about themselves, loners are curious, vigilant, full of surprises. They do not cling. Separate wherever they go, awake or asleep, they shimmer with the iridescence of hidden things seldom seen. –ditto

They say isolation drives you crazy. Sure it does—when you can’t get enough of it. –ditto

What the mob requires for its sanity is what whittles away relentlessly at ours. Because nonloners far outnumber us, their prescription for soundness of mind stands as good medicine. Contact! Chat! Cell phones! Spending as few hours as possible alone! To us it is not medicine but a dangerous drug at best—it numbs, it drains, it blinds, it depresses, it requires extensive recovery. At worst, it is poison. If loners comprised the majority, we would decree our own prescription. Work at home! Turn off the ring on the phone! Cross the street to avoid someone you know! It’s good for you! –ditto

I am not a joiner. Somewhere I once said that people join clubs now for the very reason they once carried them, a need for security. Maybe I’m alone more often than I should be, because I try to find security within myself. –Rod McKuen, Alone

Frightened,
I can be elated
at being left alone
when the alternative
is being with just anyone.
–ditto

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god. –Aristotle, Politics

No matter how lonely you get or how many birth announcements you receive, the trick is not to get frightened. There’s nothing wrong with being alone. –Wendy Wasserstein, “Isn’t It Romantic”

People who need people are threatened by people who don’t. The idea of seeking contentment alone is heretical, for society steadfastly decrees that our completeness lies in others. –Lionel Fisher, Celebrating Time Alone: Stories of Splendid Solitude

Let us learn, then, from those in search of what they have not been able to find and hold in the press of humanity around them: peace of mind, gentleness of heart, calmness of spirit, daily joy. Those who are mastering the art of flying solo and soaring to their highest human potential. …Who have discovered that being alone can impose a startling clarity in their lives, achieved through the personal reflection we seem to allow ourselves only in times of severe loss and intense grief. Who trust their aloneness, using it to embrace and nurture their individuality, to celebrate themselves in their own special ways. –ditto

…it is all right to be alone, to want to be alone, to be alone and not lonely—even to be lonely at times—because the rewards of solitude are worth the deprivations. –ditto

A little while alone in your room will prove more valuable than anything else that could ever be given you. –Rumi

My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or teamwork. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years. Such isolation is bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions, and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shifting foundations. –Albert Einstein

[Kierkegaard] did not care for large public events because every crowd is in itself an untruth. The only way out is isolation, aloofness. Only the individual is a reality and only the individual is true. Maybe the process of isolation in an individual is one of the most important matters that exists. Is not the whole point of this world for people to separate and become individuals? –Mati Unt, Things in the Night

Every so often a disappearance is in order. A vanishing. A checking out. An indeterminate period of unavailability. Each person, each sane person, maintains a refuge, or series of refuges, for this purpose. A place, or places, where they can, figuratively if not literally, suspend their membership in the human race. –John A. Murray, The Quotable Nature Lover

A man can be himself alone so long as he is alone;…if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free. –Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea

To have passed through life and never experienced solitude is to never have known oneself. To have never known oneself is to have never known anyone. –Joseph Wood Krutch, The Desert Year

Contrary to popular opinion, people who live alone usually have long to-do lists because they’ve had the time to develop many diverse interests. It’s wonderful when you realize there are so many things you can do by yourself that you can’t do in a relationship. –Kathy Probst

Each year that I don’t get married I know it will be harder to find someone. Because I don’t know how much I’ll be willing to give up in exchange for what I’ll be getting. Some call it being “set in your ways.” I call it selfishness—and it’s highly addictive. –ditto

Only after one has experienced the ups and downs, the highs and lows, the obligations and commitments of living with a partner can one truly know the deep joy of living alone. –Alexis Padfield

Living alone, I’ve come to realize all those years spent with others were spent living an unauthentic life. It’s taken me a long time to recognize who I am and to admire and value that person. I’m not going to give her up now—not for anyone, not ever again—because she’s a wonderful, very real person worth hanging onto at all costs. –Cynthia Meier

I write in praise of the solitary act:
of not feeling a trespassing tongue
forced into one’s mouth, one’s breath
smothered, nipples crushed against the
ribcage, and that metallic tingling
in the chin set off by a certain odd nerve:
unpleasure.
–Fleur Adcock, “Against Coupling”

Being alone is better than wanting to be alone. Being alone is better than being in a relationship you hate and wanting to get out of it, but staying because you don’t want to be alone. Having someone around when you don’t want them there is miserable. More miserable than being by yourself. –(?)

I just think that sometimes it is less hard to wake up feeling lonely when you are alone than to wake up feeling lonely when you are with someone else. Some people would be better off alone, but they feel they’ve got to get hold of someone to prove they’re worthwhile. –Liv Ullman

When I’m by myself, I can be myself, which is what I want to be. Not just a part of someone else. –Jean Culligan

Many people who are alone discover a heightened aesthetic sensuality. Freed from the preoccupation of organizing a household complicated by other lives, they can focus on making their living space an extension of themselves. They discover their own taste. They make a point of collecting art and other things that satisfy their aesthetic sense. –Rae Andre

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude. –Carl Sandburg

People who take the time to be alone usually have depth, originality, and quiet reserve. –John Miller

I prize the privilege of being alone. –Carl Rogers

Without great solitude no serious work is possible. –Pablo Picasso

Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous—to poetry. –Thomas Mann, Death in Venice

We are the puzzle pieces who seldom fit with other puzzle pieces. We inhabit singledom as our natural resting state…Secretly, we are romantics, romantics of the highest order. We want a miracle. Our of millions we have to find the one who will understand.
For the quirkyalone, there is no patience for dating just for the sake of not being alone. On a fine but by no means transcendent date we dream of going home to watch television. We would prefer to be alone with our own thoughts than with a less than perfect fit. We are almost constitutionally incapable of casual relationships. –Sasha Cagan, To-Do List

Find a day for yourself—better yet, late at night. Go to the forest or to the field, or lock yourself in a room… You will meet solitude there. There you will be able to listen attentively to the noise of the wind first, to birds singing, to see wonderful nature and to notice yourself in it…and to come back to harmonic connection with the world and its Creator. –Rabbi Nahman

One of the many advantages of being a loner is that often there’s time to think, ponder, brood, meditate deeply, and figure things out to one’s satisfaction. –Andrea Siegel, Open and Clothed

But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths. –Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, letter #4

Being alone is vital for me. I can think in peace in the middle of nature, alone… –Tavio Wirkkala

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong. –Lord Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”

Man cannot long survive without air, water, and sleep. Next in importance comes food. And close on its heels, solitude. –Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin

The reason that extended solitude seemed so hard to endure was not that we missed others but that we began to wonder if we ourselves were present, because for so long our existence depended upon assurances from them. –Doris Grumbach, Fifty Days of Solitude

I had told people of my intention to be alone for a time. At once I realized they looked upon this declaration as a rejection of them and their company. I felt apologetic, even ashamed, that I would have wanted such a curious thing as solitude, and then sorry that I had made a point of announcing my desire for it. … To the spouse, or the long-time companion, or the family, and to the social circle, as it is called, the decision to be alone for any length of time is dangerous, threatening, a sign of rejection. … Having never felt the need to be alone themselves, having always lived happily in relationships, they looked upon my need as eccentric, even somewhat mad. But more than that, they saw it as fraudulent, an excuse to be rid of them rather than a desperate need to explore myself. –ditto

It is not easy to be solitary unless you are also born ruthless. Every solitary repudiates someone. –Jessamyn West, Hide and Seek

Decisive moment: the one when you will be really alone. And it is perhaps this that makes her hesitate: not the void, but the vastness of the solitude. It’s as well if you are frightened of solitude. It’s a sign that you have come to the moment of your birth. –Hélène Cixous, La

What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice! –Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value the only companion we will have from birth to death—ourselves. –Eda LeShan

That I am totally devoid of sympathy for, or interest in, the world of groups is directly attributable to the fact that my two greatest needs and desires—smoking cigarettes and plotting revenge—are basically solitary pursuits. –Fran Lebowitz, Metropolitan Life

He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything. –Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:
However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards
However we follow the printed directions of sex
However the family is photographed under the
flagstaff—
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs:
Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,
The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,
The costly aversion of the eyes from death—
Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.
–Philip Larkin, “Wants”

Children love to be alone because alone is where they know themselves, and where they dream. –Roger Rosenblatt, The Man in the Water

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. –Henry David Thoreau, Walden

If a woman is to know herself, then periods of solitude should be courted, planned, and embraced. –Mary Kay Blakely

Living alone, though it may not be the state you ultimately desire for yourself, affords an unparallel opportunity to know yourself, to be yourself, and to develop yourself as a unique and interesting individual. –Phyllis Hobe

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. –Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

I am never less alone than when alone. –Cicero, Cicero De Officiis

A certain amount of quiet alone time, whether it is spent meditation, exercising, reading, listening to music, or being creative is, I think, essential for the mental health of most human beings. –Barbara Powell

The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone. –Henrik Ibsen, “An Enemy of the People”

…be indulgent toward those who…are afraid of the aloneness that you trust. –Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, letter #4

Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, enthusiasm is the true part of genius. –Isaac D’Israeli

We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly...spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order. –Susan L. Taylor

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be. –Ellen Burstyn

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. –James Russell Lowell, Among My Books

The things one experiences alone with oneself are very much stronger and purer. –Eugene Delacroix

There is nothing either/or about being alone, because it is not a role. It is not a reduced way of life. It is a possibility for us to participate in a highly creative endeavor: the discovery of our whole selves. –Phyllis Hobe

People who cannot bear to be alone are generally the worst company. –Albert Guinon

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. –Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Of all the gifts of a place by the sea, perhaps the greatest is the gift of solitude. –anonymous

Solitude is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. –Deepak Chopra

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude. – Gary Mark Gilmore

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage, since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet. –Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon

In solitude, where we are least alone. –Lord Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”

Better be alone than in bad company. –Thomas Fuller

Not everyone knows how to be alone with others, how to share solitude. We have to help each other to understand how to be in our solitude, so that we can relate to each other without grabbing on to each other. We can be interdependent but not dependent. Loneliness is rejected despondency. Solitude is shared interdependency. –David Spangler

Solitude can become your most meaningful companion and it can assist you in being a more giving person in your spiritual partnerships. Rather than regarding your partner’s need for time alone as a threat, see it as a time of renewal that you celebrate. Make every effort to help each other have that space. Treat that space as sacred. –Wayne W. Dyer

Our language has widely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone. –Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now

It is sometimes said that each of us is ultimately alone. That idea is compelling not because of birth and death but because so often our moments alone seem more true, more real. The word “God” only begins to have meaning for me when I am alone. Or if not alone, so at one with another that there is no sense of a competing reality. God has no meaning for me in a discussion. I don’t think religion is an attainable subject for the intellect. I can only believe when I’m not talking about it. I need solitude like I need food and rest, and like eating and resting, solitude is most healing when it fits the rhythm of my needs. A rigidly scheduled aloneness does not nourish me. Solitude is perhaps a misnomer. To me, being alone means togetherness—the re-coming-together of myself and nature, of myself and being; the reunited of my self with all other selves. Solitude especially means putting the parts of my mind back together, unifying the pieces of my self scattered by anger and fear, until I can once again see that the little things are little and the big things are big. –Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

When I dance, I dance, when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time, for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself. –Michel de Montaigne, Of Experience

Against the suffering which may come upon one from human relationships the readiest safeguard is voluntary isolation, keeping oneself aloof from other people. The happiness which can be achieved along this path is, as we see, the happiness of quietness. Against the dreaded external world one can only defend oneself by some kind of turning away from it, if one intends to solve the task by oneself. –Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontent

Society is no comfort, to one not sociable. –William Shakespeare, “Cymbeline”

It’s an opportunity find your sane mind…to establish its beachhead inside you so that even alone, you’re never alone. To learn to talk to yourself kindly and gently, to learn to nurture yourself. No matter how alone I am, I always have my sane mind as a companion. –(?)

I want to be alone. –Greta Garbo, Grand Hotel

I think that I will go through a big change when I can withdraw from people and be myself again. I can’t explain why or how, but I feel as if I’ve lost something among people that I could see, understand, and feel when I was alone. The more I live among city people, the more I realize the tremendously important role that the peace and the stillness of nature play in our development. Something is lost when you live too much among other people, the way you do in a city. The ideas and thoughts of others penetrate you, and you get so caught up in them that you are no longer able to feel or understand what is taking place in your own life. –Kim Malthe-Bruun, in his journal

I will hack my way through existence alone. –Guardini

The thought, the deadly thought of solitude. –John Keats

And being alone is the best way to be
When I’m by myself it’s the best way to be
When I’m all alone it’s the best way to be
When I’m by myself nobody else can say goodbye
–Edie Brickell, “Circle”

We come into the world alone.
We go away the same.
We’re meant to spend the interlude between
in closeness
or so we tell ourselves.
But it’s a long way from the morning to the evening.
–Rod McKuen, Alone

I’m gonna go live in a cave, just completely live in my interior world. –Tim Burton

When I’m alone, I stop believing I exist. –(?)

We live, as we dream, alone. To break the spell we mix with the others. We are not born in isolation. But sometimes it seems that way. We live, as we dream, alone… –sung by REM in Tourfilm

posted June 10, 2008 04:15 AM         

(first song scary lyrics)

Now I've told you this once before can't control me
If you try to take me down you're gonna pay
I feel your every nothing that your doing for me
I'm thinking you oughta make you run away

I stand alone inside
I stand alone(I stand alone)

You're always hiding behind your so called goddess
So what, you don't think that we can see your face?
Resurrected back before the final falling
I'll never rest until I can make my own way

I'm not afraid of fading
I stand alone
Feeling your sting down inside me
I'm not dying for it
I stand alone
Everything that I believe is fading
I stand alone inside
I stand alone(I stand alone)

Now it's my time (now it's my time)
It's my time to dream (It's my time to dream)
Dream of the skies (dream of the skies)
Make me believe that this place isn't plagued by the poison in me
Help me decide if my fire will burn out before you can breath
Breath into me

I stand alone inside
I stand alone

Feeling your sting down inside me
I'm not dying for it
I stand alone
Everything that I believe is fading

I stand alone inside
I stand alone inside
I stand alone inside
I stand alone inside

or this, (which is sad but not as close to insane as the above):

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I'm walking down the line
That divides me
somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's ****** up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah
Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I walk alone
I walk a...

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

But none of us are really alone, right?...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRJ-jjdEuxw
"there's not a man today who can take me away from My God"

posted June 10, 2008 12:43 PM         

*lights up a clove*

posted June 10, 2008 10:44 PM         

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

posted June 10, 2008 10:48 PM         

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;­
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But, there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back­a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem.
Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie !

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress­
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,
Seeking a life and world to come.

By:Charlotte Bronte

posted June 10, 2008 10:51 PM         

~

I am - yet what I am, none cares or knows:
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes --
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live-like vapours tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteem:
Even the dearest that I love the best
Are strange-nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
there to abide with my creator God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below, above, the vaulted sky.

- John Clare

posted June 10, 2008 10:51 PM         

The sky, it is deserted
for the moon falls to the sea.
But I, the one who holds you,
I am not alone !

The world, it is deserted.
All flesh is sad you see.
But I, the one who hugs you,
I am not alone!

- Gabriela Mistral

posted June 10, 2008 10:53 PM         

To you I belong, however time may
wear me away. From you to you
I go commanded. In between
the garland is hanging in chance; but if you
take it up and up and up: look:
all becomes festival!

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

- Rilke Maria Rainer

posted June 10, 2008 11:11 PM         

Leave me alone, leave me alone.

I need my rest in my soaring nest.

My bleeding heart for God's bending Ears.

His Heart my host, His Soul my guest.

Leave me alone, my play is done.

O world, no more shall I stab your pride.

Your lessons wild are harrows of death

I shall unlearn-in God to hide.

Leave me alone, leave me alone.

I have now seen my goal's highest Soul.

In the glow and flow of Silence-Sea

My life of cries has found its role.

From “My Flute” by Sri Chinmoy

posted June 10, 2008 11:12 PM         

You alone exist; I do not, O Beloved!
You alone exist, I do not!
Like the shadow of a house in ruins,
I revolve in my own mind.
If I speak, you speak with me:
If I am silent, you are in my mind.
If I sleep, you sleep with me:
If I walk, you are along my path.
Oh Bulleh, the spouse has come to my house:
My life is a sacrifice unto Him.
You alone exist; I do not, O Beloved!

posted June 10, 2008 11:19 PM         

In the finite there is no happiness.

The Infinite alone is happiness.

Commentary.

“Anything that is finite cannot embody happiness, not to speak of lasting Delight. The finite embodies pleasure, which is not true happiness. The Infinite embodies true divine happiness in infinite measure, and, at the same time, it reveals and offers to the world at large its own Truth, its own Wealth.”

posted June 10, 2008 11:22 PM         

In the desert,

Turn toward emptiness,

Fleeing the self.

Stand alone,

Ask no one’s help,

And your being will quiet,

Free from the bondage of things.

Those who cling to the world,

Endeavor to free them;

Those who are free, praise.

Care for the sick,

But live alone,

Happy to drink from the waters of sorrow,

To kindle Love’s fire

With the twigs of a simple life.

Thus you will live in the desert

By: Mechthild of Magdeburg

posted June 10, 2008 11:25 PM         

Therefore, I ask You, O Kali...

O ever blissful Kali, the enchantress of the heart of almighty Mahakala.

You dance alone. And You sing alone, clapping Your hands.

O Mother, You are the first Cause,
the Eternal One, in the form of the Void
and wearing the moon on Your forehead.

When the universe did not exist,
where did You find Your string of severed human heads?

You alone are the Mover in everybody;
we are but instruments in Your hands.

We move as You make us move;
we speak as You make us speak.

But the restless Kamalakanta gently chides You, saying,

‘Mother, the Destroyer of all, holding Your sword,
now You have devoured both my virtue and vice!’

If I die uttering, ‘Victory to Kali, victory to Kali!’

I shall assuredly attain Shivahood.
Then what is the use of going to Benares?

Infinite are my Mother Kali’s forms.
Who can find the end of Kali?

Knowing a little of Her greatness,
Shiva lies prostrate at Her red-hued feet.

- Kamalakanta

From: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

posted June 10, 2008 11:28 PM         

On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef
of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in
different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the
brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any
globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

posted June 10, 2008 11:31 PM         

It hath such need to prove its tenderness!

And yet what heart can my heart comprehend?

What heart shall always love me without end?

All — all in vain for such return seek I;

Jesus alone my soul can satisfy.

Naught else contents or charms me here below;

Created things no lasting joy bestow.

My peace, my joy, my love, O Christ!

’Tis Thou alone! Thou hast sufficed.

Thou didst know how to make a mother’s heart;

Tenderest of fathers, Lord! to me Thou art.

My only Love, Jesus, Divinest Word!

More than maternal is Thy heart, dear Lord!

Each moment Thou my way dost guard and guide;

I call — at once I find Thee at my side —

And if, sometimes Thou hid’st Thy face from me,

Thou com’st Thyself to help me seek for Thee.

Thee, Thee, alone I choose: I am Thy bride.

Unto Thy arms I hasten, there to hide.

Thee would I love, as little children love;

For Thee, like warrior bold, my love I’d prove.

Now, like to children, full of joy and glee,

So come I, Lord! to show my love to Thee;

Yet, like a warrior bold with high elation,

Rush I to combats in my blest vocation.

Thy Heart is Guardian of our innocence;

Not once shall it deceive my confidence.

Wholly my hopes are placed in Thee, dear Lord!

After long exile, I Thy Face adored

In heaven shall see. When clouds the skies o’er­spread.

To Thee, my Jesus! I lift up my head;

For, in Thy tender glance, these words I see:

“O child! I made My radiant heaven for thee.”

I know it well — my burning tears and sighs

Are full of charm for Thy benignant eyes.

Strong seraphs form in heaven Thy court divine,

Yet Thou dost seek this poor weak heart of mine.

Ah! take my heart! Jesus, ‘tis Thine alone;

All my desires I yield to Thee, my Own!

And all my friends, that are so loved by me,

No longer will I love them, save in Thee!

St Teresa of Lisieux

posted June 10, 2008 11:38 PM         

My Companion

Graceful and silent moving through the night Ever searching, but knowing not that for which I seek Something, something special, uniquely mine It must be out here, alone and searching just like me

I call with woeful, lonesome cry My answer an echo of my pleas off canyon walls I cry again, " Is there someone there? Someone who cares? Someone like me, all alone in the night? The answer that comes, the roaring silence of an empty night I must keep looking, ever searching, find the answer to plea Driven ever by heart-rending pain of my yearning need.

Startled I stop, the faintest of sounds on the breeze I quiet and listen, and hear it, a voice near still as my own A whispering in the darkness, " Here I am, here I am. Do you see me, can you see me, come to me, here I am" Soft and gentle, caressing my senses, it begins once more "I am here, reach out to me, sing to me, feel me, know me, and love me, I too have the yearning and need."

"Where? Where are you?" almost frantic in my haste I dash around, the search renewed, new hope and initiate faith The other calls "I would know your soul, caress your face" I sing back to her of gentle love, of sadness in her absence Of dreams I hold, of visions sought, of journey undertaken I know remember, the vision clears, I am never lost and alone And to you my friend, I will gladly sing, my songs of love and longing

For you have been my stalwart friend, and often my only lover, And as always before, you are here once again Dear Moon, my quiet companion

posted June 11, 2008 12:18 AM         

When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. ~Henry David Thoreau, "Solitude," Walden, 1854

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. ~Henry David Thoreau

We live in a very tense society. We are pulled apart... and we all need to learn how to pull ourselves together.... I think that at least part of the answer lies in solitude. ~Helen Hayes

It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts. ~K.T. Jong

By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear. ~George Herbert

Only in quiet waters do thing mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world. ~Hans Margolius

The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incubator of the spirit. ~Marya Mannes

In solitude, where we are least alone. ~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that's where I renew my springs that never dry up. ~Pearl Buck

A large, still book is a piece of quietness, succulent and nourishing in a noisy world, which I approach and imbibe with "a sort of greedy enjoyment," as Marcel Proust said of those rooms of his old home whose air was "saturated with the bouquet of silence." ~Holbrook Jackson

When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value the only companion we will have from birth to death - ourselves. ~Eda LeShan

The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude. ~Voltaire

True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. ~William Penn

No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength. ~Jack Kerouac

We visit others as a matter of social obligation. How long has it been since we have visited with ourselves? ~Morris Adler

Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude. ~Paul Tillich

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. ~Marcus Aurelius

I owe my solitude to other people. ~Alan Watts

It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe. ~Victor Hugo

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls. ~Henry David Thoreau

With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves. ~Eric Hoffer

What a commentary on civilization, when being alone is being suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it - like a secret vice. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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LOVE those last two especially.