{"id":1062,"date":"2022-05-19T14:18:46","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T14:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessicadeeb.com\/?page_id=1062"},"modified":"2025-09-12T12:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T12:33:09","slug":"verse","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/jessicadeeb.com\/?page_id=1062","title":{"rendered":"Verse"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Verse<\/strong><\/h2>\n
“If we fail now, it will be a failure of <\/em>imagination.” <\/i><\/strong><\/h6>\n
-Storypeople<\/strong><\/h6>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
Andrea Gibson <\/strong>\n\nEven if the truth isn't hopeful, the telling of it is.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/strong>\n\nTrust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages... In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Carl Jung<\/strong>\nUntil you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
D. H. Lawrence\/ <\/strong>Studies in Classic American Literature\n\nThis is what I believe:\n\"That I am I.\"\n\"That my soul is a dark forest.\"\n\"That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.\"\n\"That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.\"\n\"That I must have the courage to let them come and go.\"\n\"That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.\"\nThere is my creed.\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Giggly Squad<\/strong>\n\nYour ego is not your amigo :)<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
George Saunders<\/strong>\n\nKindness is the only non-delusional response to everything.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Hafiz, Translated by Daniel Ladinsky<\/strong>\/The Seed Cracked Open\n\nIt used to be\nThat when I would wake in the morning\nI could with confidence say,\n\u201cWhat am \u2018I\u2019 going to\nDo?\u201d\n\nThat was before the seed\nCracked open.\n\nNow Hafiz is certain:\n\nThere are two of us housed\nIn this body,\nDoing the shopping together in the market and\nTickling each other\nWhile fixing the evening\u2019s food.\n\nNow when I awake\nAll the internal instruments play the same music:\n\n\u201cGod, what love-mischief can \u2018We\u2019 do\nFor the world\nToday?\u201d\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Unknown<\/strong>\n\nScience is the humility of replacing one error with a better error.  <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Unknown<\/strong>\n\nTrue self-care is creating a life you no longer want to run away from. <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
When it's time to go, we go<\/strong>\/ Elizabeth Gilbert\n\nDon't get greedy about holding onto time, \nor to anybody who lives in time.\nTake the loss.\nEat the cost.\nDon't throw good money after bad, or good years after bad ones.\nBuy high, sell low if you have to.\nWhen it's time to go, we go.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The Painted Drum<\/strong>\/ Louise Erdrich\n\nLife will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Gestalt Prayer<\/strong>\/ Fritz Perls\n\nI do my thing and you do your thing.\nI am not in this world to live up to your expectations,\nAnd you are not in this world to live up to mine.\nYou are you, and I am I,\nand if by chance we find each other, it\u2019s beautiful.\nIf not, it can\u2019t be helped.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Martha Graham<\/strong>\/The great dance choreographer\n\nThere is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Howard Thurman<\/strong>\n\nDon\u2019t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The Bud<\/strong>\/Galway Kinnell\n\nThe bud\nstands for all things,\neven for those things that don\u2019t flower,\nfor everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;   \nthough sometimes it is necessary\nto reteach a thing its loveliness,\nto put a hand on its brow\nof the flower\nand retell it in words and in touch\nit is lovely\nuntil it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;   \nas Saint Francis\nput his hand on the creased forehead\nof the sow, and told her in words and in touch   \nblessings of earth on the sow, and the sow   \nbegan remembering all down her thick length,   \nfrom the earthen snout all the way\nthrough the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,   \nfrom the hard spininess spiked out from the spine   \ndown through the great broken heart\nto the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering   \nfrom the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:\nthe long, perfect loveliness of sow.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Kindness<\/strong>\/Naomi Shihab Nye \n\nBefore you know what kindness really is\nyou must lose things,\nfeel the future dissolve in a moment\nlike salt in a weakened broth.\nWhat you held in your hand,\nwhat you counted and carefully saved,\nall this must go so you know\nhow desolate the landscape can be\nbetween the regions of kindness.\nHow you ride and ride\nthinking the bus will never stop,\nthe passengers eating maize and chicken\nwill stare out the window forever.\n\nBefore you learn the tender gravity of kindness,\nyou must travel where the Indian in a white poncho \nlies dead by the side of the road.\nYou must see how this could be you,\nhow he too was someone\nwho journeyed through the night with plans \nand the simple breath that kept him alive.\n\nBefore you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, \nyou must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.  \nYou must wake up with sorrow.\nYou must speak to it till your voice\ncatches the thread of all sorrows\nand you see the size of the cloth. \n\nThen it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,\nonly kindness that ties your shoes\nand sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,\nonly kindness that raises its head\nfrom the crowd of the world to say\nit is I you have been looking for,\nand then goes with you every where\nlike a shadow or a friend.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery\u201d\n<\/strong>\/Portia Nelson \n\nChapter 1.\nI walk down the street.\nThere is a deep hole in the sidewalk.\nI fall in.\nI am lost\u2026\nI am helpless.\nIt isn\u2019t my fault.\nIt takes forever to find a way out.\n\nChapter 2.\nI walk down the same street.\nThere is a deep hole in the sidewalk.\nI pretend I don\u2019t see it.\nI fall in again.\nI cant believe I am in this same place.\nBut it isn\u2019t my fault.\nIt still takes a long time to get out.\n\nChapter 3.\nI walk down the same street.\nThere is a deep hole in the sidewalk.\nI see it is there.\nI still fall in\u2026 its a habit.\nBut, my eyes are open.\nI know where I am.\nIt is my fault.\nI get out immediately.\n\nChapter 4.\nI walk down the same street.\nThere is a deep hole in the sidewalk.\nI walk around it.\n\nChapter 5.\nI walk down another street.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Will Durant\n<\/strong>\nGrow strong my comrade, \nthat you may stand unshaken when I fall,\nThat I may know the shattered fragments of my song\nWill come at last to a finer melody in you\nThat I may tell my heart that you begin\nWhere passing I leave off\nAnd fathom more.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Zebra Question<\/strong>\n\/Shel Silverstein\n\nI asked the zebra\nAre you black with white stripes?\nOr white with black stripes?\nAnd the zebra asked me,\nOr you good with bad habits?\nOr are you bad with good habits?\nAre you noisy with quiet times?\nOr are you quiet with noisy times?\nAre you happy with some sad days?\nOr are you sad with some happy days?\nAre you neat with some sloppy ways?\nOr are you sloppy with some neat ways?\nAnd on and on and on and on\nAnd on and on he went.\nI'll never ask a zebra\nAbout stripes\nAgain.\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Elizabeth Gilbert<\/strong>\n\nIt is my job to be so authentic that I repel the wrong people and attract the right people. <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
My Sweet, Crushed Angel<\/strong>\n\/From \u2018I Heard God Laughing': Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky\n\nMy Sweet, Crushed Angel\nYou have not danced so badly, my dear,\nTrying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.\nYou have waltzed with great style,\nMy sweet, crushed angel,\nTo have ever neared God\u2019s Heart at all.\nOur Partner is notoriously difficult to follow,\nAnd even His best musicians are not always easy\nTo hear.\nSo what if the music has stopped for a while.\nSo what\nIf the price of admission to the Divine\nIs out of reach tonight.\nSo what, my dear,\nIf you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.\nThe mind and body are famous\nFor holding the heart ransom,\nBut Hafiz knows the Beloved\u2019s eternal habits.\nHave patience,\nFor He will not be able to resist your longing\nFor long.\nYou have not danced so badly, my dear,\nTrying to kiss the Beautiful One.\nYou have actually waltzed with tremendous style,\nO my sweet,\nOh my sweet, crushed angel.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Could Have<\/strong>\/Wislawa Szymborska\n\nIt could have happened.\nIt had to happen.\nIt happened earlier. Later.\nNearer. Farther off.\nIt happened, but not to you.\nYou were saved because you were the first.\nYou were saved because you were the last.\nAlone. With others.\nOn the right. The left.\nBecause it was raining. Because of the shade.\nBecause the day was sunny.\nYou were in luck -- there was a forest.\nYou were in luck -- there were no trees.\nYou were in luck -- a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,\nA jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant . . .\nSo you're here? Still dizzy from\nanother dodge, close shave, reprieve?\nOne hole in the net and you slipped through?\nI couldn't be more shocked or\nspeechless.\nListen,\nhow your heart pounds inside me.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Ithaka<\/strong>\/C.P. Cavafy\n\nAs you set out for Ithaka\nhope your road is a long one,\nfull of adventure, full of discovery.\nLaistrygonians, Cyclops,\nangry Poseidon\u2014don\u2019t be afraid of them:\nyou\u2019ll never find things like that on your way\nas long as you keep your thoughts raised high,\nas long as a rare excitement\nstirs your spirit and your body.\nLaistrygonians, Cyclops,\nwild Poseidon\u2014you won\u2019t encounter them\nunless you bring them along inside your soul,\nunless your soul sets them up in front of you.\n\nHope your road is a long one.\nMay there be many summer mornings when,\nwith what pleasure, what joy,\nyou enter harbors you\u2019re seeing for the first time;\nmay you stop at Phoenician trading stations\nto buy fine things,\nmother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,\nsensual perfume of every kind\u2014\nas many sensual perfumes as you can;\nand may you visit many Egyptian cities\nto learn and go on learning from their scholars.\n\nKeep Ithaka always in your mind.\nArriving there is what you\u2019re destined for.\nBut don\u2019t hurry the journey at all.\nBetter if it lasts for years,\nso you\u2019re old by the time you reach the island,\nwealthy with all you\u2019ve gained on the way,\nnot expecting Ithaka to make you rich.\n\nIthaka gave you the marvelous journey.\nWithout her you wouldn't have set out.\nShe has nothing left to give you now.\n\nAnd if you find her poor, Ithaka won\u2019t have fooled you.\nWise as you will have become, so full of experience,\nyou\u2019ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Elizabeth Gilbert<\/strong>\n\nThere's no such thing as one-way liberation.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
I Am Willin<\/strong>g\/Elizabeth Gilbert \n\nDear Ones:\nThis picture of me and Rayya was taken one year ago today. \nThis picture was taken on the morning of our commitment ceremony \u2014 a day on which we bound our hearts to each other forever, in front of a small circle of friends. \nWhat does \u201cforever\u201d mean, when one of the lovers has terminal cancer?\nThat\u2019s simple: It means FOREVER.\nSix months ago this week, Rayya died. \nPeople keep asking me how I\u2019m doing, and I\u2019m not always sure how to answer that. It depends on the day. It depends on the minute. Right this moment, I\u2019m OK. Yesterday, not so good. Tomorrow, we\u2019ll see. \nHere is what I have learned about Grief, though.\nI have learned that Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted. It comes and goes on its own schedule. Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love. \nThe only way that I can \u201chandle\u201d Grief, then, is the same way that I \u201chandle\u201d Love \u2014 by not \u201chandling\u201d it. By bowing down before its power, in complete humility.\nWhen Grief comes to visit me, it\u2019s like being visited by a tsunami. I am given just enough warning to say, \u201cOh my god, this is happening RIGHT NOW,\u201d and then I drop to the floor on my knees and let it rock me. It\u2019s a full-body experience. To resist it is to be brutalized by it. You just bow down \u2014 that\u2019s all you CAN do \u2014 and you let this thing roll through your heart and body and mind, in all its vehemence. \nHow do you survive the tsunami of Grief?\nBy being willing to experience it, without resistance. By being willing to feel everything. By being willing to accept the unacceptable.\nThe conversation of Grief, then, is one of prayer-and-response.\nGrief says to me: \u201cYou will never love anyone the way you loved Rayya.\u201d\nAnd I reply: \u201cI am willing for that to be true.\u201d\nGrief says: \u201cShe\u2019s gone, and she\u2019s never coming back.\u201d\nI reply: \u201cI am willing for that to be true.\u201d\nGrief says: \u201cYou will never see her walk in the door again.\u201d\nI say: \u201cI am willing.\u201d\nGrief says: \u201cYou will never have access to her wisdom again.\u201d\nI say: \u201cI am willing.\u201d\nGrief says: \u201cYou will never hear that laugh again.\u201d\nI say: \u201cI am willing.\u201d\nGrief says, \u201cYou will never smell her skin again.\u201d\nI get down on the floor on my fucking knees, and \u2014 and through my sheets of tears \u2014 I say, \u201cI AM WILLING.\u201d\nI am beginning to understand that Grief is not the same thing as Depression. Depression is unwilling. Grief is a MOVEMENT \u2014 catastrophic and mighty \u2014 that you ALLOW to rock you and spin you. Depression is refusal to feel. Depression is a refusal to move, or to be moved. Depression is resistance, and resistance is futile. \nI am not depressed, in the wake of Rayya\u2019s death. I am DESTROYED, but I am not depressed \u2014 but that\u2019s only because I am willing to be destroyed. \nI will live on, because I am WILLING. I am willing to take this life on God\u2019s terms, not mine. \nLove\u2019s terms, not mine. \nGrief\u2019s terms, not mine. \nI am willing to surrender to the reality that I will never understand any of this. I am even willing to accept that I may not ever fully heal from the loss of Rayya.\nGrief says: \u201cYou may never recover from this\u201d\nAnd I say: \u201cI am willing.\u201d\nThis is the job of the living \u2014 to be willing to bow down before EVERYTHING that is bigger than you. And nearly everything in this world is bigger than you. Let your willingness be the only big thing about you.\nMy friend Martha Beck officiated the commitment ceremony last year for me and Rayya. I will never forget what she said on that day: \u201cTrue love always liberates the beloved.\u201d \nSix months ago, I had to let Rayya go. It wasn\u2019t up to me. It was brutal, and I was willing. I bowed down and wept. God\u2019s will, not mine. But Rayya belonged to God before she belonged to me. She NEVER belonged to me, actually; I just loved her. And true love always liberates the beloved. \nI am willing. \nTwo days ago \u2014 on the six month anniversary of Rayya\u2019s death \u2014 Martha wrote me a letter. She said, \u201cThe spark of absolutely unique, inimitable energy that showed up as Rayya is no longer in form. I can\u2019t wrap my head around it. What is she doing now? What is she BEING now? Death is every bit as common as life, and both utterly baffle me.\u201d\nMe, too. I am completely fucking baffled. I don\u2019t understand Life any more than I understand Love or Death or Grief.\nBut I am willing to be here for the duration of the mystery. I am willing to be rocked by every last tsunami. \nI don\u2019t know what Rayya is doing or being now. That is not for me to know. I only know that I will love her forever. And I know what I am doing and what I am being: \nI am willing.\nOnward,\nLG<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Verse “If we fail now, it will be a failure of imagination.”  -Storypeople Andrea Gibson Even if the truth isn’t hopeful, the telling of it is. Ralph Waldo Emerson Trust thyself: Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicadeeb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1062"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicadeeb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicadeeb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicadeeb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessicadeeb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"http:\/\/jessicadeeb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5236,"href":"http:\/\/jessicadeeb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1062\/revisions\/5236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessicadeeb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}